Shreff Sets Flag MAA Straight

For having protested David Miscavige’s systematic distmantling of the church 0f Scientology, Mark Shreffler is now being subjected to a systematic black PR campaign by Scientology Inc.  Mark is actively challenging accusations about him to his friends emanating from Flag (Scientology Inc’s “mecca”).   A letter he recently sent to a Flag MAA (Master at Arms – the Ethics Officer) evidences just how deep the rabbit hole of falsehoods goes in corporate Scientology.  It also sums up very accurately how Miscavige has decimated Scientology Inc.

AO FSO MAA (Slavka)                                                                      August 2, 2012

Mark Shreffler

 

 

Dear Slavka,                                                                                              

 

The latest rumor is that the “dead agent” handling used at the FSO for my friends regarding me is that “Mark’s questions were answered but he did not like the answers he got.” This puts everyone on the wrong scent, and many will not recognize the smell because they are trusting and honorable people who would never think that their most trusted terminals in the church would lie to their faces.  Yet, they remain hung up at Doubt. How can an OT with 38 years of highly commended service suddenly go postal and walk away from his friends and colleagues, refusing viable answers to his questions?

 

Of course the implication here is that I am the one who needs the correction and not the squirrel activities I have been reporting and trying to address. 

 

I’ve realized, with these “r-factors” you have given to my friends, the degree to which third party has been used as a “management tool.”  OSA personnel are quite expert with this device. Their normal operating basis seems to be, from what I can determine, deception.  This is to such a degree that I’m actually concerned about them personally.  It’s like continually postulating trouble!

 

It causes the actual problems to persist as these lies entered in to the scene make impossible an as-isness of the dilemma.

 

It is made easier for you, I suppose, by the fact that my friends know that if they call me on the phone to get my side of the story, they’ll be punished for doing so and be driven to huge amounts of expense and dev-t.  You threaten their lifestyles and family harmony, and they forget what Ron went through to make the tech available to all of us.

 

DOUBT formulas are clearly no longer allowed in our church.  People with questions must accept what they are told by their MAAs, and anyone with the temerity to communicate outside of those parameters is quickly throttled back in to line with sec checks or goldenrods.  “Not being happy with an answer” means the doubt was not resolved, and the notion that one must settle for whatever he is told is fundamentally repugnant to any being applying a standard Doubt Formula, and would only be accepted by a robot.

 

There, by the use of force and the intelligence of an SP, goes the Church of Scientology.

 

I did not take the questions I presented you in 2011 lightly, and I really would have noticed if they were answered.  It was not in my mind that it would take more than a week or two to handle, and I certainly did not anticipate that I would be walking away from a 38 year career as a gung-ho and highly commended member of this group until I discovered there were no answers for these management aberrations to be found in policy, and no willingness on the part of my terminals in the church to even inquire as to why these outpoints remained unhandled.

 

So, please, repeat for me if you would the answers I was supposedly given to the following questions:

 

