An alternate route to graduation from Scientology:
If you want to know what is wrong with Scientology, read What is Wrong With Scientology? (2012, Amazon Books)
If you want to know how that which is wrong with Scientology came about and why, read Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (2013, Amazon Books)
If you want to know the result of the what, how and why, read The Scientology Reformation (2012, Amazon Books)
My practice is grounded in client-centered education techniques. That is not because I sought to duplicate them. Instead, I recently came to learn that the way I coach and counsel toward recovery and graduation from Scientology was discovered and written about long before I was born. Reading of it helped me to improve what I was already doing. Carl Rogers covered this approach in his book, On Becoming a Person, explaining how educational techniques logically evolve out of client-centered therapy.
That I gravitated in this direction during my own recovery and graduation should be no surprise, given the authoritarian, religious discipline all Scientologists studied under for so many years. The client-centered approach is tailored to consulting the understanding of the client or student. In that regard, it radically differs from Hubbard’s training approach that was memorialized as follows:
If you can’t graduate them with their good sense appealed to and their wisdom shining, graduate them in such a state of shock they’ll have nightmares if they contemplate squirreling (defined as departing one iota from the letter of what is taught). – L. Ron Hubbard, Keeping Scientology Working
That learning philosophy was explained further in Hubbard’s highest level instructions (Class VIII course) wherein he told the most advanced Scientologists that humanity was incapable of being appealed to through understanding; and so, instead, it was their duty to command people and make them ‘obey.’ (See Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Amazon Books 2012)
Irrespective of the fact that much of the technology such methods sought to impart was geared towards bringing a person to self-determined understandings, that system of indoctrination ultimately implants fixed, subjective ideas about living, God and ultimate spiritual concerns. At the end of the day, the methods place a glass ceiling on growth (in fact create regression) by means of enforced belief that curiosity and thirst for continuing education inherently stem from aberration.
It may well be that I was also influenced in the client-centered approach through my own earlier education, some of which was influenced by, or was even attempting to experiment in, Roger’s educational recommendations. The middle school I attended was a fail-pass (no grade), choice of curriculum, self-scheduling format with emphasis on consulting students’ interests. I also attended a semester of similar organization at University of California Santa Cruz. I never knew until I read Rogers where these ideas came from. Perhaps my Scientology study contributed to this leaning too, since I have noted in the post On Becoming A Person, Scientology’s central practice (auditing) is a modified, structuralized form of Rogerian client-centered therapy. No matter what led to which along this road, it is interesting to note how what gets around comes around.
Having studied all of Scientology and a great deal on the subjects that led to its development (including their continued evolution while Scientology has remained static), a simple, workable rule of thumb has materialized for me. That is, the degree to which Scientology departs from its client-centered philosophical and technical roots is proportional to the degree it harms rather than helps. This in large part has become evident to me in helping people who were disappointed with their Scientology experience over the past five years. Almost to a one, somewhere along the line each individual’s intent and purpose for engaging in Scientology in the first place were tampered with, rejected and replaced entirely by imposed intents and purposes.
Somewhere along the line in the Scientology experience the magic of the technology – each of its efficacious results marked by its adherence to its client-centered philosophic roots – is replaced by inculcation of the client rather than consultation and service of his or her needs, wants, aspirations and purposes. Those goals do, and ought to if a positive evolution of awareness and ability is being achieved, change along the road. But evolution in Scientology is geared solely toward achievement of goals that do not involve the client’s participation in establishing, except to the extent means are employed to obtain the client’s agreement to pursue them. The attainment of those implanted goals turns out to be purely subjective – no matter how clothed in science its claims and promises are presented. An objective examination of the result of those who pursue the implanted goals to their ends – no matter how convincing its achievers may be in professing their alleged subjective feelings of happiness, power, ability and bliss of self-actualization – proves their actions often betray their vigorous assertions of equanimity. For the most part they have turned their own self-determinism (the restoration of which is promised) over lock, stock and barrel to their teacher (See What Is Wrong With Scientology, Amazon Books 2012). They will lie, steal, and cheat for their religion without a twinge of conscience – all while attempting to exude a vibrant, open, extroverted appearance. Thus, they cannot be trusted by ordinary mortals, not even by their mothers, fathers or even their children. In any values computation, their religion trumps conscience. And thus the price of the ultimate ring in Scientology is the forfeiture of one’s conscience.
