Scientology-Cult: Year One in Review| Scientology-Cult: Year One in Review | | Print | |
| Sunday, 18 April 2010 12:48 |
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As a follow up to yesterday’s post, “Current OSA Strategy,” I started to write a "short anecdote" at about 10 PM last night. Well, now it’s it's not so short. In 1997, I was in Power as the Senior Writer CMU (Central Marketing Unit). To me, that was the greatest post anyone could ever have in Scientology and I took the opportunity to be “the voice of Scientology” in whatever capacity quite seriously. Through the ads and campaigns I was writing, I was making Scientology into something fresh, exciting and fun, something that made people laugh because they even got cognitions from the headlines I was writing. I started getting fan main from public and staff. That had never happened before and when DM found out, BANG, he had me transferred to scriptwriting which was not in CMU, but in the Cine Division. Miscavige’s PR story was that I had proven myself so capable in marketing, if anyone could figure out how to write scripts it would be me. No one had held the scriptwriting post stabily since it’s inception, 12 years earlier. I decided to give it ago because I was given no other choice. My Cine experience was an incredibly enturbulating experience, because the Division had always been run directly by David Miscavige, where as Ronnie Miscavige ran Marketing. Ronnie was a social being. David... not. So as you can imagine, in a group that was directly run by David Miscavige for years and years, the group was the very antitheses of Scientology. Harsh, adversarial, and just flat out entheta. To make matters worse, Cine spent the majority of it’s time working on David Miscavige’s event videos, which he personally micro managed into the ground in every aspect. I have said many times that ALL these videos are totally off purpose, and I mean that in every way. Event videos play no part in LRH’s design for Scientology. In fact, “international events” play no part in LRH’s design for Scientology... David Miscavige suppressed an issue, a CBO (Central Bureaux Order) written in about 1977 by LRH which explicitly forbid any future “Int events” because LRH found they lowered statistics. They lowered statistics because the production of the event took everyone off their normal post functions. Events knock people’s hats off. LRH’s solution was magazines. He said in that same issue that magazines enabled Scientologists to catch up on the latest in their own time. They don’t knock the Div 6 people off post. So back to Cine: here you had 100 people in the middle of a never-ending tornado and the entire activity, everything they are doing, was totally off purpose. Sometimes they worked on Tech Films. But even those, the way Miscavige does them, even those are off purpose. I’d much rather see the hokey, but endearing Tech Films that LRH shot himself, than the crap that Miscavige has done. Anyway, this is all going somewhere. Fast forward several years. By the year 1999 I had tried everything to conquer the challenges of writing scripts for David Miscavige. I made it clear from the start I wanted nothing to do with scriptwriting or Cine. I made it clear I didn’t think the events were beneficial to Scientology. I made it clear I didn’t want the post. But Miscavige kept me there no matter what, because... can you guess why? It was nearly impossible to move up the Conditions and impossible to arrive in Power -- every single avenue was double, triple, and quadruply sabotaged. Now the field of scriptwriting is hard enough as it is. LRH never wrote much about it, but he did say there were no decent text books on the subject of scriptwriting. And LRH wasn’t the only person to say that. It’s actually known throughout the industry as something no one had ever solved. How do you write scripts? In Hollywood, it was far easier. You wrote a treatment, wrote a script based on the treatment, did one or two revisions and you got paid. The Director or someone else might rewrite the thing, and they also get paid. At “Gold” Miscavige set up the lines so every script had to go from me, be coordinated with the Art Department, Special Effects Department, the Director and Editing, then be approved by the Cine Secretary, then it had to be approved by the “relevant” terminals in Exec Strata, then WDC, then CO CMO Int, then COB’s Communicator would have a go, then finally it went to COB. Terminals in Exec Strata and WDC didn’t dare just “approve” a good script, because if they did, Miscavige would annihilate them for “rubber stamping” the script. He would just slaughter them. So they were under tremendous pressure to “find something wrong” with the script even when there was nothing wrong, and plus they knew nothing about scriptwriting or Cine or marketing in the first place. So scripts just went in endless circles and eddies. The first two people would like it, but not the third. The script is “fixed” based on a reject from the third person. Now the first and second people don’t like it any more. Finally I crack the impossible and come up with something all first three people like. But the fourth person doesn’t like it. You can guess what comes next. The script is fixed for the fourth person. Now persons 1, 2 and 3 hate it. Now I have to do the impossible again and find some impossible solution that all four people like. This takes weeks. And I’ve not come anywhere even close to Marc Yager who really is an arrogant, snide, jack ass crumb of a human being. He lets it sit in his in basket until Miscavige is going thermonuclear, because Marc Yager is already super busy with his own flaps which Miscavige is already thermonuclear about, Yager doesn’t know anything about scriptwriting, and he’s under the most pressure to “find something wrong with the script” so as not to get slaughtered for “rubber stamping” it. Add to the mix the fact that that the shoot team fired out a month earlier to shoot the video footage of the new mission that opened in Tokyo, and they still don’t have a script. Add to the mix that if the video isn’t done, everyone in the shoot crew will be assigned Treason by David Miscavige, and he tells them if they don’t have a script, they’d better put the scriptwriter’s ethics in, because Miscavige is going to put their ethics in if they don’t. Add to the mix that it’s impossible to shoot a video without a script. Add to the mix that if the video isn’t done three weeks ago, it is going to be a Hill 10 (melt-down emergency) for Editing and no one in that department will sleep for weeks. Ditto with Special Effects. Add to the mix that it’s actually the Director (who is out on location in Indonesia getting bitten by mosquitoes) who LRH says is responsible for the film, which translated by Miscavige means he gets blamed if it doesn’t come off. Add to the mix that after the video is edited, Audio still has to create music and a sound track, and for New Years event videos that means they get NO Christmas time off again this year. Add to the mix that each script is being written and edited according to the know-best, tastes and whims of David Miscavige, who only twice grew so full of himself... I mean sure of himself that he decided to bypass everyone and totally produce the produce himself. The result was the movie “Battlefield Earth” paned by everyone and voted as the “worst movie of the decade” and the 10-minute diatribe of a “Tom Cruise video” that is still the laughing stock of Scientology videos online. (Whoever leaked that video should get a medal). In six years there was hardly one single script that I revised less than 50 times. What you have then, is a recipe for the most enturbulating and non-productive and abusive experience of your lifetime. Which is also why NOTHING since I have left the Int base March 10th, 2004 rivals the enturbulation of a single day at Int as the Scriptwriting In Charge. Because I worked directly on COB’s lines, he issued a standing order in 1998 that I was never to leave the base for any reason. Like a fireman I had to be ready for a phone call or a meeting at any time, night or day. So I always had to be available. Film scripts that made it through the meat grinder would often sit with COB for extended periods and I’m talking months. He said it was because he was “so busy”. Since then I’ve found out it’s because he goes out constantly to movies, sports games, car races, scuba diving in the Caribbean, ski trips. Meanwhile he let my scripts sit with him for nearly a year without looking at them. I left the Int base after 6 years of that insanity, after proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was impossible to get anything done or help anyone there. To wit, one Sunday morning in 2001 I walked to Wal-Mart to buy something. Just as I was leaving a man rushed in -- and why he chose me, I don’t know. But he said a woman had just passed out and I looked like I could help. He led me outside and sure enough a woman was out cold on the asphalt. I started an emergency assist “Feel your leg” and “Feel the pavement” making her hand touch each one in turn, alternating. And in only a few commands she came to. She had blue eyes, and as she came too, she looked deeply into mine and asked in wonder, “WHO are you?” I said, “Nobody, just a passing stranger.” She said with very strong intention, “No... WHO are you?” I said, “I’m Steve, my name is just Steve.” But she was not interested in my name. That was not the correct answer. She said again with even stronger intention, oblivious to everything else that was going on there -- the other people who had crowded around, the sun in her face, the fact that she was lying on her back on the hot asphalt... her whole focus was on me. And she said as if I really didn’t get her question... “No... WHO are you?” I didn’t answer because I was embarrassed. So she said, “But WHO are you?... But WHO are you?” I just said, “My name is Steve Hall” and by then a nurse had arrived and started taking her pulse and doing her emergency drill. I drifted away through the crowd and never saw her again. My impression as I walked away was that she thought I was an