  1. LRH      said that the “make-break point” of org expansion is 5.4X.  This figure was the foundation of the      Birthday Game which was giving LRH the only thing he wanted for his      birthday:  church expansion.  He did not want new buildings or people      to increase their level of membership in some unaffiliated gung-ho group.      My question to you was:  “What org      in the world that was here 30 years ago is 5.4 times larger today than it      was then?  How many orgs have      achieved this expansion rate? If your answer is “ZERO”, how can we explain      these proclamations of “unprecedented expansion?”  WHAT is expanding, exactly?  And to what does “47 times the expansion      of any earlier time” refer?  What      happened to LRH stats? I don’t recall your answers to these questions.
  2. What      are the STATS of the church from 1985 to 2011 on an annual basis on First      Service Starts, WDAH, Pd Comps and GI?       How many CL 8 auditors have been created over those years, and what      is the trend? I did not get ANY stats from you or any of the terminals at      OSA after hours of conversation and many requests – yet this is an essential      part of the doubt formula.
  3. How is      it that COB does “International Events” every few months and, in so doing,      bypasses the entire command structure to relay information to the      rank-and-file that SHOULD be coming to them from their local executives      (and thus maintaining the command lines and empowering them)?  This is obviously in violation of the      policy DANGER CONDITIONS, RESPONSIBILITY FOR DECLARING and drives the      lower echelons in to continuing Non Existence conditions.  These events also disperse the attention      of our congregation to the four winds and AWAY from their local      scenes.  They alter the importance      of the one-by-one nature of Scientology, and the vital need to put most of      our attention on bringing NEW people in to the church for services, per      PROPORTIONATE MARKETING.  How are      these “INT EVENTS” justified when there      is not ONE policy that supports them or explains their value – quite      to the contrary.  This is a      continuing and Titanic management faux pas.
  4. Why      have my reports since 1992 on the squirreled nature of the FSM program been      ignored?  If  “the whole purpose of the field staff      member program is to help increase the number of new people contacted,      disseminated to and gotten on to the bridge,”  (FSM SERIES #1) how is it that the      entire program has been hijacked to the TOP of the bridge, gutting the      lower echelons of their public?  Why      have I gotten many sec checks and a comm ev  [which fully vindicated and commended me      but ignored utterly the squirreled FSM program] for just writing these      reports when millions in fraud have been reported and the flow of new      people on and up the bridge brought to a standstill, and the pay of staff      members from FSMCR eliminated?  How      can such obvious crimes that unmock our front-end groups be committed and prolifically reported with no      interest or action from management?       I don’t recall your response to these queries. 
  5. I      mentioned to you the fact that the OCA that LRH used at Saint Hill is not      the squirreled version used in the Church today, and that the results of      these different versions vary dramatically.  This is a game changer because this test      is a fundamental tool used in div 6 and div 4.  It allows us to MAKE CONTACT with the      public with reality.  It gives us prediction and allows honest      evaluation and correct programming so the public is winning at every      turn.  Because people are not      trained in the use of this tool but are ordered to simply read off      computer printouts, trait-by-trait,       they have no familiarity with the test or with the fact that it is      not the same profile LRH used at Saint Hill and to which he refers in      Policy.  The results rendered today      set up our Div 6ers for wrong indications on their new public, and wrong      case programming for C/Ses.  This guarantees un-standard results      which are puzzling because people do not question their measuring tools!      This opens the door for squirreling the tech. How can such a huge      alteration occur and it not be corrected – after innumerable reports on      the matter?
  6. Why      are there no Basic Books in most of the libraries in the United States      even after our management promoted that this job was “DONE!”  Anyone can check this because all public      libraries are listed on the internet, including what books they have and      which ones are being checked out and in what volume.  This was my FIRST question to you when      you asked “did you write this up?”       Remember? I don’t recall your answer to this question. You clearly      did not have one – and assume like many others that “everything is OK and      that this, too, shall pass!” 10’s of millions of dollars worth of books…      vanished. How did this occur, and what is being done about it?
  7. Why is      the hallway at the Sandcastle lined with photos of people who have given      money to the IAS, but no photos of people who have achieved the two      purposes of orgs and given blood and years to the task of clearing people      or opening missions or auditing people?       (I understand that these photos have recently been taken down, but      I wonder if the off-Source purpose they represent has been removed as      well?)  I don’t recall your answer      to this question.
  8. What      policies create and drive the IAS?       It takes many millions from the congregation of the Church of      Scientology (to say nothing of the distraction it creates to the attention      of our group) and yet has no oversights.       This is the elephant in the room.  It is, by what I can determine, a      renegade operation that has ZERO representation in policy but is      apparently simply a money pit to be used in whatever arbitrary fashion is      required by management. Where does all the money go that is paid to the      IAS?  What policy governs it?  Who is in charge of it’s      disbursement?  It is not controlled      by the Church of Scientology and does not go through the FP Committee of      the Church.  If the church public is      only dwindling since the “founding” of the IAS by Yeager and Miscavige,      how is its existence justified? Where is it in writing that LRH had any      knowledge of this group’s formation or purpose?  I don’t recall your answer to these      questions.
  9. How      many members are there in the IAS?       This is an important number because one cannot do service in Div 4      without being a member.  We hear      numbers of Scientologists “in the millions,” but all I can document is      less than 40,000 worldwide – and shrinking.
  10. Why      does management promote that there are so many “new orgs” when in fact      they are just new, subsidized buildings, and the “old orgs” they replace      are not used any further?  The field      has not expanded: only their org’s expenses have expanded.  How is this beneficial to the actual      exchange of Scientology with the world? Who is going to pay the bills for      these buildings when the delivery of the org cannot support it? As this is      falsely represented as being supported by LRH, does it not invalidate the      workability of his actual policies and thus demean the image of Source?  I presented a stack of policies that      invalidate the conduct of the so-called “Ideal Org” project and was shown      ZERO references that justified it.       Did I miss something here? 
  11. You      will recall the Rollback you gave me regarding my answer to the query of a      friend in Australia concerning the Ideal Org project.  You asked me where I got these ‘enemy      lines’ and I showed them to you in OEC Vol 7.  That ended the rollback, of course, but      I wonder if you pulled the string further to get to the real heart of that      matter – that the Ideal Org program was in contravention of that policy I      cited to my friend?  The one who      started the Ideal Org program, in fact, is the enemy you seek with your rollbacks!
  12. Who      actually OWNS the Ideal Org real estate that is purchased?  The Church?  CST? What is the policy that governs      this?
  13. The      promotion for these Ideal Orgs and the IAS is taken off the page of VERBAL      TECH PENALTIES when LRH cautions against the use of brief paragraphs out      of context without saying from which policy the quote was taken in order      to make it appear that LRH is in      support of the program when, in fact, he is clearly opposed to it. I      provided evidence of this but there was no reply to this question that I      recall.
  14. Where      is it written that LRH put David Miscavige in charge?  Where is the structure of church      institutions (CST, RTC, CofS and so on) published so we can all see the      command structure and org board of our management bodies and understand      their relationships? 
  15. Where      are the people who run these activities?       I know that Guillaume was made “ED INT for LIFE” by LRH, but we      never see him anymore. The WDC? Where is Heber?  Mithoff?       Eastman? Wilhere?  And where      is Diana Hubbard?   Did you answer      these questions?
  16. How is      it that “Command Intention” and LRH Intention are taken to mean the same      thing when they clearly are NOT?       How is it that I have friends who have been declared for being      concerned about issues raised in Debbie Cook’s letter – before she was declared?  When was it decided that concern for our      survival as a group became a suppressive act?  When did communication become a crime in      our body? Did you answer these questions, and I just missed it?
  17. How is      it that one whole issue of our FREEDOM magazine was mailed out to the      readership of the St. Pete Times proclaiming that one of our senior      executives was documented as having beat up, on 40 separate occasions,      other members of the crew?  This      issue of FREEDOM was devoted to throwing the entire church management      strata, the Church of Scientology, the religion of Scientology and LRH      under the bus in order to protect one person: David Miscavige. The rest of      our “International Management” were apparently standing around bearing      witness to these beatings. They even allowed themselves to be videoed by      the press professing the innocence of Miscavige and the guilt of his      lieutenant. Did anyone have the idea that the IMPORTANT thing is to show      Scientology, Source materials and LRH were not involved in this psychotic      demonstration of PTSness, and then use the incident to educate the world      on the effects of suppression and the need to be constanty alert and      constantly willing to fight back?        After all, this “handling” by FREEDOM was a MISTAKE of Tsunamic      proportions.  These only occur in      the presence of suppression.  Was      there an investigation done?  The      protection of Miscavige was the ONLY important factor in this entire third      dynamic engram.  Did you address      this question with me, Slavka – because I certainly recall the look on      your face when I brought this article to your attention – and the fact      that the entire magazine was used not to promote Scientology and the      Church and LRH but to white-wash the results of PTSness at our highest      levels.  Lastly, if the lieutenant      was guilty of these beatings as was admitted in the FREEDOM mag, was COB      not aware of this behavior?  To      believe this we would have to think that COB is either incompetent,      stupid, or deaf, dumb and blind.  If      he was aware of it and did nothing to stop it,  he needs some time to think for a couple      of hundred years before he does A to E.       In either case,  NOTHING WAS      DONE, and this engram continues.       What a mess.  I don’t recall      your address of these issues with me except to ask “Who is in your ear?”      as though I have an evil Leprechaun on my shoulder.  ANYONE can see this stuff, and what      manner of person would NOT want something done about it?
  18. If our      management is as unethical as all of these things suggest, is it rational      to assume that the tech and the admin in our church are IN?  Do you have an answer for this?  Has it not occurred to anyone that      people actually like Scientology – Ron’s Brand – and stay away in      droves from squirreled activities?       How many in the church would leave it if they did not have children      or businesses that would be affected? I, myself, have concerns about      bringing people in to this atmosphere – and this has been my purpose for      the past 38 years! And how many NEW people are turned off by what they      THINK is Scientology when it is only the unchecked dramatizations of a few      PTS executives – and the PTS congregation that permits it to continue?
  19. We      have an opportunity here to educate the world,  but instead we turn on each other and      play the “who can we bankrupt first?” Game.  Why?