That result is patently evident from counseling a number of people who have completed much of, or all of, the Scientology route both inside and outside of Scientology. To a one, of those who graduated and moved on, their departures from Scientology were occasioned by their consciences failing to succumb to Scientology demands that they be forfeited. To a one, of the dozens I have counseled. The top Scientology achievers who remain, who forfeit their consciences to achieve (or at least assert) the ultimate super human powers Scientology promises, are in the somewhat schizophrenic condition of apparently being as happy as hell but in fact having nowhere to go. The result is continued, slavish adherence to the goals and programs of an organization that – by the time it has ceased delivering client-centered techniques – offers no purpose beyond self-perpetuation and world dominance. The resultant super-amped adherent’s course is described well by Abraham Maslow, as apparently a common result of many paths that lose sight of client-centered principles:
The better we know which ends we want, the easier it is for us to create truly efficient means to those ends. If we are not clear about those ends, or deny there are any, then we are doomed to confusion of instruments. We can’t speak about efficiency unless we know efficiency for what. (I want to quote again the veritable symbol of our times, the test pilot who radioed back, ‘I’m lost, but I’m making record time.’)
Client-centered education begins with finding out where the interests and purposes of the student (client) lie. One encourages open communication in that discovery process. Viktor Frankl’s work Man’s Search For Meaning is helpful in that regard. Knowing the individual before you proceed is essential in working to recover and strengthen that person’s determinism. Omitting this step tends to usurp determinism. One doesn’t rehabilitate and enhance the faculty of determinism by indoctrination that conflicts with the client’s interests and purposes. For example, one does not force a student who is inspired by, inclined toward – and thus usually gifted in some way – the arts to become an arms manufacturing specialist. Similarly, one would not attempt to enforce upon a person seeking spiritual awakening the behavior and habits of a para-military religious zealot.
A client-centered educator does not preach and teach as much as find out and only then guide. He puts more emphasis on assisting an individual in finding and following his own purposes and interests. He then does what he can to help the person move along that chosen path with the best possible chances for success. He acts more as a facilitator than an instructor. He operates more of a resources center than a rigid curriculum school.
I have been asked, and challenged, to publish the specific route I recommend several times. I have tried to do that. But, each time in the process I find myself thinking of particular individual whom I have assisted in the past and recognize that a given reference for that person would not be of interest or applicable to another individual I had worked with. No two paths are exactly the same. I have learned through life that to the extent one tries to convince you otherwise that person is trying to lead you to where he wants you to go – irrespective of how eloquently he might convincingly represent otherwise. To the extent one attempts to enforce one way for all, one deviates from the client-centered approach – and some other interest or evaluation is entered into the equation for someone to whom it may not apply or serve any salutary purpose.
There are a number of recommendations I have made in the recommended reading section of the blog that I find myself recommending over and over again to people. For the most part those are applicable to the Scientology decompression and contextualization process, and lead toward freeing one from Scientology’s injunctions against exercise of conscience and awareness. Most of them were chosen because of their effectiveness in expanding people’s intellectual and spiritual horizons after years or decades of having those horizons treated as forbidden terrain.
I am working on a book that will make many more recommendations for those seeking to move up the Scientology Bridge in an integral fashion (non-cult, integrated approach), and another for those seeking to move up from and beyond the Scientology Bridge. In the meantime, I strongly recommend that those embarking on the Scientology path – whether in the church or out – read What Is Wrong With Scientology?, before doing so. It will help you avoid the pitfalls inherent in the system.
Posted in black dianetics, Casablanca, ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, philosophy, policy, Scientology, squirreling, tech, the world, training, Viktor Frankl, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Tagged "mark rathbun", Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Client-centered education, l. ron hubbard, marty rathbun, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, scientology, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
I borrowed, or coined by inspiration, from Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search For Meaning) the idea that decompression was the first and most important step in recovering from the Scientology experience with an upward trajectory. Frankl – having himself survived years of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, and attempted to help others similarly situated upon release – noted that an adjustment period was critical for someone coming out of a strictly controlled environment to a relatively free society. He likened it to a deep sea diver submerged for several hours far beneath the surface. One must bring the diver back out from under the tremendous pressure he has adjusted to on a gradient basis or he will suffer from Decompression Sickness, also known as the bends. Similarly, if a person imprisoned – even mentally – in inhumane conditions, conditioned to think and act in super-compliant ways while developing all manner of deceitful (albeit as justifiable as they may be) means to survive, comes out acting like he owns earth he is going to be in for big, ugly and possibly devastating losses.
