“Scientology: Crazy Ideas, Crazy Wins”

by Joe Howard

There it is, the new PR campaign for Scientology, coming soon to a billboard in your town! We just need a way to siphon off some of the three-quarters of a billion dollars in the IAS war chest to pay for it.

That, by the way, is the totality of the campaign. It acknowledges the general public's perception of Scientology, which immediately establishes the highest Reality possible, while letting viewers make up their own mind about the wins. They can dispute whether the wins are crazy or not, depending on which definition of “crazy” they choose to read into it.

It's kind of like the entire subject of Scientology—in the final analysis, you're free to make of it what you will. Leaders in the official Church of Scientology would more or less rather tell you what to make of it. But the tune playing on that drum is beginning to irritate the ears of Scientologists and they are beginning to tune it out. More and more, individual Scientologists are seeing themselves in the position described by LRH in the Tech Film, TR 5, “Why TRs,” and feeling like the kid who finds himself all alone in a strange land with no organization. What's a person to do? As LRH says in the film, “Of course you would apply Scientology.”

People who have broken from the church, some many years ago, still apply the basics they learned in the subject: ARC, the comm formula, administrative basics, ethics tech, assists, etc. Some do that plus audit others or receive auditing. Indeed, one hears stories of people who bought DMSMH back in the 50s, have been auditing on and off ever since who had no idea that there was any organization or even the further subject of Scientology.

No matter how rotten the church has become, the message of Scientology still inspires interest and passion among those with whom it once resonated. Some who have left the church think it's all a fraud and want to get rid of it. I'm not directing my articles at them particularly, aside from providing my tech perspective on what they have come to hate.

Some feel that church policies are at the root of the abuses they have suffered or read about. What these people aren't confronting is that everyone who has worked for an org, mission or in the Sea Organization, was bound by those same policies. The greatest percentage of staff have never engaged in the abuses that some small percentage (about 2 or 2 1/2% at a wild guess) felt justified in dramatizing on others. Just as some Christians find a verse in the Bible to inflict all sorts of mischief on others or some Muslims pull a line out of the commentaries on the Koran to justify wearing the dynamite hoodie or a few Jews interpret the Talmud to suit their evil agendas, there have been Scientologists who used one policy or another to act out their evil purposes. In other words, it's the person, not the policy, who is at fault in the greatest number of instances.

Before this results in endless nitpicking of policy, however, here's the real point: Scientology outside the umbrella of the church can have any damn policies we want. It can have any structure we give it.

If a guy wants to sit out in Nova Scotia solo auditing on OT III in the morning and pulling salmon from the rivers in the afternoon, that's just dandy. If a person wants to sit on the train home from work and do Self Analysis lists on herself, more power to her.

The idea here is that Scientology should fit into a person's life, not the other way around.

There's a fascinating book out that articulates a lot of what has happened to society in the past 10 or 20 years and it is a great read for those of us who don't care for organizations. It comes highly recommended to any free Scientologist. It's called Here Comes Everybody, The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky. (Penguin Books, 2008)

The point of this article is to get a discussion going on what kind of Scientology we want. Do we want it to be free, monetarily or thought wise? Do we want to reestablish the community that existed in the early days of Dianetics? Do we want to enable people to train up as auditors and co-audit outside the auspices of the official C of S? What?

You'll notice that none of this takes into account the current church or its Dear Leader (the comparison is apt down to a fascination with Hollywood) or its misapplications of ethics, tech and admin. Despite all that, LRH's work is still there for anyone to use. Much of it is available on the 'net for free. Even the C of S itself has the complete Scientology Handbook up there for free.

In other words, the Scientology you always envisioned can be created the way you felt it should be. The internet, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and many other digital tools make it possible today to do just that.

Go to the New Business Model section and let's start commenting!

-- Written by Joe Howard