Dear Marty:
Regarding your article “L Ron Hubbard In Perspective,” here is my perspective:
Let’s get a little bit of perspective here on all the brouhaha over the past couple days on this blog. I was not attempting to dictate how people think.
Oh the banality!
I was merely serving as an iconoclast of those “icons” who have sought (and it appears achieved in some quarters) that lofty status by acting themselves as iconoclasts of L Ron Hubbard.
Briefly, an iconoclast is:
1: a person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration
2: a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions
Icon has a number of definitions:
1: a usually pictorial representation; image
2: [Late Greek eikōn, from Greek] : a conventional religious image typically painted on a small wooden panel and used in the devotions of Eastern Christians
3: an object of uncritical devotion; idol
4: emblem, symbol <the house became an icon of 1960’s residential architecture — Paul Goldberger>
5: a : a sign (as a word or graphic symbol) whose form suggests its meaning b : a graphic symbol on a computer display screen that usually suggests the type of object represented or the purpose of an available function
It’s clear from the context that you are using definition #3. It’s also clear from the context that those are sneer quotes around your “icons.”
You’re talking about these people in generalities, of course, which, according to your standard Scientology, they deserve.
You’re also doubtlessly lying, and these are just your straw icons, or straw “icons.” There are no people you can identify among Hubbard’s debunkers who have sought to be an icon, some, as you call it, lofty status, or to be an idol, or an object of uncritical devotion. Some of the debunkers were certainly worth listening to, and none deserve your black PR. Hubbard insisted on a lofty status, and allowed no criticism of his idolness. But none of his debunkers have elementals as Hubbard had, such as you, to crush criticism, nor his insane need and lust to be idolized.
Since Scientologists see Hubbard, you’ve made perfectly clear, as an icon susceptible to iconoclasm, they will have to deal with iconoclasts until the Scientologists stop their iconolatry. Scientologists have accepted a pathologically lying sociopath as their icon, their object of uncritical devotion. This is clearly an unwise choice, but it at least facilitates Scientology’s need to be seen as victims. By choosing as their icon a bunko artist who would bunk them with millions of words of bunkum, Scientologists cannot but feel that wogs who weren’t bunked, or who escaped Hubbard’s bunking, are now debunking him. The more lofty that Scientologists make Hubbard’s status – to icon or idol level – the bigger victims they can make themselves, and, of course, the more evil they can mock up, postulate or black PR Hubbard’s debunkers.
I’ve found that choosing God as object of devotion works, because, unlike Hubbard, He is not a liar or scammer and has never bunked people, so is impossible to debunk. It should be noted that idolatry is the worship – or uncritical devotion – of anything other than God. Iconolatry is a form of idolatry, specifically uncritical devotion to an image or images. Since Hubbard is to Scientologists an icon, Scientology is properly called idolatry or iconolatry.
I’ve seen them come and go and return and remain.
On your blog? Over the past couple of days?
Those that claimed to have the inside track to L Ron Hubbard, or they knew Ron so began to know better than him, or were channeling L Ron Hubbard, or even the one who claims to have a gigantic tunnel full of L Ron Hubbard.
These are all straw people, Marty.
Let us not lose sight of one significant fact – so obvious as to constitute an elephant in the room – none of those iconoclasts even exist without L Ron Hubbard.
Marty, you know you’re lying. There cannot but be followers of yours who also know you’re lying.
If it’s possible for anyone to exist without someone else, anyone else, or everyone else, then Hubbard’s iconoclasts, or, from a rational perspective, his debunkers, can, beyond rational argument, exist without him. If we all comprise a whole, which we happen to, then clearly we don’t exist without anyone else and everyone else.
But I’m accepting that you do believe that some people cannot exist without someone else. This is in line, of course, with your belief you articulated some months back about us all being separate. You paraphrased Hubbard’s assertion in the OT III scripture that the belief that we are one is the “primary error.” My position is that the belief in that idea as the primary error very well could be Scientology and Scientologists’ primary error.
