This is really quite sad.
Apart from exclamation compulsive disorder, this is an IDEAL ORG. One of the big, prominent ones (as opposed to say Cambridge or Malmo or Nashville or LV or Dallas or Padova or Brussels etc etc).
It is worth 3 exclamation points that they have 12 scheduled to start GAG II. OMG. Twelve SCHEDULED. I guess they are going to pack out those courserooms built to hold 500 students….
And there are “several people” playing the game to get “5 starts.” That is iumpressive.
But the really sad part is the begging to please give us money so we can get paid because “he (LRH presumably it is as usual a mangled sentence) also wanted the staff to earn great Christmas Bonuses.”
Why does the image of North Korea just keep coming to mind when I read the statements from inside the bubble. Maybe it is because I am reading John Sweeney’s new book and the parallels are impossible to ignore. Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd Sara that if in fact LRH did want you to earn great Christmas bonuses, he would have set it up so that was what happened. But we all know that your Christmas bonus is a joke and it is probably better than the vast majority of orgs. It’s like the North Koreans who constantly praise Dear Leader for blessing them with intermittent electricity 7 hours a day — as if there would be none if he were not so benevolently caring for their well-being.
In fact, the only organizations in Scientology I have ever heard of getting a decent Christmas bonus (more than $1000) are ASI when Miscavige ran it. RTC. And IAS. And believe me, that was not a result of “LRH intention.”
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013
From: Sara Jonic
To: otcmail@pasaotc.org
Subject: [OTC-Mail] from Sara-WOW!!!Dear OTCers,
We had a FANTASTIC briefing last night with the Snr C/S WUS and Snr C/S ASHOF and Larry Gilbert from the Flag Office!!!
As a result we have 12 people scheduled to start their Golden Age of Tech Phase II services at the Pasadena Org!!!
We also have several people playing the game to get 5 starts for the Pasadena Org and earn TRAINING AWARDS!!!
GET READY to have some FUN at the beautiful Pasadena Ideal Org!!!
Your Ideal Org Staff have gone above and beyond this year to get ready and to deliver to you LRHs Bridge exactly as he intended and he also wanted the staff to earn great Christmas Bonuses !
Everything you do THIS WEEK including paying for service, starting a course, completing a course, buying materials and donating to the IAS will help the staff get a great Christmas Bonus!!!!!!!!!!!
Your help is appreciated!!!
ml,
Sara
“. . . to deliver to you LRHs Bridge exactly as he intended. . .” What a joke! Actually Miscavage was completely, 100% right: Corporate Scientology IS The Blind Leading the Blind.
It’s hard to make a connection between the way wogs, or never-ins, view LRH and the way he is viewed by those who looked/or still look to him as a source of knowledge. If something has never helped you, it is very easy to look with cynicism upon those who feel they’ve received a benefit. Myself, I find him fascinating, and while he might have helped you, I’m not at all convinced he originally did it for the benefit of mankind. I think he invented a product, and convinced himself of its validity. Self-deception is the easiest sort of deception I’ve read. He might have decided his product DID help people, and he DID truly care about helping humanity.
There’s just nothing for those reading his biography outside of Scientology, accompanied with evidence (such as FBI documents and discordant text in Hubbard’s own handwriting) to see that is honest and helpful about his creation of Dianetics and Scientology. That’s how we see him. We see a man with a great idea, unsure of it at first, who then became enthralled with his own product. It’s hard for us to see your side of LRH, the personal side in his capacity as a movement leader. Thank you for sharing it. It’s easy to laugh at CoS propaganda, but it’s harder to dismiss personal stories. It’s difficult to post anything negative about him on sites where most comments indicate he was beloved. Please understand I’m not trying to troll with this comment; I’m trying to explain this trollish attitude you will inevitably encounter should you read “entheta.”
Heidi, I totally get what you are saying and see what you mean. Ive mentioned it earlier in this blog about LRHs war record. Have a look at what the critics of Ron say about it and then read Margarets blog http://scientologymyths.com/hubbardww2.htm. One says he made it up, the other proves what he said. This is one issue that has been competently researched, independently. There is so much more to do regarding his past to really clear it up and the waters have been mudied, to believe without some cynicism, all thats been said about him by the critics, is not wise.
But to be totally honest, I dont think anyone can really understand the man until they try Scientology out, then they get it. I hope you can sort it out for yourself. But if you decide we are all nuts, please be understanding of us:)
Having never been ‘in’ myself, I started out researching the CofS back in ’96 or so and started (for some reason that I’ve yet to satisfactorily explain) from more-or-less the ‘anti’ point of view. LRH was a con man, a fraud, a cult leader, a super evil genius, etc, etc.
Through my research I have come to recognize that this perception is both true and false.
Yes, he was all those things, but he was also something much more.
I recognized rather quickly that maintaining a fixed viewpoint in regards to LRH is really close to impossible. What really awed me was the mental gymnastics that those still ‘in’ would have to perform to maintain the viewpoint of the party line. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, to somehow believe that KAWB was rightful heir to the throne and could do no wrong, was just mind-boggling to me.
I think a lot of the current ‘anon’ community hasn’t put any serious effort into understanding the subject. Hence, they spend inordinate amounts of effort belittling what scares them because they don’t understand it, and they don’t have any experience of the ‘old days’ when the CofS could actually ‘handle’ critics terminatedly through fear and intimidation.
Hell, there have been more ‘critical’ books published in the last 5 years than in the previous 50 combined – That would not be possible if what I said above was not true.
They feel like they’re flirting with danger, when in point of fact, the danger is long past. DM has all his attention fully and completely focused on keeping those still delusional or scared enough to buy into his line of BS ‘towing the line’…..He doesn’t give a shit about some punk-ass kid wearing a Guy Fawkes mask for a few hours on the weekend.
LRH was a bullshit artist, there is no doubt, and his ‘tech’ seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what technology actually means. The point is, it works, and very well, if you’re not being deprived of sleep, working for less than an underage garment maker in Bangladesh, or being RPF’d as being counter-CI for not staying on post for 125 hours straight.