 

I had many other questions, but I think any Scientologist would have these and would agree that they need to be fully confronted and resolved.

 

Please stop telling people that “We answered Mark’s questions but he did not like the answers.”   You KNOW this is a lie and it is beneath you.   I implore you to find out for yourself the answers to these questions and let me know what you discover.

 

You showed me the reference about how an SP becomes one – where a period of stress at the hands of the SP is followed by the person taking on the SP’s valence.  You were showing me this reference as regards Debbie Cook to explain “how she became suppressive.”

 

I asked you – and I mention this as the last unanswered sample question in my collection – which person it was who’s valence this long-time, highly trained and decorated Sea Org veteran was first suppressed by and who’s valence she later assumed.

 

WHO were YOU talking about? Did it not occur to you that perhaps the SP who suppressed her and who’s valence she allegedly assumed is still in the church?

 

Is it a truthful thing to say that by pointing these destructive but actual things out that Debbie Cook was displaying suppressive characteristics?

 

My own contention, of course, is that after the wars with the IRS in the 80’s and the battle with that band of suppressives, the “war” was actually not over as COB proclaimed. Our own management strata was completely stressed out and actually took on the valence of the SP IRS personnel. It’s just a theory, but there is substantial evidence to support it.

 

A review of the policy PTS PERSONNEL AND FINANCE would describe what is happening in our church today, and the need for the gargantuan PR machine that was put in place to cover it all up.

 

It’s all very fixable, but won’t be as long as the insane are running the asylum.  Hence, the growth of the Independent movement  – most of whom have shed their PTSness and ironically are more Scientologist than many of the uniformed reps running around.

 

In any case, this would seem to me to be an important investigation, and might open up the door for a handling or two.

 

 

Mark

Markshreffler.wordpress.com

The Criminal Mind

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.

Scientology 101

The following is the unedited introduction to my next book Scientology 101.   It  will be published when I make sufficient time to complete it.

                                    Scientology vs. Scientologism

One idea I tried to introduce in the book What Is Wrong With Scientology?  (Amazon books, 2012) was Scientology’s need for integration.

Integration is the act or process of integrating, defined by Webster’s as incorporating into a larger unit.

From the beginning of his forays into the mysteries of the human mind and spirit, the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard wished his findings to be integrated into existing fields of study, including psychiatry, psychology, biology, education and the healing arts.  His responses to having been so violently rejected in such established fields for the first fifteen years of his journeys were conflicted.

One response was to form what he called a social coordination network.  He established its purpose as ‘to subvert the subverters’.  The idea was predicated on the assumption that established fields of social betterment were zealously guarded monopolies that had subverted governments and foundations for fortunes.  He felt Scientology had better answers than most of them and thus would be justified in subverting the subverters.   First he encouraged Scientologists to use Scientology applications in every endeavor where they might bring improvement with them.  He even defined a Scientologist as one who applied Scientology to better conditions in life.  Then, an organized bureau was created to coordinate Scientologists who had set up groups that applied Scientological solutions to societal problems in a secular (non-religious) framework.   They were directed to produce such success rates that accepted, established institutions in those fields would feel compelled to incorporate the proven effective methods of Scientology in their respective disciplines.

During the nineteen seventies and eighties the social coordination network made substantial headway into the fields of drug rehabilitation and education.   Its subgroups Narconon (drug rehabilitation) and Applied Scholastics (education) created many groups with impressive records of results with drug addicts and students.

However, within a decade of Hubbard’s 1986 death, Scientology church management (hereinafter Scientology Inc. or corporate Scientology) had perverted the purpose and function of Applied Scholastics and Narconon so markedly as to effectively destroy the groundwork they had laid for the previous twenty years.

Once Narconon had produced some admirable statistics, rather than take rational measures to reinforce those gains, Scientology Inc. killed the goose that laid the golden eggs in two ways.  First, Narconon had largely been formed and operated by former drug addicts who had come off drugs using Scientology methods.  Rather than help make that fact and its results known, Scientology Inc. shamelessly took credit for Narconon’s successes, touting itself as the operator of ‘the largest and most successful’ drug salvage institution in the world.  That promotion was used for two purposes, neither of which forwarded the purpose of Narconon: a) to serve as a mitigation plea against  public attacks on Scientology Inc’s unrelated abuses, and b) to extract huge sums of money from Scientologists to forward Narconon as a public relations activity for Scientology (little of said funds ever were directed toward expansion of drug rehabilitation delivery).

The second way Scientology Inc. destroyed Narconon was to take a completely opposite tack when Narconon got into trouble by its own negligence.   When failed products of Narconon brought complaints to media or authorities, Scientology Inc. did everything it could to distance itself from Narconon, claiming zero connection or responsibility for its operation.  The public at large, possessing a good measure of common sense, couldn’t help but note the hypocrisy.

