What Makes Us Different | Print |
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 12:52

Photo of hands and fingerprintsToday, one of our readers asked, “This is all very interesting - a sort of Martin Luther King event horizon for the CoS. A good thing, for sure.

“My question is: according to much of the data presented here - human trafficking, terrorism, fraud, abuse, and so on - how are you different from the critics, who for so many years, have pointed out the same things?"

I personally don't know what past critics have said. I have noticed that the Church (David Miscavige) has tried to falsely label and stigmatize us as "critics of Scientology." This is surely the same line of attack that other whistle blowers have faced for years. So let me first answer what makes us different from what the Miscavige spin doctors would have you believe.  

To be clear, as whistle blowers, we are not critics of “Scientology"; we are critics of “criminality."

We are not anti-Scientology. We are not inciting hate or bigotry because we ARE Scientologists.

We ARE crying down rampant criminality within the ranks of Scientology, most of which emanates from David Miscavige who has imbued into Scientology a culture of hate.

We are loyal Scientologists -- loyal to integrity, loyal to a sense of right and wrong, loyal to responsibility, loyal to the fundamental concepts that are the very root of the Scientology philosophy.

As Geir Isene put it, "Scientology" does not equal "the Church of Scientology."

Photo of Liberty BellFreedom of religion

We believe and support freedom of religion. All freedom depends on protecting the freedom of religion. It is flat out WRONG to attack religions or religious beliefs. Why? Because people have the right to believe whatever they want. A person's beliefs are based upon ideas that match their own observations and experience.

However, freedom of religion does not mean freedom to commit crimes in the name of religion.

When a group gets overrun with criminality, the tendency is to decry the entire group. We are not generalizing, but instead we are selecting the correct target which is really the individual within that group who is the source of the criminality. And in Scientology MOST of the red flags all point back to one person: David Miscavige. Hubbard never authorized Miscavige to take over Scientology. There is no hidden data line that put him in power. He got his position through lies and deceit.

In the past, some critics of Scientology were attacking the religion. No one has any right to do that. It's a religion! It's protected by the Bill of Rights.

Why Scientology is a religion

The reason Scientology became a religion was that if it didn't go in that direction, auditors (Scientology counselors) would potentially have to have been licensed by the state to practice as "psychotherapists." That gives unqualified bureaucrats in government the opportunity to affix incorrect labels to Scientology, to dictate Scientology philosophy, to mix in other studies, to leave out potentially important teachings.  

So Scientology became a religion. And it does qualify as a religion, not in the Western sense (there is no worship or faith required in Scientology). But in the Eastern sense, yes. Scientology is a cousin to Buddhism. Scientology deals with the spiritual nature of people and the rehabilitation of abilities. Furthermore, I'm an active auditor. And I certainly wouldn't want the state to dictate how to apply Scientology auditing procedures! No offense to the government, but can you imagine anything more offensive?

Turning on the lights

So we are NOT critics of Scientology. We are proponents of Scientology and staunch critics condemning criminality within CoS management.

Criminality, wherever it resides, needs to be exposed and eradicated. All of us have the right to insist on an organization and even a world without crime. It is our duty to so insist. Whether it's the Catholic church, Scientology church, political parties, police department, or even within your own family, you have a right to the safety and security that are only possible in an environment without crime.

Some Scientologists are afraid to "rock the boat." Well, exposing the criminality within Scientology's ranks won't hurt Scientology. It will cure it. Criminality is the organizational cancer that is KILLING Scientology already.

If we don't expose the criminality, we will lose the subject utterly. And that would be a very irresponsible thing to do. Scientology is not for all of us, that is true. But it really is most definitely wanted by some of us because it offers a way out of entrapment of any kind.

We are not sheeple

While we are not critics of Scientology, that does not mean we refuse to look at Scientology with a critical eye. In fact, LRH said to do so which is one of the first things people learn about Scientology, and why so many people love it in the first place. It comes from LRH’s essay on Personal Integrity written in 1954,

WHAT IS TRUE FOR YOU is what you have observed yourself
And when you lose that you have lost everything.


What is personal integrity?
Personal integrity is knowing what you know—
What you know is what you know—
And to have the courage to know and say what you have observed.
And that is integrity
And there is no other integrity.


Of course we can talk about honor, truth, all these things,
These esoteric terms.
But I think they’d all be covered very well
If what we really observed was what we observed,
That we took care to observe what we were observing,
That we always observed to observe.

And not necessarily maintaining a skeptical attitude,
A critical attitude, or an open mind.

But certainly maintaining sufficient personal integrity
And sufficient personal belief and confidence in self
And courage that we can observe what we observe
And say what we have observed.