Where LRH dropped the ball, in my opinion, was his continuous overt of breaking the Auditor’s Code- Never evaluate. Realistically, from VA on up is nothing but total evaluation. Your R6 bank, Fac 1, your BT’s, etc. are what LRH says they are. If it’s not ‘true’ for you, then you’d be out on your ass. How more evaluative could it get?
The Objectives, the Grades….pure genius. Whether or not you believe yourself to be a Thetan or not, I’m certain that every person on the planet could not but benefit from having these run to EP.
As Mike and Marty have made abundantly clear, the time to disentangle the subject of Scientology from the “Church” of Scientology is upon is – The CofS will indeed go super-nova, and that soon. What those of us who are certain of what the Tech can do – once the pieces that remain are picked up – is what will determine whether or not LRH’s legacy fades out of memory or becomes what I honestly hope he meant it to be: A beacon of Hope for humanity.
Will we all have to stand and Hip-hip hooray! every Friday at graduation two thousand years from now, or be RPF’d for letting down our fellows in the Space Org? Likely not. But it’s nice to think that before we as a species fade out of history, we did our best to help as many as we could to make it.
I will always be grateful to LRH for showing us the way, and the opportunity.
Dear Philip Arlington:
Trolling a topic that likens corporate Scientology to North Korea–must try harder. And read Kurt Vonnegut it’ll help.
Every!!!
Word!!!
Must!!!
Exclamation!!!
Marks!!!
There’s a policy called Surveys are the Key to Stats. “Promo done without survey, magazine ads without survey, fliers without survey, you are going it blind.”
The prominent button used at the head of this email is “FANTASTIC briefing…!!!”
I wonder who surveyed “fantastic briefing” as a needed and wanted go-button. What does that mean, now, to the average kool-aid drinker? It means a locked door meeting where we get robbed. I guess there are still some masochists in there who like this kinda stuff.
Then, in PR series 30 we get this, “THE UNFAMILIAR IS RAPIDLY INTRODUCED OR COMMUNICATED BY COMPARING IT TO A FAMILIAR.”
“Positioning takes advantage of a fact that one can compare the thing he is trying to get the other person to understand with desirable or undesirable objects.”
So you get, “oh it tastes like orange, or coke or apples.” Or you have, “it feels like silk, or smells like roses.”
So what has the positioning of the church of scientology become to the average person who has some familiarity with it?
Kool-aid ala Jim Jones.
A cult
Krazy like Cruise
The most litigious church in the country
secretive
destroys families
Science Fiction religion
Those are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Then you look at the above letter and it spells…”give us your money or we’re going to starve again.”
Desperately flailing arms and lips, grasping at dollars and credit cards, frantically trying to make something of the mess they are in.
Sad really.
12 “sign-ups” and we presume no starts since none were mentioned.
Perhaps the reason for this announcement is that now the stats can have no-where to go but up. I can just imagine a future announcement of “straight up and vertical GAT II starts!” …as the statistic goes from 0 to 2.
Apparently, this is what DM means by “thinking big”.
Dear Mike,
In my opinion you are sometimes TOO nice a guy.
There ARE hateful, arrogant, and ignorant a-holes in the Church. I know that you know that this is too true.
But, there are also plenty of arrogant, ignorant a-holes outside the Church…….
like Philip Arlington who likes to go on and on with invalidative statements about someone he never met and procedures he has never personally tried. Everything he said about LRH and Scientology was a generality and/or an ad hominem attack. The latter, to my understanding violates the guidelines for this blog.
On top of everything esle he also was attempting to invalidate you and your life’s work.
There is something good to be said about being tolerant.
There is also something good to be said about not suffering fools lightly.
Philip was behaving no differently than DM’s disinformation machine.
While you have admitted doing some things of which you are not proud during your S.O. career, overall I don’t think there is not a large percentage of people who have done more good for mankind than you have in the last few decades.
Helping to bring the SUBJECT of Scientology into people’s lives is a very good and helpful thing in my opinion, despite the opinions of some.
I personally appreciate your work very much.
Mike, I second what Espiritu said here. Thank you for your good works. And don’t let the turkeys get you down. Phillip Arrogant Arlington can kiss my grits.
My heart goes out to these staff. The whole thing reminds me of the play Waiting for Godot. The good times are always just around the corner and they want so hard to believe this, but it has gone on so long that it now takes the myriad exclamation points to enforce the belief. It is very very sad. I love them for their dedication, no matter how misguided, and hope that they will be able to face the truth courageously.
Very astute comment, Susie. I can say that this is definitely how it was for me on staff. The next release or course was always going to “boom the org.” No one ever believed it, but of course we engaged in thought stopping, just in case a miracle might occur.
Susie, email me privately at Janedoe2@hushmail.com please. I have a private comm for you.
We in RTC are in protest over the hypocrisy and unfairness of it all.
Bitter defrocked apostates in league with Scientology-haters in the media spend all day everyday attacking the Scientology religion — and then when our stats crashed we are mocked online by the very same people who caused our stats to crash.
Actual research shows that if these attacks stopped our stats would boom into highest ever straight up and vertical screaming affluence whereupon Planet Clearing would become a reality in as little as six months thanks to the miracle of GAT II and the laser precision of the Ultra Mark VIII.
All of which is to say that behind the lunatic fringes of the internet is an orchestrated plot to stop Planetary Clearing. This plot is most notably seen in the diabolical machinations at work to depose COB RTC David Miscavige in a Texas courtroom in wholesale violation of his religious rights as the Pope of Scientology (POS).
And make no mistake about it, COB really is the POS in the existing scene.
This plot will not succeed as OSA and sixteen lawyers are hard at work for the POS who heads our religion.
Even now plans are being undertaken to place full page ads in leading newspapers exposing this plot and decrying the internet as a Psych-funded terrorist playground.
So yes, the Church of Scientology is hard at work in governments throughout the world to outlaw the internet in the same way we ended the Cold War and were responsible for the collapse of the USSR.
POS. That seriously made me laugh so hard my beer shot out my nose. Well done.
