Laughing at Scientology

We really have entered into a new stage in the fight against the Church of Scientology's crimes, abuse and fraud.

For the most part, previous exposure of the church's evil has been brought about by outsiders -- ex-Scientologists, reporters, critics and various victims.  Marty and the Independents have been exposing carefully selected abuses (making sure that nothing is exposed that might reflect badly on L. Ron Hubbard himself) but they are, by their own statements, outsiders to the church.

With Debbie Cook's email and subsequent reactions, we have exposure of abuses coming from inside the church.  The battle is now also between the Church of Scientology leadership and people who still consider themselves members of the church.

In addition, there are, today, a number of other very serious actions going on.  There are serious books about Scientology, serious newspaper, TV and magazine exposés about Scientology and other serious court cases involving the church.

All this is good and necessary to the exposure of the Church of Scientology's crimes and eventual bringing to justice of David Miscavige and other Scientology criminals.  Pop the popcorn and pull up a chair, this show is getting very interesting.

But I don't think we should take any particular event too seriously.  No one court case is that important.  Inevitably, the church will still win some while it loses others.  It will be the mass of exposure and court losses for the church that count.  Bit by bit the crimes and abuses are being exposed and documented.  Things proven in court cannot be "unproven".

However, speaking of all this serious business reminds me: Let us not forget what was key in helping destroy the myth of the "great and powerful" Church of Scientology -- laughter!

It was, more than anything else, Anonymous and their monthly protest-parties that destroyed the Church of Scientology's mythical shield that protected them for so long.  It was Anonymous that showed us that the church had no answer to laughter, happiness and fun.

Certainly, the seriousness is important in the court and in well-researched book, newspaper or TV exposés -- but if we become too serious, we will have abandoned our best weapon against the Church of Scientology and David Miscavige.

Happily, the irrepressible Tony Ortega at the Village Voice and a few others continue the tradition of laughing at Miscavige, Hubbard and the Church of Scientology.  And, yes, some Anonymous are still protesting.  With all this seriousness going on, we shouldn't forget to also keep laughing -- it's good for the soul and bad for the church.
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Scientology's Peril Sensitive Sunglasses

He... put on the sunglasses, annoyed to discover that the metal object had scratched one of the lenses. Nevertheless, he felt much more comfortable with them on. They were a double pair of Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, which had been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude toward danger. At the first hint of trouble they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.

From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. 

I must admit that I am a fan of Douglas Adams.  I find his very quirky British humor refreshing and delightful.  The above is a sample of his type of humor: Sunglasses that "help" you when danger looms by becoming completely opaque.

Ridiculous! Absurd! Hilarious!

Such an object makes no sense and would never exist.

Unless you are a Scientologist.

Danger is certainly looming for all Scientologists.  Every year, every month, heck, every day it seems like, there is more bad news for the Church of Scientology.  Secret documents are leaked; crimes are exposed in detail with lots of confirmation; lies are debunked; abuses documented.  It just doesn't stop.

It used to be somewhat obscure websites only visited by the few.  Today it is major media -- newspapers, magazines, television, radio and books by major publishers.  Scientologists are leaving the church and telling their stories.

It just doesn't stop.  Danger looms from every side.

And this is where Scientology's Peril Sensitive Sunglasses kick in.  You can't see them but every Scientologist has a trusty pair firmly clamped on their faces.  These sunglasses have been installed over many months and years of Scientology indoctrination.

When danger looms and Scientology is in peril, Scientologists' minds go opaque.  They cannot and do not read.  They cannot and do not look.  They cannot and do not think.

Then they are safe.  Totally safe.  They look, childlike, at David Miscavige, who tells them "Everything is OK!  Scientology is expanding!  Scientology is winning!"

And the Scientologists, with their Scientology Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, set to totally black, can relax.

All is OK.
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Happy New Year 2012

It has been a considerable time since I posted any significant article.  It isn't that nothing was going on, obviously, but it was, instead, a combination of too much going on for me personally (good things) and things going incredibly well in exposing the crimes, lies, abuse and fraud of the Church of Scientology.

All I could say was "Well done!"

But, here it is, a new year and I had in mind doing a pretty ordinary look back and then make predictions.  It's fun to do.

But there is a new and significant event that just happened which changed my plans for what would probably have been a predictable and boring article.

I am, of course, referring to the Debbie Cook email.

This is significant.  While it is true that Scientologists "in good standing" have been talking with each other about some of the problems and it is true that prominent Scientologists have spoken out after leaving the church, there has never been a prominent Scientologist speaking out while still, technically, "in good standing".

This email went to a lot of well connected Scientologists who have no reason to doubt that Debbie Cook is still in good standing.

Let's take a look at what Debbie says.  She is not attacking Scientology or Hubbard in any way.  She uses the line "The truth is that as a Scientologist you are more able, more perceptive and have a higher integrity" to appeal to the Scientology ego.  While she names David Miscavige, she doesn't personally attack him (i.e. call him "suppressive").  She quotes Hubbard appropriately to make her points.  While lengthy, her email does not get bogged down in too much detail as so many other "doubt formulas" have.  She has done a good job talking to Scientologists in their terms.

I believe this will be effective.  I'm guessing that speaking freely about everything Debbie has brought up will become common within Scientology.  That is all to the good.

I read a concerned comment by someone to the effect that we don't want Scientologists to rebel and reform Scientology as Debbie urges.  We want, the commenter insists, the church to continue to abuse and defraud Scientologists in order to speed up its collapse.

I'd say that this email will greatly speed up the church's collapse.  First, Debbie urges all Scientologists to stop sending any money to the church except for donations for services -- which monies remain (mostly) local.  This cuts off Miscavige's lucrative income from all his bogus fundraising tricks.

But wait!  By pointing out all the "out-tech" now being enforced by the church, she is discouraging Scientologists from actually taking services.

And, finally, by detailing the total destruction of the upper management of the church, Debbie is making it perfectly "legal" to ignore the dictates coming from "management".

UPDATE: I see some speculation as to why Debbie emphasized that she hasn't spoken to the media and then says "Please keep this email among us, the Scientologists. The media have no place in this" when she must know it would be quickly spread everywhere.

I assume this has to do with her gag agreement with the Church of Scientology when she left the Sea Org.  She is, undoubtedly, forbidden from talking to the media.  By saying what she says, she is abiding by the agreement.  If others ignore her request and spread it about, it's not her fault.

If this doesn't cause a majority of the remaining churchies to disassociate from the Church of Scientology, I'll be very surprised.

They may remain True Believers, and they may then be captured by the Independent Movement, but that group is not organized and is not effective.

And remember this:  True Believers must use Scientology and only Scientology for all their endeavors.  They must use the Admin and Ethics "tech".  The built-in flaws in all of that ensure that any future Scientology organization will not succeed.

This certainly is a good way to start a New Year.
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Predictions 2011

I really should finish up my predictions before January comes to an end.  

What does David Miscavige predict?  Well, several years ago, he promised, to wild applause, that he would "open 70 new Ideal Orgs" that year.  That didn't happen.  It would have required Miscavige to open up "his" church accounts and pay for it -- everyone knows that wouldn't happen.

Last year, as I recall, he promised to open up an Advanced Org/Saint Hill organization on "every continent".  Tumultuous applause.  Didn't happen.  Not even one new AOSH was established.  Again, it's "his" money and he doesn't want to let it go.

For years Miscavige has been promising that this year they will "eradicate psychiatry" from this planet.  And every single year, nothing happens.

And, this year, Miscavige, once again, is promising he will "complete the Super Power building and start delivering Super Power".

So I'll start with the easy predictions:

• Still no 70 Ideal Orgs created,
• Still no new AOSH orgs created on "every continent",
• Still no effect on psychiatry, and
• Still no Super Power.

I found out that the official version of the Super Power building "promise", apparently, is that they will start on the Super Power building this year.  Huh? For some of you, this may seem a bit of a WTF.  What is that big, ugly building across the street from the Fort Harrison if it isn't the Super Power building?

That building is actually known as the "Flag Annex" by insiders.  The Super Power section of the building hasn't been built.  Rumor has it that the design for the Super Power part of the building has been "settled", but I doubt it.

However, the most important part of that huge, ugly building is not the Flag Annex part, nor is it the Super Power part.  No, the most important part of that building is David Miscavige's Office.  This started out as part of one of that building's massive floors, then half, and it now takes up almost an entire floor all by itself.  This is one of the main reasons it has taken so long -- designing the largest, most luxurious, most secure single-person office this world has ever seen takes a long time!  Every few weeks, Miscavige rips up the plans for his office and demands a redesign.

It will never get built.  The Super Power building will never get opened -- not the Flag Annex part, not the Super Power part and definitely not Miscavige's office.