In my system, all people, whether debunkers, iconoclasts, idolaters, scammers, icons, Scientologists or wogs, exist because of God. Scientology, as you know, states in scripture that “it is carefully observed here that the science of Scientology does not intrude into the Dynamic of the Supreme Being.” As you also know, Scientologists do not consider God, or look to God for guidance, in their actions as Scientologists, but look to Hubbard or Miscavige, or you I suppose. If wisdom comes from God, then Scientologists are tragically relegated to stupidity. It would be very wrong to keep them from a better system.
In any case, God created debunkers, and created them to exist with all the liars they debunked. The liars did not make their debunkers, any more than the debunkers made the liars. When all the liars who need debunking have all been debunked, the debunkers will still exist, but will not wear their liar-debunking hats.
When you think about it, debunkers perform a fairly spiritual, maybe even holy function, because of their relationship to lies and truth. God, of course, is the Source of all that is real, and liars’ lies are not real. In its willful effort to put itself outside God, Scientology has generated, and largely is, a mass of lies. God wouldn’t be guiding pathological liars to lie, but He very well could be guiding some of His children to debunk them, even if they don’t know their guidance’s Source.
Inveterate liars, as you know, don’t stop lying easily, and they’re also, pretty well one-to-one, bullies. So the people who tell the truth to debunk them can pull in some serious fair game for their efforts. The liars and bullies’ henchmen will even black PR the debunkers as anti-religious iconoclasts.
I have spoken to people who have journeyed far up the Scientology Bridge who have been left in the wicked, indecisive position of “where’s the next level?”.
That makes sense, since far up the Scientology bridge hasn’t gone anywhere, and wherever anyone got to on the bridge was by years of bait-and-switch tech.
And you make these questioning people wrong?
Caught up in the Miscavige or Robertson or Mayo or some other iconoclast mythology that Ron didn’t really mean what he said in HCO PL The Hidden Data Line (and the many lectures and policies where he re-iterated that ‘if it is not in writing, it isn’t true’), they remained tractable followers.
You worked for decades to render Scientologists tractable. You’re still doing it. While as a liar and black PR artist you remain intractable. But give it a try. Tell the truth about Hubbard’s lies and his debunkers and what you’ve done to them.
What I try to point out is that they are intentionally put there by setting up a religious myth about L Ron Hubbard – some make him God, some make him Devil; and none do him justice for the man he was and the work he created.
I debunked Hubbard, but I didn’t make him God, or a devil. God made him a man. He made himself a satanist. He made people satanists, and he got them to make other people satanists. I didn’t make him anything.
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared features include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration for Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and liberating figures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism
You acknowledge that Hubbard was a rebel; in fact you call him an iconoclast. He took great pride, shown throughout his scripture, in being a rebellious figure.
You promote Hubbard as promethean, and Scientology markets him as promethean. Hubbard promoted himself as promethean, a polymath, professional in 29 fields. His Admissions evidence his promethean urges, and, of course, he declared his high hopes of smashing his name into history so violently that it would take a legendary form; which is about as promethean as it gets.
Promethean: one who acts in a Promethean manner; of or pertaining to Prometheus; daringly original; boldly inventive or creative; of a Romantic literary hero: one who is a rebel against a larger order, one who defies traditional moral categories, persecuted but dauntless en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Promethean
You and all Scientologists, you must agree, promote Hubbard as a great liberator, the bringer of total freedom to mankind, and the man who gave you your freedom. And, of course, Hubbard declared that man is in a trap, and that he had taped the path out, and he promoted himself as the builder of the bridge to total freedom.
But they do it for the same purpose. That which was covered so well by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason (quoted from in a post here not too long ago). For anyone caught up in the perplexing fog of having to hold tight to mythology for comfort, I highly recommend The Age of Reason for some perspective.
