In 1969, Paulette Cooper wrote an article for a British magazine called The Tragi-Farce of Scientology. She then expanded it into a book called The Scandal of Scientology, which she published in 1971.
In retaliation, the Church began a five-year vendetta to drive her over the brink. They sued her, they harassed her, they sent spies to befriend her and to follow her, they wrote her name and phone number in bathroom stalls, and they were nearly successful in an attempt to frame her by writing a bomb threat on stationery they had stolen from her apartment, a stunt they attempted to repeat with threats against the Arab consulate. Ms. Cooper believes the Church was behind an attempted murder that went wrong.
The Church only stopped their campaign of harassment because they were distracted by the discovery of their theft of government documents. Had Operation Snow White not been discovered, they very likely would have hounded Paulette Cooper to her death.
That was Scientology under L. Ron Hubbard.
In 2006, Janet Reitman wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine called Inside Scientology that was equally critical. That, too, turned into a devastating book of the same name.
In retaliation, the Church wrote an angry letter.
That is Scientology under David Miscavige.
In fact, several critical books have been released in the past two years. So far as I know, none of the authors have been sued, shot or framed.
Clearly, the Church’s actions have been tempered by the times and years of bad PR. The Church may be hobbled by Hubbard’s often idiotic way of doing things, but Miscavige and his management aren’t completely stupid. (That said, it’s worth noting that the harassment has been toned down to an even lower level since Mike Rinder was taken out of the Office of Special Affairs and Marty Rathbun left his post as Miscavige’s chief thug.)
David Miscavige is pretty terrible, but the evidence indicates that he’s nowhere near as bad as LRH.
And for those ex-Churchies who remember LRH as a sweet old man, I’ll point out all the current Churchies, including Tom Cruise, who think David Miscavige is equally great. Are we really supposed to believe that the latter group are deluded cult members, but the former group have their wits about them? Those who worked under Hubbard and have since left indicate that despite his well-honed Santa Claus-like image, behind closed doors, the old man was a vindictive, angry, paranoid, vengeful old grouch with a penchant for screaming tantrums.
So, you ask: Caliwog, what’s your point?
It’s this: As the organized Church continues to implode and independent Scientologists have their own civil wars, there is still that core of people who think LRH’s basic teachings were good, and they were “corrupted” – by Miscavige, by the Guardian’s Office, by David Mayo, or even by an aging Hubbard himself.
Don’t buy it. Hubbard was an evil bastard, from his pre-Scientology days when he stole Jack Parson’s girlfriend and bigamously married her to the day he died in a Bluebird motorhome with an ass-full of the psych meds he claimed to deplore.
As long is there is one person who still thinks Hubbard was a decent guy, the virus of Scientology still threatens our society. Don’t let anyone derail the focus by concentrating on the Church, or on Miscavige, or on other Scientology groups. Scientology is rotten to the core.
ML,
Caliwog
Caliwog's Blog 
My first visit to your blog. You make some good points in this article, Caliwog. The church is acting more “civilized” today indeed. I think the Internet also plays a vital role in “putting Ethics in” on the church. People leave this cult like never before. And OSA are spinning around in their kindergarten quarrels: http://anetteiren.com/scientology-she-is-a-criminal/
Caliwog – another first time visitor. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Hubbard was an evil bastard. There is absolutely nothing redeeming in anything he wrote or said. Hubbard’s tech is made up garbage, parsed together by a man so deluded, he didn’t know fact from fiction.
Scientology is both evil and insidious. It preys upon and exploits weakness. The light of knowledge is its most feared enemy, which explains both why it attempts to control access to knowledge as well as why its upper echelons are absent of learned individuals.
Enjoyed your insights and look forward to exploring some of your other writing.
Very excellent article … I agree for sure that Hubbard was the ‘author od this boody mess in the past and present. David Love
What is very hard for Scientologists to accept – and even hardened Sea Org members who have been lucky enough to see it, are the LRH notes ad advices on handling enemies.
Few Sea Org members have actually seen these articles. What will astound people is that even David himself was reluctant to execute all the advices because of the vicious nature of them.
Any top Sea Org members involved in HCO (division one) matters at Int will probably be able to confirm the sheer evil that LRH had in mind for his enemies. I honestly felt he wanted Rhodesia because in a lawless state he could implement his actual policies without being stopped.