Some more obvious predictions:

• Even more major media exposés of the church's lies, crimes and abuses,
• More Miscavige insanity and abuse,
• More government investigations,
• More Scientologists leaving, and
• More Scientology celebrities leaving.  It will be fun to watch.

Everyone is wondering when certain mega-celebrities will officially leave.  We've seen Tom Cruise emphatically disassociating himself from the Church of Scientology, but when will he repair the damage by publicly quitting?

• Miscavige will continue to personally direct the church's "counter-attacks", which will fail miserably and will, instead, make the Church of Scientology look even worse,
• At which point Miscavige will declare "victory", again.
• David Miscavige will continue to live the lifestyle of a billionaire, while bankrupting and destroying the lives of the very few Scientologists left in the church.

Local churches will continue to close but, of course, secretly.  Miscavige must keep the façade up.  Since Miscavige has already "consolidated" all the orgs that were close to each other, he will have to find more creative ways to hide his org closings.

You might not know this but each Scientology org can be considered to be two orgs.  One, called "Day", operates Monday through Friday during the day.  The other, called "Foundation", operates evenings and weekends.  These two orgs obviously use the same building but operate separately, with separate staff and separate "stats".

I expect many small orgs are already operating in Foundation-only mode.  All they need is one person to cover reception and the book store to give the appearance of still being open during Day hours.  I expect more and more orgs to go into this form of Foundation-only mode.

I also predict that more local orgs will sell their new, empty "Ideal Org" buildings once they realize they can't afford it.  This will always be justified as "it didn't meet our needs", as Portland Org did recently.  I expect orgs to "expand" into cheaper quarters -- while touting that as an "Ideal Org" move.

More and more orgs will have notices taped to their doors about unpaid utilities and unpaid rent but, since no one goes there any more, few will notice.

However, the main drama will center on the Independent Scientology movement. Tons of drama, but nothing much actually happening.  Newly-out Scientologists may land there, temporarily, with more news of abuse and crimes so it's worth monitoring.

As long as the outside Scientology practitioners don't implement the abusive and fraudulent parts of Scientology, and if they can stop lying about their results -- we wish them well.

So those are my predictions for 2011.  The Church of Scientology will continue to collapse.  Miscavige will cover it up, and continue to make his stupid mistakes.

But, for the most part, the collapse of the Church of Scientology will be boring.  Sorry about that.
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Where Are All the Scientologists? Part 4

We are now past the time when estimating the number of Church of Scientology members was even possible.  The reason for this is that the number of church members for a country simply becomes lost in the margin of error of any poll.  The last ARIS survey simply dumped "Scientology" into "Miscellaneous", with numbers too small to note.  Of course, the numbers would be much worse today.

In addition, it looks like the number of people outside of the church, who might still consider themselves a "Scientologist" (and answer a poll that way) is already larger than the number of people in the Church of Scientology.  Unless a poll specifically asked "inside or outside the church," the numbers would be meaningless.

Another problem in determining who really is a member of the Church of Scientology is that most people who no longer want to have anything to do with the church will pretend they still believe -- so they can talk to their friends and family who are church members.

For clarification, here are the different stages most Scientologists go through when waking up and leaving Scientology:

1. Scientologist finally admits that the actions of the church towards himself and others are abusive and wrong.  I say "finally admits" because almost all Scientologists already feel the church's actions are wrong, but they just don't admit it at first.
   This results in the Scientologist withdrawing support from the church while pretending they're still loyal.  This means they might still show up for the major events and may still take a course or buy a book, but that's about it.
2. Next, the Scientologist starts talking with other Scientologists about the problems and abuses they see.  As they learn to trust each other, they share their own stories of abuse and wrongdoing by the church.  At this point they eagerly pass along reports from outside the church, like the ones from Luis Garcia and Geir Isene.
   This results in a fifth column inside of the Church of Scientology.  These Scientologists actually become a conduit from outside Scientology whistle-blowers right into the very heart of the Church of Scientology.  This completely destroys the carefully constructed wall between the church and the real world.  This development is significant.
3. Then these Scientologists start to read the Internet -- the "forbidden" sites!  Initially, this can be very scary, since they have been assured that all sorts of terrible things will happen to them when they read these sites.  But they do and they are shocked and outraged at what they find about David Miscavige, Scientology and their church.
   This is the point where most stop having anything to do with the Church of Scientology.
4. Sooner or later they stop pretending they are still loyal to the Church of Scientology.  From there, they may participate in some independent Scientology group, or may cease to have anything to do with Scientology at all.  The latter is most common.

In the past, we have all wondered how to reach and talk to the very loyal, very dedicated believers at the core of Scientology.  The dogma of Scientology has made them virtually impossible to contact in any practical way.

The Scientologists at stage 2 and 3 are the way this inner core can and has been reached.  Reports from outside whistle-blowers like the reports from Luis Garcia and Geir Isene are written by Scientologists for Scientologists.  They speak the language and they frame the crimes and abuse against the "Ideal Scene" that all Scientologists believe in.  Some of these reports are from well-known and trusted Scientologists.

The previously impermeable bubble that protected members of the Church of Scientology from reality has been torn apart.  The crimes and abuses of David Miscavige and other top Scientologists are now known about and discussed widely within the church.  I'm sure the inner core of the most loyal Scientologists are fervently denying these reports, but they know about them.  This shakes them up.

And here David Miscavige comes to help the inner core make up their minds -- and not in the direction he intends.  He is attacking them.

As more and more Scientologists leave, the few remaining, very loyal Scientologists will come under increasing threats and increasing pressure.  Where there used to be thousands of Scientologists buying books and courses and donating to Miscavige's latest money-making scam, now there are just a few -- and Miscavige expects them to take up the slack -- and his pressure on them is beyond intense.

In addition, because Miscavige has gotten the idea that the truth is getting through to his followers, he is suspicious of every Scientologist and he will demand more Conditions, more Ethics and more Sec Checks.

Get the picture?  The increasing pressure, suspicion, Ethics, greed and threats will now hit at the most loyal, most dedicated Scientologists.  Miscavige can't help it, he must demand more and more money while treating people with more and more suspicion.

And his most loyal, dedicated followers, who have now heard of, and dismissed, stories of crimes and abuse will get the full brunt of Miscavige's greed.  They will get abused.  Criminal acts will occur -- illegal charges on their credit cards, for instance.

That inner, unreachable core of dedicated church members is under attack -- by Miscavige -- and now they will get the truth, whether they want it or not.

We are in the final days, but what is going on will be mostly hidden.  We will only hear about it later.
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Scientology New Years Event 2011

I know I promised some predictions, but this comment was just dropped into one of my Ask a Question threads, and I felt compelled to discuss it, and perhaps generate some fact checking.

We just heard about some of the announcements made at the latest Cof$ New Year's event. Here are some of the highlights:

• The Australian government is now funding WISE courses for anyone who wants to take them in that country.
• Superpower Bldg will be completed and superpower processes will start being delivered this year (2011).
• The statistics at various Ideal Orgs around the world are higher than stats at those orgs for the last ten to fifteen years combined.

I'm particularly interested in the claims about the Australian government funding WISE courses. If this is not an outright lie, there should be some documentation available.

Did anyone on this blog attend the event?

Are there any Aussies here who have info about the WISE courses being funded by the government?

Interesting.  I don't know if this description is accurate or complete, but the claims David Miscavige made are, as usual, hard to believe.  Hopefully more information will be forthcoming.

First, Miscavige claims that the "Australian government" is funding WISE courses.  Would that be the national government, a state government or what?  If true, this would need to be corrected.  Which agency?  Why does that agency think WISE courses have any value at all?  If this is true, the people of Australia need to raise the alarm that:

• A government agency is funding a "technology" that does not work, and may actually cause harm.
• The agency is funding a group that operates as a recruiting front group for the Church of Scientology.
• A significant part of all funds to WISE goes directly to the Church of Scientology.

If true, we thank Miscavige for bringing this transgression to the attention of the Australian people.

As for the second claim, I actually believe that Miscavige will order the completion of the Super Power building.  He has scammed over three times the money needed from Scientologists over the years -- hundreds of millions of dollars.  Money was never the problem.

The problem was that some of the "Super Power Rundowns" are actually impossible to deliver.  Some of the "rundowns" involved equipment and/or procedures that would never be approved by state and city regulators.  Other "rundowns" would be completely unacceptable to the public -- like running around a pole all day, week after week.

This claim by Miscavige that he will start "delivering Super Power" simply means that many of L. Ron Hubbard's original "Super Power Rundowns" have been drastically altered or removed completely, never to be delivered.  I was waiting for this to happen.  Miscavige has no problem altering Hubbard's tech -- and removing large chunks of it.  It was only a matter of time before he realized that was the solution to his Super Power problem -- just alter or delete large parts of it.

