Scientology's Turning Point

Something has happened in the Church of Scientology that is quite significant. It has taken several years, but the change is now complete.

It hasn't been acknowledged, or even mentioned within Scientology, but the change is radical and comprehensive.

It first became obvious when David Miscavige created and released his so-called "Golden Age of Tech". With this release, Miscavige completely changed L. Ron Hubbard's training methods, courses and checksheets.

One very key element of this change was Miscavige's declaration that everyone's training had been "horribly flawed", even including those trained directly by L. Ron Hubbard.

This is very important. With this release, Miscavige was saying, in no uncertain terms, that Hubbard was wrong, Hubbard had goofed, and that he, Miscavige, had fixed Hubbard's mistakes.

Lest anyone think that Hubbard thought his training might need improvement, here is what Hubbard said about his training.

With what we know now, there is no student we enroll who cannot be properly trained.

L. Ron Hubbard, Keeping Scientology Working Series 1

But what Miscavige says about Hubbard's training is quite different. It was flawed, it was wrong, it didn't work. People who had been trained using Hubbard's methods were improperly trained. And he, Miscavige, the "Savior of Scientology", fixed it.

And only a very, very few Scientologists objected. Of course, any that did object were quickly expelled. They were supporting Hubbard, and that had now become a crime in Miscavige's new Church of Scientology.

Hubbard explicitly said in Keeping Scientology Working that his technology must never be altered by anyone. His instructions, in Keeping Scientology Working, are that every Scientologist must work hard to keep the technology exactly as it was written by Hubbard.

But Scientologists, in the main, didn't do that. The vast majority of Scientologists just let Miscavige make all his changes. They even applauded.

This event was the watershed event for Scientology.

The silence of all the remaining Scientologists gave David Miscavige a blank check to do anything he wanted to with the technology, the administration, with anything in Scientology.

And, believe me, that's exactly what he's done. From that moment on, he knew then that no one would object, no matter what he did.

With Miscavige's next major alteration, his so-called "Golden Age of Knowledge", Miscavige savagely edited Ron's lectures, cutting and splicing to "fix" them. He even had a voice actor who could imitate LRH's voice fill in the words "Hubbard should have said". It was open season on Hubbard's technology.

In all his announcements and releases, Miscavige keeps promoting this concept: Hubbard's training was flawed. Hubbard's lectures were wrong. Hubbard was stupid. Hubbard needs correction -- and Miscavige is the "Savior of Scientology" who is "fixing Hubbard's terrible mistakes".

And, with each step down this road, Scientologists applaud.

Not long ago, David Miscavige issued a commandment from his office: From now on, Miscavige's orders were senior to anything written by Hubbard. No one at International Management objected. This is now the law in Scientology. Most Scientologists don't know this, but if they did, would they object? Or would they applaud?

More recently, with the release of "The Basics" Miscavige has made his message clearer than ever. With "The Basics" Miscavige made significant alterations to Hubbard's books. With these alterations, Miscavige's message is unequivocal: Hubbard was too stupid to see these "major mistakes" in his own books, year after year, reprint after reprint, revision after revision, for over thirty years.

And when Scientologists burned their old LRH-written books, and bought the "new improved" Miscavige books, they were implicitly agreeing: Ron was stupid and Miscavige, the "Savior of Scientology", had "fixed" Ron's work.

Again, most Scientologists applauded. While Scientologists today might not explicitly say the words "Hubbard was stupid and careless", they are agreeing with Miscavige, they are abandoning Hubbard's tech and embracing Miscavige's tech. Hubbard was stupid and Miscavige is smart. Hubbard was flawed and Miscavige will fix everything.

Miscavige didn't get his authority to rewrite Scientology from his accomplishments, which are truly horrible, he got his authority simply because Scientologists didn't object. Scientologists let him do it. Scientologists applauded!

Miscavige has almost no tech training. He studied at Saint Hill but did not complete the Briefing Course. Miscavige has virtually no admin training, none. Miscavige can't audit -- he was stuck on OT VII for many, many years and simply gave up. He has no qualifications for doing anything with Scientology tech. Yet, he continues to make massive changes -- and Scientologists continue to applaud.

Step by step, change by change, Miscavige is erasing Hubbard from Scientology and is creating his own version of the church.

Now, one might argue that his extensive alterations to Scientology might be justified if things got better as a result, but that is definitely not the case. After Miscavige's training "improvements", the number of auditors, and the quality of auditing, deteriorated drastically. Under Miscavige's leadership, the Church of Scientology is collapsing. Under Miscavige's technical "guidance", most Scientologists' progress has slowed, stopped, or even gone backwards while they retread, retrain, and repeat endlessly. Under Miscavige's direction, the Church of Scientology has become a dark organization, full of threats, intense pressure, grinding guilt and frequent abuses.

With their silence, their applause, their purchases, Scientologists have agreed and supported Miscavige's elimination and defamation of Hubbard and Miscavige's extensive revision of Scientology.

The turning point has been passed. Scientologists let it happen. It would be cruel to say that they now have the church they deserve -- but it would be the unfortunate truth.
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