Blogger note: Op Ed means ‘opposite of the editorial page’, where views are published whether they align with or collide with the editorial positions of a publication. While it doesn’t technically mean the opinions stated are opposite of that of the publication in question, the page is often filled with such opposing views. The essay below submitted by Tom Martiniano clearly is challenging the views I have been expressing on this blog for 4 years and in my book What Is Wrong With Scientology? and probably is best characterized as an Op Ed. I happen to know it represents the views of at least a handful of others who are not so bold as Tom to express their positions despite my continuing invitations that they do so. It is my hope that some of those folk muster the courage to pipe up here. Tom and I have something in common – beyond Scientology – that makes me appreciate him and his views. We have both been on the wrong end of a gun on more than one occasion and lived to express our views. Nonetheless, I will likely soon post clarifying precisely where I part company with his viewpoints (attempting to succinctly sum up what I have been attempting to do here for 4 years). In the meantime, I would love to hear your views.
L Ron Hubbard
For four years now I have been an “Independent Scientologist”, a title borne of the blog “Moving up a Little Higher”, owned and penned almost every day by Marty Rathbun.
We’ve had a lot of talk about Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, seen peoples viewpoints on what happened to Scientology, who’s to blame and so forth. I have also watched as people sit in judgment of L Ron Hubbard, second guess him and his actions, criticize the man and his products.
The name L Ron Hubbard has taken tremendous bashings over the last several years, especially recently and it is mainly and solely due to the actions of David Miscaviage and others like him who push LRH and Scientology over the abyss with their irresponsible and unpardonable actions with the body of technology that was entrusted to them to care for “Attacks from governments or monopolies occur only when there are “no results” or “bad results” KSW #1.
I want to say a few things about the man, the author, the Science Fiction Writer, the founder of the most controversial Church ever or whatever anyone wants to call him. I am not going to be open minded and say “well, he has a viewpoint and he is right in some of the things he says”. I think LRH deserves a standing ovation for all of his accomplishments in this lifetime.
L Ron Hubbard is the best friend that a person could ever want. There have been hundreds of philosophers over the millennia who have introduced technology and doctrines for living and they all have been helpful to one degree or another. But LRH has developed technology throughout the space of thirty short years that covers every aspect of life. Some say that LRH is not the only technology that there is, nor is his philosophy there only one that works and that following his technology or values only is being blind or being robotic. That’s fair and in theory it is a solid viewpoint, but in practice it is fatal.
LRH even said in one of the PDC tapes that he doubts that there is any original thought in this universe. He’d be the first one to tell you that most of what he developed is from research into the world at large where he learned such things as the basic purpose of mankind’s existence is the urge to survive and from there he developed the entire body of the triumphant Dianetics, the world’s first successful foray into the real structure of the mind. Successful technology has been lying around the planet for eons, all developed by aboriginal tribal witchdoctors, psychologists, clans or civilizations, waiting for someone to come along and codify it and put it to good use. LRH found all of this knowledge and brought forth only the technology that was time tested and proven to be a high-rate-of-success application which made people better. LRH was like a kid in a candy store finding and testing workable technology. He would travel to far ends of the earth, find technology, research it for workability and in some cases adjust it so that it would work in most cases and then make it easy to us to use. He even developed technology for us to be able to duplicate written material. How’s that for a first-ever? This is a lot of work for one man.
When you apply something that is so utterly simple and so remarkably effective as the “Contact Assist”, or “Touch Assist” or even the powerful “Locational Assist” realize a lot of time and development went into it and L Ron Hubbard worked a lot of late nights in order to bring this technology to you in an easily understandable form to make your life that much better. And just as an aside here, we used the locational assist in New Orleans and Mississippi after hurricane Katrina on people who never heard of L Ron Hubbard and had people tell us that it saved their lives. We had thousands of such wins from folks in the Gulf area from the lowly locational assist. It worked like magic.
You see, LRH cared about you. He cared about all of us much more than we actually understood. He didn’t invent Study Tech to make money. He made it so we could read and duplicate. That’s love.
Is his tech and philosophy the only tech out there? No, not by any means. Is the way it is codified and presented to lay men the only usable tech out there? Yes. LRH introduced us to “The Wall of Fire” and then taped the route through it for all of us to see. All we had to do was walk the taped line.
But this is way too simple and a lot of people have to add their own viewpoints to the chalked path and wreck the path. LRH Says in HCOPL 14 February 1965 SAFEGUARDING TECHNOLOGY
“It has taken me a third of a century in this lifetime to tape this route out.
“It has been proven that efforts by man to find different routes came to nothing. It is also a clear fact that that the route called Scientology does lead out of the labyrinth. Therefore it is a workable system, a route that can be travelled.”
“Scientology is a workable system. It has the route taped. The search is done. Now the route only needs to be walked.”
Independent Scientologists are Scientologists that are independent from the Church of Scientology. The Church is errant and has been turning good, workable Scientology technology into unworkable technology to free people and turned it into workable technology to entrap.
There have been a lot of recent books, writings and talk about L Ron Hubbard and the end result of all of this talk and writings, rantings and foam of the mouth is an attempt to make LRH less of a successful philosopher. Most Scientologists are taking the bashing right alongside of LRH and feel the pain.
Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.
Is Scientology the only route out? Yes. It is the only applied philosophy that has the OT Sections (which were removed from the bridge by David Miscaviage).
Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence. LRH is the smartest person I have ever met. He is also the most caring person I have ever met. He cares about us more than any other person on this planet, even more than Tom Cruise does (joke). The tech volumes, the miles and miles of taped recordings, the green volumes were written by LRH for YOU to use.
Yes, you can read the Tao or read Buddha and so forth, but you would have to sort a lot of wheat from a lot of chaff to get to Nirvana. LRH already sifted and worked it all out for us to use.
This posting is written for Scientologists, those who sat down and did TR-0 and had their lives changed for the absolute better, or those who experienced going exterior for the first time, or those who went whole-track on a touch assist and the other hundreds of ways one could have a major stable win applying the fantastic tech by LRH.
Get back on the taped route and find your way out of this mess. Find a good Indy auditor and go up the bridge. LRH said to build orgs. Then by God build orgs. LRH said to manage orgs, then we manage and we fix management and what went wrong with it the first time. Do it the way LRH says to do it and it will be right. Just because it went wrong the first time was not LRH’s fault. It is right out of KSW #1 “What Did You Really Do?” We screwed it up. So we set it right, not cancel it because we screwed it. It’s exactly the same thing as saying “Well, I tried process X and it didn’t work, so toss it out.” Come one, wake up. KSW was at the start of every course and checksheet you ever did and that is because LRH ordered it. He saw this coming.
So come on. Let’s get this show back on the road.
Tom Martiniano
Moving On Up a Little Higher 