The fact that it no longer bears much resemblence to the original Super Power Rundowns by Hubbard won't bother Miscavige at all.

The third claim, that "statistics at various Ideal Orgs around the world are higher than stats at those orgs for the last ten to fifteen years combined" is classic David Miscavige misdirection and half-truths.

Here is the translated version: "Some [very carefully selected and meaningless] statistics at [some carefully selected] Ideal Orgs are higher than stats [not necessarily the same stats] at those orgs for the last ten to fifteen years  [a time period which was selected because those carefully selected stats were lower then] combined.

One of the hardest tasks in all of Miscavige Event preparation is finding some statistic and some time period which could be manipulated, redefined and modified so that the stat looks like it went up.

The truth is that all the other, real statistics from those Ideal Orgs have crashed.  That's why they weren't mentioned.  The truth is that all the Ideal Orgs are struggling and failing, as are all the rest of the orgs.  The truth is that all the Church of Scientology statistics, world wide, have crashed and have stayed crashed.

This is why Miscavige no longer displays his "exploding statistics".

Another Big Bogus Event, now with extra lies!

I appreciate the leaked information from the New Year's Event.  If anyone can provide more information, I'll update this post.
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Happy New Year 2011

I would like to wish all of you a wonderful New Year 2011.  I appreciate all your support and your comments, questions and suggestions.

I would also like to thank all those Scientologists who have argued with me.  I do learn a lot from the arguments.  As my understanding has been changed over the years by some of those who have argued with me, so I hope I have been able to change some of your understanding as well.

As it is traditional at New Years to look back and look forward, I have been thinking about all that has happened in the few years this blog has been in existence.

First, a look back.

Shortly after I started Ask the Scientologist, the infamous Tom Cruise video was leaked in January of 2008.  At that time, no one knew how that would affect Scientology.  It changed everything.

I don't need to rehash that in any detail, but from the efforts of the Church of Scientology to suppress the video came Anonymous' Project Chanology and from that came the collapse of the Church of Scientology.

In light of David Miscavige's recent announcement of his "victory over Anonymous", I want to point out exactly what Anonymous and the Internet did.

Before Anonymous, the Church of Scientology was, essentially, untouchable.  Major media had learned its lesson from Time Magazine -- if you said anything negative about the Church of Scientology, even when completely true and proven in court, it would cost you millions and millions.  No major media would risk that, so the church's crimes, lies, fraud and abuse were universally ignored.

Before Anonymous, critics and whistle-blowers were viciously fair-gamed, attacked, slandered and libelled.  Once again, the Church of Scientology's million-dollar lawyers made it virtually impossible for the whistle-blowers to defend themselves.

Now it is true that the Church of Scientology was shrinking and had been for three decades, but this was primarily because of Miscavige's incompetence, poor leadership and stupidity, not because of any external force.  It was a train wreck in slow motion.

Then came Anonymous.

Turns out it was the perfect way to attack and expose the Church of Scientology's crimes, lies, abuse and fraud.  Every single weapon the church possessed was completely nullified.  The attack had no leaders, no organization, no faces, no names, just information -- pure, verifiable information.

Almost immediately, many more people became involved in this fight.  Suddenly the treasure trove of information collected by critics and whistle-blowers over fifty years, plus tons of new leaks, documents, affidavits, court records, confidential church issues and so much more, exploded over the Internet.  The church's crimes, lies, abuse and fraud were exposed for all to see.  And the Church of Scientology could do nothing to stop it.

The truth has always been Scientology's Achilles heel, and they could do nothing about these leaks and their ineffective attempts to do so just fuelled the flames.

Today, the environment is completely different for the church.  Major media can and does report regularly on the church's crimes, lies, fraud and abuse.  Virtually no one outside of the Church of Scientology has a good opinion of the church.  The information about Scientology that was once so carefully hidden is now available for all to see -- and millions have seen it.

Very notably, in all this media coverage was the incredible exposés of the St. Petersburg Times by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin.  Their series, The Truth Rundown, was incredible -- and they aren't stopping.

And let us not forget Anderson Cooper's series, Scientology: A History of Violence.  David Miscavige's incredibly stupid and incompetent rebuttals were more damaging than anything Anderson revealed.

And there were a lot more major media reports and exposés, all over the world.  No one is afraid of the Church of Scientology any more.

Far from there being any "victory" here for Miscavige, the Internet has defeated the Church of Scientology at every turn.  As the saying goes, the Church of Scientology can't afford any more "victories" like that.

As we come up on the third year anniversary of the protests, we see that, while the protests are often smaller and are no longer appearing at all the smaller orgs, they are still continuing.  This is both impressive and important.  The crimes, lies, abuses and fraud of the Church of Scientology continue to this day.  That must not be forgotten.

This year we also saw the Headley case dismissed.  That was disappointing, but not unexpected.  However, the great part was, after evidence was presented in court, the Church of Scientology had to admit it was all true.  Yes, they do abuse their staff. Yes, they don't give them any time off. Yes, they pay them next to nothing. Yes, they feed staff table-scraps and force them to sleep under their desks. Yes, yes, yes. But, they said, we're allowed to do that, we're a cult!

And the court agreed. Didn't like it but had to agree. Yes, they can abuse their staff.   This is now public record.  This was not the "victory" that the church claimed, was it?

Several new books have come out this year exposing Scientology's evils.  No longer does the church have any power to stop them.  This year we've seen:

• Counterfeit Dreams by Jefferson Hawkins
• Scientology: Abuse at the Top by Amy Scobee
• My Billion Year Contract by Nancy Many
• The Road to Xenu:Life Inside Scientology  by Margery Wakefield
• Understanding Scientology: The Demon Cult by Margery Wakefield

I don't want to neglect the books that came earlier.  In 2009 we saw:

• Blown for Good by Marc Headley
• The Miscavige Legal Statements: A Study in Perjury, Lies and Misdirection by Larry Brennan
• Deceived (One Woman's stand against the Church of Scientology) by Bonnie Woods
• Hollywood, Satanism, Scientology, And Suicide by Jerry Staton

In 2008 we saw:

• The Complex - An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology by John Duignan and Nicola Tallent

The Church of Scientology is powerless to stop anything.  Scientology's mythical power has been exposed as a flimsy paper tiger.

In 2010, Scientologists continued to leave the church, Miscavige continued to make huge mistakes and fail miserably, and the Church of Scientology continued to collapse.  Overall, it was a good year.

Please let me know if I've forgotten any significant events of 2010.

Next: What about the future?
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Scientologists: Can You Remove The "Cult" From Scientology?

Scientologists keep insisting, "Scientology is not a cult!"  OK then, if that is so, then removing all the cult characteristics from Scientology should be quite simple and certainly very desirable.  After all, if you believe Scientology is not a cult, then you, of all people, would want to remove all possible doubt by eradicating as many cult characteristics as you can.

Of course, this couldn't be done by the Church of Scientology.  David Miscavige has pushed the church too far into the cult thing to change now, but one would think that the outside Scientologists would want to avoid any and all aspects of cult behavior.

Unless, of course, you think that these cult attributes of Scientology are vital to its basic functionality.  Do you?

No?  Good.  Let's look at how that could be done.

Most cult experts refer to Robert Lifton's eight criteria as basic indicators of cult behavior. (Robert Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China).

Lifton details the following eight characteristics that typify a destructive group environment:

1. Dictating with whom members can communicate

Boy, Scientology really does this one!  You've got disconnection, "enemies" lists, suppressive declares, "lower conditions", "sources of entheta" and many other ways to interfere with and control Scientologists' communication.  And, yes, this attitude is very much alive in Scientology outside of the church.

Scientology says this kind of super-control is "for your own good".  Oh, really?  In no other endeavor is less information considered good.  The bottom line is that the ostensible leaders of Scientology benefit from this kind of control, not the members.  They don't trust people to get all the information and make up their own minds.  No, they say, you must be "protected" from other viewpoints and other ideas.

No legitimate philosophy, belief or religion requires this kind of super-control.

Get rid of it all: Disconnection, "enemies" lists, suppressive declares, "sources of entheta" and all other methods of restricting and controlling communication.  Scientology is supposed to be all about "communication", so remove all the artificial and cult-like barriers to communication.

2. Convincing members they are a chosen people with a higher purpose.

The Scientology version of this is: Scientologists are Homo Novis, more advanced, superior beings who are the "only ones" who can save the universe from the "dwindling spiral".  Part of the Scientology doctrine is that "Scientologists are better, more ethical, more causative and more intelligent.  They are the top 1% of the top 1%."

While this may make Scientologists feel puffed up with self-importance, the real reason for this message is that it makes it easier for the leaders to keep asking for more commitment, more money and more effort from their followers without having to explain why or account for any funds.  Scientology's professed leaders can suppress any questions or dissent because of this "higher purpose".