If you were to think about it, Marty, in this area of mythology as it relates to Hubbard, aren’t you the person in the paradigm holding tightly. It might not be for comfort. It could that you hold tight to the Hubbard mythology you know to be lies for a legal defense. It could be you hold tight out of terror. But it is you who are holding tight to myths, or as they’re more simply called about Hubbard and Scientology, lies.
When released from mythology and encouraged to research and study the vast library LRH did leave behind, many find that there is so much Scientology they never really understood or applied – and certainly thought did not apply to them since they had attained whatever Level they had.
Oh no, all of Scientology applies to Scientologists. Scientologists choose to be Scientologists so that all of Scientology will apply to them.
I think it is important to understand LRH was a man, and not some special thetan visited upon earth like God sent Jesus or, at the other extreme, some confidence trickster intent on enslaving people.
Well, Hubbard was both. He was a man, and he made himself a confidence trickster to enslave people. An important claim in his confidence game was that Jesus Christ was just below “clear.” It is because Hubbard was a confidence trickster that he was susceptible to debunking. And since he was intent on enslaving people, inevitably he would fail, because some ex-slave would always show that his slavery and his enslavement tech didn’t work.
When you take mythology out of the equation it leaves but one basis upon which to judge his legacy. That is, does it work? And lo and behold, if LRH said one thing more times than any other thing, I would wager it is that Scientology ought to be judged against that very standard.
And yes, it should be judged by that standard. But the malignant narcissist attacked people who said it didn’t work, and allowed no judging of his claims for his science, tech or system. So, did Hubbard’s vilification of people that said Scientology didn’t work, really work? Have you found it effective to vilify good people the way you do? I say it doesn’t work. It works for the malignantly narcissistic liar running the con, but the con doesn’t work as he claims, and you claim, for the victims.
The proof of Scientology’s unworkability is its products. Hubbard produced one organization. Even you acknowledge it’s an evil organization. You swore under oath that it was the most ethical organization on earth, when you could not but have known it was extremely unethical.
Miscavige is evidence of Scientology’s unworkability, and so are you. All your followers are evidence of Scientology’s unworkability. Universally, Scientologists are cowards, afraid even of merely granting credence to the people who tell the truth about Hubbard and Scientology and its unworkability. Scientology claims to improve people’s ethics, but that claim is clearly false, as evidenced by the religion-wide cowardice, and your supremely unethical and indefensible Suppressive Person doctrine.
The claims for Clear and OT are false. The claim of raising IQs on average a point per hour is false. The claims that Hubbard was a war hero are false. His claims that he cured his injuries and blindness with his mental tech are false. His claim of being a nuclear physicist is false. His claims for his “research” and his honesty are false.
If you have any actual evidence that Scientology works as Hubbard claimed, please present it. For now, all evidence shows that it doesn’t work. And those that claim it works, in the face of this evidence, and without presenting any evidence that it works, are liars and forwarding an antisocial scam that, along with them, needs debunking.
Whether an author or philosopher was a saint or sinner has no bearing on whether what he or she produced works when applied as suggested.
Sure. If, however, a person, especially one claiming to be a scientist, made claims about his products or inventions that were false, and which he could not but have known were false, then that person is proved a sinner, and proved not a saint. And that is Hubbard’s condition.
Your saints or sinners here are of course straw saints or straw sinners. That the sin of an author or philosopher is his lying has definite bearing on whether what he or she produced works. If he lied about it working, as Hubbard did, it cannot possibly work. And lying is Hubbard’s overwhelming, incorrectable sin as author and philosopher. That cannot now be changed.
I have never seen a Scientologist actually apply your saint or sinner rule, except against critics, as you are doing, of Hubbard’s lying and sociopathic intentions and actions. When a person authors things that tell the critical truth about Hubbard or Scientology, Scientologists find the person’s crimes, manufacture crimes, black PR him, all to turn him into a sinner who is not to be listened to. This is what every Scientologist – you personally in spades – has done to me since I started writing and speaking.
