Tag Archives: What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Fearsome Scientologists

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

David Letterman on Scientologists

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

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

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Scientology (and any further “auditing” from Rathbun,) and instead referring Marty to a psychology text that has now superceded Rathbun’s shallow understanding of Scientology and become his guiding light.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.

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.

Media That Seeks to Clarify and Edify

I spent a good part of the day yesterday attempting to educate dozens of inquiring media on the issues likely impacting the Cruise/Holmes dispute.  For the most part, it was a failure.   With their limited attentions spans, and overriding obsessions to be first with the most bizarre allegations, the media jammed the airwaves and cables with ill-informed assertions (sometimes even retracted) and speculation.  Reviewing the fall out I noted a couple of pieces that stood out as fair and informed journalism that served to edify.

First there was editor in chief of the Village Voice, Tony Ortega’s interview on Current TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uTD1bMYOBg&feature=em-share_video_user

Then, there was Guy Adams’ piece in the UK Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-school-at-the-centre-of-cruise-split-7904497.html

Oh yeah, the New York Daily News really got it right:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/church-scientology-inspector-general-marty-rathbun-explains-escaped-a-destructive-cult-katie-holmes-article-1.1106735

The rest of it was pretty much a lot of noise.

Again, for those linking in for background, the following are key posts published here over the past three years on the unnatural level of control Miscavige has asserted over Cruise and Katie Holmes.  Few media have taken the time to study the ample documentation provided here of the dynamics between Scientology Inc leader Miscavige and his pal Tom Cruise.

1.   Target, Tom Cruise.  Details how Scientology Inc’s supreme leader David Miscavige (Cruise’s best man at his wedding) has infiltrated the Cruise household and used personal assistants and family members to serve as informants on every aspect of Cruise’s personal life.

2. Miscavige and Cruise Caught Lying.   A documented expose of Scientology Inc leader Miscavige using church of Scientology slave labor to design and construct custom-made motorcycles and vehicles for Cruise.  Demonstrates the depth of Cruise’s loyalty and commitment to Scientology Inc’s sociopathic head.

3.  Cruise at Cult Compound.  Internal Scientology Inc. document demonstrating level of control over Cruise’s life, and how it interjects itself between Cruise and Katie Holmes.

4.  Tom Cruise’s Life Controlled by Sinister Cult.  Internal Scientology documents demonstrating how cult leader Miscavige vets, chooses and controls Cruise’s personal staff.

5.  To Tom Cruise from David Miscavige With Love.   Photographs of the special airplane hangar that was constructed for Cruise utilizing Scientology Inc. slave labor, at the orders of David Miscavige.

6.  Tom Cruise and David Miscavige, an unnatural relationship.   Graphic, photographic evidence of Miscavige’s interjection of himself into Cruise, Holmes relationship.

7.  Tom Cruise’s Custom Cult Motorcycle.   Miscavige’s slave labor custom-design motorcycle gift to Cruise.

8.  Miscavige Betrays Tom Cruise’s Confessional.  How cult leader Miscavige violates the confessions of Cruise.  Further insight into the unnatural, unethical control Miscavige wields over Cruise.

9.  Tom Cruise’s Scientology Buses.    More documentation on the Scientology Inc. custom-made buses, including documentation of the internal Scientology reporting system on details of Cruise’s personal life.

10.  The Whole Story.  If you really want to understand the mind set of the best friend of Scientology Inc’s supreme leader, as Tom Cruise characterizes himself, you should read my recently published book What Is Wrong With Scientology?  It is now also available on Kindle.

Kindle Edition Available of What Is Wrong With Scientology

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

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

Haydn James’ Review of What is Wrong With Scientology?

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

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

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

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

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

In a word … brilliant.

Haydn

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

Don’t Pay More Than You Have To For The Book

Apparently, I may have reacted too soon.   A second listing for What Is Wrong With Scientology showed up on Amazon books. When I inquired of Amazon, they indicated it appeared someone hijacked my title to divert sales; would investigate and get back to me within a day.  So, if anyone saw the original short-lived version of this post, you’ll understand why this initial comment and the revision below.   Apparently these initial sales results of What Is Wrong With Scientology?  have got some outlets looking to turn a profit:

Broke into overall top one hundred books in first 24 hours.