angel. And now I was on my way back to the Int base, where I was the villain of villains. Later that afternoon in my office, I wept when I realized it was the first time I had helped a non-Scientologist in an emergency in 20 years. In 1979, the first year I first got into Scientology, I happened to arrive on the scene of 5 or 6 car accidents. LRH says just “BE the one who is there” and others will respect you and let you be there. I did that. I delivered assists to people and helped every single one of them. I remembered my joy at being able to help people and how I thought my life would continue to be like that. Then somehow I had become a virtual prisoner in the desert, a desert devoid of Scientology. What happened? How could it be that not for two decades I gave another emergency assist to someone in need? While daily life on the Int base was filled to saturation with entheta? That was not the end of my experience at the Int base working in the Church of David Miscavige, but it was the beginning of the end. But even that is not the real subject of this article. I mentioned that LRH said one of the biggest obstacles in scriptwriting was no one had ever written a decent text on the subject. He had found great texts on the basics of Cine, on lighting, editing, set design and make up. These texts became the basis of hatting that Cine staff did on post. But on scriptwriting he found nothing. LRH wrote a bunch of scripts for the Tech Films, and he wrote treatments for 50 “Public Scientology Motion Pictures Series.” And shortly after that, in 1986, he died (dropped his body as we say in Scientology) without ever writing up the hat on how to write scripts. He just said “Get professional scriptwriters to turn the treatments into scripts.” But keep in mind there were no Int events when LRH was alive. There was certainly no event videos and thus no avalanche of scripts necessary for scads of PR videos. But Miscavige put in 6 major events a year, each with 4 to 5 or sometimes up to 8 videos that have to be scripted, shot, edited, mixed, in the 2-month intervals in between events. One way I survived the Int base all those years was I came up with a solution. I decided to turn the volume UP on Source... In 1980 I had bought the PDC lectures and listened to them intensively. Later at Flag, as the Solo I/C FSO I did the OT Doctorate Course. So at Int, I started listening to LRH lectures. I started in 1994 or 1995, and by 2001 I had listened to close to 1,000 lectures. This was something of a sacrifice, because while others chatted away at lunch or breakfast or on the bus home, I had my headphones on absorbed in learning the most incredible discoveries from the 1950s or early 1960s. I gained a far deeper understanding of Scientology philosophy than many of my peers, and coupled with the fact that I was already a Class IV auditor, Book One auditor, also trained in admin and ethics, policy and PTS/SP Tech... plus for the post of Senior Writer CMU I wrote about virtually every single book, course, and auditing action in Scientology: and to do that, I had to study each item always in a new unit of time so I really knew what I was talking about. I had already read most of the basic books 4 or 5 times... Nevertheless, I studied everything LRH wrote about the subject of writing. I read books and watched videos. I studied editing. And I watched and analyzed dozens of films and their original scripts, too. Still it was not enough. So it was I came upon a Policy in OEC Vol 0. HCO PL 22 June 1974, TECH (page 284 of OEC Vol 0): Every action that results in a product has a certain tech. One finds out about it or develops it. When one adopts false tech he will then wind up with a confusion as false tech will not deliver a product. It delivers a confusion -- like psychiatry or Nixon economics. The more false tech you hold onto or apply, the more confusions you will get. When real tech is invalidated then false tech can enter in. So the test of false tech is does it give a confusion and the test of real tech is does it give a product. A Mis-U word in real tech then can let false tech in. If the tech is not available for a certain job one then has to develop it. His development will be correct only if it delivers a real product. ... ...If you find in any area you are taking too long to produce a product, then it’s time to review your tech. (A) Does tech exist? (B) If yes, “Am I applying it?” (C) If no, “Do I have to develop it?” If it is (C), then one had better get very busy sorting it out. It is easier and less expensive to do that than to go on turning out overt products. Any product has it’s tech. Do you know the tech to produce yours? - LRH I thought, here I am in charge of scriptwriting and LRH says no one has every written up the tech of scriptwriting. I realized I was sitting in situation (C). So I decided to sort out how to write a script. Now at this point, I know you may be thinking scriptwriting doesn’t have anything to do with you. But I’m going to tell you that scriptwriting has everything to do with you. And I think you are going to be blown away by the rest of this article because all I’ve given you so far is the introduction. :-) My first step was the observation that a film or movie or story is more or less it’s own little fanciful universe... or you might call it a mirror of the physical universe. How often have you sat in a theatre and gotten so enwrapped in the story as it unfolds that you forget you are sitting in the theatre? Any film can be convincing and people will buy whatever happens in that universe, as long as the film is true to it’s original premise. So if the film includes the premise that people can fly, or zombies are a real threat, people will accept it. There is a similarity there between real life and any mock up of real life. After all, both are actually creations of beings. LRH defines the universe as “an agreed-upon illusion.” So I thought if a script is basically a little universe all its own, then the way a script must go together is the same way that real life goes together. And right there I knew the Eight Dynamics were somehow the philosophical key to scriptwriting. So I started researching to discover everything LRH ever said about the Eight Dynamics. And I found a lecture... now I’ve forgotten which one; maybe it was the Ability Congress... it was the 1950s for sure, where LRH said the Eight Dynamics were really a philosophic machine. Now I already knew what a philosophic machine was, because in later years LRH said the org board was a philosophic machine. A philosophic machine is a pattern into which you can input data and the machine by it’s pattern, thereby predicts other data which you may be missing and an overall approach that leads to a resolution of the problem you are trying to solve. The Eight Dynamics are a philosophic machine. Today, it’s funny because for many years the Eight Dynamics to me seemed like the least amazing of LRH’s discoveries. What use did they have? Okay life can be broken down into 8 main areas in which people strive to exist. What else is new? Today, it’s the core of everything I do. Let me explain. As anyone can tell you, the creative process runs from the nebulous to the finite. You start out with a vague idea, and a week later, there it is done: the painting, or the story, or the script, or the piece of music, or the cake, or the new kitchen, or whatever it is you are creating. When you first start out, you have only a purpose “to write a script for ____.” In one of the PDC lectures, I think LRH said above the 8th dynamic, was ethics? And ethics has everything to do with purposes. Starting with a purpose, you look out at the whole infinity of life and from that infinity, you draw information necessary to create your new work: surveys, similar products, trends. You are doing your homework; this is research. And you have the whole of infinity to draw upon and to draw your inspiration from. Detroit has drawn the inspiration for many automobiles from animals. Artists take inspiration from the heavens. From nature. From emotions. This is the realm of the Eighth Dynamic. Now that you’ve drawn forth your relevant information, your next step involves thought. What is the most sensible direction in which to go? Logic is the subject of the Data Series, and thus you evaluate each datum, and then the situation to find the area of the Why. And when you see the Why, you know the way you must go on this particular project. Thought is the province of the Seventh Dynamic. Moving in your selected direction you first have to arrive someplace. That entails a location or a playing field or in scriptwriting what they call the “milieu” from French “mid place.” You have to select or create space and a time, with consequent matter and energy. And here you have the Sixth Dynamic. The Sixth Dynamic is a playing field or stage where all will play out. A playing field demands a game, and so here you have the elements of a game: freedoms, purposes and barriers. Here you have intentions and counter intentions expressed as relevant to the game. Matter, energy, space and time is the province of the Sixth Dynamic. But you can’t have a game without people. And so you must have a cast of living elements whether they be genies, talking dogs, flying robots or regular people. You have an antagonist and a “protagonist” or leading character. You have a supporting roles and extras. All these roles have to be filled in to bring the script to life. Life is the province of the Fifth Dynamic. However, no work of art, no story, no film can be complete without unifying factors. Such unifying factors are called “message,” “motif,” “theme,” “creative strategy,” “mood” and the like. There are various unifying factors that pull everything together and without them you don’t have a work of art, you just have random unrelated elements. To me, I have always seen this area as the point in an “X” where everything converges to one point before expanding out again. Just a metaphor, but it will do. LRH called the Fourth Dynamic the dynamic of “species” -- for people this is “mankind” but for a four legged species it might be “horses.” “Species” is