Same here. I was LMAO at “POS”. Brilliant Jeff. 🙂
Sheesh, Mike, can someone tell Sara J to go a bit easy on the exclamation point tech? It hurts my eyes.
DM just got his Christmas bonus, order to the court. He has seniors out here that are conducting a noisy investigation. His seniors want answers. He is the subject of a committee of evidence that has been convened in Texas. DM is finally getting comm eved. Let’s watch and see how it all turns out! Perjury is mandatory prison sentence in Texas. And his attorneys have already clogged the court with false reports. (perjury)
In my local Class V org, where I was staff for 15 years, we had a saying during this season, as we watched management get more and more psychotic with their crazed orders, ethics and justice actions. And that saying was “What the hell, it’s not Christmas without a Comm Ev.” So happy that this year it’s little Davey’s turn!
Oh, and Davey, I will personally buy you a booster seat for your deposition, so you can sit up higher at the table.
Good one Emilie! I”ll chip in for paying for that booster seat!
Pasadena Org, that Craig and Sally Jensen coughed up $5 million + for, has had no more than 5 people in the course room in 2013. 2 of those were staff.
This is an Org that serves Los Angeles County ~ population of of 9.963 million and the city of Los Angeles 15 mins away has a population of 3.858 million (2012). The insides are palatial, fit for a King, Rooms more elegant than the interior of Buckingham Palace. But it is morgue inside. Just about empty. Wonder how they pay their utlities. They pay their staff hardly at all.
Karen, for the Jensens, their donations for the Idle Morgue of Pasadena were more like 17 million of the 24 million total for purchase and renovations. There were other donors who contributed 1 million or more, such as the Wilsons, the Sokoloffs, the Feschbachs, the Baybaks. The rest of the field made up the difference.
I can’t verify the stats you give for the course room attendees for 2013, but I do know that as of May 2011 the total number in the course room was about 30, counting all staff (maybe 12) and OTC public who put in one course period per week before their “mandatory” OTC Tuesday meeting.
The electric bill alone is more than 4K per month in the winter, when no AC is needed. The wealthy staff and OTC members have to pay this from their own pockets, as the org is making 2K per week (at best!) GI. Any toilet paper, worksheet paper or admin supplies are paid by other staff or public.
Staff pay? I really doubt this is even a possibility, unless from IAS or upper org FSM commissions, on a really rare week.
“The Grinch who stole Christmass”
Re “12 people scheduled to start”… an applicable LRH quote, taken from the Friends of LRH website:
“When you first inspect an area for products, you just look…Don’t listen to how they are going to get 150 products; just look and walk around with a clipboard.
“…If you don’t see receipts for 150 shipped products, they don’t exist and never have… Products that are only in people’s heads don’t exist.”
As a side note, anybody familiar with the ASHO newspaper knows that they’ve been publishing a “Soon to start the Briefing Course” list for years. If you actually follow up on those names (as I’ve done several times), you find that about 80% of them never did start, even years later.
As Kurt Vonnegut would say,
“So it goes…”
400 APs* for the Vonnegut reference!
* apostate points – redeemable for preferred seating at the DM deposition one-time-only viewing on the fringes of the internetu
Beautiful, War Horse. An LRH quote that cuts across all the BS uttered by those bubble-headed pod creatures. Everyone should read the Friends of LRH website “cover to cover”, if they haven’t already. Recommended for all those still on the fence.
The twelve who enrolled are staff members a few of their family members. Think about it – when Scientologist’s wax enthusiasm over 12 people enrolling in the “greatest gift to mankind…the answer to planetary clearing” – they have crossed the line from sane to insane! That is not exciting – it is revealing as to just how much the dwindling spiral of Scientology has dwindled down to nothing. Good news about David Miscavige having to show up for the deposition! This is going to drive him crazy. Mike – any thoughts? OK if you can’t talk about it …just don’t respond. Monique Rathbun has smashed her name into the history books – I love her!!
Mike,
The following might help those Scientologists still not sure what is going on, or who are unable to make up their minds.
Excerpted from the book “When the Body Says NO” by Gabor Mate, MD:
“As an antidote to terminal optimism. I have recommended the power of negative thinking. “Tongue in cheek, of course” I quickly add. “What I really believe in is the power of thinking”.
As soon as we qualify the word thinking with the adjective positive, we exclude those parts of reality that strike us as “negative”. That is how most people who espouse positive thinking seem to operate.
Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality. It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever that full truth may turn out to be.
In order to heal, it is essential to gather strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as “realism”. Rather, it is the willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to?
Even more fundamentally, not posing those questions is itself a source of stress.
First,” positive thinking” is based on an unconscious belief that we are not strong enough to handle reality.
Allowing this fear to dominate engenders a state of childhood apprehension. Whether or not the apprehension is conscious, it is a state of stress.
Second, lack of essential information about ourselves and our situation is one of the major sources of stress and one of the potent activators of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress response.
Third, stress wanes as independent, autonomous control increases.”
http://www.amazon.com/When-Body-Says-Stress-Disease-Connection/dp/0470923350/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387045903&sr=1-1&keywords=when+the+body+says+no+gabor+mate
Awesome thoughts. I have said for a long time that I don’t believe in positive thinking.. I believe in positive knowing.. Another name for it is gratitude.
I hung out with a couple of the Pasadena whales back in 2004. Nice folks. Very caring individuals. I was mystified when I went in to visit the org there. It was dead as a door nail. Seems it’s just as dead in their pretty new building even though they are now armed with the eternity-shattering blessings of david m and GAG II.
I just got it.
I really got it.
The Church of Scientology is done. Nothing is going to inspire anyone, other than SO and staff, to turn in their current meters, burn their old materials, pay for and GAGII, re-do their Levels, don Scientology gym outfits to re-do the Purif, co-audit hundreds of hours of objectives ’til the cows come home, and then wait for the dreaded axe to fall next year when His Hole-iness announces the Latest Final Solution.
It’s toast.