Applied Scholastics similarly lost the fruits of its decades-long production record at the hands of Scientology Inc’s two-faced, short-cut exploitation mentality.  During the seventies and eighties Applied Scholastics schools delivered a wholly secular education, utilizing but one important and central methodology of L. Ron Hubbard, the technology of ‘how to study.’  In that wise, Applied Scholastics schools produced impressive, measurable and recognized results.  However, again shortly after Hubbard’s 1986 death Scientology Inc. began undermining the organization’s purpose in pursuit of immediate perceived gain for itself.  Scientology Inc. influenced Applied Scholastic schools to introduce ever increasing levels of Scientology indoctrination, and promoted that to existing Scientologists.  Tuitions were raised, and percentages were paid to Scientology Inc. Over time the schools became parochial in nature. Eventually the schools degenerated into badly disguised preparation and recruitment pools for Scientology’s priesthood (called the Sea Organization).   And as happened with Narconon, when former students publicly complained of their Applied Scholastics experiences, Scientology Inc  vehemently distanced itself with a plethora of false denials.

A form of schizophrenia has apparently taken hold of Scientology Inc.   It is manifested in the one personality that wants to take credit for every success in Narconon and Applied Scholastics, and at the same time wield the opposite personality that insists on distancing itself every time there is a complaint or failure.  It wants to control every aspect of the use of anything written by L. Ron Hubbard – and take a healthy tithe for it – but wants to pretend it doesn’t when things don’t go the way it wishes them to.

Exacerbating the situation is Scientology Inc’s ruthless enforcement of its alleged legal right to control the application of any of L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas.   It has created an aggressive, effective legal bureau to threaten and punish anyone who has the temerity to utilize the ideas of Hubbard outside of its stringent control.  It has spent tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars over the past several decades using lawsuits as bludgeons to ruin people who have assayed to practice Scientology – as a religion or otherwise – outside the control of Scientology Inc.

As incompetent and discreditable as Scientology Inc’s schizoid Public Relations function has become, it has become as inversely adept at reeling Scientology practice in.  It has become so uncompromising and persistent at punishing ‘unauthorized’ application that people do so at great risk to themselves financially.

The situation seems irreversible when one considers the path of Hubbard’s second solution to integration, the attacking of the original chief opponents of the sharing of his ideas, the psychs (as Scientology Inc. refers to all mental health practitioners and researchers).  Scientology Inc. established an intelligence and propaganda network to bring down the establishment of those fields.  Scientology Inc’s public pronouncements against the psychs are so shrill, so sensationalized, and so exaggerated as to serve the opposite purpose such opposition was originally intended to serve.

Ironically, in the fifties and sixties Scientology acted as a pioneer of sorts for the New Age movement.   Since then, however, its corporate form has become a bitter enemy of anything having any connection whatsoever to traditional mental health concepts – which happens to include just about every extant New Age methodology.  Scientology Inc’s attacks have thus served as an insular, flat-earth protest against any new ideas that it does not control and profit from.  It has thus positioned itself as an extremist cult in the eyes of most mental health, New Age, and spiritualist practitioners, not to mention much of the public at large.

All successful applications of Scientology methodologies not only clerically (in terms of Scientology churches and missions) but secularly (including, but not limited to, education and drug rehabilitation) were originated and pioneered by individuals in those fields who decided to make application of L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas their life’s work.   Since Scientology Inc. has become so combative and controlling (and disloyal and irresponsible when their own suffer setbacks) it makes it dangerous to propagate the works of L. Ron Hubbard.

Ironically , it seems that the greatest enemy  to the future dissemination of Hubbard’s ideas is none other than Scientology Inc. itself.  So effective has Scientology Inc. been in establishing itself as the modern Grand Inquisitor that the very word Scientology has become associated with oppression, repression, and mental captivity.

The vicious cycle is topped off by Scientology Inc.’s strict, literal policy that holds that Scientology contains all of the answers to any and all problems of people, and that conversely no other subject that speaks to the mental and spiritual health of humankind has any validity and nothing to add to the equation.

In 1969 the late, great Viktor Frankl described what Scientology Inc. has become in the year 2012 (without any reference to Scientology at all):

What is dangerous is the attempt of a man who is an expert, say, in the field of biology, to understand and explain human beings exclusively in terms of biology.  The same is true for psychology and sociology as well.  At the moment at which totality is claimed, biology becomes biologism, psychology becomes psychologism, and sociology becomes sociologism.  In other words, at that moment science is turned into ideology. What we have to deplore, I would say, is not that scientists are specializing but that specialists are generalizing.  We are familiar with that type called terrible simplificateurs.  Now we become acquainted with a type I would like to call terrible generalisateurs.  I mean those who cannot resist the temptation to make overgeneralized statements on the grounds of limited findings.

Scientology Inc has turned a self-styled ‘science of the mind’ into an ‘ideology of everything.’  However, Frankl’s words provide inspiration for drawing a line of demarcation, beyond which a clean slate might be established to paint a new future for application of the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard.

On the basis of Frankl’s logic I would like to introduce a distinction between the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard and the terrible generalisateurs who are members of Scientology Incorporated.   Scientology Inc. is not the guardian of Scientology. Instead, it is an imposter holding the subject hostage.  It has become nothing more than the creator of a new religion, Scientologism, which I contend would be unrecognizable to L. Ron Hubbard.  Scientologism has become the greatest suppressor of the circulation of Scientology ideas.  It bears no resemblance to the purpose, heart, and soul of the subject of Scientology.

Let us approach the subject of Scientology as a subject. Not as an ideology.  Not as a trademark.  Not as the esoterica of an exclusive club of misguided, intolerant zealots.   Let us evolve and transcend from obsessive, compulsive isms.   Let us discuss what Scientology actually is in terms that anyone can understand and apply.  Let us attempt to integrate the principal, workable ideas of Scientology with other disciplines so they can be understood and perhaps even serve a purpose to humanity where they can. Let us attempt to shed a little light where there was once only darkness.

 

Casablanca Is Prepared to Deliver

Having spent most of this year working on de-fanging the beast – largely uncompensated and nonetheless rather successfully –  we are gearing up for delivery once again.  We are prepared to deliver the entire Scientology grade chart.  We are particularly ready to assist those who are interested in moving on up from their corporate Scientology experiences.  If after having read What Is Wrong With Scientology?,  and understanding the need or desirability to evolve and transcend from Scientology Inc, you are yet still feeling somehow held back by masses or energies or some dots that just won’t connect or disconnect, we can assist with the process of overcoming those barriers.  That goes for anyone at any level of experience with the ‘church’ or the subject of Scientology.