Over time I have exchanged observations with other counselors about a number of folks that we guided and assisted through the Scientology Underground Railroad – or Decompression Road. One pattern we all have observed, and taken terrible losses on, is Scientologists entering the family of humanity with the exclusive, arrogant and judgmental attitudes they developed to survive in Scientology culture. All of us have expended a great deal of resource and effort in helping to clean up messes such attitudes have created, and in getting people who exhibit those attitudes back on their paths after the inevitable smack downs society tends to deliver in response. For those going through that process now, and who are discomforted absent orientation to L. Ron Hubbard references, everything I have noted thus far in this article is in complete accord with Scientology notions of the efficacy of tackling problems,development and life on a gradient scale; and even the ethics conditions formulas (see Non- Existence condition and formula).
One of the first posts on the Milestone 2/iscientology blog – created largely in protest of my books and this forum – was a piece attempting to discredit this idea of decompression as some psych-based attempt to belittle Operating Thetans and put people at introverted effect. It reasoned that former Sea Org members and public OTs who bought into the idea they could use a tad of decompression as part of their gradient entry into the community of fellow human beings were victims of an attempt to put them at groveling effect of the psych-indoctrinated ‘wog’ world. By God, the MS2ers proclaimed, we need to bring society up to our standards, Revenimus! (In keeping perhaps with the Class VIII indoctrination, ‘you are the people who own the planet’ – see Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior). This mentality of wanting to cling to the inside is understandable (see e.g. the films The Shawshank Redemption and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – I know you have all seen them, but watch them again with the Scientology experience in mind).
These thoughts arose when considering a general response to the many inquiries I have received lately asking me which of my three books ought to be read in what sequence. That includes a lot of non-Scientologists asking what book might appeal to or help a Scientologist family member or friend. My answer is always a question, eliciting information on where the person is at on the decompression process. When I know something about their circumstances I can recommend the single book that I think might help the person concerned. They do not necessarily flow one to the next in the order they were written. And all three of them aren’t for everybody necessarily.
So here is a short generalized guide to whom I believe the three books individually might appeal to, and hopefully help – in alignment to degrees of decompression already experienced by the concerned person.
The Scientology Reformation.
This book was written primarily with Scientologists still connected with the church in mind. It is anchored upon L. Ron Hubbard references and attempts, on a gradient basis, to get a Scientologist to observe for himself or herself just how far adrift Scientology Inc has strayed from the intent and purposes memorialized (at least in some places) by its founder. It introduces hope that one need not reject all of Scientology, in order to escape and even to take a stand against its abuses.
What Is Wrong With Scientology? Healing Through Understanding
This book would likely be dropped like a radioactive rock by the time a Scientologist in good standing read the first sentence of the introduction. It is addressed more to people who are already out of the church, and for whom turning back is no option. It is a detailed presentation and analysis of the features of Scientology that tend toward entrapment. It describes in some detail the sum and substance of what Scientology’s effective processes are in order to set the table for analyzing what is wrong with it and how it is ultimately used to entrap. If one only mindlessly makes a break and declares a wholesale rejection of everything scientology, one tends to become as glued to it as ever, albeit from the opposition vector. That is because he or she never took the time to understand and come to grips with what salutary aspects of it may have kept one pursuing it in the first place. If one understands that, one can transcend the experience in a more desirable state than victimhood.
Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior
Because of the personal, autobiographical nature of this book and its consequent gradual, real time and subjective introduction to Scientology this can inform someone never involved in the subject with a perspective they will get nowhere else. That is, what attracts and keeps one involved in the subject. Popular books and films have been woefully two-dimensional and inaccurate in that regard. They only focus on fear factors, which for those involved had next to zero effect in garnering their voluntary, self-determined involvement (the involvement that creates the most lasting effect on someone). Many who have read it remarked that reading another’s real time experience of getting into, developing into a crusader for, and then transcending out of it prompted them to review their own experience more honestly, fully and rationally. And that had a liberating effect upon them.
Memoirs is probably akin to a post-doctorate extension of the ‘what is wrong with Scientology’ analysis. But not with a lot of opinion. For the most part I let the facts do the talking.
While I still regularly use the term, and the model, of ‘decompression’ I am more often using it with a modifier to better describe what it is I am trying to accomplish: Decompression with an upward trajectory.
