Scientologists at War

A Roast Beef Productions presentation aired on ITV4 UK tonight.  Don’t know how long it will be up on You Tube (courtesy apparently of WWP) so you may want to watch it soon if you are interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTYuTIIO9_Y&feature=player_embedded

 

A Little Perspective

Excerpted from “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, a 1964 essay by Richard J. Hofstadter:

“The paranoid spokesman, sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization… he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.

“The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman — sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed, he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often, the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional).

“It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is, on many counts, the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations, set up to combat secret organizations, give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist “crusades” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.”

Dichotomies

Some have registered protests in the comments section to my sometimes being cryptic.  In particular, recently some folks thought this origination by me was too mystical to grok:

The solidity of the universe is created by energy of opposite opposing forces. We don’t have to be governed by them. Let’s not. The dichotomies are a bitch – and as long as we fixate on identification (particlarly our own) it becomes a progressively worse bitch.

I was invited to elaborate, or explain myself.

I’ll give it my best shot.

Answer one:

If you listen to Hubbard’s lectures and read the books on the Academy Levels auditor training there is no need for further explanation.

If you read the Scientology OT II materials there is no need for further explanation, except perhaps to help clarify technical mechanics from mythology.

If you read the Tao of Physics there is no need for further explanation.

If you read, and contemplate the Tao Te Ching, there is no need for further explanation.

To those who are not inclined to take me up on the reading recommendations I periodically offer on this blog, here is

Answer two:

The reactivity of humans is largely brought about by their mistaking the physical universe for themselves.   The more one clings to, relies upon, and validates the laws of the physical universe as controlling spirit, the greater the confusion.

The physical universe is made up of ever-changing, exchanging and converting energies.   Those energies consist of attracting and repelling (or positive and negative) forces; sometimes referred to in Scientology as ‘dichotomies’.  Those forces can be affected by spirit.   They can also affect spirit, but only if spirit considers they can.

Perhaps the greatest factor in convincing spirit that it is effect of the physical is its proclivity toward assuming an identity, a physical being.  The more one mocks up the reality of the identity, the deeper he becomes enmeshed into and acts at the effect of the physical universe.

If one really wants to lose sight of his or her own spiritual nature and become thoroughly entrenched into the physical, the most sure-fire method is to act as if one is part of the physical universe.  In other words,  start playing the positive/negative charge game for keeps.  The way to make it more and more solid and irreversible is to get real enamored with one’s identity and start to oppose other identities one considers a threat to that identity.  Mocking up of energy flows between such terminals creates more and more solidity and fixidity.  Before long opposing forces close in on one another so firmly that they become a bigger one, i.e. that which you resist, you become.  More solidity, more fixidity, more mass, more confusion, more force, more violence.  And, though one would not think, less identity, less individuality, less free thought, and more ‘gee, we’re all one homogenous flock of sheep after all.’

If one reads Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, one might see how these factors even prevailed upon a subject that was originally intended to free folk from them.

Cults, Enemies and Shadows

In the early eighties with the figurative barbarians at the gates of his Scientology kingdom  L. Ron Hubbard wrote a dispatch to his personal services organization, Author Services Inc. (ASI), that stated in sum and substance: a man’s worth can be judged by the stature of his enemies.  At the time he was referring to the fact that virtually all major news media, the U.S. Department of Justice (including the FBI), the IRS, and a number of other state, provincial and federal agencies in several countries were in hot pursuit of Ron.

In its context the advice from Ron seemed intended to steady the resolve and nerve of those he had appointed with defending against his formidable enemies.  There is some truth to his little axiom.  Whether it is honorable to have so many law enforcement agencies after you is another question entirely.  Under Ron’s standard, Osama Bin Laden would be more worthy than anyone in recent memory – including Ron himself.

Something I find interesting is the number of people who twenty-seven years after Ron’s death seem to derive their own sense of worth by virtue of obsessively continuing to go after L. Ron Hubbard.  More than a quarter century after Ron’s death it seems that an active cult thrives on the central religious practice of spitting on his grave.

Ironically, the members of the cult regularly, blatantly and shameless exhibit many of the behaviors they so indignantly protest in the cult Ron left behind. They engage in thought-stopping, censorship by censure, judgmentalism, stereotyping, ‘ends justify the mean’s,’ etc.  You name the cult characteristic they accuse Ron of and they have it down in spades themselves. If someone gives Ron the slightest credit for ever having displayed any human tendency that individual is castigated, condemned and shunned violently.  If a member of the anti Ron cult steadfastly pledges allegiance to, and demonstrates it consistently,  condemning everything about Ron or the cult he left behind – or even anyone who credits Ron with any act that cannot be characterized as demonic -, why, that member is honored and can be seen to do no wrong.  Hell, he could figuratively get away with murder.