Mike,
I’m sure a lot of your guys Xmas bonuses at ASI came from those soft core porn Frazetta prints and “LRH signed” (actually David Miscavige forged) properties 😉
Did any of that money actually ever go to Cappy Normy’s Tech Preservation Project?
Not that I’ve got any complaints.
I mean I thought the Mission Earth Calendar was pretty cool with lots of hot cartoon babes showing mucho T&A.
Hard to believe that the SO turned into such puritanical prudes after that and busted one of my SO PCs for getting it on with one of the non SO staff.
Anyhoo…
Sure we didn’t make over a grand on Xmas bonuses but I got a couple that were over 500 bucks which was better than a frozen turkey.
Electricity for 7 hours, my God what abundance!!!!!!
In Burma it’s only for 2 hours, 3 hours tops but that’s during prime time
to watch the WAR channel and see the latest murder, rape, genocide,
live in living color. The only other channel is Government news on how wonderful
expansion and National growth stats are straight up and affluent.
Strangely very familiar. Deja Vu.
I wanted to comment on the impending deposition of little hitler. One thought crossed my mind as I read Tony’s Blog. Remember how you were always made to feel bad and wrong and out ethics by the holier than thou moralists who could care less about anyone but themselves when something went wrong in your life. How many times did I hear “you are pulling it in” or “You need to take responsibility” or “you must be out ethics” or “what did you do to cause this” or “what condition are you in?” or “you must be PTS” or the big one “You are responsible for your own condition!!”.
God those terms were always so enturbulating for me and many others that they were directed to. How is it then that now Davey boy is being dragged through the courts and has to actually testify that “he’s not pulling it in” Surely every Scientologist thats still in is asking “what he did that he’s not taking responsibility for”. Isn’t every ethics officer on the planet saying “DM must have overts”?
For us on the outside its plain to see. However I bet you a million dollars the story in their heads goes like this ” Well he is COB and of course the SP’s are going to attack him and we must be winning because DM is so clean and upstat the SP’s are going psychotic trying to bring us down.
Guess what DM (because we know you read this blog) you can run and squirm and hide and try to wiggle out of this but the universe has a funny way of putting your ethics in. After
this point you are going to be royally screwed. If you claim the the courts “you have no role in day to day operations of the COS you are going to come off as an idiot to the last vestiges of public you have left. The only way left out of this is the truth, and we know you are not capable of facing the truth. You are exposed, before long the rest of the world is going to know you for who you are. A poisoned mind with only evil intentions. You cannot run you cannot hide. Your plans are failing. When the world sees you for who you really are where will you go? Yesterday made many of us that you betrayed very happy. Your time is up. The floodgates are open. Nothing more an SP detests more is being exposed is there!
Damn this is sad. I have had it this week. I am surrounded by people buying all this new stuff. It is really refreshing Mike to be able to enter this universe on your blog and chill. Read some comments and remind myself why I am not doing what those who surround me are doing.
Thankfully I also have those who are enlightened in the vicinity as well, so it’s not all dark. If I look down my emails and those with whom I am interacting, it is surreal. The first few names are kool aid drinkers and the next few are declared.
I guess this is a sign of the times. We are in a transition. It is a strange place to be.
Thanks Mike for creating this space.
Hi Greenonwhite, I have a feeling that people in your situation (me included) are actually the majority. Lots of people out and declared, some people still active in the church, but I think the majority are like us. Under the radar to whatever degree, but out of the church and communicating with who we want! Well done on seeing the truth and staying in communication with your declared friends.
Beautiful communication, Greenonwhite. It must feel completely surreal, but you’ve described it so sanely and succinctly! I could use an editor like you.
Thank you “one of those” and Richard. It is truly heartening to have folks here to be with.
I think that is the wrong condition assignment. He was long ago a liability and it went unhandled. He who will not be named (except in a deposition) was in confusion a long time ago.
His current state is ‘Dazed and Confused’ with the formula “Find out IF you are.” Failing this condition results in a condition of ‘YOU ARE NOT!!!!!!’ (add an exclamation point for each day the condition persists)
LOL!
With the latest developments in the Texas court, Miscavige proves that there is a condition below confusion: Totally Fucked.
Hi all -I lurk here but have never posted before. Just never-in whose family members have been lost to a similar but different cult.
I must say I’m confused. Mike I love and appreciate your commentary and have immense respect for you and all of the others who have had the courage to leave Co$. However, I thought that you are a member of the independent movement, yet the tone of this post sounds like you are now also less enthused about LRH. Did I misunderstand or miss something? Thanks
I retain enormous respect for L. Ron Hubbard and the work he did. I have said it many times. He was truly larger than life. And I think he provided a great deal of brilliant observations about the human condition and workable solutions to bring about a bettering of that condition. However, I do not think he was infallible or always right. There is much to criticize about things he wrote — especially on the administrative side — that have over time been proven to NOT be workable, or outright destructive (as in a bunch of the “intelligence” dictates and handling of “attackers”). This is a nutshell answer to something that is complex and I have spent a lot of time writing about over the last 2 years or so.
Please keep going in this direction, and face the whole truth. LRH was not a good man with flaws, he was an absolute wretch with a gift for taking advantage of people’s desire to look on the bright side.
LRH did not make “brilliant observations”. The truthful things he said had been better expressed by others many times. Indeed the most striking thing for me is just how badly he wrote even when he was regurgitating truisms.
LRH did not develop any “workable solutions” for anything. Everything he created was just made up rubbish with nothing to back it up. There is no verifiable objective evidence that it does anyone any good, just wishful thinking by people who don’t want to admit they have been abused, of whom you remain one. The “wins” are illusions, imagined to justify the commitment made. People with decades of “wins” behind them are dying in misery.
I believe that you will get out of the mindtrap eventually, you just need to truly want to get out. For you, true liberty will come from finding the courage to admit that L Ron Hubbard lived a destructive and despicable life, and that the world would have been better off if he’d spent the post-war years living on the Navy pension he begged for.