Mark Rathbun books on scientology
Posted in black dianetics, Casablanca, disconnection, healing, independents, Integral Theory, jason beghe, justice, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Scientology, tech, the future, the Reformation, Uncategorized, Viktor Frankl, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Tagged "mark rathbun", l. ron hubbard, marty rathbun, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, scientology, The Scientology Reformation, Viktor Frankl, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
To the degree that Scientology – or any other mental/spiritual practice – affords a person the opportunity and ability to safely view his life and mind and communicate his observations and conclusions with no hint or possibility of evaluation, invalidation or repercussion, it is a positive methodology for assisting a person to increase awareness and ability.
To the degree that Scientology – or any other mental/spiritual practice – departs from that formula it is a practice potentially destructive of awareness and ability.
Means by which Scientology adheres to and departs from this workable formula are covered in the books What Is Wrong With Scientology? Healing Through Understanding (Amazon Books, 2012) and Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (Amazon Books, 2013).
Other means by which Scientology routinely, and as a matter of policy, departs from its own workable formula:
To the extent any purported Scientology practitioner engages in any of these departures, I recommend people steer clear of them. To the degree they do participate in them is the degree to which they will ultimately contribute to a decrease in your awareness and ability. These departures may indicate either of the following in the practitioner: a) a lack of understanding of the mechanics of what makes witnessing (including Scientology auditing) a therapeutic activity, and/or b) their own unhandled subjugation to any or all of 1-5.
The fundamental two-way communication process that all Scientology processing derives its workability from existed before L. Ron Hubbard ever wrote a word on the subject of the mind. It would behoove Scientology auditors to study of it. A great place to start would be On Becoming a Person by Carl R. Rogers (Houghton Mifflin, 1961). One of Ron Hubbard’s greatest contributions to the improvement of mind and spirit was simplifying the codification of such principles thus opening the process of self-actualization to far more people. Unfortunately, as his group evolved much of that contribution was lost as Scientology became more mass-production oriented, expensive, exclusive, and cult-like. The training of practitioners became progressively more assembly-line like. On the one hand that helped to thoroughly drive home some workable skills while on the other hand it omitted a more contemplative, intellectual appreciation for the mechanics at work and the responsibilities incident to such practice.
Many veteran auditors reacted with some surprise when I noted the vital importance of the First Act (the one paragraph contemplation exercise an auditor is advised to engage in so as to have his own head right in order to audit, from Advance Procedures and Axioms) in What Is Wrong With Scientology? Some noted that there was next to no emphasis placed on that in their auditor training. That may well be. But, the book (AP & A) is part of the auditor training line up. I would suggest that the fact that a single paragraph is devoted to the issue is a flaw in the Scientology line up. On Becoming A Person is a four-hundred page treatise on the First Act – relating it to every aspect of the actual auditing (or generic, counseling) process. I believe that an auditor ought to study the book so that he fully appreciates why and how auditing works; and why and how an auditor must become the being (not simply ‘assume the beingness’) that naturally (not mechanically) duplicates, understands, accepts, and fully acknowledges (not with a mere ‘good’, ‘thank you’, ‘I got that’), all while genuinely – and unreservedly – intending the client to regain his or her genuine self and his or her determinism.
It cannot be gainsaid that Scientology is rife with datums, dictates, rules, and policies that detract from this pure, undiluted intention and being. It therefore would behoove anyone trained in that discipline to read and contemplate On Becoming a Person so as to orient himself to what actually creates gains for an individual, and how the slightest departure from it spoils the process, any process.
Even if you are not an auditor or training to become one, I recommend On Becoming A Person. It is all about becoming a better person, more of who one really is.
Posted in healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, psychs, tech, training, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Tagged "mark rathbun", Carl R. Rogers, l. ron hubbard, marty rathbun, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, On Becoming A Person, scientology, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
We have been pretty much closed to folk visiting Casablanca over the past few months while I wrapped up Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior. Now that the book is done and available I am scheduling people again for consultation.
I am in progress on the follow up book to Memoirs which will spell out in some detail how it is that I believe certain principles codified by L. Ron Hubbard can be sensibly practiced; that is, how they can be integrated, how they can evolve, and how people can learn from that to transcend. One of the purposes of Memoirs was to set the factual foundation for that presentation. It is difficult to communicate to closed minds that are implanted and conditioned to not dare think along those lines. I have been labeled by some Scientologists as being like a ‘Nazi War Criminal’, ‘Gestapo’, and worse for attempting to have that conversation. The reasons for such a reaction are pretty well spelled out in Memoirs. Rather than waste time attempting to debate with such a mindset, I decided it made more sense for me to spell out the facts that led me to consider that people need to graduate from that frame of mind in order to get anywhere meaningful. Hopefully Memoirs will help to accomplish that. Certainly, the follow up book will be all about how to do that.