itself one of these unifying factors. We are all different people on this earth, but at the Fourth Dynamic, we are unified as “one race.” Thus, the various unifying factors are the province of the Fourth Dynamic. Now that you have your purpose, direction, Why, playing field, cast of characters, and unifying factors all worked out, it is time to devise the sequence of your plot. Will you tell the story from back to front as in “Pulp Fiction”? Or will you tell it starting with a mysterious event as in “Usual Suspects”? You have to put things into their various sequences, and group events together or ungroup them. You are organizing how the time line will play out. Some scriptwriters used to do this with 3 x 5 cards. I used to use Post-It Notes on a large sheet of paper, moving them around, this way and that to get the best groupings, sequence and organization. Organization, grouping things and the like is the province of the Third Dynamic. And now that you have such details worked out, you have to ornament them. LRH did say after writing a script you have to go back and “ornament it.” Putting in all the creative touches, gracing it with art. Walt Disney required anyone working on his projects to go back after they had designed whatever it was and “plus it.” This is where they took the creative over the top. And what where they really doing? They were ornamenting their creations. Life requires that actually. So you don’t just move into a house and turn on the TV. You move in and then you need to ornament your home. Now you have a place! This is obviously the creative urge. [Reproduction (as in sex) is but one creative urge (redefining the Second Dynamic as the dynamic of creativity was, in fact, LRH). LRH wrote extensively about the joy of creation. He wrote in the book, Science of Survival, in the Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation that at the top of the scale (under the column “Sexual Behavior”) “Sexual interest high but often sublimated to creative thought.” He later said, “Creating is the greatest joy in life” and he urged everyone to “Splurge on it!” So with any project you do, comes this step of ornamentation. Even a good paralegal will put a document in a handsome binder before turning it over for use. This is the realm of creativity and creativity is the province of the Second Dynamic. With all that worked out, it’s finally time to start typing words, first an outline and then the actual script. This is the finite product which started with only a purpose and the rest but nebulous ideas. Words as we know are symbols, defined by LRH as having “mass, meaning and mobility.” That’s what a symbol is. It has mass, it has meaning and it has mobility. LRH also said many times that the body is a symbol. After all, the body is not the being. The body is not YOU. The body is a symbol for you. It has meaning, it has mass, it has mobility. So words, like bodies, are symbols. And while you may never have thought of it like this, symbols are the province of the first dynamic. Now you have a script. And what does that have to do with you? You write the script of your own life. You are writing it every day. You are writing it right this moment. What elements have you left out? Have you taken the steps of ornamentation? Do you have a mockup that you like? Wear jewelry? Have you worked out the characters properly in the story of your life? What about the plot? Have you decided on the location where you want your story to play out or did you just wind up where you are, but really you long to live in Paris? Well, you are the scriptwriter! What are you waiting for? No one else writes the script of your own life but you. For weeks I could hardly sleep after I realized the eight dynamics opened so many doors as an OT. In the year 2000 I put together a checklist that followed this sequence -- not that I believe you have to follow it in sequence, but you do have to account for all facets of whatever it is you are trying to create. That year I had to write five scripts for the New Year’s event. I got four out of five approved straight through Miscavige and everyone else. Everyone was shocked. I told a few people how I was applying HCO PL 22 June 1974 TECH. I told them how I had applied the eight dynamics to resolve how to write scripts. And then I started writing up the hat. Now really, I’ve only hit some of the high points here. There are many more nuances, but LRH says the duty is to write up your hat and get it into the hands of the next guy as you move up. Then one day the the CO Gold, Lisa Schroer, found out I was writing up a scriptwriting hat, a manual really. I didn’t consider it anything but a straight application of LRH tech to a certain job. But she saw it differently. If you’ve heard mild-mannered Misha Priv talk on video on this website, and you have to realize he grew up in the USSR, so he takes nearly anything and everything in stride. But about Lisa Schroer he breaks tradition when he says, “She is basically just a Nazi bitch!” Truer words were never spoken. When Lisa found out what I was working on, she had me declared suppressive since it was “off source.” She declared that I was squirreling; that I was inventing new tech whereas I hadn’t invented anything. All I did was apply the tech. Lisa did ONLY what David Miscavige told her to. So I knew this came directly from Miscavige. Then again, Lisa had never read any of the basic LRH books much less listened to any LRH lectures. She was not a trained auditor. As I said, I was not only Class IV, and OT IV, but I’d read every basic book 4 - 5 times, and spent the last 6 years studying 1,004 LRH lectures -- basically all the early LRH lectures that had been published. I was hit so forcefully, so hard, it actually caught me off guard and I was pretty upset for a few hours. After that, I recovered, but now my reputation was totally ruined at the Int base because she briefed everyone that I was an SP and kept it up for weeks afterwards. She was the Commanding Officer of Gold, and just about the most powerful person on the Int base under DM because she did his bidding in exactly the way he wanted it done -- no ifs, ands or buts. If he said rip someone’s face off, she did it and never looked back. When you see Jenny Devocht, Cathy Fraiser (Jeff Hawkins’s ex-wife), Kathy Rinder, you can see the same valence restrained as it is because they have to be “nice” on nationwide TV and not create a “bad impression.” I can assure you that in the protection of the David Miscavige’s own Int base, Lisa Schroer was a wholly unrestrained Nazi bitch 1,000 times more intense than anything you saw hinted at on CNN. :-) But even that’s not the end of this article. Now that you have a script, that is just the beginning. It has to text edited, get approved and then... created. Sets are designed, sequences are shot. The Director and Editor contribute their own creativities and the film is completed. once completed it has to be reproduced for distribution. And as you may have guessed, we are moving back up the Eight Dynamics again, not the same way we came down, but continuing to form a big loop or a circle. From the top, we came down to the First Dynamic and are now starting up the other side toward the top. Creation and reproduction are of course the province of the Second Dynamic. The film is distributed through a network of theaters or TV stations or DVDs or whatever. Marketing and advertising people get involved, web designers, PR people all for the release of that film. This activity comprises many companies and groups of people and here we have the Third Dynamic again... ...whereupon audiences see the film or read the book or see the building or whatever it is you have created. The message impacts mankind and here we have the Fourth Dynamic. Various people respond, critics write about it, people review it, journalists write about it as it affects life and living things are the province of the Fifth Dynamic... ...as the message spreads out across the world (Sixth Dynamic)... ...helping thought itself to evolve (Seventh Dynamic)... ...eventually adding to the collective infinity (Eighth Dynamic)... ...eventually to inspire new and better purposes (Ninth Dynamic -- that LRH suggested in -- I think, wasn’t it the PDC Lectures)... ...toward a more beautiful universe (Tenth Dynamic, also speculated on by LRH in the PDC -- please correct me if I’m wrong). So what you have is sort of an upside down triangle moving from infinity down to a finite point, overlain by a circle. LRH talks about these symbols in the Route to Infinity Lectures. Been used for ages -- the circle and the triangle. I used a version of them for my own creative logo just because it was such a dang great turning point in my life, because once you know how a script goes together, you know how life goes together and you can put your own life together much better than ever before because it’s easier to spot any pieces you might have left out. Perhaps you can lay it all out differently and you are welcomed to do so. I’m not promoting anything I’ve done, I’m just promoting the inherent power of LRH’s discoveries. I didn’t invent anything, actually. I didn’t invent the Dynamics or the fact that LRH said they represent a philosophical machine. I didn’t invent the Policy where LRH says if the tech is not available you had better develop it yourself. All I did was find the applicable LRH discoveries and figured out how to apply them on my job. And it just so happened that my job was thetan in charge of scripting for Scientology itself. And when I said yesterday in “Current OSA Strategy” that the Independent field is really operating on the Seventh Dynamic to mobilize the Fourth Dynamic to handle the Third, now I’ve explained why that was so clear to me. It’s the blessed Dynamics -- what for so long, I thought was the least useful of LRH’s discoveries, but which in the end, turned out to be for me one of the most profound. And while David Miscavige is circulating the most stupid lies about me to discredit who I am and what I’ve done by claiming basically that I am “unemployed” whereas in fact I am an entrepreneur. I own three companies all of which