I know when I read these advices it turned my stomach that a mind could be that vicious. I later saw top Scientologists exposed to this sort of back-handed approach – it was so devious that they did not even know it was coming from the church, and then turned to the Church for protection.
Did you know they actually had a third party approach a man and have that man get involved with JT, and then later had another third party approach the man and offer him money for his evidence against JT. What makes it REALLY sick is that they then had a PI find evidence on the guy who got involved with JT and kept the data safe.
When finally the man went forward with his information – that the church had the second party offer him payment for, the Church then rode in on a white horse with “their information” to silence the guy. They then turned to JT and said “you see, we can protect you.” The poor man who got set up had no idea, and the first party and second party also didn’t even know each other.
This is not something anyone there thought up – this is a tactic from LRH himself, and it take such a horrid mind to come up with this stuff it does make you sick.
I know I started implementing them and later I just had to stop, I couldn’t live with myself. There was a true, genuine and deep hatred in that man, and only a few ever get to see the writings and come to grasp just how terrifying LRH actually was. We can all be very thankful that they failed as a cult because their success would cause social unrest.
Hello Observer,
Good insight on Hubbard. Scientology has most people snow-jobbed with the old dodge: “You’re persecuting me for my religious beliefs.” Yeah, right.
What they are missing is that there is a very basic aspect to Hubbard’s personality that is vile, despicable, and evil. And this is what causes outrage over scientology.
This vile part of Hubbard’s personality is also something that has always been missing from TV and film depictions of Hubbard.
FiatLux
Great observation Caliwog. As the old-time fanatical thugs like Rinder and Rathbun ‘blow’ from the organization, what is left are second generation of today’s wimpy youth. Miscavige has created an atmosphere if fear that no one can think for themselves for fear of being thrown in the hole. To the degree that Miscavige hasn’t followed Hubbard’s brutal fair-game doctrine to a tee is mainly because of two factors:
1. Miscavige realizes that full-throttle fair-gaming a la Operation Freakout would be a PR disaster in today’s internet age. It would be suicide to go back to the old Guardian’s Office days.
2. Repeating what I wrote above, today’s generation of young Scientologists are not tough like the baby-boomer generation that carried out Operation Snow White. Nowadays Miscavige relies on washed up OT8 cultists like John Allender to ware Squirrel_buster shirts and hat-cams to harass people.
Today’s fair-game has lost all it’s teeth, because Scientology had all it’s fangs pulled when the old generation died off or left the crime syndicate.
Miscavige has improved upon Hubbard’s criminal scheme in two ways:
1. Don’t fight government and law enforcement. Get in bed with them. Put them on the payroll.
2. You make a lot more money bending the law, than you do breaking the law.
Hubbard was pugnacious and belligerent with law enforcement. After all, how dare they attempt to regulate the greatest person in all of history who was mankind’s mighty prophet and only hope?
But Miscavige is astute enough to realize that, if you want to keep your scam going on a mass scale for the long term, you have to spread around some of the loot, specifically to sleazy lawyers and government payoffs. The mafia and lobbyists have known this for ages. But Hubbard was so greedy he hated to share even a penny with anyone.
Hubbard bulldozed right over the law whenever he felt like it. Hubbard got away with it because he was a master liar and con artist, and Hub had plenty of scapegoats he could push in front of the freight train ruthlessly when needed. That included family and personal friends.
But Miscavige has realized that you don’t want to be (strictly speaking) outside the law – be one half step outside of it. Nowadays, every rotten thing that scientology does can be explained away in a legal sense. Nowadays scientology doesn’t strictly speaking break the law (too much trouble and too expensive). Scientology stretches the law almost to the very breaking point. And they still make plenty of money.
Wall Street Scumbags are taking huge risks to rake in their crooked money. See Raj Rajaratnan of Galleon Group. But Miscavige rakes in millions of dirty dollars without the slightest risk. Miscavige has learned Hubbard’s complete bag of dirty tricks, but without Hubbard’s personal delusions and lunacy.
With his cadre of lawyers and paid-off government officials, Miscavige is high and dry. Plus Miscavige has more than enough fall guys who will take the fall for him. Miscavige’s name and fingerprints aren’t on anything. He can go on for years, untouchable.
Not bad for a guy who didn’t even make it through high school.