I am no longer wasting time with the necessarily interminable argumentation on what constitutes ‘standard technology’, ‘standard admin’, and such . You might come to understand through Memoirs how it is that Scientology is hardwired to create that perpetual state of conflict and how it will continue to manifest down through the ages (to no possible substantive conclusions) if anyone in the future continues to find that activity worthwhile. In either event, I don’t find that rancorous debate productive. Most of the people who want to argue (or disconnect) on that subject don’t have much of a production record anyway, so it is like fighting with a gossamer of theory based on a patchwork of quotations.
Based on my several years of Scientology training/practice and based on my several more years of outside-of-Scientology study and practice, I deal with people one on one to try to help them move on up a little higher. My view is that certain Hubbard principles integrated into and used in such wise brings about lasting results. Conversely, robotically-applied, wholesale reliance on those principles leads to capture, captivity and ultimately to anguish. Those principles that don’t lead one any higher, or worse lead him or her lower, don’t figure into a program seeking transcendence from frightened, delusory states. Incidentally, I am convinced that such principles won’t become any more popular either, no matter how much marketing, commanding and fighting one wants to apply to them.
I suggest I can help with a) repair Reverse-Scientology application people may have experienced, b) repair/rehab any grade or level that might be incomplete or ‘out’, c) put one’s Scientology experience into perspective from which growth is possible, d) graduate people from the cult and any lingering cult think, or fixation with the cult experience people might be walking around with, e) guide people toward a meaningful transcendence from their Scientology-inflicted obsessions, and f) help OTs transcend the captive, glass ceiling dimension they’ve been led into.
By popular consensus among independent Scientologists, communicated in various ways, the core ideas I propose and what I do cannot be accepted under the title ‘Scientology.’ I accept that. So, there is no more reason to discuss the chapter of trying to win folk over to my ideas to the contrary. It is history.
I do not go by any labels and I am not a member of, nor am I affiliated with, any groups.
So as to avoid any conflict or possibility for misunderstanding, I ask anyone interested in my services to first read Memoirs and What Is Wrong With Scientology? That will give you a good sense of my philosophy about the subject of Scientology and those subjects it overlaps with. A number of people have told me that by simply reading and thinking with either or both of those books helped them to resolve that which they would have come to me for help to remedy. So, you might save yourself time and cheddar by simply reading what I have already had to say. On the other side of the spectrum, I want people to know what I am about in advance so that we don’t waste your time or mine scheduling you for an activity that will offend you by conflicting with your religious beliefs.
Posted in Casablanca, disconnection, ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, policy, politics, Scientology, tech, texas, Uncategorized, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Tagged "mark rathbun", l. ron hubbard, marty rathbun, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, scientology, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
References:
I am adding The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson to my recommended reading list. This short excerpt from What Is Wrong With Scientology explains why:
Ironically, perhaps the best way to understand the most fundamental flaw in the Scientology system of dealing with the influence of sociopaths is to read a book that touches on corporate Scientology’s vehement, costly protests against the alleged failure of the field of psychiatry to do the same. In The Psychopath Test, Ronson chronicles a member of corporate Scientology’s Citizens Commission on Human Rights (a group established to “clean up the field of mental healing”) and his quest to free an allegedly falsely labeled psychopath from a United Kingdom mental institution.
Ronson becomes fascinated with the apparent terrible injustice of “Tony’s” (pseudonym) incarceration. As Ronson researches the matter in greater depth, he comes to find the Bob Hare psychopath test, or checklist, rather rational and workable. The more time Ronson spends with Tony, the more he begins to doubt the fellow’s sanity against the psychopath test. Out of curiosity, Ronson puts the test to use on a businessman who is unrelated to the matter of Tony. When he completes the analysis, Ronson shares his condemning findings with a fellow journalist. His colleague points out that Ronson only spent a couple hours with the target, and perhaps his journalistic “skill” of catching a target out on lurid admissions, and his preconceived notions of guilt, played a part in his finding. Ronson, in his honest and entertaining style, rides the rollercoaster of enthusiastic certainty to self-deprecating doubt in his own and others’ use of the psychopath test.