are successful. I paid off my car this year, a year ahead of schedule, and my wife and I just bought a huge and beautiful house in the heart of Dallas. For that matter, Miscavige also had OSA put it out that I am being supported financially by my wife which is also crap. They’ve also suggested I view myself as some kind of “divine” being or whatever (which is just Miscavige using Psychiatry’s playbook to stigmatize any whistle blower as “loony”). In fact, Tommy Davis used that exact word to describe me. He also went so far as to loosely drop the names “Buddha” and “God” into the mix, suggesting I don’t know who I am. This is just them lying straight up and making stuff up. They also forged signatures and confessions by Tom Devocht and Jeff Hawkins. I’m talking stuff they never even said and signatures that are obviously not theirs. Anderson Cooper caught the Church in a flagrant lie and exposed them to the world. But the most laughable black propaganda Miscavige has put out on me is that “someone is financing lavish websites.” Oh boy, that one is rich. Huh, that would be me. In the last year I spent easily 75% of my time working on Scientology-cult. Writing and editing articles, backing up the website, handling security matters, maintaining everything, organizing and re-organizing it countless times to make it better. Doing all the marketing myself. I have spent a good 75% of all my awake hours on this endeavor, which means I cut my own income by that same amount -- 75%. So while I’ve nevertheless held my own, even flourished if not prospered, there were many months when my income was zero because I spent 100% of my time and more on Scientology.cult. The fact is I had a banner month in January 2009 when I pulled down a job for HBO, and that income helped me get by the whole year. I stretched that money far further than anyone would have thought possible. Recently, at the urging of friends, with the blessing of a high-powered lawyer friend, I put up a button for donations on the website and several beautiful people have helped out and that is sincerely appreciated tremendously from the bottom of my heart. More than once I’ve been moved to tears by PayPal. Getting by on a fraction of my normal income has been tough to say the least. But I am tough and I’m up to the job and more. Despite the hardship, I still managed to pay off my car a year early AND find and buy a house three weeks ago. That, I attribute to working insanely hard all year at great sacrifice, and also having fantastic credit and great relations with my banker. So much for being at cause over Energy. I am literally surrounded by great, supportive people. Many are non-Scientologists who when I finally told them my real story seemed to respect me all the more. And then there’s Time. How did I have the sheer time to create and maintain the website you see now, plus earn a living running to some degree three different companies? I developed a little trick I call the 36-hour day. Often I’ve called it the “f--king 36-hour day” because it’s not particularly fun. But it was a price I paid to make this possible. In July of last year, while working on Scientology-cult, I came to the conclusion there were just not enough hours in a day. Then it struck me, I had just literally stated the actual problem: the 24-hour day was just too short. Put your space suit on and let’s talk other worlds. If you know anything about planets, you will know the length of a “day” varies wildly. A day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than on Earth. That’s 40 extra minutes to get things done. Venus, on the other hand, would not be fun. Their day lasts 243 Earth days. That’s longer than their year, actually. Or take a home on Jupiter, if you could. Jupiter spins so fast by the time you arrived at work and handled your email, it would be time to go home, have dinner and hit the sack. In other words, you’d never get anything done. Sound familiar? So I decided to ignore the rise and fall of our sun and I set the length of my own day arbitrarily to 36 hours. I tried many, many different combinations. And in the last year, I can’t tell you how many 36-hour days I’ve worked, which perhaps is what inspired Marty to say possibly no one has worked harder than me to make the indie movement happen. The kind of black PR emitted by David Miscavige is nothing new to people like me and others from the Int base. I dealt with it daily on the Int base. And when you’re on the Int base that is your whole world. Is it harder to have black PR spread out here in the real world? No. It’s nothing. Most people only listen to Tommy Davis in reverse. If he says “Marty is psy-kottic, psy-kottic, psy-kottic!” people instantly know who to trust. If the Church of Scientology hates me, I must be a good guy. And I am. So in the face of this black PR, I think you may notice the underlying irony. When I did what LRH said and worked out the tech of my post, and then was verbally declared suppressive at the Int base but left fully on post (go figure) I knew I had the key to scripting not only scripts, but to life itself. And so I started writing a series of new scripts, just for my own use. First, one that got me out of that infernal hell-hole of a witch pit called the Int base. The DM-bots there would only accept a one-way flow of whatever your “out ethics” was. So I filled their ears with invented “out ethics” about me and my intentions which I knew would make me unqualified to be there in their beady, narrow-set eyes, and fixed DM-dictated mindset. And I got out in only 3 months. Then I scripted a new life for myself from nothing and boy I filled it up with a lot of living. I distanced myself from the past in a flurry of furious new adventures. I made up for lost time. And I rebuilt so fast people could hardly keep up. I couldn’t afford health insurance, so I raised my Tone Level in the spirit of play. For four years I didn’t even know anyone else was out. Till finally my old friend Jeff Hawkins found my personal website and called me one Sunday afternoon. Boy, was that crazy. I had no idea he was even out. I could hardly contain myself. Soon, I decided to do something about Scientology. My purpose remained the same as it had always been: to disseminate. Purpose. But what to do? So I did my research and looked at everything (infinity, Eighth Dynamic). I found two camps: for and against. The “For”s said all criticism was unjust, lies, etc. The “Against”s condemned everything about Scientology -- the Church, the tech and LRH, too. It was all either lilly white or infinitely black. With the purpose of doing something about it, I found and bought a domain name on December 31, 2007 that I knew had great potential because in the name is the second most highly searched for term on the subject of Scientology, i.e., the phrase “scientology cult.” Since the well was so poisoned, it seemed perhaps only a negative name would be trusted. www.scientology-cult.com was the name. And in December of 2008, a year later, I quietly put the site online. No one really knew about it, not even the Church. And they certainly didn’t know who was behind it. It was very small then, only had about 5 or 6 articles I had culled from others online. I still didn’t know exactly what to do with it. Fellow Scientology writer Dan Koon and I had many conversations about it. Prior to that website, as far as I knew there had virtually never been a high-profile website where Scientologists spoke out about the Church, exposing the crimes and basically auditing the Third Dynamic with Group Dianetics and Confessional Tech. All Scientologists were praising David Miscavige, and all ex-Scientologists were condemning everything in sight and after what they suffered, who really can blame them? I don’t. They’re all still my friends. A website by Scientologists against the Church -- that had never been done in a high-profile way. In my mind, it was a huge first. Reflecting back, one of the greatest writers who ever wrote for Scientology-cult, Haydn James, a.k.a. “T Paine” wrote, "Dear Thoughtful, "You know, others have tried all this in the past. Their strategy wasn't right, nor was their overall message and they didn't have websites! You have built a fantastic website and your message... spot on. Without you we'd be screwed, to put it bluntly. "I bow to your marketing and web skills and just watch the hits meter tick over. I think you are at just about a minimum of a 1,000 clicks a day. Between the websites of you and your like-minded friends, a fantastic amount of interest is being generated. "But you started the true voice of the middle path, before you there wasn't one. The stuff on the web was HORRIBLE. So us "middle-pathers" are in your debt and that's the truth. "Somehow the message you intended to portray -- the ‘I'm pro LRH and Scientology but against the Miscavigology’ -- comes across so well. Its an important stable datum for me in these crazy times and I think that is true for a lot of other similar-minded people, the rational guys who managed to keep their sanity and not give in to the urge to hate it all, when so many others went very that route under the stress. I don't blame those guys, most of them are victims of terrible abuse, I just don't like their sites and blogs because they would throw out the baby with the bath water. "In time, I think many of the more angry victims will be won over. In time they will realize that just because they were brainwashed and abused by David Miscavige doesn't mean it was the tech or LRH that did it. Today, you are actually setting a good example by using Scientology to fix Scientology and blow the whistle on a psychotic dictator. "So, in case I never said it, THANK YOU!" But back to my story (and I apologize for jumping around in time a bit, but I can’t spend forever on this article. I’m writing this one in one sitting and then going to publish it). After investigating the highly polarized landscape regarding Scientology, I resolved (Logic) that, like all things, Scientology was neither all good, nor all bad. And like all beings, LRH was neither all good, nor all bad. David Miscavige always made LRH out to be a saint. He was