Nothing in Dianetics and Scientology is true for you
Unless you have observed it
And it is true according to your observation.
That is all.


Like everything else, Scientology has its share of sheeple. They take everything on faith, observe nothing. They have lost touch with what they know. They have no personal integrity. There are things in Scientology that are wrong. It is not perfect.

But life is about improvement. We all (those who are sane) try to improve as we go along. Same with any organization. Any sane manager tries to improve it as he goes along. But not Miscavige.

Same boat, better paddles

Those of us who have left the Church of Miscavology are in the same boat as thousands of others before us, but thanks to the Internet we have a more effective way to do something about it. In another article, I published an incredible fact that 98% of all the staff from Old Saint Hill are today declared! I have it on very good authority that David Mayo saved LRH's life when he was dying and the result of that was the creation of New Era Dianetics for OTs! So, just like Hitler took out 17 key people in order for him to take over, in the 1980s, David Miscavige painted Mayo up as a fiend. Yet Mayo had saved LRH's life. Despicable!

Surely Dean Stokes was on that hit list too. In 1982 at the infamous Mission Holder's Conference David Miscavige verbally declared Dean Stokes, suddenly and without warning or provocation. Frankly, Dean's mission was on Policy and it was booming. Dean was therefore a huge opinion leader. The Mission of the Southwest had 100 times more people and activity than Dallas' new "Ideal Org." It was a fun place to be. People went there just to hang out. T Paine covers the subject better in his very first article entitled "Common Sense."

Criticism of LRH and Scientology Tech

In addition to being a writer, a marketing expert and other things, I am an auditor. I use Scientology every day and it works for me. For example, a good friend of mine (who is not a Scientologist) had a problem -- a really bad problem relating to her career. She was really bugged and no amount of friendly advice from me improved the problem one bit. One day while listening to her I realized "she can't think with the subject! She has false data." So I just asked her (because I know the procedure from memory) "Have you been given any false data regarding this?" About 45 seconds later the false datum was blown, and she went right in and got a $10,000 raise the next day. And I know if it hadn't been for False Data Stripping, she would have gone to her grave with that problem because nothing else could crack it. In my observation there are so many problems in life that only Scientology can unlock.

I am currently auditing a pc on ARC Straightwire and my pc is getting standard gains. I personally am getting New OT V auditing outside the Church and I’m getting huge wins. Last year I got a friend through an o/w write up and the person’s face got 10 years younger right in front of my eyes when they got off a big withhold they’d been hanging onto for years. I’ve recently done Conditions and Exchange by Dynamics on a friend and seen it straighten out their flows.  Last year I delivered an intensive of Book One to a pc, and in one of our first sessions the pc discovered a past life. Another person was suffering from a bad cold. I did a standard PTS handling. A few minutes later the cold totally vanished like magic. The person was astonished! I helped another person who was suffering from high blood pressure. They were frightened of the machine itself, so I ran Confront and Reach and Withdraw on it and their blood pressure was lowered instantly.

Yet there are plenty of people who are anti-LRH and anti-Scientology technology, too. That is not my bag.

Some people try to invalidate Scientology by attacking its creator. Why? To me, the only thing that makes a subject valid is DOES IT WORK? If it does, I don’t care about what the inventor did, or if he lied about being a nuclear physicist, of if there are questions about his military record. The point of Scientology is not to worship its inventor. He was just a man, with a temper and faults just like the rest of us.

Some people fault the OT levels because the theory is far fetched. Why? I only care does it work. Scientology is NOT a belief system. At no time does anyone have to “believe” the theory. People are only required to read the material and do the processes. The processes deliver the gains. What more can anyone ask for?

I was the Solo I/C FSO for three years. I put hundreds of people through the Wall of Fire (OT III). I know the data conflicts with modern archeological evidence. I don’t care. Why? Because one for one, people got the ability gained of the level which is “Return of Self-Determinism, and Freedom from Overwhelm.”

It works! Last time I checked, not even a Starbucks Vente Mocha Latte with a Triple Twist of Coca Extract will deliver a return of self-determinism and freedom from overwhelm. Who cares what the theory is?

I drive a car. I don’t care about the theory of why it works. Who in history has ever returned their car to the dealership because, “Well, I don’t buy into this theory of internal combustion; you see it conflicts with modern...” or, "I heard the designer claimed he had a degree, but it wasn't a real degree so I want my money back. Here's the car keys."

Does it do what it’s supposed to do? Does it work? To me the rest is pure idiocy. In fact, I can't imagine anything more stupid.