LRH never cared about you or anyone else but himself, he just used people. It is LRH who caused you to waste most of your life, not David Miscavige. Scientology is run by a man like DM because it is the personality of LRH in organisational form. Try to visualise being one of the people who have broken wholly free from LRH’s clutches. It is they who are truly the admirable ex-Scientologists, not the Indies. I will be so happy for you when you join them.
Well, I dont consider I wasted half my life. And I knew L. Ron Hubbard. I doubt you did. Sorry, you are of course entitled to your opinion, but I suspect it is an opinion not based on personal experience.
i second that, Mike. I wasn’t working side-by-side with him or under him like you were but he and I corresponded more than once, and you could feel his caring come through the letters he wrote. Also, after 30 plus years of studying his words and thoughts on paper, I’ve come to the same conclusion – that he cared about people immensely and wanted to do his part to help people be free from their own demons.
He had a few of his own but, as Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
Now we have what’s left behind. We have the free right to use it as friends of Ron just as Phillip has a right to judge Ron or the tech, etc., based on the information he has access to. The mind is a perfect computing machine. It makes perfect conclusions based on the data it has access to.
No disrespect meant here but isn’t one of the traits ‘charisma’ from a cult leader. I just received news that a whole heap of Eds from class V Orgs met with Miscavige before the recent events to be briefed or some tripe……….The Ed of Brisbane was blown away on how brilliant and theta COB was and is now spewing forth that word vomit……..Do you think that maybe LRH had the same sort of impact on you Mike?…….not taking away the cleverness of the guy but possibly the charisma clouded the truth to a degree………just asking?….not judging?
Fascinating, Mike, you actually knew this amazing enigma! After all of these years the world is still trying to ” come to grips with” this enigma called L. Ron Hubbard. You were there! Please write your story!! You have at least one bestselling book within ya!!
I just love people who state that my wins/gains were not real. Where in hell do they get off making such ridiculous statements? Or insisting I’m justifying something else by claiming them. I’ve been out for many decades but still celebrate and use that which I got when I was in. No one can ever take those away from me. The SP declare simply made me smile.:)
I think you wrote a civil response to a post which is basically flame bait. Whether or not Scientology, or for that matter psychiatry/psychotherapy, has helped anyone is a very subjective answer, and I don’t really see any point in evaluating for the other person. If someone feels helped by something, then they’ve been helped, even if someone else feels that person hasn’t been. Self-improvement is largely in the ey of the beholder. Even most of the recent (last 5 years) defections of long-time Scientologists, who no longer consider themselves Scientologists, feel there are things in Scientology which were useful and/or workable. I don’t think having extreme viewpoints on Scientology’s workability or unworkability do any good or add to anyone’s understanding of Scientology. Most of the extreme viewpoints that I have seen on Scientology’s UNworkability come from people who have never sat in an auditing room and picked up the cans. Yes, there are the horror stories like Lisa McPherson, but they aren’t the norm. The more typical case I think is the person who comes into Scientology to get help for a specific problem (their ruin), and then receives some help but doesn’t continue, either because the results were overpromised by a reg and the organization undelivered, or because they are regged to death by desparate reggers (the vulture culture), and dealing with hassle of Idle Orgs/IAS/SuperPower is just not worth it.
Even though I no longer hold the view that Scientology is the ONLY road to TOTAL freedom, I do consider that a certain process with a certain EP can obtain that EP if correctly run. In other words, for me Scientology works on a micro scale (correctly run process gets EP), even if Scientology doesn’t necessarily work on a macro scale (you can achieve immortality and total cause on all 8 dynamics and have all the OT abilities alluded to in History of Man). Even if Scientology CAN achieve immortality and OT abilities, I don’t know anyone who has achieved the full result, in my opinion, though I don’t mean to invalidate anyone else’s gains. And when you look at LRH’s declining health in the last few years of his life lived in seclusion, and the lack of any OT levels beyond OT 8, well… At the end of the day, what’s true for you is what’s true for you.
I also think anyone who considers that LRH was just a slick con man who used people has just a very superficial understanding of the man. Sure, LRH always lived well and managed to build an empire, and while he certainly did have a “dark side”, none of that means he wasn’t trying to help. Nobody’s perfect. Compare LRH to Miscavige and you’ll see the difference – Miscavige will go out of his way to get revenge and actually gets pleasure out of inflicting his sadism on others, a true sociopath at work.
Mike don’t think of attacks on LRH as attacks on half your life. You could not being doing the good works you do today without having lived the life you lead. Also, to the person who quoted Jesus (he without sin cast first stone), remember…..Jesus was an implant and assuming he was, wouldn’t his statements have really been made by Xenu? That is, assuming Xenu created the implants wouldn’t he also need to create the statements of said implants? Sorry for the snarkiness, but if you really stop to think of the insanity, it boggles the mind.
I certainly would not try to discredit anyone’s wins or gains and I am sure LRH was bigger than life, but I always return to the facts of his life and how he treated his own family. In my opinion, that is the measure of that man. Same could be said of the tiny tyrant. You, on the other hand, seem genuinely concerned about your family still being held captive.
With respect, Philip, I believe it’s important to honor people for their deeds, while granting them the integrity to be true to themselves by their own lights. We’re all struggling for greater understanding, and for personal growth, and we’ve all got a history of decisions and actions and beliefs that may no longer represent the person we are, or want to be, today.
On a somewhat different note … I was just watching the video of Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, speaking about how growing up in Alabama and witnessing a cross-burning incident near his family home had had a profound impact on his developing world-view. He went on to speak generally about the importance of respecting and loving people regardless of whatever “difference” they may have from the majority.
Now, a lot of people think Tim Cook really needs to come out and announce publicly that he’s gay. It’s kind of a worst-kept-secret thing: he’s been named the most influential gay person in the USA by Out! magazine every year since he became Apple CEO. But, speaking as a fellow Southern gay man of a certain generation, I guess Tim Cook feels like this is nobody’s business but his own. What counts are his actions as a, so to speak, Opinion Leader.
That’s pretty much how I would feel if I were Mike Rinder. We are entitled to be who we and to believe what we believe. Judge us, if you must, by what we do in this world.