not. He was a regular man, but he also did something incredible that is perhaps the greatest contribution to the well being of man since the dawn of time (my opinion): he built a Bridge for those who want to travel to higher plateaus of knowledge, responsibility, control, understanding and integrity. So next I started a Data Analysis on the Seventh Dynamic, following it down. And when I did the Situation Analysis, guess what area held the predominance of outpoints? COB RTC. For all those who keep saying like broken records, “but you have to realize LRH was guilty, too” -- see above. LRH had faults just like the rest of us. But his area is not where the vast majority of outpoints trace back to. So I looked in David Miscavige’s area for the WHY because that’s how an Evaluation is done. And the Why I found was SCIENTOLOGY HAD BEEN SUBVERTED BY A SELF-APPOINTED DICTATOR. When I found that, I revised the website to state the WHY loud and clear right at the top of the home page. And much more can be said and has been said about that. The Data and Situation Analysis took about a year. But when I hit upon the Why, I practically felt the Earth tremble because I knew I was seeing something with a clarity few had ever seen before. As you know, the WHY opens the door to a handling. To repeat, the Why doesn’t handle everything for you, it “opens the door to a handling.” So I had arrived and my direction was finally set. I had evaluated the whole mess and disaster of Scientology and found the datum of comparable magnitude. Doubling back once again in my story, after purchasing the domain on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2007 something else happened of note. I went undercover back into Scientology, here in Dallas, to see what it was like to be a Scientologist onlines in an org in 2008. The result was shocking. I had been auditing someone on Book One and I brought them into my local org and got them started on the Bridge. Of course I was asked about my status, but by now no one really knew anything negative. I said I had left staff in 2004 and my next step was to pay for the training and auditing I received while on staff in the Sea Org 20 years. They asked me what I was doing and perhaps they noticed my gleaming Corvette parked outside. Dallas org was working on their Idle Org program and you could see the sparkling dollar signs in their eyes that a new person represented. Soon I was receiving about 15 spam emails a day urging me to come into the org for “briefing,” plus anywhere from 3 to 6 phone calls a day. The highpoint came when a staff member I’d never met nor spoken to before left a voicemail asking me to please donate $5,000 for their Ideal Org today. The IAS wanted money too. Meanwhile the IJC was constantly calling me to get me to purchase multiple sets of books at $3,000 a pop. They even sent me an inspiring sales argument that I wrote for a Source magazine in 1995 which they wrongly attributed to LRH. I wrote it up to them and they promised to sort it out. Then I wrote it the breach to RTC, heard nothing back. And a week later the IJC sent me the same quote again to “inspire me.” I was not inspired. At that point I really knew the lights were on, but no body was home. Then I found out my pc whom I had brought in and gotten started on the Bridge, on Book One auditing, was being pushed not to buy and read their first LRH book -- their next step per HCO PL Gradient Scale of Personnel Procurement -- but to make a substantial donation to the Dallas’ new Idle Org. They were even being hounded with phone calls as late as 10 PM, when they had to get up and go to work at 5 AM. Result: My new pc I personally started on the Bridge vowed never to set foot in a Church of Scientology again. Now I knew beyond all shadow of doubt just how bad it really was. I also attended three events and all three of them turned out to be another kind of event in disguise = bait and switch. A CCHR briefing turned out to be a recruitment event. And two other events turned out to be group regging events for their new Idle Org. But still I didn’t really take the gloves off until February 2009 after I flew -- at my expense -- to meet the all-time great horse’s rear end of all-time including this or of any other time: Tommy Davis who besides being crooked as a dog’s hind leg, doesn’t know a lick of Scientology and doesn’t apply any of it with his wooden head, but yet who is an avid student of David Miscavige and has mastered the finest art of enturbulation instead of how to be a Scientologist. After that fiasco, the choice seemed either say nothing and retain a chance of one day being allowed to resume my OT levels no matter how remote, or do what is right; stand up for mankind even though by attacking the Church it meant I would be barred from ever doing the OT levels. For a week I was in doubt about what to do. Throw away my own personal eternity? Or do what was right? I did New OT IV in 1986 while at Flag. Joined CMU (which was an arm of Executive Strata and thus Int Management) the following year and never took another step up the Bridge, finally routing out in 2004. Four years later, I faced a choice. How could I ever live with myself if I didn’t speak up? How could I turn my back on mankind with all I know? I couldn’t. I had to speak up no matter the personal cost. My most cherished dream of going OT this lifetime seemed to be a ship set afire. I remember the first article I wrote as “Thoughtful.” It was a bittersweet and somewhat fearful event. But courage doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid, it means you do it anyway despite fear. Well I thought my Bridge progress was over. But within three moths I was on OT V. Thank God I made the right decision despite intense personal danger. And thank God for friends like Marty Rathbun. Scientology-cult.com was build throughout March and April and really launched in May 2009. So this is our first birthday and we have grown. I am not the leader of the independent field. The independent movement is all about empowering people by helping them recover their personal integrity. After that, they ARE their own leader; they can and will do whatever they want. I like to think I did supply a vision, and through this website, I have been credited with starting the Indie movement which continues to grow. So we have covered a short history of my purpose (9th Dynamic), my research into everything that existed in the universe of Scientology both online and in my local org as a modern-day Scientologist (8th Dynamic) which also included incidentally, gathering up all the technical web-related knowledge I had to find and learn in real time in order to build and maintain this website, which many times has felt like getting a college education all over again. We covered my powers of thought and use of Logic embodied in the Data Series (7th Dynamic). And my selection of this website -- Scientology-cult.com -- as the location and our playing field (6th Dynamic). And I furthermore designed and envisioned that website as what LRH called a “multiple-viewpoint system” capable of imparting the actual scene because it enables one to view through multiple sets of eyes. And the whole of it I envisioned as Group Auditing, a platform whereby the group could run out the third-dynamic engram of David Miscavige. We covered my selection of a new moniker -- the enigmatic, witty, always insightful, and sometimes funny “Thoughtful.” And soon the cast of intensely colorful characters was quickly rounded out by the likes of “T Paine,” “Joe Howard” (Dan Koon), “Sitting Bull” (Marty Rathbun), “Mr. Peacock” and so many more. I am in awe of what they do. Just look at our list of Authors. Tommy Davis told the St Petersburg Times last July that they knew who T Paine was (they thought he was Marty -- wrong!), but admitted they still didn’t know who Thoughtful was. In fact, the CoS didn’t know who Thoughtful was until I myself let the cat out of the bag. I let it out because that CNN interview you saw me in actually was filmed last July! It was supposed to air mid August. But OSA hit them with such a forceful snow storm of Reverse Scientology (using the third party law in reverse, creating all forms of Dev-T intentionally, introverting employees, ARC breaking seniors, spreading generalities and suppression... that the actual report was delayed for months, so tangled was the web the CoS wove. In early August, thinking the CNN story was going to air any day, I felt it was safe to let my identity out and that’s where people first heard my actual name. After August I was exposed and just had to make the best of it. Needless to say, it was gratifying to finally see Anderson Cooper use my interview. But all that cast of characters, bringing life into this new scripting exploit is the province of the 5th Dynamic in this philosophic machine as I’m using it. Then we come to unifying elements that define our “species” and there again is the theme of “whistle blowing,” our message as my good friend, Geir Isene, New OT VIII, put it so beautifully: “Scientology does NOT equal the Church of Scientology”; then again there is our “anti-cult” positioning that positions us favorably because it positions us as we really are “Scientologists attacking criminality”; there is our theme of “using Scientology to fix Scientology.” These and more such unifying elements make up our species, the species of what we are, and that is the province of the 4th Dynamic. Then came the organization, the sequence of how we tell the tale. And while David Miscavige’s crimes run the gamut from blackmail and extortion, embezzlement, human trafficking, torture, mind control, fraud, racketeering, forced abortions, abuse of disconnection, psychological abuse, the deaths due to out tech and the mis-application of ethics and more... I decided the very best place to start was with the violent physical assaults that myself and others witnessed, because physical assault, while NOT the most serious IS the hardest to justify or rationalize and negate. So actual violent physical assault which David Miscavige has been meting out to innocent victims since the early 1980s is the most impactful