In the real world such statements of superiority are seen, quite correctly, as vain and self-serving.  In the real world, the status of being better can only be bestowed by others in acknowledgement of a person's or group's good work or high quality results or products.

You'd best shut up about how "superior" Scientologists are.  That's obvious cult-talk, guys.  It would be an excellent improvement to Scientology's dogma if that disappeared.

3. Creating an us-versus-them mentality, whereby everything in the group is right and everything outside is wrong.

This attitude is embodied in the Great Anti-Scientology Conspiracy created by L. Ron Hubbard.  Such a "conspiracy" doesn't exist.  You are not surrounded and opposed by the "Enemy".  You are not engaged in a "Great Battle".  If you keep thinking like that, you will fail -- as Scientology has for so long.  This "conspiracy" exists only to isolate Scientologists from the real world.  It's a cult thing.

Already I see "Independent Scientology" moving in the direction of more and more us-versus-them, more and more isolation and more and more fear of contact with difficult questions, disagreements and other ideas.

You will never be accepted by society at large if you keep looking at society and non-Scientologists as either the enemy or as too stupid or evil to "see the 'truth' of Scientology."  If you stop fighting your imaginary "enemies", you might just find the world is filled with some very good people doing very good things.

Drop the us-versus-them rhetoric and belief -- it really screams "cult!"

4. Encouraging members to share their innermost secrets and then purge whatever hinders their merging with the group.

In Scientology, whether on course or in session, any Scientologist who "disagrees with Hubbard", "questions Hubbard", "has doubts" or "thinks there is a better way" must be, and is, handled until they give up any disagreements, questions, doubts and such.  Woe betide the student who says, "That doesn't match my experience!"

If the disagreement persists, Scientology's automatic accusation is that it is the Scientologist's "out ethics" (meaning evil acts) that is causing the disagreement.  The Scientologist is required to confess all their transgressions to the "Ethics Officer" or auditor until they abandon their doubts and disagreements and fully agree with Hubbard's words.

The purpose of this is to punish disagreement and doubt.  According to Scientology, the "source" of the disagreement is never Scientology, it is the person's evil intentions.  The purpose of this bit of cult indoctrination is control, not enlightenment.

Why would any legitimate philosophy, belief or religion require such suppression and punishment for disagreement?  This has got to go.

5. Convincing members that their philosophical belief system is "the absolute truth".

While early Hubbard was known to have admitted his mistakes and the imperfections of Scientology, his later pronouncements have led true believers to assign Scientology technology a status of absolute perfection.  They now believe that every single piece of Scientology is perfect, "works 100% of the time" and solves every single problem known to man.

And the many, many times Scientology has failed?  Well Scientology has a built-in excuse for that: "It was misapplied!"

This cult attribute allows Scientology to continue to fail, when it does, while continuing to claim "absolute perfection".  Followers must continue to believe in Scientology's "perfection" or admit to the crime of "misapplying Scientology".  It's a control thing, not an honesty thing.

The Scientology belief system is not perfect.  There are significant flaws.  All you have to do is take an honest, unbiased look.  Honestly review your own experiences and the results of Scientologists in general.

Be honest, admit the failures of Scientology so that any successes might stand a chance of being believed.  Any truth in Scientology, any good results from Scientology, will be proven in the real world, not in rhetoric.

6. Creating an "in" language of buzzwords and group speak which becomes a substitute for critical thinking.

You may have noticed that, from the cult attributes list so far, one of the overreaching themes of cults is isolation.  Scientology's insistence on its own very unique terminology, and its insistence that these strange terms have nothing to do with concepts from other philosophies and religions, works very well to isolate Scientologists' thinking and concepts.

This is not for the benefit of members of Scientology.  In truth, Scientology's terminology does have parallels to concepts from other philosophies and religions.  A minor amount of thought and study proves this to be true.  The more Scientology allows parallels to be drawn and the less Scientology insists on only using its very unique terminology, the better Scientologists will get along with the rest of the world and the better Scientologists will understand universal spiritual concepts.

Scientology must change to take advantage of all the richness there is in the world.  Get rid of this cult isolation technique.

7. Reinterpreting human experience and emotion in terms of the group's doctrine.

Scientology does this in how it describes the mind.  Scientology's "Reactive Mind" is, they say, the cause of all sickness, upset, problems and failures.   Further, all difficulties that a person might have, every single one, has its cause in something Hubbard has described and is solved by something Scientology sells.

If a Scientologist feels good or succeeds at something, it is only "because of Scientology".  If a Scientologist feels bad or fails, it is only because they "misapplied or failed to apply Scientology".

Nothing in this universe exists in isolation.  To believe, as Scientologists now do, that all good things are due exclusively to Scientology, is ludicrous and very, very cult-like.  Likewise, to believe that all bad emotions or failures are due only to a "failure to apply Scientology" is preposterous, extremely simplistic and, again, a cult thing.

What must be ignored by all Scientologists is that many in world outside of Scientology are happy and living quite well without Scientology.  Quite a few are even doing much better than your average Scientologist.

To take all the complexities of life, all the factors, all the conditions and to reduce it down to just one cause and only one solution is neither logical nor sane.  Cults are like that.  Get rid of this cult attribute.

8. Reinforcing the idea that life within the group is good and worthy, and life outside evil and pointless.

Scientology teaches that the only good being done in the world is being done by Scientology.  Scientology teaches that the only worthwhile activities and goals are Scientology's activities and goals.  Scientology teaches that all other solutions in the world are worthless and pointless because Scientology has the solutions to everything.

Scientology teaches that life within Scientology is full of happiness and success, but life outside of Scientology is doomed to failure.

As with most of these attributes of a cult, this is designed to isolate members from the rest of the world.  If the rest of the world is grey, pointless and doomed, why have anything to do with it?

Since the rest of the world is not grey, pointless or doomed, and is, in fact, filled with many good people doing many good things, the only purpose of this cult attribute is to further isolate the Scientologist to make them easier to control.

Get rid of this bit of indoctrination, it doesn't benefit Scientologists, only their purported leaders.

• Summary.

Dear Scientologist, if you are like I was when I was first looking beyond Scientology, you will be shocked and alarmed by the fact that Scientology exhibits all the attributes of a cult.  This cannot be acceptable to you.

This subject is very important to any Scientologist who wants Scientology to go forward into society.  Cults cannot do that.  You may insist that Scientology is not a cult, but unless you remove all the cult attributes from Scientology, it really doesn't matter what you believe.  In the real world, if it talks like a cult, acts like a cult and controls its members like a cult -- it is a cult.

Can you remove the "cult" from Scientology?  In truth, I'm betting Scientologists won't even try, especially those who aspire to leadership in the "new" Scientology.

The benefits of Scientology retaining all its cult characteristics are to the leaders of the cult, not to its members.  When the supposed leaders of "new" Scientology vehemently support the retention of all these cult attributes, be aware of why they do so.
-

Why Doesn't Scientology Publish Good News About Itself?

Here is a question for Church of Scientology members:  Why doesn't the church publish good news about itself?

If you are a True Believer and a member of the Church of Scientology, you will, of course, believe in the Great Anti-Scientology Conspiracy.  And this Conspiracy explains why everyone else doesn't publish good news about the church...

But why doesn't the Church of Scientology publish its own "Good News" for the world to admire?

You go to David Miscavige's Big Events, and you hear about the church's "solutions" around the world, and you hear about the church's "expansion" and you stand and applaud, but none of these things appear outside of the church.  The Big Event DVDs are kept under strict lock and key, and the penalties for leaking any of this information are very severe.  No one but Scientologists must see these events, and even they must not record any part of it or take any notes.

Why is every bit of the Church of Scientology's "good news" secret?  Why doesn't this "news" get released and reported?  Not only do major media not report anything and not only are all other news outlets silent about this "news" but the Church of Scientology itself doesn't even report it via press releases.

Don't you find that quite odd?

We know the Church of Scientology understands press releases because you will see their press releases appear now and then -- but those only contain anecdotal stories about individual Scientologists' personal opinions and personal experiences.

Never news.  Never facts.  (But you are not supposed to notice that.)

And Scientologists need to be asking why.  Why doesn't the church issue press releases about all its "good news"?  If there is all that good news, why doesn't the church tell the world?

The answer is quite obvious and quite simple.  The Chuch of Scientololgy only issues stories about personal opinions and personal experiences because no one can fact-check those.

The church knows, from past experience, that if they publish any of the claims from Miscavige's Big Events, people around the world will fact-check everything, and every single lie the church tells will be exposed.

This is not some idle fear, it has happened time and time again: One of Miscavige's "amazing" claims gets leaked and people around the world visit the locations and contact the people involved -- and inevitably find Miscavige has lied.  Again.