The central, most unifying unwritten tenet of the anti Ron cult is that solely by virtue of condemning Ron they are somehow victims and have thus demonstrated honorable behavior.  Notwithstanding that while the church of Scientology is renowned for over-aggressive dealings with critics, the most prominent members of the anti-Ron cult have never had a glove laid upon them by Scientology.  Most cult members attempt to position themselves with those who have in fact been dogged by Scientology. However, they have also conveniently  omitted from the hagiographies they have constructed for their heroes that most of the folks they emulate have sold out to Scientology for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.  So, you can add hyporcrisy to the list of cult-like qualities of those obsessing with Ron.

One theme I believe that may have been apparent in Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior is that Ron Hubbard became the effect of factors he could have conquered by application of the very principles he codified.  In particular, Ron’s decision to engage with and destroy his enemies resulted in his unhappy demise.  It stemmed from his violation of the following fundamental Dianetics and Scientology principle which violation mars the cult of his creation to this day: that which one obsessively resists one becomes.  It seems to me that by so aggressively demonizing Hubbard, his enemies have followed suit on that score too.

It makes me think that Ron (and the cult that arose to demonize him and yet wound up mimicking him) should have taken the advice of Lao Tzu to heart when he wrote in the Tao Te Ching that one ought to consider one’s enemy as the shadow he himself casts.

related reading: The Great Middle Path Redux

One Good Reason To Read ‘Scientology Warrior’

Now for one reason you might want to read Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior. Tony Ortega hates the book, characterizing it as a love letter to the cult:  Ortega’s take.

Rattling both ends of the extreme is an indicia of hitting the sweet spot.  Reference:  The Great Middle Path Revisited.

Fear

L. Ron Hubbard once designated the entry level of Scientology as Scientology Zero.  Scientology Zero consisted initially of demonstrating to a person that the environment was not as dangerous as he had been led to believe. It educated a person on the existence of merchants of chaos who traffic in painting a picture of danger so that they can profit by protecting one from that danger.  It is the old organized crime protection racket.

As we have seen over the years Scientology has become that which Scientology Zero warned of.  The church continually plies its public with end-of-world scenarios that can only be handled by contributing more greenbacks to the church.  Some folks on the outside engage in a similar game of designating the church as the enemy that will consume humanity if not combatted continually.

One purpose of this blog from the outset was to demonstrate that the church of Scientology was not something to be feared; that it in fact had simply perfected the protection racket game, giving folk the illusion that it was something to continually fear.

I came across a little something by Bruce Lipton from The Biology of Belief (Hay House, Inc. 2005) that explains why obsessing with fear inhibits growth:

In a response similar to that displayed by cells, humans unavoidably restrict their growth behaviors when they shift into a protective mode.  If you’re running from a mountain lion, it’s not a good idea to expend energy on growth.  In order to survive – that is, escape the lion – you summon all your energy for your fight or flight response.  Redistributing energy reserves to fuel the protection response inevitably results in curtailment of growth…

…Inhibiting growth processes is also debilitating in that growth is a process that not only expends energy but is also required to produce energy. Consequently, a sustained protection response inhibits the creation of life-sustaining energy. The longer you stay in protection, the more you consume your energy reserves, which in turn, compromises your growth.  In fact, you can shut down growth processes so completely that it becomes a truism that you can be ‘scared to death.’ 

Maybe that is a scientific explanation for Lao Tzu’s having wrote the following in the Tao Te Ching:

There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy.  Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.

The Quest: Quixotian or Gandhian?

On his ‘Dean of Technology’ course titled Class VIII, L. Ron Hubbard advises that the ultimate state of consciousness attainable in Scientology (dubbed OT, for Operating Thetan) is simple.  The state is attained when the individual no longer carries any lies with him.  An individual is as OT as he doesn’t walk about with lies.

So it is with Scientology itself.  As a subject it contains a wonderful body of technology for helping to strip a person of the lies through which he filters the universe around him.  The biggest problem with broad dissemination and application of that technology is its self-imposed prohibition on differentiating that technology from the broader body of Scientology work that is chock-full of lies.

Because of the religious cloak with which L. Ron Hubbard chose to enwrap Scientology, the discernment of truth from lies within Scientology is not an easy task.  L. Ron Hubbard wrote a large body of doctrine satanizing anyone who attempts to look at his body of work in a critical fashion.  In fact, the very term ‘criticism’ – at least when directed toward Hubbard or Scientology – has been solidly re-defined in Scientology to be the activity of only sociopaths and criminals.