“I believe that you will get out of the mindtrap eventually, you just need to truly want to get out.”
So we can get into the mind trap that you’re clearly stuck in? Good lord.
I remember having an email conversation with Gerry Armstrong and Jon Atack back in 2011/2012, when I was digging into LRH’s war record. I was trying to get some documentation that Jon mentioned in his book, and he brought Gerry Armstrong into the conversation.
Now mind you, I had just said I had left the CoS and was trying to get to the truth of LRH’s war record. I remained cordial, but the moment that I didn’t walk in lock-step with their “L. Ron Hubbard was the devil incarnate thinking”, they instantly went into thought-stopping mode. And refused further communication since. I guess I was their SP that they were disconnecting from.
The perfect mind trap — just on the opposite end of the love-hate L. Ron Hubbard spectrum.
Absolutely Margaret! One thing you have done with your blog (http://scientologymyths.com/hubbardww2.htm) is to point out that at least one of the datums that was used to discredit LRH, namely his war record, written by one and more of those pendulum swingers, was untrue, written with bias against the man. You deserve a Kha Khan for clearing that up:) Now if only the church took note of it, the site would clear that period of LRHs life for them also:)
@Philip — I was recently speaking with a Franciscan monk — the spiritual advisor of a dear friend of mine. I mentioned my 20 years in Scientology, my few years studying Carlos Castaneda and my 8 very dedicated years studying Tibetan Buddhism.
Another Catholic priest, a Dominican, was somewhat negative about buddhism (I didn’t even mention scientology — he would have fainted, I’m afraid 🙂 —
In any case the Franciscan monk said to me :
LEVERAGE everything you’ve ever learned.
I thought that was rather profound — and in essence eliminates ANY idea that ANY part of a life is wasted.
Nothing is wasted in ones life … even if everything one followed turns out to be false
IMHO
Such a huge pile of negative, without a single positive. What is it YOU adopt as your philosophy, Phillip?
There is a world of difference between pointing to alleged mistakes, and coming up with the correct solutions, then implementing those. A mousetrap is a good solution if you have mice eating your supplies and crapping in your kitchen, but not such a good solution if you have cockroaches.
One can’t very well pin the deaths of WW I on the men who discovered how to make steel, and one can’t pin the dismal errors of Obamacare on the theoreticians of Democracy in the times of Ancient Greece – or on the Founding Fathers, or on President Reagan, or on President Clinton – or on the initiators of capitalism and free market theoreticians.
Times change, players change, and LRH has not been around to change policies as needed for decades now. Apple ran into some difficult times, when new management took over. Steve Jobs returned to put it back on track, but you can’t blame him for the disaster the new management made.
Carcha
Phillip, the important thing is to look at all data, not just the ones that fit ones own made up mind. The truth presents itself in layers and facets, it is not a simple black and white thing. As somebody in the church will not believe that LRH was grossly misrepresenting the facts on how much money he took from the church, so some LRH haters will deny he did ever anything good. Both are equally half blind.
And with a character like LRH, where good and bad were present in such extreme opposites it is really hard to reconcile that in ones mind into a single person. So I guess polarization is to be expected on this topic.
Just refrain from judging others as having wasted half their life. That just shows you are yourself half blind and somewhat judgmental.
+1
Nice rant Philip! There is a datum in Scientology that to get an as isness, that is to get a disappearance and relief from something, you have to view it as it actually is, the truth of it, actual time place form and event. If you dont do that you are stuck with it man, really stuck. Welcome to Ron, he is going to be there for a while for you!
@Philip Arlington: You can’t generalize about what you think people did or did not get out of Scientology, and you can not invalidate the workability of the training or auditing unless you have truly studied it, audited people, and received auditing. I have gotten HUGE gains from auditing and from auditing others. What is your experience with this organization or the books of LRH?
I don’t think LRH was always right, there are many things that he did that I do not admire, and I do not like the way the organization is constructed. That being said, he didn’t just copy what others have done. He uncovered some things that others simply did not see and created a way to help human beings out of their problems. One can achieve greater spiritual awareness with Scientology if one desires. It takes training and application of the text to do so.
Mike – As a long-time Scientology watcher who was shocked — SHOCKED! — when you blew and couldn’t wait for you to re-surface…thanks so much for explaining your current mindset. All the best to you and your family.
Mike, I could not agree with your statement more. Very well and succinctly stated (even though, yes, it is a complex subject to comment on).
By the way, and I’ve noted this before, in regards to Ron being an original thinker. I challenge ANYONE to come up with a previous model for auditing processes and procedure (including code AND the requirement of end phenomena for every process run). The package of auditing processes and how they are done is a wholly original and quite brilliant thing put together by L. Ron Hubbard.
When LRH did borrow an earlier idea, I actually think he had a way of expressing these ideas in a very “digestable” and interesting way. Frankly when looking at a few of the books Marty suggested (which DO seem valuable and thought provoking I’ll note) I found myself in a convoluted explanation of ideas, where LRH could get to the heart of the meaning of life, as he saw it of course, in a way that made sense to me in a very BASIC way that really “spoke” to me.
His personal flaws and how they affected the running of and the eventual fate of the CoS is a subject in itself. But many of his basic observations and conclusions about life positively affect my life every day.
I want to add too that I spent over 35 years working in Scientology (gave up college and plans for a “wog” profession, money, yadda yadda yadda) and do not feel I wasted my time at all. I don’t regret what I did. I generally had a hella good time, made many friends, grew as a being, and made lasting case gain (though I did .somehow morph into an SP over time – ha). Do I feel at all betrayed or lied to by Ron and CoS management? Yeah, a bit. Such is life. Very little works out perfectly. But I keep aiming to be more and more cause point over my past, present and future and motivate as little as possible (no absolutes yet – ha).