I am particularly interested in working with those OT VIIs (comps or people who have audited substantial hours) and OT VIIIs who recognize their gains but also sense there are other dimensions  of concern that advanced spiritual awareness makes perceptible.   In my view there is no reason to abandon the skills you have worked to achieve.  Rather than invalidate them, think instead of honing them toward handling those zones to which your intuition leads.

Those interested in real Scientology and transcendence beyond where corporate Scientology can take one, give us a holler at Casablancatx@hushmail.com to schedule.    We are now scheduling the month of September through the end of the year.

Sunset at Casablanca

Simi Valley

Back in the day (New York City in 1978), Scientology was fun. The org sold “How To Choose Your People” and “Miracles for Breakfast” by Ruth Minshull in the bookstore alongside the LRH books. There was no RTC. As students, we wrote weekly “Reports to Ron” and the S.O. 1 line was in place: we could always write to Ron. As a public, I felt that I was undertaking some wonderful adventure. I looked forward to coming to the org for study and for just hanging out.
Fast forward to 2011: the adventure had long since died. In its place were a whole string of arbitraries, nagging questions about apparent wrongnesses with no answers in sight, endless “events” and cutthroat regging. For years I had known that something was terribly wrong but it was only on New Year’s Day 2012 that I finally saw the light, thanks to Debbie Cook’s email.In my years with the C of S, I did a short stint in the S.O. until I was thrown out, did some training and got up to Solo NOTs on the auditing side of the bridge. In the past dozen or so years I experienced many health issues which I attribute to Reverse Scientology, courtesy of the Flag Service Org; however, recently I was lucky enough to treat with an alternative health care practitioner who helped me restore my health.There have been many fine writeups on this blog and elsewhere from other former C of S members detailing the abuses and off policy actions – Luis Garcia’s comes to mind as a great one – so I am not going to attempt to reinvent that wheel; I will just enumerate a few lowlights of my S.O. career and my experience as a Flag Solo NOTs public.In my mercifully short S.O. career (1988-1989):I was human trafficked to another country (and got out of there after four months by hatching an escape plan);
I had become engaged to a S.O. member who was posted at the Int Base, and when Church management got wind of that, they immediately intervened and the engagement was broken off. This was typical 3rd Party – I was told negative things about my fiancé and he was told negative things about me.
At one point I requested a Comm Ev to correct some things that I perceived as injustices. However, when the Comm Ev met, it somehow morphed into a disciplinary Comm Ev, accusing me of things that I had written up in a previous amnesty (which, per policy, is ancient history and not actionable).
A few of my experiences as a Flag public on Solo NOTs:

The incessant sec-checking of Solo NOTs public has been discussed at length on this blog and other sites. You had to be sec checked coming and going, literally: upon arrival and when leaving. It created a paranoia and was a terrific way to use up auditing hours on account. You always had to have a “pledge intensive” in place, i.e. an extra intensive of auditing paid for and ready to be used at any time.

In late 1993 or early 1994, when I had been auditing on Solo NOTs for a couple of years, I reached a point where I believed I had completed the level, so I made a trip to Flag to verify this. When I got to Flag, I was not even put on a meter to check anything. I was simply told that I had not audited as many hours as LRH had audited on Solo NOTs, so therefore I couldn’t possibly be complete on the level but needed to continue auditing. Fortunately, I soon ran out of money and “fell off” the level in December 1994, never to return.

Interesting note: in approximately 1999 or 2000, a Flag staff member told me that there were over a thousand public who were mid-Solo NOTs but off the level.

Now I’m looking forward to joining the party!

Simi Valley
#356 on the Indie 500 List

John Brousseau

Tony Ortega at the Village Voice has published a comprehensive interview with John “JB” Brousseau, see JB VV interview, part one, and part two.   JB told me that he was impressed with Tony’s ability to get all that level of detail out of JB and communicate it in such an un-embellished fashion.  It is quite a story.

For those who were not following the blog in mid 2010, we covered JB’s escape from the Int base directly to my home in Texas.  We also covered the extraordinary measures Miscavige took in hunting down and attempting to apprehend JB for re-imprisonment before he could speak:

Mission to re-capture JB fails

To LRH he was JB

JB – Going Mobile

PI’s going after JB

JB manhunt in Los Angeles

Selectively Numbing and Thought Stopping

At chapter ten in What Is Wrong With Scientology?,  I discuss the thought stopping process that Scientologists are conditioned to engage in.   I have subsequently recognized a couple more insidious by-products of that thought stopping process.  They might in fact explain the substantial ‘decompression’ process period corporate Scientologists seem to need to feel human again.   I got to thinking about this after viewing an extraordinary talk that a friend sent me the link to.  It was given by Dr. Brene Brown, research professor of Sociology at the University of Houston.   I highly recommend you watch and listen to this in full when you have got 21 minutes to spare:

In order to acceptably thought-stop in corporate Scientology, don’t we also stop (or numb) our emotions?    I think Brown is right that people cannot selectively numb emotion.   Instead, they numb themselves so as to wall off, or not-is, emotion.   After engaging in the process enough we make ourselves incapable of experiencing spontaneous – and appropriate – emotion.   Perhaps the same mechanism occurs with thought.

In either event, I think – irony or ironies – that Scientology communication training routines (including mood drills) do wonders in rehabilitating the damage done by years of thought-stopping and emotion-numbing within corporate Scientology.  That is, when they are done as they were originally designed to be practiced.  And that is, as a fun, decidedly unserious, activity.

 

Headley Case Dismissal Upheld

The dismissal of Marc and Claire Headley’s case against Scientology Inc. was upheld by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

headley case 9th Circuit opinion

The lawyer who originally filed the case did Marc and Claire a disservice by putting all their eggs in the Human Trafficking issue basket.  Note, the counsel who argued the case in the 9th Circuit for the Headleys – not the same lawyer who brought the case in the first place – did a noble job with what she had been given to work with.