and is the best place to start. Hence I promote key articles that detail his physical assaults. I designed a website that would showcase everything so that anyone could read it and actually understand what the hell has been going on. Organizing the presentation of David Miscavige’s criminality in this way is the province of the 3rd Dynamic and I can’t tell you how many hundreds of hours I put in designing how to correctly present all the information so it could be rapidly assimilated. Then came the countless actions to imbue creativity into the whole process, the humor and wit, the moving planets and stars, lots of photos and visual images some available no where else; the lavish size of the website; all the menus which make finding and searching for things easier; the modules providing the newest articles, total of hits, and acceptable pallet of colors, the links and tag clouds and bells and whistles of this website. While to reproduce the articles before as many sets of eyeballs as possible, there was all the work I have done throughout the year to push the website up in terms of ranking on Google the 500-pound Gorilla of Search Engines. Our hits have just tonight while writing this article (it is now 7:41 AM and I’ve been going non-stop since 10 PM) surpassed 500,000 hits, while visitors if I had been counting it, would easily be closer to 750,000 since many more people visit without clicking on other pages. For our key search term we are ranked on page 1, item #2 out of some 9 million search results (sometimes this last figure varies, but our ranking does not). And anytime you compete against 9 million other people and come in #2, that is pretty darn good if I may toot my own horn. Even for the word “Scientology” we are now ranking on item #1 of page 8, out of almost 5 million search results. For “david miscavige” we are on page 3 out of some 88,000 search results. What all those ranking figures mean is how closely we come to diverting the whole river of the internet seeking information about Scientology into our front door and thus receiving a message of actual rationality. How respected is Scientology-cult? Twice the New York Times has linked to the site in articles. The first time the traffic was so great, when we hit a sustained 2,200 simultaneous visitors the hosting company (one of the largest in the world) had to pull the plug because the load was threatening to burn out the CPU of the server we were on. After that came about three months of work for me to move the entire website to a “grid” of servers. And the next time the NY Times linked to us (this March) we got just as many hits and the servers withstood the load just fine. An artistic work requires all that and even a measure of showmanship, rhythm and drama. All that creation, ornamentation, and reproduction comes under the heading of creativity and that is the province of the 2nd Dynamic. Then come the articles themselves. Currently we have more than 250 articles on the subject, almost all of them unique to Scientology-cult.com. These are articles I’ve poured over, even helping some writers select their pseudonyms. What you don’t see are the thousands of emails going on behind the scenes. What I handle every day is a pretty great load, seeing as how I’m having to handle it “part time” because I’ve still got to earn a living, too. Recently my friend Dan Koon, who has been nudging me to write a year-in-review article said he realized if I’d spent just 20 hours a week on Scientology-cult, at a low rate for a writer of $50 per hour, that is $52,000 a year of my own person finances invested to make this project happen. But the joke’s on Dan. I’ve spent at least 40 hours a week on Scientology-cult for the last year, so that figure is easily over $100,000 of my own personal value put into this website, while also cutting my own real income by 75%. And that doesn’t count the software I’ve purchased, the hosting, the $350 I spent to move the website to a server grid, nor the cash I spend for the best online security money can buy which isn’t cheap. So when I hear the DM-bots and Miscavige Monkeys mumbling about who is financing these “lavish websites,” I can only laugh my most sardonic laugh, knowing that the Church of Miscavige says virtually NOTHING that is not an echo of something David Miscavige personally said. If it’s not abundantly clear to you by now, echoing Little Dave is the ONLY safe utterance you can make in the vast but empty hallways of the Church of David Miscavige. So there you have how my study of LRH’s discoveries and my application of that tech to the job of scriptwriting resulted in such practical insight that it helped me to script a new chapter for Scientology itself. Today there are powerful voices in the land. They are men and women of great personal integrity who have learned the hard way what the Code of Honor really means. It’s been a hard fought battle, expensive to me personally. But the time, money and effort bought something infinitely valuable: Meaning. I have come through it all and emerged on the other side having helped start the voice of Independent Scientology. I am not the voice itself, because that voice is “us.” We do not follow the heavy authoritarian model of old school Miscavige. This new voice is inclusive. We are that voice. It is a truer voice. I am just a marketing man, really. An artist and a writer. I am happy to have helped start the Independent Scientology movement. I’ve made it an honorable thing to stand in the sun as a Scientologist in the Independent field. And I’ve helped to create a strong platform on which to stand where before was only mud. My secret is not that I command life, but my studies of LRH have put me in tune with life on all dynamics. We’ve all come a long way in just one year. Where will year #2 take us? Since David Miscavige happened, many have suffered more greatly than I. By contributing to the creation of a new Scientology, all those years of misery on all our parts will be but stepping stones to a story greater than anything you or I ever saw coming. Together, we are scripting a new ending onto what was earlier a tragedy... turning it into a story of great human triumph. Now that’s how to write a script! We are voice of Independent Scientology. You are the scriptwriter of your own life. Your life’s story is not over until you stop writing new chapters. And the Dynamics enable you to chart out all the missing pieces of the puzzle in order to create whatever story you want to live. Written by Thoughtful |
"Scientology has been taken over by a self-appointed dictator, David Miscavige, who has turned the Creed of the Church of Scientology, the Code of a Scientologist, and the Credo of a True Group Member on their heads and instituted the virtual practice of Reverse (Black) Dianetics..." 
Comments
And I'm immensely proud and grateful to call you my friend. You continue to inspire me to write the next chapter of my life, and the next.
Now get some sleep! Your next 36-hour day will soon be upon you.
Love you,
Scarlet
Those Culties seek him everywhere!
Will Dave go to jail or land in a pickle?
That damned Elusive Pumpernickel!
First off you are a genius and it is ok with me if you are a god like being, I can have that.
Secondly, you are a great leader and a very humble one at that. I think humility makes it easier for someone else to follow the lead of someone.
Thirdly, the use of the dynamics was the best I have ever read. I never got the "create" part of the 2-d until this write-up of yours. I had personally used and told people that your life is like a painting and you are the artist. So what you say here is TOTALLY real to me.
Another thing that I thought was that you were working the dynamics up and down somewhat like LRH says to do on an admin scale. The idea that you would be declared for writing up your hat is SO SICK!! That is another thing I don't like about the C of M is that you can't use what you know, without being so DAMN CAREFUL all the time.
The reference on ethics and aesthetics being above the eighth is in the Tech Dictionary for easy reference."Ninth Dynamic, aethetics. (PDC 2)" LRH and "Tenth Dynamic, would probably be ethics. (PDC 2)" LRH
Thank you so much for what you do Steve, it is greatly appreciated. I will be donating to your pay pal service here real soon.
Oh! One other thing I thought of. You know the definition of games condition right? Take a look at it in a new unit of time. It could make for a good article as EVERY definition applies to DM and the aberrated game he is mocking up. definition 3 is :"have for self and can't have for others; now that is a true games condition." ~LRH
ARC,
Alex
In 1992, Photographer CMU, Steve Young, cast me to play the part of Jesus in the old What Is Scientology book. Perhaps that started the rumor, I don't know. But it was apparently fueled by David Miscavige (who else) who could "tell just by looking at the photograph" that I didn't know who I was. He later spread this to WDC members as I learned only recently from Amy Scobee.
But because Miscavige originally said it and spread it, that explains why the CoS is using it even though it is non-sequitur. Again it's safe to echo what DM says.
Thanks again for your really caring posts. Your thanks and participation as an Indie is more than ample exchange. As the old rule says, "Virtue is it's own reward."
I hung on every word. And as I did, I could see a movie with the pivot point as scientology-cult and the ending, when dm drives away ... to the well wishes (because we are not evil) of all of us -- to live out his life in exile.
With thanks, tremendous respect and a little bit of worry -- you should try to get more sleep -- it's considered important :-)
WH
Seriously, thank you. For over 20 years my husband and I were middle-pathers, alone. Off-lines reading and applying Scientology philosophy and principles - alone. Pro-LRH but twice-shy on organized "church". Then, a toxic eight years of DMology had us stuck and stymied (understatement), hopeless.
This site helped me (and many others, I'm sure) take a good hard look at what I knew was there - at the core of the CoS, and helped me step away. Thank you.