This is a terrific discussion, and I commend Mike Rinder for posting both the letter critical of LRH and his own reply. Very healthy dialog! (Note: only one exclamation point.) For those of us never in and observing from the sidelines, the whole issue of indies grappling with the legacy of LRH is truly fascinating. To jump in on that, and with respect, a question: It is not difficult for someone like myself who has never experienced Scientology to understand that for those who have the wins are very real. I can certainly understand how working through your problems through auditing, for example, can be beneficial. I’ve never experienced auditing, but I can see how it is probably beneficial in a way comparable to, say, working with a good therapist, or addressing a problem in a 12 Step group. So I get that. What is very hard to understand, and what seems to be so central to LRH’s philosophy, is the subjects of body thetans, Xenu, all the space opera stuff, etc. On the one hand there’s all these understandable ideas and methods of improving one’s ability to communicate, to understand one’s problems and how to work them out – but on the other hand there’s all this…well, other stuff. And it seems like the other stuff is not just window dressing, it’s very central to the entire subject – and very expensive for Scientologists to deal with. Setting aside the comparisons to other religions (yes, to a non-believer a man walking on water or a burning bush that didn’t burn are equally as strange – but….the sticking point here is that no one has to pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn about the man who walked on water or the burning bush that didn’t burn), how does the indie Scientologist view this side of the philosophy?
Asked with genuine curiosity, and great respect for all of you who are working so hard to bring an end to the incredible abuse of the Church of Scientology. Forgive me if I’ve offended in any way, but it’s so hard to understand. Thank you!
jpb: Thanks for your considerate comment (and to the others who have similarly commented).
I think the answer to your question varies with each individual. The views of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard run the gamut from those who believe every word he ever uttered and thus every word of Scientology and every word about his own life to be infallilble truths to the other end of the spectrum of those who believe that everything he ever said was a cynical lie and therefore everything about Scientology and his life is a fraud. Either end of the spectrum is indefensible and fundamentalist.
Most people lie somewhere in between.
What any “independent Scientologist” believes about the lower grades and OT levels is usually dependant upon their experiences. And those are different from individual to individual. While the lower levels are relatively easy for anyone to understand and thus there is not a lot of controversy, it’s the “space opera” stuff that is difficult to come to grips with. Is it true or not? I don’t think the only answer to this is subjective. Is it “true for you.” This is a really complicated issue to try to respond to. Does it matter what I believe? Really only to me. Does it matter whether a Christian believes the story of Creation or Noah and the Ark or Jesus rising from the dead? ONLY if that belief engenders actions which are harmful.
To my mind, the central philosophy of Scientology is NOT OT III. The central philosophy of Scientology is contained in the Factors and Axioms. And many of the fundamentals of the subject — ARC, Communication Formula, thetan/mind/body etc etc.
I know this is a somewhat “airy-fairy” response. And to a fundamentalist Scientologist it is heresy because they assert so strongly there is “no belief” in Scientology. But I do not think that is true. I think there is a LOT of belief involved in Scientology, especially at the “higher levels”. But who can say whether belief is right or wrong? And whether it helps someone or not? ONLY the individual. Does it help people to believe in Jesus Christ and that he was the son of God living on earth and sacrificed himself for the sins of man and then rose from the dead — yes, I think it does. Is that provable? Of course not? Does it make analytical sense? Of course not. Does it matter? Maybe to some who are seeking to analyze the phenomena, but it certainly doesnt matter to the believers.
justpassingby: I guess to the outside observer the idea that you have to pay so much money in order to get to the matters of belief revealed in the upper levels is where the eyebrows start getting raised.
First, I don’t want to make any excuse for the ridiculous amounts the Co$ charges for the OT levels, general auditing, etc. It’s undeniably ludicrous.
But Mike’s point about the “other stuff” not being central to Scientology is very true. And you should also be aware, jpb, that past life recollections and ideas of other civilizations on long-gone planets from millions of years ago have been publicly available in the CoS for the price of a book and/or lecture, since the early 1950s. Some critics and media have made the argument that “you don’t hear about any of the wild stuff until the OT levels”, and it’s basically a falsehood.
Also, the public description that Hubbard gave about OT III in the lecture RJ67 (from 1967) having to do with a “Galactic Federation” from “75 million years ago” leaves no doubt in Scientologists’ mind, that when they go onto OT III that they will be presented with Hubbard’s views and recollections on these supposed events.
But another core theme of Scientology is this: don’t believe it, if you don’t believe it.
“You are asked to examine the subject of Scientology on a critical basis—a very critical basis. — L. Ron Hubbard (“How to Study Scientology”, 1959).
and
“Nothing in Scientology is true for you unless you have observed it and it is true according to your observation. That is all. — L. Ron Hubbard (“Personal Integrity”, 1965).
So guess what? You’re practicing standard Scientology when you disagree with it and holding true to what’s real to you (and what’s not).
Not that today’s Co$ allows for this or even comes close to exemplifying that philosophy, but if you want to understand why indies remain interested in the subject of Scientology long after they’ve left the building, that’s the reason.
” I challenge ANYONE to come up with a previous model for auditing processes and procedure (including code AND the requirement of end phenomena for every process run).”
Dr. Zachary Smith came up with some very similar things.
Mike Rinder:
Not “airy – fairy”, but very cogent and thoughtful. Thank you for taking the time. I see your point certainly about the difference between the concepts of ARC etc and their practical workability vs. the matters found in all the “space opera” stuff – the latter being a matter of personal, subjective belief. I guess to the outside observer the idea that you have to pay so much money in order to get to the matters of belief revealed in the upper levels is where the eyebrows start getting raised. I thank you again for taking the time to respond with detail and honesty, and please add me to the growing list of observers who would love to read a book by you on your incredible journey! Keep up the great work.
Thank you Tony for that memorable ‘Dueling Banjos’. It’s always wonderful to hear people who enjoy playing their instruments
Yeah, that banjo sounds sweet.
I loved it too. That was the redeeming part of that movie.
Captain Miscavige, Due to your ethics situation in the state of Texas, you are not eligible for bonuses. The MAA has confiscated all of the Scotch from your living quarters and given you two weeks to get up to and out of a Condition of Liability. You have been ordered by your superiors in Texas answer some questions. Just think of it as a Board of Investigation. SEE you in a couple of weeks.