While the 9th Circuit upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit, the court indirectly condemned what had happened to the Headleys.   After taking several pages to reason why the Human Trafficking standard was not met, the court concluded the decision with these words:

Likewise, we do not decide how the Headleys might have
fared under a different statute or on other legal theories. The
Headleys abandoned claims under federal and state minimum
wage laws. And although the Headleys marshaled evidence of
potentially tortious conduct, they did not bring claims for
assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of
emotional distress, or any of a number of other theories that
might have better fit the evidence. The Headleys thus wagered
all on a statute enacted “to combat” the “transnational crime”
of “trafficking in persons”—particularly defenseless, vulnerable immigrant women and children. 22 U.S.C. § 7101(a),
(b)(24); see id. § 7101(b)(1), (2), (4), (17), (22). Whatever bad
acts the defendants (or others) may have committed, the
record does not allow the conclusion that the Church or the
Center violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

The “church” will call this a landmark victory.  Miscavige will certainly be tickled pink.  After all, they have once again thrown L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology under the bus of public opinion.  They have created a Circuit Court opinion that finds a lot of creepy behavior is motivated by belief in the Scientology religion.

Those who have been watching know that in the end it was Marc and Claire Headley who won the bigger victory.  We know for a fact that the filing of the suit (and all the sweat, blood and tears Marc and Claire spilled in litigating it) resulted in cancellation of Scientology Inc’s forced abortion policy.  It also resulted in dozens of former Sea Org members receiving substantial compensation (pay offs to remain silent – but compensation to create new lives nonetheless).

And, who can tell us how many people were spared the more drastic versions of the following at the hands of Miscavige because the Headley’s stepped up?:

assault

battery

false imprisonment

intentional infliction of emotional distress

With the dismissal, watch for Miscavige to escalate the abuses once again.  Historically, he has always done so when the church produces such a decision. Be alert folks, as per usual, we are the ones that will handle the fall out.

UPDATE:

Barry Van Sickle commented:

Marty is incorrect about the intial lawsuit, and who made the decision to narrow the case to a human trafficking case.. The decsion to place all the eggs in the human trafficking basket was made by the Metzger firm over my objection. The intial lawsuit was filed 4 years after Marc Headley escaped. That created statute of limitation problems for most potential causes of action. Given the 4 year period between escape and lawsuit, the initial case was focused on Business & Profession Code 17200 and labor law violations. The Human Trafficking claims were added later. Also, the decisions to drop the labor claims and not challenge that the Headleys were ‘ministers” were , in my opinion, mistakes , made after I was forced out of the case. I read this blog regularly and have much respect for Marty, but he has his facts wrong on how this case became a human trafficking case and the “minister exception” issue was essentially conceded.

  • I replied as follows:

    I’ll fix the post Barry. You should know that from the moment I received the suit – long after it had been filed – I noted the ballyhoo’d labor violation and forced labor claims would be nixed by the Alamo case precedent (since strengthened with the ministerial exemption line of cases). My advice from the get-go was to go hard to the basket with the plethora of torts committed since the Headley’s left, all very provable and clearly within the statute of limitations. Or maybe you don’t know that – because I relayed that and never spoke to you for another year or so.

A View From Inside Scientology Inc.

The following is from a special guest who is sitting in limbo within the corporate Scientology community.  Scientologist X provides a bird’s eye, real time view of what is like to begin questioning the contradictions within.

  
WHAT I KNOW

I’m a third generation Scientologist.  I am not ready to “come out”.
I don’t want to abandon my religion.  I want to heal it.  Because of
that I’ve asked Marty to leave out my identifying details.

At the age of fifteen I was a Golden Age of Tech trained Class V
Auditor.  I completed my entire Basics B+L series in record time
immediately following their release.  My parents have been in
Scientology from its most formative stages.  My sister is OT _____,
_____ C/S.  My brother has been a staff member since he was fourteen.
He personally helped establish the __________  and has manned it ever
since, working in various capacities as a ____, ____, ____, etc.  As
my personal EO, he is probably at his wit’s end right now, reading
this.  This letter is going to rip his heart in half.  Before I rush
headlong any further down this terrifying path, I want to take a
minute to say to everyone in my family: I love you.  Please don’t stop
loving me.   :’ (

I’m writing because I have noticed some changes in the church’s
methods of operation, and these changes make me very uncertain and
uncomfortable.  I don’t know and can’t say who or what is responsible
for these changes.  I’m not going to say it’s David Miscavage because
I’ve never even met the guy.  I’ve only seen him once: on the
Freewinds in 2001 when he walked around a corner and almost ran into
me.  He was surrounded by a team of juniors so it’s actually more
accurate to say that seven or eight people almost walked into me.  It
wasn’t their fault, it was mine.  I was reading while walking through
the A deck hallways and didn’t hear or see them approaching.  At the
time I remember being impressed with COB, both with his enormous
presence and energy, and his short stature.  I never worked at Int,
and I never had friends who were uplines that high.  So I don’t have
any concrete evidence either for or against the charges of him being a
raving lunatic who beats his subordinates.  Since I don’t have any
evidence about that stuff, let’s just set it aside.  Here’s what I
want to talk about: what I do know.  What I do know is that I
personally have witnessed changes, and I’m talking about things I’ve
seen with my own eyes, and I am not being allowed to inquire about
these changes.

I’m an auditor.  I don’t like being told not to communicate.

So I guess this is an exploratory letter to “the other side” to
attempt to gain some clarity, since the “good side” refuses to answer
any of my burning questions.  I’m just going to try to tackle these
“things that shouldn’t be” one at a time.

WHO IS CREATING INSTABILITY WITH BLANKET ISSUES OF “NOT CLEAR”?
It started as a trickle and swelled to a waterfall.  I watched as over
the course of a year, then two, then three, nearly every adult role
model in my life went pale with dread and said they were being called
to Flag to get a “review”–which always, inevitably, ended in them
being told they were not actually Clear the first time (or in MANY
CASES, second, or third times).  They then had to stay for financially
devastating, emotionally harrowing weeks of high, gleeful ups and
excruciating downs.  These reviews and re-auditing actions were very
expensive (plane tickets, accomos, multiple meals a day, not working
and earning money while being away) such that upon returning, rather
than looking glowing and shiny, they looked (to me) rather anxious.
They would be defeatist and defeatED over finances for months
afterward, just trying to recover.  The very worst part of all of this
is that on separate occasions, two of these adult mentors confided to
me that after everything, they had been told after a long period of
re-auditing that **actually** their Clear cancellations had been a
mistake–that they WERE Clear the whole time.  This created enormous
ridges.  Who is creating ridges?