And so, knowing that everything he claims will be fact-checked, David Miscavige keeps his events very secret and the church makes no claims at all in any of their press releases.  They know that nothing they claim will withstand careful investigation.

Everything Miscavige claims is a lie.  The proof is in the Church of Scientology's complete silence.
-

The Church of Scientology Does Nothing

If you are like me, you are pretty bored right now with the Church of Scientology.  They do nothing.

Day after day, month after month, they do nothing.  You might hear fantastic claims being made by David Miscavige in one of his Big Events, about the "world saving solutions" that Scientology is implementing -- to great acclaim -- but that's just empty words, made up stories.  Nothing actually happened.  The church didn't actually do anything.

Here's what happens.  Some Scientologist gets excited, works real hard and "does something".  They might form a small group in their community.  They might discuss Scientology with some minor local government official.

In actual fact, it isn't much, and it never amounts to anything.

But they report it as a "win" to David Miscavige, and that's where things go crazy.  Miscavige gets all excited and dispatches his Gold Film Crew to "document this major breakthrough".

And by "document" Miscavige means, very specifically, "create a huge, exciting story about Scientology expansion and impressive impact on the world" (without any regard to what actually happened).

The Gold Film Crew know that they will be in deep, deep trouble if they report what actually happened -- and I mean RPF-prison-camp trouble.

So when the crew arrives and starts filming, they don't pay much attention to the original Scientologist or what he says.  They create a story that Miscavige wants.

Example:  The Scientologist's small group has, since the report was filed, actually disbanded.  It was only three people anyway and they lost interest.  The Gold Film Crew will gather up people, any people, put them in a room with Scientology books and charts, and film them as if they were the group.

If the story was about Scientology Volunteer Ministers, the Gold Film Crew will put those yellow VM shirts on everyone who tolerates it, pose them as if they were helping people, and film that.

If the story was about some conversation with some minor, local government official, the official will be "promoted" by the film crew to a much more prestigious position, and the story will be created about Scientology being "implemented broadly" throughout the whole country.

And nothing actually happened.  The Church of Scientology did nothing and the individual Scientologist did very little, the effect of which soon disappeared.

All the rest of the big "news" at Miscavige's Big Events is equally bogus.  At every event Miscavige announces the "destruction of psychiatry" or "unprecedented Scientology expansion" or "Scientology's solutions impacting the world"...

And nothing actually happened.  Psychiatry is doing quite well, Scientology's "solutions" aren't implemented anywhere in the real world and Scientology has collapsed and shows no signs of recovery.

David Miscavige, and his little Church of Scientology are boring -- all talk and no do.

The only excitement, and it is minor, is when David Miscavige reacts to a news report about his abuses, or when he reacts to the imagined threat of an "Independent Church of Scientology".  But even then, it's bluster and threat rather than action.

The Church of Scientology does nothing.  That's the news for today.
-

Scientology In Perspective

We're not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn't cute or something to do for lack of something better.

The whole agonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.

This is a deadly serious activity. And if we miss getting out of the trap now, we may never again have another chance.

Remember, this is our first chance to do so in all the endless trillions of years of the past. Don't muff it now...

L. Ron Hubbard

Keeping Scientology Working Series 1

Scientologists live in a mythical world of titanic, universe-wide, trillion year struggles between Ultimate Good and Ultimate Evil.

The above quote from L. Ron Hubbard has been read by every single Scientologist many times.  They believe it with all their hearts.

Today, they are fighting for their very survival and the survival of "every Man, Woman and Child".  I simply cannot exaggerate how very serious and  crucial everything is to a Scientologist.

Every time David Miscavige announces his fictional "Good News", it is a sign that Ultimate Good is winning.  But every protest, every bad news article, every exposé on TV is a sign that Ultimate Evil is winning.

It is all so very, very, very important.  To them.

And sometimes, with all this importance being artificially imprinted on Scientology by Scientologists, it is difficult to keep things in perspective.

Let's look at reality, shall we?

Scientology doesn't exist.  That is the reality in the rest of the world.  Outside of Scientology and its critics, Scientology really doesn't show up on the radar of most people.  A few might know that Scientology has something to do with Tom Cruise, and that's about it.  To most of the world, Scientology simply does not exist.

Scientology's "solutions" have been tried in a very few places, but were found to be expensive and to not work very well.  So these "solutions" have been, or are being, dropped wherever they were tried.  You look for what effect Scientology is having on the world and the answer is: None.  For all their posturing and bragging, their results are nowhere to be found.  It's like they don't exist.

Psychiatrists are not much aware of Scientology.  They know that, for some reason, Scientology attacks them, but, since the effects of those attacks are negligible, it doesn't matter to psychiatrists what they do.

Politicians are finding out that, as celebrities already know, association with the fraudulent, deceitful Church of Scientology is a huge negative to their careers.  The church has no influence there.

And, actually, Scientology is not very important to Scientology's critics either.  Yes, critics care about the victims.  Yes, they want the abuse, lies, fraud and crimes to be stopped.  Yes, they want the destroyed families to be brought back together.  But criticizing and protesting Scientology is what they do with their spare time.  It isn't their life, it isn't their survival, it isn't some "epic battle".

Outside of Scientology's bubble, Scientology just isn't important. 

In this struggle, Scientology is fighting a desperate fight for "the whole agonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman and Child on it," while its critics are happily living their lives and, occasionally, when they have some spare time, criticizing and protesting Scientology.
-

Confidential to David Miscavige

Dear David,

Are you aware that, with all your recent, whiny attacks on Anderson Cooper, Marty Rathbun, Mike Rinder et. al.,  you are revealing the exact truth that you hoped to never disclose?

Anyone reading your bellicose and petulant screeds in your little Freedom Magazine can easily see how completely bogus your attacks are.  But they also realize why you are staging these attacks.

You are deathly afraid.

Any honest person who was the victim of such lies, as you claim to be, would take all the guilty parties to court for libel and slander.  An honest person wouldn't fuss and moan in some little self-published magazine.  An honest person would want their day in court to prove themselves innocent of the charges.

But you don't and you won't.

Obviously, if a person didn't have any money, they might not be able to afford such a court case.  But, that's not your excuse, you have hundreds of millions at your disposal and many lawyers who will do anything you ask.

So that leaves the real reason you won't take your accusers to court for libel and slander:

Everything they say about you is TRUE.

We all know that's the reason you whine and complain but never do anything.  All the stories of your vicious mental and physical abuses are true.  All the charges about your complicity in the many crimes, fraud and human rights violations in the Church of Scientology are completely true.

If you took anyone to court, they would then have the right to subpoena people and documents -- and you know there are people and documents in the Church of Scientology that would prove what a sociopathic criminal you are.

If you took anyone to court, you would be required to testify, under oath.  And you would lie.  You'd have to lie.  And your lies would be proven to be lies and you would go to jail.  You know all this.

And that would destroy your little money-machine called the Church of Scientology.

And that's why you won't take anyone to court.

The fact that you will never take anyone to court is a complete admission that what they say about you is true.

That is what you've revealed by your little hissy-fit in Freedom Magazine.  Gee, that was a big mistake.

But then, big mistakes are one of your defining characteristics.
-

Scientology and Humor

How many Scientologists does it take to change a light bulb?

First, 12 Scientologists have to carefully research all writings and lectures of L. Ron Hubbard to find everything that LRH ever said that, however remotely, might have something to do with light, lightbulbs, repairs, the effect of electricity on thetans, and so forth.

This research will result in several Scientologists being assigned to revise the official L. Ron Hubbard biography to include the newly discovered fact that Ron actually invented lightbulbs (and, it may be hinted, even light itself).

30 Scientologists will then be assigned by David Miscavige to create a "standard" program, with purposes, policies, major targets, etc., etc. They will work for months to try to get the program approved through David Miscavige.  This approval can never happen.

Eventually, Miscavige will, with great drama, declare everyone a Suppressive Person and "do it all himself" (meaning make minor, unnecessary changes to the original program).

150 Scientologists (everyone left at Int. Base) will then work for years on this program, attempting to create and pilot the "Hubbard Standard Tech Lightbulb Changing Course".  The course will include extensive, new Golden Age of Tech drills for changing lightbulbs.

This will never get approved by Miscavige.

Eventually, Miscavige will, with great drama, declare everyone a Suppressive Person, again, and "do it all himself" (meaning make minor unnecessary changes).

1,256 Scientologists (all Scientologists left in Clearwater) will show up at the Big Release Event put on by Miscavige to wildly applaud this new step in "Bringing Scientology Effective Solutions to a Dark and Troubled World".

The new course will be priced at $10,000.00 and will also require the purchase of all Miscavige's newly re-re-revised "Basics" books.