Continues at day three as #60 on overall Hot New releases list.

Continues at day three as #1 on Other Religion, Practices  and Sacred Texts.

Continues at day three at #17 Hot New releases in overall field of Religion.

In response, a middle man has created an entry on Amazon Books in  What Is Wrong With Scientology?   The list price is $28.95.    I am providing the link here to the original Amazon listing so as to save folks 11 bucks per copy by buying directly from Amazon books.  If you want to tell people about the book, please share this exact link. Otherwise, if you simply pass on the title or author, your friend might wind up spending more money and waiting longer to receive it.

The original direct-Amazon (and thus most economical) link is:

What Is Wrong With Scientology?

 

What Is Wrong With Scientology? Is Now Available

Order your copy at Amazon Books here: What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Excerpt from Chapter Seven – Confessional:

 In this wise, a new moral code is imposed upon individuals, covertly and against their own determinisms.  It is exacerbated by repeated questioning about the individual’s failure to report on other Scientologists.  After a while, a corporate Scientologist modifies her behavior accordingly, in order to avoid more security checks.  She not only edits her own behavior and thoughts, she attempts to do the same with Scientologist friends and family members, so that she does not get into trouble for overlooking such transgressions of others.  Thus, a process that was originally intended to free a person from the self-imposed mental prison she has created by her own inability to live up to what she considers right and ethical conduct becomes reversed.  The preclear is instead forced to agree to a new mental prison, imposed by the organization based on what it decrees to be right or wrong.  In short, the process replaces a person’s native judgment with a new judgment of its own.  In practice, it is a dark and painful operation, making a person less self-determined and more other-determined.

    It seems that the only solution open to corporate Scientologists to cope and carry on within their culture is to become moralists.  Moralists who enforce on self and others morals which have been implanted.  If corporate Scientologists police their own conduct fastidiously enough, and interfere enough with the behavior and conduct of their fellows, they reckon they might be spared the cost, embarrassment and pain of being ordered to further batteries of security checks. In fact, that is the only behavior that does avoid continual, expensive, and degrading security checks in corporate Scientology.

    This is yet another example of Scientology Inc.’s  reversal of end product.  Confessional technology was developed with the purpose to help an individual recognize she is the cause of her own destiny – and it has a long history of realizing that purpose.  This priceless technology has been twisted and corrupted to the point where now the individual winds up with her destiny blueprinted and dictated by the church.

    These blueprints are enforced through a related – and now similarly corrupted – technology of Scientology: the technology of ethics.

Order your copy from Amazon Books at, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

related stories:

Remedy of Black Dianetics

What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Ten Commandments of Scientology Inc.

Meet The Editors

The Virus That Killed Scientology Inc. 

Remedy of Black Dianetics – Coming Soon

Front cover:

Description: The first critical treatment of Scientology that seeks to identify and correct what is wrong with it rather than to merely expose or advocate against the subject. A handbook for former, current and prospective members. The book can help to heal any damage done by misuse while rehabilitating any positives derived from Scientology. The book also serves to proof up an individual against being harmed by misapplication of Scientology in the future.  As the first simple, accurate description of the philosophy from its introductory to its most advanced levels, the book will inform those interested in Scientology as no other available work has.

Back cover:

Ten Commandments of Scientology Inc.

The following is an excerpt from chapter eight of What is Wrong With Scientology:

‘Reason,’ as L. Ron Hubbard first defined ‘ethics,’ has become the prohibition of reasoning. Self-determinism, the restoration of which is the goal of all Scientology processes, has been replaced by the enforcement of group-determinism.  In short, a culture whose members once reveled in the restoration of their liberty to think freely is now forced to think “our way or the highway,” “the ends justify the means,” and “by any means necessary.”

In precisely this manner, ethics in Scientology has been replaced by enforcement of Scientology Inc. morals.  The morals in play are the policies and mores of Scientology Inc. Those morals have evolved over the past three decades, increasingly influenced and dictated by the arbitrary decisions of one, single, rather ruthless individual.  That one person is Scientology Inc. Chairman of the Board, David Miscavige.  Here are some of the most commonly observed, tacitly-enforced tenets of Miscavige’s new moral code within Scientology Inc.:

•           A critic of Miscavige or Scientology Inc. must be depowered and destroyed by any means necessary.  Image is everything when it comes to Miscavige and the corporations.