So I’m not into bashing LRH and the tech. Scientology has created miracles in my life. It raised my IQ 18 points, verified on five different IQ tests. That doesn't mean I am not discerning. LRH wrote a few things that just aren't true for me. No matter.

When I got into Scientology in 1979, it was after I did a long and thorough search for something that actually worked. All I found was crap lists of asinine “rules” like “Rule #13, Put a smile in your back pocket.”

Try debugging someone who has false data with that rule. Or handling someone with a cold. It won’t work. Scientology does. Nothing else matters unless you are an bleeping idiot!

That’s why I am not anti-Scientology or anti-LRH, the OT levels or Scientology tech. In my experience and observation, they work.

Critics of Scientology

Now. Since we’re on the subject, it might be interesting to note that critics of Scientology by which I mean people who spread falsehoods about the tech and/or LRH (as opposed to the suppressive organization led by David Miscavige) fall into various categories (this list is not all inclusive):
  • Some of the LRH and tech bashers are factually evil people who are most definitely criminals themselves. Many cases have been documented of people with something to hide who went after Scientology because they perceived it as a threat to their free exercise of criminal activities.
  • Some anti-Scientologists were simply vested interests (or the employees of vested interests) worried that Scientology might cut into their funding or income.
  • Some are ignorant but otherwise well-meaning people, who may have been duped. Like parents who heard their kids were being hypnotized in Scientology (a falsehood).
  • Some are people who really don't know much about Scientology, but they've seen abuse and violations of human rights. They've seen the razor spikes at Golden Era Productions and noticed that the spikes are pointing the wrong way. They've seen videos of Golden Era Productions security guards like Danny Dunagan (a genuine lulu of toxicity himself) hog-tying a trespasser while jamming his knee in the person's back and kicking a woman with his other foot. They've seen the Church attempt to stigmatize whistle-blowers as "cyber terrorists," "religious bigots" and "hate mongers." And naturally, they conclude the CoS is really off the rails. So they get vocal. But at the same time, many of them are actually curious about the subject. Many of the Anonymous people fit into this category.
  • Some were casualties of actual criminals on staff in Scientology, such as David Miscavige. Some of these people have been so unbelievably and horrendously betrayed, currently disconnected from their families and friends, that they come out the other end practically frothing at the mouth and who can blame them? Some of those people even in 30 years on staff, never had any auditing. Some lost their marriages or had their children aborted without their consent. Some were coerced into donating thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for illegal programs that they had no way of knowing were illegal. That is BETRAYAL. And when people are betrayed, some of them get pretty angry and when people get angry they are apt to bash everything in sight including LRH, the tech, etc. These people have every right to scream and yell. But this website is not really the venue for that. This website is intended for a more surgical purpose.
  • There is another reason that someone might be critical of (personally express a judgment on the merit of) certain aspects of the Tech, and that is that they have studied it, understood it fully, applied it correctly, and found that it was not true for them or did not work for them. That is someone who must also be respected. Anyone has the right to reject parts of the Tech as not true for them. Anyone has the right to walk away from Scientology and still be considered sane, intelligent people who have their own integrity, viewpoint and beliefs.

Does it really hurt anything to have critics? Well, Hubbard didn't think so. He thought it was healthy. In fact he protected critics by writing into the Creed of the Church of Scientology the following lines: "We of the Church believe... That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own pinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others."

What is a “cult”?

A cult is a secretive and lawless organization that uses its religious status as a cover to victimize its members.

The Church of Scientology is today a "cult" because David Miscavige with malice aforethought has made it into a cult. Not because it needs to be a cult innately. The CoS does not publish its statistics any more. The CoS does not even follow its own policies.
 
In response, thousands of people just decided to ignore this corrupt “church” and they practice Scientology independently. What else could they do? Not privy to the actual crimes of David Miscavige, they could hardly do much to stop him.

With us, however, it is different. We saw and experienced his abuses first hand. I was personally threatened by Miscavige and personally saw him assault others. That makes us eyewitnesses.

So we, as loyal Scientologists (loyal to the people) and ex-staff from the Int base are blowing the whistle on David Miscavige in a way probably no one else can. And we are using Scientology to do it.

We cannot be bought off

Another thing that makes us different from a few key staff who have tried to blow the whistle on criminality is they accepted hush money. Or they were blackmailed into silence through the practice of disconnection (which David Miscavige uses as a political weapon). I don't blame a person for accepting hush money when there is no other alternative. I'm glad they at least got something with which to start their life over.