13,126 Scientologists (all remaining Scientologists in the world) will be forced off of whatever they were doing to purchase and take this new course.   Promoted as something that can be done "in a week", the course will actually take over six months.  Only 153 Scientologists will ever actually complete the course.

They will never be able to change a lightbulb again.

I was recently reminded of the fact that all Scientologists, as part of their indoctrination, receive a humorectomy.  Scientology carefully and thoroughly removes all possibility of a sense humor.

While "jokes" might be permitted if the target is a declared Enemy of Scientology, these must be approved by Miscavige and, if approved, are not funny.  Humor, laughter, sarcasm, parody -- these things are not allowed by Scientology dogma and are thoroughly removed through Scientology indoctrination.  Believe it or not, Hubbard actually wrote a Policy Letter forbidding jokes.

This is an effect of Scientology, not just the Church of Scientology.  Scientology, even outside the church, is Serious Business.  No one is laughing.  If you read any of the Independent Scientologists' websites and blogs, you will be overcome with how Serious It All Is.  A criticism isn't just a criticism, it is an attempt by Whole Track Evil to destroy all of Scientology forever.  A bit of a fuss is A Major Battle.  Without humor, every molehill becomes a mountain.

Even some ex-Scientologists do not recover a sense of humor.  They are battling Scientology and the Church of Scientology and they are very, very serious about it.

But then there is Anonymous.  Where Anonymous has been most wonderfully successful is with humor.  They laugh at the church, they laugh at Scientologists, they even laugh at themselves.  They are a lot more sane than any True Believer.

Humor brings perspective and sanity.  It may be Scientologists' lack of humor that is most responsible for Scientology's destruction.  They just don't get the joke.
-

Scientology: Seeds of Its Own Destruction

With any in-depth and dispassionate analysis of Scientology, it becomes obvious that the organization and technologies of Scientology contain the seeds of their own destruction.

This is almost impossible for a True Believer to understand or detect, but it is clear to anyone who can see and think logically.

Now, I have written about some of this, such as Scientology's Admin Tech, which, while some is workable, if applied fully and exactly as written will effectively destroy any organization.  And there is a great essay on why Scientology's Ethics Tech is so destructive over on Leaving Scientology.

But now I'm talking about how the very structure of the Church of Scientology, as carefully designed by L. Ron Hubbard, made the takeover and subsequent destruction of the Church of Scientology not only possible but inevitable.

Let me explain. 

You see, Ron carefully structured the whole organization of the Church of Scientology around himself.  In all the thousands of policies that he wrote over all those years, there is one huge, glaring omission concerning the very top of the church:  The leader of Scientology and his duties, his responsibilities, how he is chosen, how he is removed, how he is evaluated, are all completely undefined.

Because of this, the leader may never be removed.  There simply is no way to remove the leader.  There is no way within the church to evaluate how the leader is doing.  There are no requirements that a leader must meet.  There are no results a leader must produce.  No one in the whole world has the power or authorization to remove the leader of Scientology.  This, of course, was intentional, since Ron had no intention of ever relinquishing control -- but it was a fatal omission for the church.

Some may believe that there are currently "others" who are really in charge and who could remove the leader, but that simply isn't true in the slightest.  The leader of the Church of Scientology has no boss and cannot be removed.    For more information about that, see Larry Brennan's blog.

The leader of Scientology is fully protected from everything.  Any internal threats or attacks are immediately dealt with, per policy, by the destruction and expulsion of the attacker.  The leader is always assumed fully innocent and any attacker is always presumed horribly guilty.  Any external attacks against the leader are, per policy, met with everything the Church of Scientology can throw against the attacker, both legal and illegal.  No expense or effort is spared in the leader's defense.

The leader's word is law within the Church of Scientology and must be complied with immediately and without question.  The leader can order anything be done and it will be done, no matter how much money or how many people are required.  If it is impossible, the church must still keep trying as long as the leader desires it.  The leader's power is absolute within the church.

The actions of the leader are completely protected by the church.  His whereabouts and actions are secret and carefully concealed by the church.  What the leader reveals is all that is visible, all else is hidden behind many curtains of secrecy created for that purpose.  If the leader commits crimes, lies, fraud and abuse, these actions will never be reported to the police (or anyone).  The leader of the Church of Scientology is protected from any exposure.

The leader of the Church of Scientology has absolute control over all of Scientology, all the money, all the property and all the people.  This is much more than just being very, very wealthy, this is total domination.

In case you are thinking this sounds like a super-desirable job, to an honest person, it really isn't.  Obviously it was perfect for Ron, because it was whatever he wanted it to be.  But now, because the job has no defined duties or limits, all the problems, disasters, failures and chaos of Scientology would end up at that desk.  The job is totally responsible for everything, but no clear limit to what the job actually is or is not.  For an honest person, it would be a horrible position, a complete disaster waiting to happen.

So, what kind of a person would want the job?  Not only would want it but would do anything and everything they could to gain that position?  What kind of a person would feed on chaos and disaster?

Yes, the person most likely to want that position would be a psychopath.  They would only see the unlimited power and wealth and care nothing about the responsibilities.  Who cares about responsibilities, problems and failures when you can just lie about everything?

And that is why David Miscavige took control of the Church of Scientology, the position is perfect for a psychopath.  He just had to have it, and he took it.

But the truth is, if Miscavige hadn't been there and hadn't taken over the leadership position, it is inevitable that some other psychopath would have done so.  Such a cruel and destructive person would be in danger of being found out and expelled unless they got to the safety of the top job of the church.  That is why it was inevitable that it would happen.

The seeds of the takeover of the Church of Scientology by the most destructive person is built right into the way the position of the leader was set up.  Once Ron was no longer able to defend his leadership, the church was truly doomed.
-

The Scientology World

Someone, a while ago, asked me to expound on what a "Scientology World" would be like, and the story about Germany would be a good place to start.

In 2008, Germany, after an extensive investigation of the Church of Scientology, declined to ban the group (which is not recognized as a religion) in Germany.  The church likes to tout this as a "win", but it was and is very, very far from the success that Scientology claims.

The German government did find that the Church of Scientology was anti-constitutional.  This is very far from finding the church "innocent".

The German constitution guarantees basic human rights, and the Church of Scientology violates human rights every single day.  The church works very, very hard to suppress free speech and freedom of religion all over the world.  The church does not support a decent wage or adequate time off for its workers.  The church runs secret prison camps where it sends its "dissidents" without due process and without recourse.

While it is true that the human rights record of the Church of Scientology is abysmal, that isn't actually what the problem is in Germany.  The German constitution is quite special.  In addition to many other good features, it also is carefully designed to safeguard the German people from fanatic, totalitarian groups bent on world domination.

And, yes, that is exactly what the Church of Scientology is.

However, the German government declined to ban Scientology.  While the Church of Scientology intends to take over the world, suppress free speech, suppress freedom of religion and suppress basic human rights, it has, so far in Germany, been unable to make much headway in its goals.  Therefore, the German government stated that they will keep monitoring the group because it is a potential threat but declined to ban it at this time.

Not banning the church may seem wrong to some, but it really is correct.  Germany grants freedom of speech even to groups that work to suppress freedom of speech.  Germany grants human rights even to groups that work to suppress human rights.  As unfair as this may seem, it is the decent thing to do.  It would only be if the Church of Scientology became an actual, realistic threat to the German people that the government would be forced to take action.

A Scientology world would be just as Germany found: a threat to all free people, a threat to democracy and the end of human rights.

Let's look at some specifics of Scientology's planned wonderful world, shall we?

Totalitarian

Democracy would end.  There would be no elections.  The general public would have no voice in how, or by whom, they were governed.  According to L. Ron Hubbard, the "ideal government" is a "benevolent monarchy", therefore that's what it would have to be -- and you know the leader, and all people of power, would have to be Scientologists.

You have to understand that "wogs" (meaning all non-Scientologists) are, according to Scientology, "aberrated" (meaning unable to think clearly), and so no wogs would be allowed to have any power or any say in matters of importance.  Only Scientologists would be trusted in this Scientology World.

All the wog laws would be replaced with Scientology policies, because these were written by Hubbard and are the only rules the Scientology World would need.

Scientology "justice"

All wog justice would be replaced by Scientology justice.  Let us review what that means.

• There would be no judges.  The most severe justice action would be the Committee of Evidence.  The Scientologist in charge of that sector would, as "Convening Authority", assign three Scientologists (with no specified qualifications) to sit in judgement.
• There would be no lawyers.  The accused would not be able to bring anyone to advise them, speak for them or defend them.
  