And isn’t that in fact what Hubbard ordered? Aren’t you executing command intention when you relate my sinnerness – crimes, overts, your black PR, whatever – to my credibility, and to the truth, and consequently workability of what I’ve authored?
Isn’t Hubbard’s command intention identical to Miscavige’s command intention for how what I author, and I as author, are to be handled, not be reason but by attacking the attacker, the sinner? And isn’t that your command intention for Scientologists in disorganized Scientology?
Scientologists’ universal hypocrisy is becoming so visible and understood, the cruelty of their commanders in keeping them in that terrible condition is also becoming visible and understood. You are not saving people by prolonging their self-destructive condition. The answer is to cut them free, not suppress their consciences so their hypocrisy doesn’t bother them.
With a timing that seemed as magical as destiny, in the middle of the current blog debates (and particularly contemplation of responding to the digs and slights on LRH implied or gratuitously offered in defending other “icons”) and my pondering about how LRH ought to be treated in retrospect, I opened a package from Tom Felts that he had sent me weeks ago. I reached in and found a 1929 edition of Twelve Against The Gods by William Bolitho. I had mentioned the book to Tom when he visited me in January, noting a passage that LRH cited in the Philadelphia Doctorate Course. I dropped everything and began reading the book and continued because Bolitho spoke the ideas I harbored but lacked the ability to articulate. Here are a few passages that I felt very relevant to L Ron Hubbard:
[snip passages on the Prometheans among us mortals]
The greatest adventurer that ever lived ended as a nervous, banal millionaire…
Hubbard was not the greatest adventurer that ever lived, although he did end up a nervous, banal millionaire. But it was really his lying, including his lying about his adventures, and even about his nervousness and banality, which led to his debunking and his need to go into hiding and become even more nervous and banal.
In the scheme of things, I would venture to say LRH was an adventurer whose sallies from the cave were far more threatening to the social order than any adventurer Bolitho goes on to treat. After all, LRH’s adventure lead to an invitation that we all become adventurers. And consequently the Order, and its sheep, have subjected him to far worse treatment than any adventurer of the material realm whose goals and products were control and material, geographic or human ownership.
No, Marty, Hubbard’s debunking was and remains because of his lies. He was not treated worse than his fellow adventurer liars. He wasn’t even treated worse than other confirmed liars in any realm. It’s true he lied about his adventures, and you obviously lie about his adventures if you repeat what he said about them.
Many a mere missionary or general have seized on LRH’s faults in pathetic attempts to commandeer for themselves the title “adventurer.”
No, this is a suppressive generalization. I’d bet, given your observable habits, that these are straw mere missionaries and straw generals. We all have adventures. Not everyone lies about them.
You have elevated Hubbard the Adventurer and his adventures to promethean status or level. In fact, you even raised him above Bolitho’s promethean heroes, to a superpromethean level, because, you say, he was far more threatening to the “Order” than they were. In a sense that could be, because Hubbard’s willful lying was superpromethean, and high intellect sociopaths like Hubbard are naturally threatening to normal, peace-loving people with a clue. When he had achieved some success in removal of enough followers’ consciences to form and operate the GO and the SO, the “Order,” whatever that may be, began to see his whole criminal conspiracy as so threatening they charged a bunch of the co-conspirators, including his wife.
Pushing up Hubbard to promethean, besides making you a satanist, cannot but generate a drive to attack the people who debunk his lies and show him to be something less than promethean. All those debunkers are, of course, God’s children, perhaps even his more conscienceful for some reason. Thus having Hubbard, a pathological liar, as icon is a situation a satanist would die for.
Finally, I quote from the final page of Twelve Against The Gods where Bolitho asks a rhetorical question of Woodrow Wilson’s adventure, a question that I believe is just as relevant to us today with respect to L Ron Hubbard’s adventure:
The great killing was over: could Wilson, with its smell in the air, risk another?
Hubbard made a great killing telling his lies about his adventures and the adventure he was selling others. What do Scientologists risk to keep those lies working?