Yes, three feet – he’s been called to a B of I but it may not go to trial. Since Capone’s death, they can’t seem to find enough criminal, blackmailing, kidnapping, racketeering citizens to sit as a jury of His peers.
Mike,
Remember, the ONLY reason ASI or RTC got decent Xmas bonuses while DM was over them was to JUSTIfY DM getting a hefty one. Barbara Griffin so much as told me so in 2009 when some RTC INT people tried to refuse their Xmas bonuses due to feeling undeserving. She mandated that they accept it or else it would make DM’s fat bonus stand out too much.
JB, yes, good add.
oh man. Or maybe it was to help pay for the obligatory gift to COB…
According to Tommy Davis, the former spokesman for the cult, the Pasadena Org was bulit to service the 10,000 members in the San Gabriel Valley. Don’t you just love the way they throw around numbers!
OSD: That’s so cynical, dude! By omitting the TIME aspect in his statement, Tommy Davis spoke sooth: the Pasadena Org *will* service 10,000 people in the San Gabriel Valley…over the next billion years. They’ve now completed .0000000001% of the target!
I stand corrected, POT!
http://youtu.be/1tqxzWdKKu8
Hey, don’t forget about the illustrious “beer and cheese party”. Doesn’t that make up for all of the suffering. That sounds pretty gross actually. Sitting around eating beer and cheese. Maybe they will play “dueling banjos” next.
Omg…the infamous beer & cheese party…horrible memories. There i was, required to be there yet not able to see my own family due to a denied CSW.
That they have them scheduled, doesn’t mean they will start the service…is a ‘hope it happens’ proposition.
Plus is degrading for them to beg money for staff; yes, they have worked in excess, but it doe not warrant the begging attitude.
Or, are they using this ‘pity’ approach just to get more income? Probably, as since when the Devil Moron really cared for any one else (far less staff) except himself?
You can also infer that NO-ONE has started GATII yet. If anyone had, they’d be promoting it to the rooftops. Instead, there are 12 who claim they are getting ready to start.
How long since GAT II was released?
What you said. Sad.
Don’t nag a rise, Mike. If the staff isn’t having to dig into their own pockets to cover the rent, then this is an up statistic for Pasadena.
Rent??? I thought the whales bought the building to avoid having to pay rent.
The Ideal Orgs are purchased by parishioner donations and then the renos are done by parishioner donations and then once they open, the Ideal Org has to pay rent to the Landlord’s office. Can you spell M-A-F-I-A? Criminal Organization = Scientology! The good news is that they won’t remain open once they burn through the reno money that was collected to sustain them for a while to keep the “show on the road”!
Actually, Idle Morgue, I got in on good authority outside the org that the orgs aren’t actually paying rent as they can barely pay their lights and phone bills. Maybe you could ask Mike about this.
I hope you’re being sarcastic here Coop. If not, the drill is the whales donate and they buy the building for cash and then the Int Landlord’s Office rents it back to them. So even though the building is owned outright, the Org has to pay rent for it to the church. DM makes money on the rent and on the appreciation of the real estate and on the selling of it if or when he does sell it. It’s criminal exchange for DM, no question about it. Why the orgs and the whales put up with this BS is beyond me.
I do not believe this is true. I think the only orgs that pay “rent” are those that are repaying IAS for their “generosity” in paying for their building.
If that is the case, Mike, then that is better than what was rumored. Is there a way to get a definitive statement from somewhere as to whether all orgs pay rent or only the ones that the IAS paid for their bldg?
“ExclamationMark Disoeder” – Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
KAWB would probably be thrilled to learn that he’d finally created a disorder that actually made it into the DSM 5….
I remember those staff days…a bonus of $30, enough to get a present for my parents who I rarely ever saw. Sad indeed. Thank God those days are over.
Every year one or two family members used to mail me money for Christmas. I used to save it and buy their presents with it that year or the next year so that they wouldn’t suspect I never had any money/didn’t get paid a hilla beans.
What unmitigated bullshit. Also, I propose she be charged $10 for each gratuitous exclamation point.
Are they actually admitting that only TWELVE people in Pasedena want to remain Scientologists in the GAT II? It’s an Ideal Org and the only one in the area and they can only muster up TWELVE public? :::shakes head:::
Ever sit in a nearly empty movie theater with say, I don’t know, 12 people in it, and you think to yourself “wow, this is one eerily empty movie theater.”
Now imagine an ideal org with a whopping 12 people enrolled in this Golden Age of Tech II nonsense. What an empty, downbeat, depressing building this ideal org must be.
And I love the way they feign excitement. “12 people enrolled!!!”
Puh-leeze.
I wonder if any of the twelve have purchased both of their meters to help out with the Xmas bonuses?
They may not be feigning excitement. 12 people signed up for anything may be an affluence.
Nowadays 12 people signing up for anything IS an affluence for them. The young staff, kids really, don’t have any past history with the org to remember the days when we had hundreds on course, or at least 30 at the smaller orgs.
The eeriest, emptiest movie theater I was ever in was 1/2 a block from the TO Org on opening day for Battlefield Earth. There were eleven people including myself and the wife. The rest were from the Org. They left long before the movie ended.
Lucky bastards.
me thinks it was written “dozen” ,and someone change it to 12…..
so that can be less then 12 also – and that I find more to be truth….
Hopefully the North Korean parallels will stop at execution.
Of course execution isn’t new in North Korea — what is new apparently is the broadly announced FACT that the Leader ordered his uncle – the number #2 man executed.
Since there is NO #2 man or woman in dm’s camp — I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t hear soon enough that he is going to FIRE the lead attorney who has apparently been secretly cavorting with the enemy.
It really really sucks to be david miscavige. With no more enemies, who can he blame on his total failing organizations. It will never be himself – this is obvious.
Oh — I know.
The why IS god — s/he is the next target.
Count on it 🙂
You must be referring to Lou !
I laughed out loud on your line “Oh — I know. The why IS God — s/he is the next target.” What a great post Windhorse.