Ultimately, Ronson causes the reader to consider that while there is a tremendous, accurate compilation of information that helps us detect sociopathy, can any one of us be trusted with the power to judge and sentence anyone else against that information? Are any of us worthy of the God-like power to condemn another to a life of quarantine and isolation? Do we, in wielding such a powerful tool of knowledge, tend to take on the characteristics of the sociopath when we sit in judgment?
Ronson seems to wind up in much the same place L. Ron Hubbard did when he published this statement: “I have come to find that man cannot be trusted with justice.” While Hubbard persevered and constructed an elaborate system of justice intended to overcome that fatal flaw of humankind, for whatever reason, his lack of trust was proved justified by his own creation.
Ultimately, though, L. Ron Hubbard said that the only guarantee that one would not wind up on the receiving end of a sociopath’s club was to understand how to identify one in the first place. And that conclusion was echoed by Martha Stout. The founder of Scientology and his long-time nemeses in the field of mental health ended up agreeing on one unifying principle: When it comes to the havoc others can wreak upon one’s life, the best protection is the truth – know it, and it shall set you free.
And so my recommended remedy in dealing with the very real problem of sociopathy, or the suppressive person, is as follows:
Posted in acknowledgments, black dianetics, disconnection, ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, policy, propaganda, psychs, Scientology, the future, the Reformation, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Tagged "mark rathbun", Bob Hare, Jon Ronson, l. ron hubbard, marty rathbun, scientology, The Psychopath Test, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
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.
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
Posted in black dianetics, healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, quotations, Scientology, the future, the Reformation, the world, Uncategorized, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Tagged "mark rathbun", David Miscavige, l. ron hubbard, marty rathbun, Monique Rathbun, Tom Cruise, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
Beginning sometime around the turn of the new year and through the rest of the winter, the reputations of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology are going to take perhaps the biggest press shellacking they have ever received. Some news outlets have reported that Lawrence Wright’s book about Scientology (Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief) is going to have an initial print run of 150,000 copies. That means the unbecoming photo of LRH on the cover will be peering at Americans from virtually every book outlet in the country for several months. What I expect will appear in the book will make the photo look complimentary. Wright’s publishers have invested heavily in the production of the book and will have to invest that much more in making it, and its author, omnipresent – or they will lose money. Wright will appear on virtually every widely viewed television and radio talk show. And a headline topic will be revelations about less than admirable events in L. Ron Hubbard’s life. Wright will be followed by the far less influential, but likely as scandalous, book by Jenna Miscavige Hill. That book too is bankrolled by a large publishing outfit that will roll out the ready-made, full-scale press tour for the author.
If someone you know who cares about the future of Scientology has not read my books I recommend they do before the long, cold winter begins. It has nothing to do with concern for my book sales. They are not even in the same universe in terms of distribution and readership the Wright book is headed for. Instead, the concern is that absent a good gradient on loosening up and reckoning one’s ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ in Scientology (and an increase in one’s independent thinking and contemplation about what he or she actually knows and finds valuable about the subject), the Wright avalanche is likely to create a huge ridge between corporate life and independent life. Many of those who are under the radar, on the fence, or sitting on the sidelines are liable to get sufficiently disaffected from the subject that they are likely to blow from it entirely. Those drinking kool aid will no doubt be implanted into some bizarre new world order conspiracy theory to explain the far-flung effects of Wright’s expose. They will be herded into an even more black and white, us versus them mentality than they already harbor. Their ears will be shut off to reason entirely.
I wanted to put the issues into complete and full context (understanding philosopher Ken Wilber’s and Quantum Mechanic’s understanding that to get to the most accurate picture requires subjective as well as objective reality). But, given the cost and diversion time created by corporate Scientology’s four year siege I have yet to complete my extensive volume on the history of Scientology. Having been resigned to come on the tail end of the Wright storm to do what I can to give the more complete context, I am also resigned to suggest that in the interim to get my existing books into the hands of those whom you care about. I think those books, What Is Wrong With Scientology? and The Scientology Reformation, will help prepare folks mentally and emotionally for what is coming.
Posted in healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, Paul Haggis, propaganda, Scientology, the future, the Reformation, the world, Uncategorized
Tagged "mark rathbun", Jenna Miscavige Hill, l. ron hubbard, Lawrence Wright, marty rathbun, scientology, The Scientology Reformation, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
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).
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?
Tagged "mark rathbun", David Miscavige, Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta, marty rathbun, Paul Thomas Anderson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, scientology, The Master, Tom Cruise, What Is Wrong With Scientology?
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||
Moving On Up a Little Higher