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Sunday, September 7, 2008

Hubbard, Miscavige and "Power"

One of David Miscavige's favorite pieces of Hubbard writing is "The Responsibilities of Leaders," which was a critique by L. Ron Hubbard of a book The Four Seasons of Manuela. A Biography. The Love Story of Manuela Sàenz and Simòn Bolivar written in 1952 by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen.

Simòn Bolivar, of course, was the great South American revolutionary leader, and Manuela Sàenz was his mistress and confidant.

Hubbard wrote his critique of von Hagen's book as an official church policy letter dated 12 February 1967.

Miscavige is so enamored with this policy letter, that he had copies of Hubbard's letter made for all of his celebrity friends one year as gifts, and in 2003 he had copies of the von Hagen book made for his celebrity friends, including Tom Cruise.

Hubbard's analysis of this book says more about Hubbard's own personality than about Simòn Bolivar or Manuela Sàenz.

His main critique of Bolivar and Sàenz was that they were not ruthless enough - they were "too idealistic."

Listen to some of his criticisms of Manuela Sàenz:
"...she never collected or forged or stole any documents to bring down enemies..."

"...she never used a penny to buy a quick knife..."

"She never handed over any daughter of a family clamoring against her to Negro troops and then said, 'Which oververbal family is next?'"
Presumably Hubbard would have done these things to maintain power - forgery, theft, murder, rape.

He concludes:
"Life bleeds. It suffers. It hungers. And it has to have the right to shoot its enemies until such time as comes a golden age."
Yep, you read that right - "the right to shoot its enemies."

He also states,
"...the foremost law, if one's ambition is to win, is of course to win."
That's right, the foremost law. So things like murder, robbery and forgery are above normal law because that it what is needed to "win."

There's more.

Hubbard lays out his seven principles of power. These are chilling. Some excerpts:
"When you move off a point of power, pay all your obligations on the nail, empower all your friends completely and move off with your pockets full of artillery, potential blackmail on every erstwhile rival, unlimited funds in your private account and the addresses of experienced assassins and go live in Bulgravia and bribe the police."
And here's how to be a good subordinate and support a power:
"He doesn't have to know all the bad news and if he's a power really, he won't ask all the time, 'What are all those dead bodies doing at the door?' And if you are clever, you never let it be thought HE killed them - that weakens you and also hurts the power source. 'Well, boss, about all those dead bodies, nobody at all will suppose you did it. She over there, those pink legs sticking out, didn't like me.'"
And:
"...always push power in the direction of anyone on whose power you depend. It may be more money for the power or more ease or a snarling defense of the power to a critic or even the dull thud of one of his enemies in the dark or the glorious blaze of the whole enemy camp as a birthday surprise."
That's how you're supposed to support a senior - get him more and more money and kill his enemies.

This is what Scientology executives are trained on. This is what Scientologists are trained on. This is what celebrities are trained on. Anything is OK as long as it "pushes power to power" and the foremost law is to win. And if you are serious about winning, anything goes - theft, blackmail, bribery, forgery, rape, and murder.

Scientologists will justify this - as I did when I was in. "Oh, he's just speaking metaphorically" and so on. To them, I say, read it again. This is Hubbard's view of power. This is Miscavige's idea of power. It is the way the Church of Scientology operates! Not metaphorically - but actually.

Someday they will try to remove all copies of this document from circulation and say Hubbard never wrote it, but for now they are arrogant enough to publish it broadly.

Scientologists are not only obsessed with power, they are indoctrinated into Hubbard's view of power - the ruthless use of any means to achieve one's goal.
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9 comments:

  1. I have witnessed things that corroborate with what you are saying, but never associated it all with that Bolivar policy. I have seen DM strike someone who was not getting something accomplished within a deadline. I have seen someone who had fallen in DM's disfavor physically attacked by other Sea Org members who priorly were the man's friend. They HAD to do it or they would have been viewed as enemies too! A young woman at Golden Era Studios was ordered by DM to run over Marc Yager in a car, who only escaped death or permanent injuries by jumping out of the way and breaking his foot! Was that order supposed to be metaphorical? I don't think so. Thanks for connecting the dots for me. Makes total sense now. Duh!

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  2. Do you happen to know the specific policy number for this bit of volence inspiring insanity?

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  3. Hubbard's policy letters are referenced by date. The policy letter is simply HCO Policy Letter 12 Februare 1967 "The Responsibility of Leaders".

    If several policy letters were issued on the same day, the first would be "Issue I", the second "Issue II" and so forth. However, there was only one issue that day so there is no additional identification needed.

    Truly, this is an insight into the dark insanity of Hubbard's ideas on "power".

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  4. Well done Bill. Thanks for giving the policy reference too. When we quote it's best we have it's source at hand as you can appreciate.

    Did you see Graham Berry's speech from Hamburg recently? He said some strongs things in public which we can bet he will back up with the necessary evidence. If I was Miscavige I'd be emptying the coffers in preparation for a speedy escape.

    General Public AYS

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  5. Thanks! I was just the editor for a guest writer on this one.

    I did see Graham Berry's speech from Hamburg. That is one of the most hard-hitting and eye-opening speeches I have ever heard on the subject.

    Presenting all those facts together, as Graham Berry did, makes it so clear exactly what kind of an organization the Church of Scientology is. Chilling!

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  6. This PL is basically the excuse for virtually every policy violation I've ever witnessed. It's the giant trump card that's routinely abused and overplayed, and, the few things that Fair Game doesn't justify, this one does.

    (Note that if it were the right thing to do, it wouldn't need justification, would it?)

    What's really funny -- I don't mean amusing -- is when executives think that, by virtue of being in a position on an org board, that somehow makes them a "power", and that the rest of us need to toe the line and "flow power" to them, or to higher organizations -- as if my mission's stats in any way depended on something or someone at SMI. SMI never does anything for missions but collect the royalties er taxes er tithes and send boxes of useless promotional pieces or the occasional useless mission which consists of folks who are either trying to steal away the productive staff (completely against policy but justified as "flowing power to Sea Org") or make a showing to remind everyone that SMI is watching.

    What Hubbard said actually has some basis in truth -- if you want to be a ruthless dictator, hell-bent on winning at any cost. I don't think that's what many people got into Scientology for in the first place, however, and it's exceedingly difficult to reconcile the basic desire to help with what has become the willingness to help you even if it means destroying you.

    I'm pretty sure that's psychotic. Welcome to Scientology!

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  7. Maybe I don't want to give too much identifying information about myself to tell you this, but a few years ago I took a course at Celebrity Centre that included this policy letter. One of our fellow students was a major movie star, and one evening she called the supervisor over and pointed to this PL and specifically asked about a passage that (if memory serves) read that you could intimidate your enemies by threatening to have their daughters raped by black men (is that really in there or is my memory playing tricks on me?) And the Hollywood star, God bless her, uttered these words: "On what planet is this OK?" Of course, I'd thought the same thing but didn't say it. What would have been the point?

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  8. Hey, would you happen to have a link to the actual writing in question? I've been instructed to be real suspect about anything consisting of out of context quotes coupled with someone else's interpretations. Having the actual text available would really help clarify a few things. I am trying to write a report for my employer. Thanks!

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  9. Re: Hubbard's "The Responsibility of Leaders"

    As this is copyrighted to the Church of Scientology, it may be hard to find on the Internet. It is quoted quite a bit but I haven't seen a full copy.

    If you can find a copy of the book Introduction to Scientology Ethics somewhere, the article is in there.

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