Scientologists: Scientology, Then and Now

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s ignore the debate of whether Hubbard’s technology “works” or not. Let’s just look at what Hubbard put together, and what Miscavige did with it after Hubbard died.

All current Scientologists are supposed to believe that David Miscavige, the current leader of the Church of Scientology is continuing and enhancing the work of L. Ron Hubbard. They must trust what Miscavige has told them.

Let’s see what the truth is:

• By the time Hubbard died, he had indicated, in his “Keeping Scientology Working” that his tech was complete and must not be altered. He forbade anyone altering, removing or adding to his technology. In addition, he specifically admonished his followers to never, ever reduce training to a set of rote drills.
• After Hubbard died, Miscavige completely changed all training in Scientology. He rewrote all the training materials and reduced the training to a set of rote drills.

• In the few years before his death, Hubbard presided over the greatest expansion the Church of Scientology had ever seen. This expansion continued, but tapered off after his death.
• David Miscavige has orchestrated the greatest decline of membership in the church’s 50+ year history. Not just a decline in expansion, a drastic shrinking of the church membership. All of the expansion of Hubbard’s years has been wiped out, and a lot more. And the decline continues.

• Hubbard created a large and complex administrative structure to oversee the Church of Scientology after he was gone. Included in this structure were many checks and balances to make sure the church management did not stray from the proper administrative path he set up. One top management group was even called the Watchdog Committee. The staff at the International Management base in Hemet was around 1,000 at that time.
• Miscavige has completely dismantled all of Hubbard’s administrative structure. None of the people who Hubbard put in charge remain. No one who worked with Hubbard remains in any executive position. The staff at the Int. Base are around 400, but many of those have been off post for years, “doing lower conditions” — endlessly. Anyone still within that executive structure has no power but is simply a “yes-man” to Miscavige’s dictatorship.

• Hubbard wrote quite detailed instructions on how the Church of Scientology was to be run. These policies were made available to all in over a dozen large volumes. In Hubbard’s directions, these policies were to be followed without question by all Churches of Scientology.
• Under Miscavige’s direction, the many volumes of Hubbard policy letters are no longer in print. Miscavige has decreed that, from now on, his orders are senior to anything written by Hubbard, his orders are to be followed, he can and will order everyone to violate Hubbard’s policies and his orders must be carried out.

• When Hubbard was in charge, any money to the church was in exchange for a book, a course, a session. Money was always given in exchange for something. Hubbard expressly forbade any “pure donations” where there was no exchange. He was adamant.
• Miscavige has introduced and heavily promoted “pure donations” from Scientologists. So much so that Scientologists who do not donate enough pure donations are considered “out ethics” and are punished. Today, the vast majority of the church’s income comes from those pure donations that were forbidden by Hubbard.

• When Hubbard was in charge, he found that big events–at that time called congresses and held twice a year–artificially boosted church’s statistics and then inevitably caused a ruinous drop in church activity. He forbade such big events. The “boom” was artificial and the crash was disastrous.
• Miscavige has created six yearly, big events, each one carefully designed to sell something, to artificially boost the church’s statistics. When the inevitable crash in statistics occurs as a result, just as predicted by Hubbard, Miscavige blames everyone but himself for the problem that he created by violating Hubbard’s directions.

• When Hubbard was running things, the local churches were expected to make do with what they had. If they increased the number of people on services, they would make the additional income needed to support that expansion. It was a natural evolution. If the church did not expand, it would get no outside financial help.
• Miscavige’s idea of “expansion” is to demand that the local Scientologists pony up millions and millions of dollars, buy a big building, come up with millions more to renovate the building, and then give the oversized building to Miscavige. Miscavige turns around and leases this large building back to the local church for lots of money. This means the local Scientologists are paying for the new buildings twice! The local church must shoulder the increased lease and the increased burden of maintaining a huge building when they couldn’t even afford to maintain the smaller quarters! This “false expansion” inevitably makes the church’s struggle for survival much harder. Closing churches, long forbidden under Hubbard, has become common under Miscavige (spun as “combining resources” by Miscavige).

Scientologists: You are supposed to defend what Ron created from any alteration! You are supposed to ensure that someone doesn’t come along and destroy all that Hubbard built and all that you believe in. That is supposed to be your job and your most solemn duty as set out in “Keeping Scientology Working”.

Scientologists: If you honor L. Ron Hubbard, what are you doing allowing Miscavige to destroy all that Hubbard built?

What is your excuse? You weren’t paying attention? You forgot? You believed Miscavige and forgot to look for yourself? Someone else was supposed to do that? You were afraid that David Miscavige would punish you for disagreeing with him?

Don’t say you didn’t notice anything! These are massive changes. The entire structure of the Church of Scientology is collapsing. You are letting it happen. LRH left you with that very specific responsibility and you failed.

What is your excuse?