You've helped build the platform for us to bring our voices together to create community - and have FUN doing it! Thank you.
And thank you for taking the time to put this all to words - gracious! Thank you.
Oh, and one more thing. Just for the exercise and the lolz, every time CoS (DM, voice of) makes an accusation, we can swap out the accused's name(s) for DM/CoS without changing anything else. He is not describing you/us. He doesn't know you/us. He is only crying out his own mis-deeds and laying bare his own strategies and motivations. He describes himself to a Tee.
With love, Marta
Funny story: I had posted my first article on St Pete Times and ended by saying Miscavige was the Tony Montana of Scientology. I didn't even know Marty R was alive yet. Independently, he went out to St Pete Times in preparation for the first article. And in the cab, he all on his own told Tom Tobin that Miscavige was the "Tony Montana of Scientology." Whereupon Tom asked him if he was "Thoughtful."
Marty had never heard of Thoughtful but Tom happened to have my posting in his pocket. He gave it to Marty to read. At that point, Marty knew somewhere in cyperspace there was at least one other like mind to his.
I hope I didn't offend anyone by making that small but important to me at least, claim. :-)
You planted the "marker" so we could find each other, so just keep saying like it is, father. Just don't be surprised if we start giving you nicknames - like pops, or pappy :-)
Thank you very much for all the hard work and long hours, and for all you've had to put up with in order to put a website here for this field to form around. You should be(justifiably) proud of the result. Where there might otherwise be confused, wounded and isolated beings, there now exists a loose but high-affinty association of happy, in-comm and flourishing beings with expanding dynamics. To that I should add "well-informed." Between this site, Jeff's and Marty's I have had quite an education in the past several months.
I hadn't realized that this was the first "middle path" website of the Indie/Ex scientology field. That does make you "the Father of the Independent Movement, Steve Hall." Hope you get to see that in print lots of times.
As an artist myself, I have often thought about the extent of the artist's role in society. The idea that my job would be to simply turn out pretty paintings is just crushingly depressing. Obviously, there have to be new dreams dreamed, new realities created, and it's the artist's job to figure out and execute that. I'd say you have it taped. I find you to be an inspiring example of an artist, fully wearing his hat across the dynamics. Thanks so much for your abundant and sterling contributions. I plan to
be here, learning and participating, into the future with you.
lunamoth
It was good to learn the genesis of this site and the why behind the name (I was reticent to click on the link in Marty's blog in the beginning). But what I found here was pure gold. Hopefully, more Scientologists continue to find this great place and realize that they don't have to 'give up their eternity' if they leave the church.
I've read nearly everything you've posted on this site and always find your articles very insightful. Thanks again for all of your hard work here. It means so much.
I've been a fan of the 'middle path' for many years. It became hard to reconcile this with the extremism of the Church and I found myself withdrawing, partially because I was not happy, was not helping people and partially because I saw my disagreements stacking up. I didn't want to end up coming to a point where I 'threw the baby out with the bathwater'. I had to admit to myself that I felt FAR better the longer I stayed away. It was a conundrum to me, but now makes so much sense.
Plus I know it's FAR easier for non-Scientologists to click on a website that admits there is a problem or two.
I learn copywriting from a non-Scientologist in 1995, whom I respect as the greatest Copywriting teacher in the world. His name was Mike Whitlow. Knowing about my situation writing for the Church, Mike assigned me some very challenging campaigns to solve, like doing a campaign for the Richard Nixon Library, Museum and Birthplace in Loma Linda, CA.
I told him I couldn't do it because I thought Richard Nixon was a crook. He told me he had his reasons for assigning me that campaign and wanted me to do it. I did. And I found a way to promote the place without being false to my own ideals regarding Nixon.
It opened me to the idea that virtually any marketing situation could be solved if you had all the tools, and I do have the tools.
I am certain, with all I know, without DM around Scientology and Dianetics could be just like any long-time Scientologist, loved and well-respected in the community. Doesn't it fit? Like father like son?
So the very fact that the Church is despised while individual Scientologists are respected and valued is a huge contrary fact.
All I've done, really, is take the first step toward normalizing Scientology in the eyes of the world. There are more steps and one way or another, we will get there.
It's funny because I was talking with my sister, a non-Scientologist, about this whole thing. I've always been straight with her that the church wasn't perfect -- I always felt that was a ridiculous stance to take. No organization is perfect, no person is perfect, not even LRH. But I never let her in on the whole enchilada, the really bad stuff that I wasn't even confronting, for the same reason none of us did.
What's interesting is when I started talking with her about some of the corruption, she got right away that it wasn't Scientology that was the problem, it was corrupted leadership. She even said that DM is making Scientology look bad!
Wise words you write. Thank you for the history. Your take on creating a script is off the charts original. Having written two screenplays with one offer and one option to my credit I will be re-reading your write up when I have had less wine in the belly.
So you're the father of the Independent Movement. Thank you for starting this needed movement to help others discover their integrity.
I was struck by your unselfish humanity as I read this post. You are a great and noble person. I'm so proud to be part of this group and to be a regular reader of this website.
Donations will be on the way soon.
LOL and admiration for what you have done and continue to do.
Congratulations for surpassing half a million hits on your website in less than a year!
Thanks very much for the story and doing what you do to improve ourselves and our world exposing crimes, abuse and injustice. Your middle path venue is priceless as well as the multi viewpoint which has enabled many to get charge off on various dynamics.
VWD! What an awesome article, what an awesome hat write-up, what an awesome job you did on auditing the 3D engram, what an awesome web site and movement you congealed and what an awesome year! And you are a great guy and thank you very much!
Your use of the data series and the eval, the dynamics application and your courage are very much appreciated.
My contribution is forthcoming. Please let me know what else is needed from me.
By the way, I am a little surprised that you seem at all affected by the Black PR from the enemy camp. No need to defend yourself or explain anything to anybody. You put them on a defensive. Great! They keep saying, basically, "Steve is not like us, Steve is very different from us". Great! It is a complement! DM is an asshole and you are different. It is a final COB approval of your script! Send DM a thank you note and take an evening off to relax with your family with a smug smile on your face, you did GOOD!
Best,
Misha
I hear the upcoming May 9th event will NOT be hosted by COB, but will be hosted by local org EDs. Woo-hoo... we are impinging. Can you say "ethics presence"?
It has been said that the most valuable particle in the universe is admiration. You certainly have my admiration and I dare say that of all self determined beings who have ever contributed to the help line. I might add that the most important acknowledgement you will ever receive for a job well done is the one you give yourself. You have set an example of courage and dedication for all independants to follow as we endeavor to save LRH's legacy for mankind. I hope you will take at least a few minutes of each 36 hour day to appreciate the affinity which is flowing back to you from your dynamics and to acknowledge the amazing screenplay which is your life.
I don't pull 36-hr days all the time, just when the need arises. I find it easier just to stay up till the next night, otherwise my whole schedule gets thrown off.
Phone calls make it hard to sleep during the day, so I don't recommend that.
Fantastic write-up, wonderful use of this philosophic machine! (BTW, a similar machine can be found in The Factors, a users manual for Creators of Universes that we all are).
I can also testify first hand this new f.... so-called religious practice in the little church of Mestyvology: labeling "squirrel" anybody who is using the tech in a creative and standard way. It's quite something to experience this kind of suppression.
Anyway, you are emanating a lot of theta and admiration, as well as some unnamed and aesthetic particles one can only find high on the scale. And some others I will name: Understanding, intelligence, helpfulness, courage and compassion. Thanks :-)
I decided to take more responsibility in this Indie game. I will e-mail you separately on that.
Every voice is important. New voices, newly said viewpoints, each make the whole bigger, better.
Keep up the good work.
The next great step would be to nix a few of these events. I'd say the first to go will be the Maiden Voyage events because so many OT VIIs and VIIIs have left or at least aren't on board anymore.
Thanks for your dedication
Thanks for your creativity
Thanks for your viewpoint
Thanks for your help
Thanks for your confront
Thanks and great success with year 2!