Thus in 1967 Hubbard published an article in a Scientology journal for all Scientologists to heed and adhere to.  Entitled Critics of Scientology it pronounced the following:

Now, get this as a technical fact, not a hopeful idea.  Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes for which that person could be imprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts…

…If you, the criticized, are savage enough and insistent in your demand for the crime, you’ll get the text, meter or no meter.  Never discuss Scientology with the critic.  Just discuss his or her crimes, known and unknown.  And act completely confident that those crimes exist.  Because they do.

Hubbard issued dozens of pages of directives to his church to investigate  - with the aim of destruction of – critics of Scientology.  When the ‘technical fact’ he preached above proved to be utterly false (as determined by the intelligence agency he created to prove it – called the Guardian’s Office), Hubbard advised the agency to skip the investigations, create and plant and then ‘discover’ and expose the evidence of crime.  He was particularly vicious and ruthless in his directives to destroy those who attempted to clarify, refine, or simplify Scientology technology so as to reach more people effectively.

In a 1955 Professional Auditor’s Bulletin Hubbard directed Scientologists on how to deal with Scientologists not toeing the line with the religious cult of Scientology as follows:

Personally, if I were an auditor and found my area being muddied up to that extent, I would have a definite feeling, if I permitted it to go on, that I was not doing all I could do to spread Scientology in my area.  I would have taken such a screwball out of the running so fast he would have thought he had been hit by a Mack truck, and I don’t mean thought-wise.  But then the difference between me and an apathetic auditor is that I fight, and I get things done.

Hubbard advised that such screwballs be sued in the following manner:

The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.

Hubbard dealt with what he called ‘squirrels’ (defined as those who alter Scientology) in such wise to the very end of his life.  In fact, the last person who served as his own auditor in the late seventies and who was the Hubbard-appointed senior-most Scientology technical  supervisor in the world, one David Mayo, was the final target of such Hubbard scorn.  When Mayo started practicing Scientology outside of the control of the cult in the early nineteen-eighties Hubbard directed that the church ‘squash him like a bug.’  Notwithstanding that Mayo’s essential ‘clarification’ concerning Scientology was that the violent, combative aspects were not true L. Ron Hubbard technology.

It is because of the above that the Office of Special Affairs continues to attempt to destroy my wife and me – and anyone else who does stand for truth when it comes to Scientology.  It is not because David Miscavige tells them to.  It is because they are religiously bound to attempt to destroy us by any means necessary.

The violent, reactive attitude toward ‘squirrels’ is so deeply implanted in Scientologists that even the latest ‘independent Scientology’ movement – which the church of Scientology dubs ‘squirrel’ – facily accuses people attempting to differentiate workable Scientology technology from its ample supply of lies as being ‘gestapo’, ‘war criminals’, and ‘Nazis.’

Ironically, this firmly implanted, combative attitude is one-hundred and eighty degrees, diametrically opposed to the attitudes, states of mind, and states of consciousness that sane, understanding application of Scientology processes are capable of bringing about.

My views and aims have not much changed in the past four years.  In sum, to the extent that that which works in Scientology can be differentiated from that which disables, by – among other things – radicalization, L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas have a future.  To the degree that differentiation process is killed, Hubbard’s ideas die.

I am letting it be known that in spite of the ample back stabbing, cur dog yapping, and undermining and severing of all of our sources of support that we’ve encountered in the past four years, we continue to pursue our course.  Whether the quest turns out to be more Quixotian or more Gandhian will likely be apparent by the end of this year in my estimation.

“Too much sanity may be madness.  And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”  - Dale Wasserman, playwright, attributed to Don Quixote author Miguel Cervantes in the play, The Man From La Mancha

“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Dissociation and Denialism

Disconnection in the church of Scientology is as blatantly applied as ever; even while it is vehemently denied.  It is denialism, and a sort of dissociation, playing out in real time before our eyes.  If you haven’t seen it already, please read this story concerning the great pianist Mario Feninger and the wonderful soul Allen Barton, Mario Feninger Disconnects From Help.  It demonstrates denialism and dissociation in living color.

I have been closely following this matter for some time.  I came very close to initiating fundraising for Mario on this blog.  The only reason I did not was because Mario made it very clear to Allen that he would prefer not to receive the inevitable blowback of being associated with our types.  The story is very competently told by Ortega and it speaks for itself, so I will not focus on the details of Mario’s plight.

Instead, I will focus on the journey of Allen Barton (for related earlier post see,  Beverly Hills Playhouse.)   Look at what his simple act of kindness and care has wrought.   Examine the responses he received – disconnections, while denying ‘disconnection’ is an active policy - from Scientologists.  Consider their ‘rationale.’   Consider the factors that resulted in such obvious denialism.