For example, David Miscavige’s lawyer Monique Yingling (who is not a Scientologist and who has never done a single Scientology service though she's been paid millions over the years and could certainly afford it) offered Mike Rinder the chance to name his price so the church wouldn’t have to “declare war” on him. The church also used Mike’s son, wife and brother as bargaining chips to sweeten the deal. If Mike had agreed to just “go away” David Miscavige (through Monique Yingling) would have paid him millions and given him access to his son, wife and brother.

Mike said no. Because Mike Rinder has personal integrity.

Hence, when LRH said in the Code of Honor, “Your self-determinism and your honor are more important than your immediate life” we actually took that point to heart. Now when others accepted money, what else could they do at that time? There was no way to self-publish facts or catalyze the power of the world at large. Now there is. We have the Internet (thank God) and so we are using it. And you know where David Miscavige, Tommy Davis and Monique Yingling can put their money, robbed from thousands of well-meaning but duped parishioners.

We are no better than past whistle blowers. Just lucky that now we have a way to actually force a reformation. Miscavige has millions, but we have the ears of the world.

Using Scientology to fix Scientology

LRH said the solution to any problem is the problem itself. Where as others have sought to “solve” the problem by starting a new group along side the old (like David Mayo did) we are addressing the problem itself and communicating about it to bring about a vanishment of the problem.

We have declared ourselves independent because we are. But we have not started a new organization.

We are using Scientology Axiom 19, which states, “Bringing the Static to view As-is any condition devaluates that condition.” In other words, when a being really sees the cause of a problem, the problem is weakened and the being is strengthened. This is the basis of all auditing.

Third-dynamic auditors

We are auditing the Church of Scientology.

By exposing crimes and bringing transparency we also bring sanity back to the Church of Scientology which currently remains a lawless, immoral, abusive, mafia-like group that is manifesting insanity as defined by L. Ron Hubbard: "the overt or covert but always complex and continuous determination to harm or destroy."

Toxic shock

To call a spade a spade, David Miscavige is an SP (suppressive person, which means a toxic personality). Int Management is an SP group. The Sea Org, having been subverted and corrupted by Miscavige and Int Management, has become an SP group. I recommend to everyone, if you haven’t done it already, you need to disconnect from these SP individuals and groups because they are toxic to your spiritual well being and even your health.

The point is not to destroy Scientology, but to clear from the organization the parasitic criminal elements which have encysted themselves inside the organizational body, feeding off its life. To put this in real terms, David Miscavige who is supposed to earn per LRH the same as any other Sea Org member, earns instead 62 times that much, not counting rent for his mansions, furniture, clothes, gifts, private jet, helicopter flights, paid vacations, full-time servants, etc. And David Miscavige spends a huge amount of his time goofing off: playing golf, going out to movies, hobnobbing with Tom Cruise, etc.

That’s a parasite. They're ugly, just as you would expect.

What really sets us apart

What really sets us apart from some critics like Margaret Singer who sent OT materials to my mother in 1979; or the deprogrammer-for-hire who came to my house in 1979, took money from my mother and tried to seduce her too; or a certain family member who criticized me for 25 years for being a Scientologist and who, even after I left the Church and had to start over with nothing, continued to criticize me for the next 3 years until I put my foot down... what really sets us apart from those kinds of critics is that we aren’t on any personal vendetta. As individuals, we have surely been wronged, but that is not why we are speaking out. We aren’t being paid. We aren’t out to settle a score. After sinking 25 years into Scientology, we could hardly settle any score by investing even more time and effort into it. No, that would be stupid.

So why are we doing it? Well, earlier I mentioned the Code of Honor.

In the past, when I read the Code of Honor, many of the points seemed “over there.” They seemed like good points, but I couldn’t say truthfully I was applying them.

Well today, I can say I am actually doing all 15 points of the Code of Honor. They're an active part of my daily life. Let’s look them over:

1. Never desert a comrade in need, in danger or in trouble.

2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted.

3. Never desert a group to which you owe your support.

4. Never disparage yourself or minimize your strength or power.

5. Never need praise, approval or sympathy.

6. Never compromise with your own reality.

7. Never permit your affinity to be alloyed.

8. Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it.

9. Your self-determinism and your honor are more important than your immediate life.

10. Your integrity to yourself is more important than your body.

11. Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow.

12. Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.

13. Don’t desire to be liked or admired.

14. Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.

15. Be true to your own goals.


And for all who wish they too could say, “Yes, I am living every one of those 15 points. I am living a life of honor!” it is never too late. You stand squarely upon the threshold.

Start now. Just follow your heart. It’s been pointing the way all along, my friend.


Written by Steve Hall, aka “Thoughtful”