• All rules of evidence would be discarded.  Under Scientology justice, any "evidence" presented has more-or-less equal validity.  Nothing is excluded (as immaterial or prejudicial, for instance) but there would be no particular effort to be complete, or accurate.  In practice, all Scientologists are assumed to be telling the absolute truth (because they were asked to) except for the accused.  However, the "evidence" provided by the Convening Authority, no matter how vague or unproven, is assumed to be true and factual unless disproven.
• The accused would no longer be permitted to confront or even know about his or her accusers.  In fact, in a Committee of Evidence, the accused might not hear, read or see the evidence against him or her and might not even be allowed to attend at all.
  
• While an appeal is "permitted", that means little, since it just involves more of the same.

Yes, justice, as you know it, would cease to exist in this Scientology World.

And there is more.  Assuming that the Scientology world is run exactly like the Church of Scientology, then the leader or any Scientologist in a position of power, would be able to assign people to prison at any time and not necessarily for any specific crimes.  Those assigned to prison would have no appeal, would have no specific sentence duration and could be held in prison forever without recourse.

Scientology prisons would undoubtedly be patterned after the church's RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force) and would carefully treat all prisoners like scum, giving them table scraps, requiring all prisoners to engage in hard labor, and to run everywhere.  Prisoners would not be allowed to communicate to anyone outside of prison at any time for any reason.  And all prisoners would be required to study and practice Scientology every day.

Human rights

Under a Scientology-controlled world, there would be no human rights.  Dissent or, indeed, even the mildest disagreement with Scientology would not be allowed.  Period.  Anyone who persisted in such disagreement would be declared "Suppressive" and would be cast out of society.

Likewise, anyone deemed "low-toned" would also not be tolerated.  Homelessness, joblessness, depression, mental illness, and so on would not be allowed.  If someone persisted in "being low-toned", they also could be "disposed of quietly and without regret".  In Science of Survival, Hubbard spoke of an unnamed "Venezuelan dictator" who got rid of leprosy by the "simple expedient of collecting and destroying all the beggars in Venezuela."  A good example of how this Scientology World would deal with such "low-toned" problems.

Other religions might be tolerated if they supported all the Scientology principles and beliefs -- since, according to Hubbard, all other religions are "false".

The idea of a living wage and decent working conditions would cease to exist.  In the Scientology world, working to further Scientology's goals should be all the reward you need.

Marriage and children might be permitted, but not if one were deemed "low-toned".

Scientology Ideals

Mostly, the Scientology world would be dominated by Scientology's ideals.  No, not the words they mouth, but the "ideals" as shown by their actions today.

The most important Scientology concept is that being "correct" (by Scientology definition) is much more important than truth, facts, evidence, honesty or dignity.  In the Scientology World, you will listen and believe everything that Scientology tells you, and you will close your eyes to the truth you can see.  In this world, you will always bow to their dictates rather than stand by what you know to be right.

The second concept is that approval, authorization, adherence is much, much more important that doing what actually works.  Hubbard has created "solutions" to every single problem that plagues mankind.  None of his solutions have been actually proven to solve anything, but they would be the only allowed solutions.  Any other solutions, no matter how effective, would be outlawed and only the approved, authorized, Hubbard solutions would be permitted.

And how soon can we expect to enjoy this Scientology world?

Luckily for all of us, the Church of Scientology religiously follows all of Hubbard's policies and procedures in its quest for world domination.  I say luckily, because the result of that is failure after failure after abysmal failure.

David Miscavige, while obviously having even greater desire for world domination, has expanded and improved on Hubbard's failure rate by orders of magnitude.  He has made unworkable solutions even more unworkable.

The Scientology world was never going to happen.
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The Scientology Conundrum: What Are Lies?

It is quite interesting to me that Scientologists who are now waking up to the fact that David Miscavige has been doing bad things and is a liar, still believe almost everything Miscavige and the Church of Scientology had said in the past.

For instance, while finally seeing that David Miscavige has been corrupting and destroying Scientology, some Scientologists still believe that the criticisms and protests against the church are “unfounded”, “anti-religious” and “a conspiracy”.  They believe that Anonymous is a "terrorist, hate group" in the pay of big drug companies.  They believe that all critics are "suppressive persons".  They believe that the Freezone is filled with squirrels.  They believe these things because David Miscavige said so.

You would think that, seeing with their own eyes some of the blatant and profound falsehoods that Miscavige has been spreading, Scientologists would automatically question everything the Church of Scientology has been claiming. Now, it isn’t necessarily that everything was lies, it is just that the source of all the church’s proclamations, David Miscavige, has been proven to be a destructive, corrupt, habitual liar – so, really, you have to be suspicious of everything Miscavige or the church has said.

You’d think so. But many Scientologists, while rejecting a few, isolated and obviously false statements by Miscavige, still accept, without question, just about everything else.  This really doesn’t make any sense.

Well, the problem is that most Scientologists don’t realize what they are doing.  They have been trained to always completely trust all information coming from the Church of Scientology leaders.  Always.  And they have been trained to always reject all negative information about Scientology coming from any source.  Always.

This has become so automatic that it ends up operating below the conscious awareness for many Scientologists.  They “know” something is true, but they don’t realize their only criteria for “truth” is that the source was the Church of Scientology.  They also “know” that anything at all negative about Scientology “is false”, but they don’t realize their only criteria for that judgement is that the church said it was “false”.  Even when a Scientologist sees and thinks negative things about Scientology, they still reject such negative information from elsewhere as "false".

The simple concept that the Church of Scientology might be lying simply cannot be contemplated by true Scientologists.  It isn’t that they considered it, evaluated it and rejected it; it is that they cannot even consider it.

And most don’t know they have this blind spot.  They actually believe they are being intelligent, logical and observant.  They will get quite upset with the idea that they are not in full command of their thoughts and conclusions.

This makes it difficult for these Scientologists to come to terms with, and effectively handle, what is and has been going on in their church and in the world.  It is quite difficult to reconcile a church that is “always right” and “superior to the rest of the world” with the obvious and consistent failures Miscavige and the Church of Scientology have created.

So what to do?  How does anyone talk to a Scientologist about this stuff?  What does a Scientologist do to inform themselves?  What is true?  What are lies?

Simply listing list all the “facts” from Miscavige and the church that have been proven false, with all their associated links to documents, evidence and other proof simply does not work.  Scientologists, after all, have been trained to automatically reject such information – Scientologists are probably not going to suddenly throw off all that Scientology training in a day.

But they will.  Most Scientologists actually want to know the truth; the problem is that they are only used to accepting “truth” from the church.  It will take awhile for Scientologists to break that habit.

I have one piece of advice for newly-awakened Scientologists.  You do have one piece of information you can be sure of, because it is obvious now: David Miscavige is a liar and has been for decades.  This is what you know.  As for everything else, you can now find out for yourself.
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The Hubbard Scale of Formulas and Procedures

(Many Scientologists would take that title seriously and expect this post to be about something called "The Hubbard Scale of Formulas and Procedures".  But it's just a joke.)

L. Ron Hubbard was compulsive about putting everything into some kind of scale.  He developed the Tone Scale, the Communication Scale, the Behavior and Physiology Scale, the Cycle of Action Scale, the Admin Scale, the Scale of Conditions, the Tone Scale of Decisions, the Scale of Whosits and Whatsits, dozens and dozens of scales, lists and codes.

And he was compulsive about creating very exact procedures for everything.  Every condition, problem, situation had an exact Hubbard-written procedure for solving it or changing it.  Thousands and thousands of procedures.

Scientology is all about Hubbard's scales and his procedures, processes and formulas.  And Scientologists are supposed to know and follow all the key Hubbard formulas and procedures.

As a Scientologist, you are not allowed to just "work things out".  You can't ignore things.  You can't think for yourself.  You are always, always, always in a specific "condition" and you are always, always, always supposed to follow Hubbard's "condition formulas" to improve your condition.  Before taking any action, Scientologists must first check these formulas to see what Hubbard said to do.

[sarcasm]That's why you see so many successful Scientologists [/sarcasm]

This is what Hubbard did.  Everything had to be plotted against some kind of scale and every situation had to be solved via one of his procedures.  He just didn't trust "humaniods" to do things the "right" (meaning Hubbard) way, so he wrote procedures to ensure everyone would do everything "correctly".

And they must be followed, even when they don't work, as is often the case.  Even when the formulas don't fit the situation.  Even when those scales don't make any sense.

Of course, public Scientologists are not strictly held to these standards.  They are expected to do all that, but the Church of Scientology doesn't have that kind of absolute control, so many Scientologists go on with their lives mostly ignoring all that stuff.

But on staff, and in the Sea Org, under David Miscavige, all these procedures, checklists, formulas, scales and whatnot must be adhered to religiously (pardon the pun).  As a result, this usually brings everything to a grinding halt.  There are factually more people "ensuring compliance" than there are people doing actual work.  There is absolutely tons of paperwork, requests for authorization, proof of compliance, formula write-ups, programs written, filled out, verified, checked, rejected, redone, and on and on.