Is that denialism, and the perpetuation of dissociated behaviors that it justifies, limited solely to the ‘Disconnect Policy’?   Consider that, before you knee-jerk a respone that the immediate impulsive response  itself may in some measure  be influenced by a form of denialism.

Also consider this description of denialism that I once posted on this blog under the title Denialism:

[From] Michael Specter, Denialism, Penguin Books 2009:

We have all been in denial at some point in our lives; faced with truths too painful to accept, rejection often seems the only way to cope. Under those circumstances, facts, no matter how detailed or irrefutable, rarely make a difference.  Denialism is denial writ large — when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie…

…Unless data fits neatly into an already formed theory, a denialist doesn’t really see it as data at all.  That enables him to dismiss even the most compelling evidence as just another point of view.

The Road I Must Travel

L. Ron Hubbard was a great observer and describer of phenomena.  He once noted that the universe abhors a vacuum.   He also noted that when confronted with a vacuum of data, people tend to invent data to fill it.

I have intentionally not shared a lot of personal information over the past several months; and I don’t intend to start regularly doing so in the near future.  However, I have observed that Ron’s description of the information vacuum has apparently created a field day for those intent on reading tea leaves and those who harbor intentions inimical to my own.   And that has apparently upset some folks.  So, I am going to attempt to fill in the vacuum in the hopes it might set some people at ease.

Monique and I worked hard throughout 2011 to create some time for me to write some books that I believe will help Scientologists and former Scientologists heal and move on up a little higher with their lives.   Things did not go as planned.  2012 presented some issues that I thought, right or wrong, deserved my attention.

We wound up spending the bulk of the year assisting with battles (Battle of San Antonio, mop up of Headley affair,  expose of the Pat Broeker affair, etc.).   We with forethought entered them and exited them without a single penny in compensation; not even for the not insubstantial personal costs involved.   Fundraising for them diverted much of our income for the year.  This was the case much to the frustration of Debbie, Wayne, Marc, Claire, and others who demanded I be compensated.   We did not do so because the road I feel I must travel requires absolute independence of thought and obligation.  The pursuit of truth can, and has through history – including with Scientology- , been compromised by financial considerations.

We decided to move at the end of the year and Monique decided to go back to work in the health care field for two reasons.  First, it was necessary in order to obtain the type of premises that would afford us our life back from an intelligence apparatus the likes of which have been unknown to the world since the infamous East German STASI.  Second, it was necessary to afford me the time and space to get done the books I am in progress on.  Monique knows what I have to say – and what I have been trying to find the time to complete in the full context I have always asserted it deserves in books form.   She felt it so important to be said that she gave up – temporarily – the joy and fulfillment of auditing in order to make it happen.  We also forfeited our only assets, $35,000 in equity from a lease/purchase option, in order to effectuate this change.

Thanks to great research and planning on our part, we are moving forward on our plans while also rebuilding our lives from the intrusion.  It is not that the STASI (OSA, Scientology Inc.’s Office of Special Affairs) has gone away.  It is that they are buffered.   Thanks to the good people in our community, and the rather ethical and uncorrupted law enforcement agencies in our vicinity, we know more about their rather extensive and expensive surveillance operation than it can divine about us.   Their absurd black PR campaign being run directly at virtually everyone we have known or met (including everyone who has visited us and all of Monique’s family) is indication of the level of frustration of not having 24/7 access to our every movement.  It also doesn’t hurt having Sugar Ray Jeffrey as a neighbor and friend – the only man in history who has kicked Scientology Inc.’s ass two times in one year and who is fully motivated and prepared to do so again if they get too adventrous.

As far as what I have to say in my books, I am previewing some of it on the blog of late – but those are simply snippets.   I will say the following.   I believe I will demonstrate that perhaps the most powerfully destructive fault with Scientology is its promise and authoritative insistence that only it, to the explicit and must-be-agreed-upon exclusion of examination of any other data or technology, with scientific precision delivers ultimate truth.   Understanding that, in my view, opens one to potential heights that Scientologists wind up insisting they have achieved, but in reality are not even aware of.

Where ultimately does that go?   I don’t purport to know.  I do believe, though, that the moment one is certain he has arrived, he in fact has died spiritually.

To borrow a line from Tom Morello, ‘the road I must travel, its end I cannot see.’

Colbert Report on Scientology

Like it or not, justified or not, the following segment on the popular Colbert Report (see both segments, second the interview with Lawrence Wright) pretty well sums up the public image of Scientology.  Not the church of Scientology in the eyes of the world at large, but Scientology.   A whacky religious cult with bizarre beliefs, violent practices and a threatening way of dealing with criticism.

The Colbert Report on Scientology

Do you believe this public image can change?   How?  How long will it take to change significantly?