WHO IS STRIPPING ORGS OF THE RIGHT TO DELIVER?
CCRD: who has the rights to deliver it?  The Bridge says one thing,
and obviously we aren’t doing what it says.  Look at the Grade Chart.
I have asked supes multiple times, pointing my finger and banging on
the Grade Chart that is posted in every single Academy: why don’t we
do THAT?  “We don’t have the resources to deliver CCRD”??  WHY don’t
we?  When I was five or six our org had a CCRD delivery team.  It was
a glorious time.  I remember we used to have huge parties and
celebrations when the Org made a Clear.  We would all come out and
hear a speech and it was an extremely loving event.  Why wouldn’t it
be?  A member of our congregation has achieved a major milestone in
their path to enlightenment!  Tears, cake, hugs all around: THETA.
Even today, these memories are joyous and bright.  (Remember in AP&A?
Theta can’t be taken away 🙂 Pain can be erased.  Pleasure can’t!)
Why haven’t we had one of those awesome parties in years?  Why can’t
our org make Clears?  Are we not allowed to verify Clear because we’ll
just “mess it up”?  Why is that?  Is there something about the
training of our tech team that is so shoddy that we’ll never be able
to know who or what is actually Clear??

If we are so horrible at recognizing Clears, wouldn’t it be best to
correct us in Qual rather than changing LRH policy about who delivers
CCRDs?  Saying that nobody on Earth can make a Clear except Flag is a
*huge* enemy line.  It suggests that they have a room full of hidden
data lines about the state of Clear that no other org will ever be
able to access.  Ron would never strip a Class V org of their power to
destimulate their fields by producing beautiful, bright, shiny Clears.
So why is Flag doing it?

WHO IS MAKING SPIRITUAL FREEDOM UNAVAILABLE TO THE MASSES?
Our family always donated to the org.  We did this via donations for
services and also donations for “causes” (things like helping ABLE,
WISE, WTH expansion programs).  All of this we did happily, and we
were not under extreme financial stress due to these donations,
because we gave as we were able.  Looking at the timeline of this, you
might say that I didn’t know the exact state of our finances and
everyone’s finances at the org because I was a child at that time.
But children are extremely perceptive.  They place importance on
feelings and emotions in ways that adults don’t, and I know what I
felt–the org was a happy place.  We were happy to go there.  With
family, with friends, with non-Scientologists even!  The scene today
is a billion miles away from that.  Non-Scientologists won’t come near
Scientology with a ten-foot pole, newer Scientolgists are approaching
our religion with caution because everything they want to do in intro
services is outlandishly expensive, and the longest term
Scientologists, the ones who have been there for decades, are PAINED
at the thought of having to go into the org or to an event.  They are
nervous about getting regged!

The IAS event was always a donation-centric event.  But Auditor’s Day?
Never.  We used to glorify our auditors on that day.  May 9th?
Celebration of our most basic book.  Our founder’s BIRTHDAY???  Giving
him his greatest wish.  So when did these beautiful spiritual
occasions get lumped into one engramic series of reg cycles?  Who
altered the purpose of international events?

I am embarrassed to say how many families I have watched go under due
to financial strain from regging.  Basics, library donation campaigns,
all of the other IAS campaigns, then the Ideal Org campaigns, one
thing after the next.  I am far too ashamed to relate experiences I’ve
observed first and second hand where successful, self-employed,
self-made business owners were being forced to take out second
mortgages on their houses just to try to get by, while their names
were on plaques and bricks that will someday go in the Ideal Org.
What gratitude do they have for their sacrifices?  They receive
construction paper commendations from the IAS and watch as their
401Ks, then rainy day funds, then families, become emaciated.  This
weirdo greed thing is totally new.  Absolutely things were not always
this way.  WHO implemented a pattern and a policy of coercion in
regging?

Another specific I want to tell is my experience with status-based
treatment at Flag.  While routing in and around the base I was given
the “new” routing forms.  These have large empty circles on the top of
them, underneath your name.  In these circles the originator of the
routing form stamps your donation status–whether you have given the
church $100, $10,000, or $100,000,000.  This stamp determines the
speed at which your cycle is handled.  I was disgusted that people
would admit to this so openly at Flag.  It was really a blase,
nonchalant thing, told to me offhand by several Flag staff members in
an of-course-that’s-how-it-is way.  Totally bizzare!  I have listened
to a lot more LRH than the average Joe and I never heard a single word
about this kind of status thing.  Special rooms in orgs for donors,
special “capers” for them?  And now plebians can’t take services at CC
Int?  Yes, if you haven’t heard recently: you have to be a celebrity
to take services at the Celebrity Center now.  It’s just President’s
Office, and people who are wondering how many butts they have to lick
to elbow their way into the President’s Office.  It used to be you
could bring in any old regular friend and show them around, have them
meet with some Div 6 personnel, invite them to taste the beauty of our
religion…but someone doesn’t want these degenerates contaminating
the arena for wealthy potential donors.  WHO is doing this?

WHO IS DECLARING AS SUPPRESSIVE SOME OF THE MOST STABLE TERMINALS IN INT?
It used to be easy to write to anyone in Int.  They would write back
to you immediately and you felt their presence twinkling out of the
envelope, you knew it was them.  These days, I just don’t know.  I’ve
written to Int with many of my questions.  Most of my letters have
gone unanswered.  Who ISN’T writing back?  Some of my letters are
answered in a weird way, a strange tone of comm way.  Who IS writing
back?  I feel like a robot is writing me back.  I honestly, and this
is not exaggeration, wondered one time if an intake scanner at INT HCO
had scanned my letter for keyword content, used an algorithm to make
an assumption about what my question was, and composed a letter using
auto-formatting it had been taught.  It was *that* weirdly worded.  It
didn’t feel human.