•           Truth, if its disclosure might cause the slightest public relations harm to Scientology Inc. or to Miscavige, must be suppressed by any means necessary.  Image is the only thing.

•           Money into Scientology Inc. coffers is the most important product of Scientology Inc. The provenance of said funds is immaterial, and to question the means by which they were obtained is a punishable offense.

•           It is acceptable and encouraged to use fraud, deceit, lies and threats against Scientologists to obtain ever-increasing sums of money for Scientology Inc.

•           If anyone is dissatisfied with service received at any Scientology Inc. outlet, a staff member’s first duty is to make the dissatisfied member believe the dissatisfaction was caused by the member himself.  Scientology processes and technologies – including, but not limited to, auditing, security checking and ethics – are to be used cleverly to create this result in the minds of those expressing dissatisfaction.

•           One overlooks all faults and corruption of higher-ups in Scientology Inc.  Severity of repercussions for reporting or protesting corruption are directly proportional to the height on the organization chart of the corruption.

•           One’s level of ethics can be gauged by the magnitude of crime one will commit in order to protect the crimes of Miscavige and Scientology Inc. from disclosure.

•           One may not read or listen to anything about Scientology – and least of all about David Miscavige – that is not officially published or broadcast by the church.  Punishment is so severe for having done so that corporate Scientologists have resorted to extraordinary measures to avoid such, including staying away from the Internet entirely, and being careful not to watch or listen to the news.

•           It is ethical behavior to snitch on your spouse, children, parents, co-workers and friends. It is unethical behavior not to immediately snitch on them when they are seen to violate the morals listed here.

•           One must stay attuned to the list of personal, sexual, and group activities that are currently considered unacceptable or sinful.  These vary with Miscavige’s regressing predilections.  Ignorance of this ever-shifting wind is not a defense for any transgression.

At first blush, one might believe there are exaggerations in the examples given.  In fact, these are derived from hundreds of reports of former Scientology Inc. staff and members.  These were listed as the most commonly reported.  If one were to objectively observe his own experience, and investigate the experiences of his peers, he would find that these are, in reality, Miscavige’s first Ten Commandments.  They are ruthlessly enforced at all levels of corporate Scientology.

related posts:

What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Meet The Editors – What Is Wrong With Scientology?

The Virus That Killed Scientology Inc.

The Virus That Killed Scientology Inc.

The following is an excerpt from What Is Wrong With Scientology?: Healing Through Understanding.  It might provide some food for thought.

Virtually everyone whom I have met who knew L. Ron Hubbard personally described him in words to the effect of “larger than life.”  That comes from a wide spectrum of people, from those who loved him to those who sharply criticized him.  I never met him, and in a way I am glad I did not.  To me, the ultimate worth of what he created can only be measured against the standard of whether what he wrote and lectured about can produce desirable effects or not.  In the end, that is how he wished it to be.  He noted in one of his final journals to Scientologists that his legacy would be the technology he would leave behind – not his personality, not his biography, not his recognitions and awards, not any God-like abilities that others must continue to create in their minds and rely upon, and not his frailties and shortcomings.

    It was Hubbard’s charismatic and infectious personality that led critics back in the ’80s to predict that Scientology would die once he passed away.  Some have since claimed that Hubbard’s January, 1986 death did indeed mark the beginning of the end of Scientology.  While both of these assertions were close to the mark, in my view they were not quite accurate in a couple of respects.  First, a semantics note.  True, the church of Scientology is dead, for all intents and purposes. But that is an organization, a corporate conglomerate.  Scientology itself is a religious philosophy, and that has not died.  A philosophy cannot be killed, any more than an idea can be extinguished. True, the church of Scientology began to die after its founder’s demise.  However, the passing of Hubbard did not kill it.  Instead, during the confusion and pain of Scientologists’ mourning Hubbard’s death, a deadly virus was stealthily injected into Scientology culture.

    That virus was a falsehood.