It is micro-management gone insane.  You can't do anything in the Sea Org without a massive amount of paperwork, with all the associated time wasted in writing these things up and verifying and authorizing and rejecting.

And this is all because this is the way Hubbard said to do it. 

You can't, according to Hubbard, just go out and get something done.  That is wrong.  You have to work out what condition you are in, what formula to apply, what is your Admin Scale, what policy are you applying, what are the Hubbard-specified procedures? And this must be all analyzed (using Hubbard procedures) and written up in a program, with all the "proper" policies and procedures noted.

And then it must be authorized.

And, of course, it is never, ever authorized.  The people who are supposed to authorize your program never will.  You see, they must forward everything they authorize up to David Miscavige, who is the ultimate approval for everything, and they know that David Miscavige will hate it and he will assign everybody in that hierarchy some low condition for approving such a "horrible, f**ked up program".  So every program gets rejected and rejected and rejected.

Eventually, the program probably will get approved by the middle managers and sent up to Miscavige, who does hate it and does assign everyone some lower condition.  Then Miscavige will "write it himself," which usually means copying the original program as written, with a few insignificant changes.

And then the program must be complied with, exact step by exact step.

Now, you understand this program was written before any work was done and before anything was investigated, so the steps of the program are, invariably, completely bogus and don't fit the actual situation once real work starts.

But the program steps cannot be altered and must be complied with, no matter how ridiculous they become.  It was approved, it was "written by David Miscavige!"

So, as the situation changes, and as the changes multiply, you have the ridiculous situation where people are being forced to comply with steps that have become meaningless and forced to ignore new conditions and problems that have popped up.

You can blame Miscavige for making it so horrible, but, actually, that's what Hubbard created.  That's all strictly according to Hubbard's policy letters and his tech.

That's the inside view as to why pretty much nothing gets done in the Church of Scientology and why, if something ever does get done, it is such a mess.   Hubbard built it that way.
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Scientologists Disunited

The unity of the Scientology community isn’t so united today.

It used to be very simple.  All Scientologists had one very firm, very stable foundation for their belief system:  If L. Ron Hubbard said it, it was true.  Scientology was, and only was, what L. Ron Hubbard proclaimed.

Scientologists completely trusted the system.  If a policy letter or bulletin appeared, over Hubbard's signature, well, that was it – it came from Ron.  If it was later cancelled or revised, well, that must have been what Ron wanted done.

But it isn’t that easy any more.

Blame it on David Miscavige.

In the last three decades David Miscavige has been making massive alterations to just about every aspect of the Scientology technology and belief system.  He has drastically changed all the training.  He has changed how, when and why the tech is applied, changing basic definitions of key Scientology terms such as the “Second Dynamic”, the “Floating Needle” and so on.  Miscavige has completely rewritten Hubbard’s cherished books.  Miscavige even hired a voice actor to duplicate Hubbard’s voice to “fix” Hubbard’s lectures.  Everywhere you look in Scientology, you will see Miscavige, not Hubbard as the “Source” of the technology.  Everywhere you look in Scientology, you see Scientology as “re-created” by Miscavige.

And, today, Scientologists are finally realizing that things are not right.  Today, Scientologists are finally becoming aware of how much destruction and corruption Miscavige has inflicted on Scientology.

And therein lies the problem.

You see, Scientologists no longer know exactly which Scientology technology is “pure Hubbard” and which has been corrupted by Miscavige – or others.

The problem is this:  Every time Miscavige stuck his fingers in the technology and changed it the way he envisioned it should be, he claimed to have uncovered some heretofore lost letter or instruction from Hubbard

As time went on, Miscavige stopped even bothering with that canard and just changed whatever he wanted in whatever way he decided was best.  Even OT VIII (all the different versions) is believed by some to be authored by Miscavige and not Hubbard at all.

So, were there lost, hidden instructions from Hubbard for any of these changes?  Were some of the changes things Ron forgot?  Did Ron make fundamental mistakes that needed correction?  Are any of the changes something Ron would approve of?   If so, which?  Who can tell?  Who decides?

Given that Miscavige often bragged that he had mastered Hubbard’s handwriting and could forge documents and even Ron’s signature perfectly, is there any way to definitively prove any piece of tech changed in the last 30 years is “pure Hubbard”?

That's a major problem for Scientologists.  But wait, there’s more.

Now that the Scientology bubble has burst, Scientologists are now able to access hitherto forbidden documents.  Like the documentation that shows David Mayo was actually the person who developed and wrote the NOTs technology and the Happiness Rundown.  Additional documents indicate that other Scientology tech might have been developed by others – Power Processing, for instance.

What used to be a very simple thing for Scientologists has now become incredibly complex, if not impossible.

If a Scientologist still wants to apply Scientology, well, what is Scientology now?

And this is the primary source for today's disunity among Scientologists.  Without a trusted authority who can definitively verify and prove which Scientology tech is "pure" and which is corrupted, each Scientologist is forced to work that out for themselves.  And each Scientologist seems to have a different idea on it.

Undoubtedly, many will just find some new authority figure to make that decision for them, but there are now many different authorities with many different ideas on the subject.

No matter what, Scientologists can no longer be a completely united group.  From now on, a Scientologist's personal determination as to what works and what doesn't work is paramount, whether anyone verifies it as "pure" or not.

And that's actually the right way to do it.
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Scientologists: What Went Wrong?

More and more Scientologists are recognizing and acknowledging that the leader of the Church of Scientology, David Miscavige, has destroyed Scientology. In Scientology terms, David Miscavige is a textbook “Suppressive Person”.

Some Scientologists are simply stepping away, some are staying, gritting their teeth, hoping for better days, and some are calling for a “new leader”.

A new leader? That’s it? That’s the solution?

No.  Until Scientologists analyze, understand and handle the fundamental reasons why David Miscavige came to power, was able to do so much damage, and was able to continue to do so much damage for over thirty years, Scientology as an organized religion, is doomed.

David Miscavige represents a fundamental failure of Scientology. Until that is acknowledged, disasters like Miscavige will happen again and again and again – because there is nothing there to stop them.

Let me expand on this. According to L. Ron Hubbard, there are three pillars to Scientology technology: Ethics, Tech and Admin.

Ethics tech failed in the most fundamental way. Scientologists knowing and applying all that Ethics tech over many, many years failed to detect and handle Miscavige, although his destructive actions began quite early in his career. Additionally, Ethics tech failed to protect all the good people that Miscavige destroyed over his career. There were hundreds of “highly trained” Ethics people who completely failed to catch this sociopath and completely failed to protect the innocent victims of Miscavige. You have to be asking yourself, "Why?"

Auditing tech failed as well. Miscavige failed to complete his training at Saint Hill. Miscavige received auditing all the way up to OT VII, but no auditor caught his crimes, his insanity. No Case Supervisor detected “no case gain”. No one noticed or handled him when he stopped auditing entirely (supposedly a very bad sign). In addition, one of the primary duties of anyone “tech trained” is to defend Hubbard's technology from any alteration and this didn’t happen at all. Miscavige romped through all of the Scientology technology, changing everything and no one stopped him. Auditing tech failed to do what Auditing tech is supposedly designed to do. Again, why?

And finally, Scientology’s Admin tech failed completely. All those checks and balances, all that policy, all those people who were so carefully trained in the “right” way to do things – Miscavige threw it all out, along with the most experienced staff. All the many, many volumes of Scientology policies, all those thousands of trained Scientologists completely failed to stop Miscavige's crimes, abuse and destruction. Scientologists need to ask "Why?"

Scientology failed in the most fundamental ways.

And it will fail again, even under some “new leader”. Decades ago in Scientology, there were a lot more people who were better trained and had more power and more experience, and they failed to stop Miscavige and his disasters. What makes anyone think that things would be better today?

According to Scientology, it is not the people that failed. Thousands of Scientologists have been trained in these Scientology technologies, some to the very highest levels. These people successfully completed their Scientology training. Graduates of Scientology courses are, by Scientology’s own claims, always able to apply the subject 100% successfully, 100% of the time. Scientology says that if they don’t, they will be found and corrected. By Scientology’s definition, all these Scientologists were exactly, correctly applying Scientology technology.

And every single one of them failed to detect and stop David Miscavige.

This is a significant failure of Scientology training. This is a fundamental failure of Scientology.

Scientologists had absolute faith that Scientology technology would protect the church from any failures.  Now, no one with any awareness and intelligence would put any faith in Scientology to avert any future disasters.

Ultimately, Scientologists need to figure out why Scientology technology failed so badly.  If they don’t work that out, if they refuse to look at that, but just have faith that “Scientology is perfect and will protect us”, then they are all truly doomed.
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