I am begging for a human response.  I don’t want to abandon my
religion.  I LOVE my religion!  Please, is there any human out there
who can answer my questions?  Such as, where is President CSI Heber
Jentzsch?  Where is the smiling, familiar face of Ed Int Guillame
Lesevre?  I love that guy!  And I definitely remember Mark Yager, I
even met him a few times and felt a strong bond with him immediately,
where is he?  What really happened with Debbie Cook, and why were
things so bad that she felt like she had to email 10,000 of us?  WHO
is creating conditions in Int that are so unstable that anyone could
just be declared at the drop of a hat in direct violation of HCO PLs
regarding ethics gradients?

WHO IS SLITTING THE VOCAL CHORDS OF THOSE WHO QUESTION?
I have never known a life outside of the spheres of Scientology.  I
was raised both in the church and by the church, attending Scientology
schools, undertaking training and processing from a very young age,
and contributing as a staff member.  I AM a member of this church.
Stop treating me like a piece of shit apostate just because I have
questions!  I am NOT “quitting” Scientology!  I am NOT “spreading
enemy lines”!!  I am NOT “dangerously Googling”!

WHO IS ENCOURAGING STAFF TO SELL INDULGENCES?
In 1997, when I borrowed my brother’s key to an org door without
asking and lost it, I did conditions under the guidance of an EO.  In
2003, when I lied to a family member in order to get money from her, I
did conditions under the guidance of an EO.  My most recent ethics
cycles?  0% conditions, 100% indulgences.  Paying money to get out of
ethics trouble.  “Contributing” to the Ideal Org fund to “make up the
damage”, even when the damage I did is completely unrelated.  Why is
my EO asking me to buy a set of Basics for a stranger, in order to
make up the damage for something bad I did to a friend of mine?

Why is my auditor regging me for donations?  I don’t even want to
comment on how disgustingly inappropriate that is.  More than anything
I want to try to convey how AWKWARD that is.  For everyone involved.
Who is asking technical staff to produce on administrative lines and
thus giving a giant cross order?

WHO IS DEVALUING THE FAMILY UNIT?
I was really young when the SO 2D policies changed to SO members not
being able to have kids.  I don’t remember how it was before, so I
can’t comment on that.  I do know I’ve met the kids who grew up inside
that the policy change.  They are some of the most fucked up kids I
have ever met.  Illiterate, unloved, and VERY degraded.  Completely
lacking basic social skills and unable to complete even the simplest
math problems.

Seems like the kids who came just before that policy change are fine,
most of them are uplines and highly trained.  And there are no kids
who came after that policy change.  I only have the evidence of the
20-30 children I have met in my lifetime who were at various stages of
their human development when all at once they were labeled as the
diseased pariahs of the Scientology world.  How can you tell a kid
that they are unworthy of parental love?  The lasting impact of this
disregard, this total lack of responsibility over their welfare, is
immeasurable.  I can only measure it by counting the lines on their
anxiety-ridden faces.  You know who I am talking about.  Half of these
kids work in the underground kitchen at ASHO.  Who is responsible for
this waste of human life?

I knew three women at CLO WUS and one at AOLA who were coerced into
having abortions.  I can’t give more details than this because they
weren’t allowed to talk about it.  Seems weird that we base our entire
system of beliefs on free and open communication but there are iron
curtains over entire subject matters.  I know who DOESN’T have the
balls to talk about this.  Who DOES?  Who dares to lay down a set of
laws over the reproductive rights of the most able-bodied men and
women on Earth, the “upper tenth of the upper twentieth”?

WHO IS IMPLEMENTING MASS DISCONNECTIONS?
For years I had heard people whining about disconnection, but when I
read in ISE about it, Ron told me it’s something we should be very
careful not to overuse.  Therefore I assumed it was something that
didn’t happen much anymore.

But as more and more people I knew and had grown up around got
declared, the evils of rampant disconnection orders REALLY hit home to
me.  The biggest one was Luis Garcia.  I knew him for years, worked
with him, knew his family.  He was a big donor, got all types of
awards and special mentions.  Yesterday this guy was the head of the
OT Committee.  He spoke on stage at our events and gave us advice on
how to clear the planet faster.  Today we’re not allowed to even
whisper his name?  I received his email and of course I read it.  Why
wouldn’t I?  For all I knew he could have been emailing me about when
the next potluck was.

I got about 1/10 through it before I realized what was going on.  Luis
was leaving the church?  Why?  I had never been so confused before.

When I came to my EO I was put in a locked room in Ethics and
interrogated as if I had done something terrible.  “Did you read his
email??  Why did you read it?”  Uh…because it came from someone I’ve
been taught to respect and listen to?  “Why didn’t you delete it after
you started reading it and realized what it was about?  How much of it
did you read?  Can you show me the email in your inbox?  Which
paragraph did you get to when you read it?  Why did you decide to stop
there?”  I mean, it was totally insane.  I came in to get some
questions answered and was treated like a criminal.  In the end, none
of my questions were answered.  All I was told was that Luis had been
“bad all along” and that he had been “planning an evil attack of
Scientology the whole time”.

The worst was when I was told that Luis had “gotten into some bad
stuff” This guy is an OT VIII!  Cause over life!  What the HELL could
he have gotten into that could make him go completely insane and walk
out of the group he had dedicated his life to?  Even if every single
thing I had been told about how Luis is evil had been true–I still
would have liked the chance to talk to him about his decision and
thank him for what he did for me while he was around.  Instead I was
threatened within an inch of my life when I suggested talking to him
to say goodbye.  How is that self-determined?  What happened to
“what’s true for you is true”?

LRH says an SP is a PERSON–not a group.  We are Scientologists.  We
are not an SP group.  SOMEONE is causing these changes.  That’s why
I’m asking…WHO?  I guess that sums up the majority of my questions.
I won’t be able to say I never saw it coming if I never hear from my
family again after this.  My final question is if that’s what’s
deserved.

Growing up as a Scientologist was exhilarating and free!  I was taught
“to have the courage to know and say what you have observed”.  Reading
these words always thrilled me, made my heart race; I imagined myself
on a snowy steed, slicing through insanity with my long blade of
truth.  I just never thought it would be like this.

– Scientologist X

To Scientologist X and others similarly situated:

The Great Middle Path Revisited

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.