Voltaire said something like, "If you are to argue with me, define your terms." And here I wonder about the definition of "independent." For a long time, individuals have studied the works of LRH and went their own path. Their independence was freedom from dependence on. They were not tied to the works of LRH. They saw the merit in his works, but also saw the flaws and the inconsistencies. They saw him as a man who had a mission, but also saw him as a charismatic individual with glaring flaws. These individuals uniformly came to the conclusion that not all of LRH could be trusted even though much of what he discovered had tremendous merit.
Others who studied LRH and left the church (or were kicked out) revered him as infallible. The were anti-church but pro LRH. To this group, the words of LRH were sacred text not to be questioned. This group operated independent of the church but demanded LRH be scrupulously followed. This group included those who fought tooth and nail to have periodic sec checks be removed from the NOTs auditing schedule. They were independent Scientologists of the KSW variety.
And of course you had those who left the church wanting Scientology wiped off the planet. The were no longer Scientologists at all.
When your ad campaigns hit the market, I was anti-Scientology/pro-tech. If I had known that the source of these ads had died in a car crash I would not have grieved. Anything or anyone that supported the evils that had been carried out in the name of a church had simply lost my respect. And for those of us searching the internet at that time, the evil was glaring. So, this is a compliment. At the time I regarded the CofS as an enemy of spiritual freedom. And you were doing a frighteningly good job of spreading it.
Since you left the church, you've done a remarkable job of analysis and marketing of your new position. Pretty impressive. And a job that needed doing.
However, I've been watching a long time. I've watched a lot of challengers get in the ring. I've seen aging champions who once seemed unbeatable get pummeled by very good upstarts who would have been knocked out in the first round when the champion was in his prime.
Being brash can give one a competitive edge, but wisdom takes one above the game. Brashness may provide focus, but it also serves as blinders. Wisdom removes the blinders and provides a panorama of focus.
And though LRH was the founder and source of a subject called Scientology, he was not the source of any of the truths he described. And much of the "tech" existed long ago. But, that is for another time.
What you have accomplished, Steve, is admirable. You're a pretty sharp guy. And I think you try to keep things in perspective for the most part. And I think that this movement has a dramatically different flavor than what has been going on previously. But the "middle path" has such a wide range of individuals from those of the KSW variety to those of the anything goes variety that one has to wonder what would happen if we all didn't have a common enemy. History shows that disparate conglomerates will turn on one another once a common enemy is dispatched.
Tolerance of disagreement is a good thing, but unfortunately a fragile thing.
Much love,
Michael
ps. though I don't always agree with you, I support what you do. You mentioned paypal. I think your efforts deserve some contribution.
I, too, had a huge button on the word "cult", but the fact of the matter is the church has become one. The way out is the way through and the sooner more people wake up to this fact, the sooner thing can be put back on track.
I loved the part of your story about ramping up your Web development skills. I had a similar experience. Someday we'll have to compare notes.
I have so much admiration for your complete dedication to and application of LRH's technology. Having witnessed so many handlings for wrong whys in Scientology, it is breathtaking to see tech correctly applied, correct whys being found and handlings that address the why found being done. Any Scientologist who has been around from the 70's knows the church is not expanding, is not theta and is not Scientology. The fact that the church has been operating off of wrong whys for so long helps me to understand why Scientology has inherited the stigma of being unworkable. Just knowing the truth has been so helpful, now knowing how the truth was brought into being offers an even greater understanding. Thank you for this.
Although I had considerations about the name of the site and took a bit to confront looking at it, understanding why you gave it that name makes sense and I would not change it at all. It is too successful. I managed to flatten my button on it and it seems many others have as well.
Beautiful breakdown of the application of the dynamics to life.
I am most appreciative of the fact that you chose the middle path as I would not have spent any amount of time investigating the truth if it did not also include the truth about the workability of the tech. It is simply the stable datum in my life. As I have been able to rid my life of false stable data set in by the church, I have gained even more certainty that the tech does work when applied correctly.
The middle path has allowed me to interchange with other like minded beings which up until I found the SP Times was non-exsistent. As a result, I have been free to create as a spiritual being again, no longer alone in my ideas. That alone has blown incredible amounts of charge for me.
You are an awesome and powerful being and I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to communicate with you. I would also like to validate your wife and express my gratitude to her as this could not have been accomplished without her support...thank you for sharing your husband with us so that we may all have the opportunity to investigate Scientology on its true merits.
Your blog was outstanding, thank you so much.
I have followed you maybe 10 months or so, and I am so respectfull of you.
This write up was incredible & very inspiring! I had a huge button originally on the word cult especially since I had to defend so many times in the past the fact that Scientology was not a cult while I was doing volunteer work in my community. It was really hard for me to finally acknowledge that it was a cult. It's still hard for me to believe that I got sucked in & that I did not see it earlier. I was a true "Bot". I did have incredible wins & I improved my life tremendously but in the last several years I had become less & less self-determined & more & more PTS of the Church.
I was very frustrated at the beginning that you had the word cult in the name of your site. Now that you've explained why, it makes total sense.
You're a very big being! Sending hugs your way & wishing you years of Flourishing & Prospering on all your dynamics!
Viktor Frankl said he often questioned why he out millions of people, survied four Nazi death camps during WWII, and finally he realized what gave him immunity from death: He had something important yet to do in his life. Even in the darkest of times, when certain death was only a matter of turning right instead of left, he envisioned himself giving lectures one day about his ordeal.
Lacking money, insurance, and everything else but the shirt on my back, knowledge in my head and loyalty in my heart, I depended on that alone many times to get me through after leaving the Sea Org.
I saw myself starting a website, writing articles and books, meeting with many warm friends and sharing whatever I've learned from my experiences in Scientology to make it unlikely that this could ever happen again.
I see an important role there for you. Mankind needs a good Chaplain. I don't think there is one within the Church of Miscavige.
You laid out the time track and it was quite a read.
All that lavish funding you are getting for such high end web sites !!! TUT TUT. LOL
Okay watch out for a Paypal contribution coming your way.
High Fives and Carry on !
love,
War and Peace
Thank you. That post was a great hat write-up. I will attempt to put it to use, myself. The bit about "Every action that results in a product has a certain tech.
One finds out about it or develops it."
Good job on spotting useful tech.
Yes, we are all writing our own life-script. I'm sure you've heard the joke about the writer who went to heaven. He asked God, "Why God, if you're so all-powerful, all-benevolent, would you allow war, famine, suffering and disease?"
God said, "Eh, makes for a better story..."
And what an interesting story about our church we have here...
After the St. Petersburg articles, I started exploring again. I have found a number of websites where the quality of the writing and expression of purpose is in such an elevated plane, that it is quite exciting. I had no idea you started it all.
My hat is off to you.
CHORUS
Truth,
We support the truth
The good, the bad, the ugly
We support the truth
VERSE
We come back
To blow the whistle
Reveal the lies
In the light of truth
Hello we're back
And we are legion
No place to hide
In the light of truth
CHORUS
Truth,
We support the truth
The good, the bad, the ugly
We support the truth
VERSE
There's a wolf
In the hen house
Li'l Davie boy
Is on the loose
But we can strip
Away the false data
As-is the entheta
By shining the light of truth
Anyone out there got this LRH issue - where he decided against Int Events?? That should be out there and made well known.
FOS
You are a great mentor for using Scientology as a tool to better oneself and the people and world around one.
I'm working on a project and I worked through the dynamics down and up for my project as I was reading your article (I read that part somewhere else some months ago....better the second time around).
I strive to be a better person and more productive after I read any of your articles.....off to work!
Lots of love from,
Me
Thanks for sharing your incredible discovery and for inspiring the rest of us to develop our own "middle way" between the "haters" and the "cult faithful".
My PayPal contribution is on its way.
I was amazed at how quickly my own button on the word "cult" was flattened. I have thought several times about changing the name, but each time I came to the conclusion it was better to keep it, because once a Scientologist gets that button flat, he or she is in a much better place and stronger position. Of course I also kept it for other reason, including that it is 100% accurate in it's description of billionaire Miscavige's corrupt mafia-like empire; and it has also helped to get our message that "Scientology does not equal the Church of Scientology" into prominence and to move this website onto the comm lines of the world.
I look forward to meeting you in person, and many others, in 2010.
Steve
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