Thoughts on the latest Marty thing

Over on the Underground Bunker, a lot of people have been reacting to the bizarre twist in Marty and Monique Rathbun’s lawsuit with comments like:

“My first thought is that I hope Monique, Marty and their baby are safe and well. No matter what other stuff is going on, that’s the most important part of all of this.”

Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. Let’s not forget that a) this is bigger than Marty and his family, and b) Marty has plenty of blood on his hands (figuratively speaking). The Rathbuns started something, something that could have helped a lot of people and made up for a lot of damage, and now they’ve backed away. One could question whether they had a moral obligation to continue. I can see both sides.

When I saw Marty’s “Rue this day” post, my first thought was, “True colors.” His continued silence hasn’t changed my opinion. LRH wrote something about “misemotion” that was pretty accurage, and I think it applies here: When one reacts with an inappropriate emotion, it’s probably because one feels guilty.

So what happened? We just can’t know. I can’t help but think of Bob Minton backing down and saying “It was like the Terminator was after you.” I didn’t think the Co$ still had that kind of bite, but maybe it does. So maybe the Co$ has blackmailed Marty. (Tony seems to think that isn’t the case, and I suppose he has good reason, though I wish he’d share his thoughts.)

Or maybe Monique just got sick of the whole thing and said “Stop it or I leave.” (Whether Marty should have dragged Monique into this is another question.)

To me, this feels a lot like Mr. Minton’s reversal; the difference is that Bob wasn’t in, he wasn’t DM’s right-hand man, and he wasn’t the one helping to make the misery happen.

The Rathbuns started something big, and now they are stopping it, and a lot of us are going to be disappointed. But we can live with that.

More worrying are the families that are broken up, the lives wasted and destroyed, and the fortunes sunken into this terrible, dangerous, life-destroying business-masquerading-as-a-religion. The Rathbuns’ lawsuit was a great opportunity to help stop that, and now it looks as if that chance is going to disappear.

Sure, it’s great that Marty can get on with his life, and his wife and child the same. But considering the consequences, is that *really* the most important thing?

Just goes to show that not everyone is cut out to be a hero.

I hope I’m wrong and there’s some other explanation.

Seeing Marty’s temper in action, I don’t think there is.

ML,
Caliwog

P.S. Tony: You will rue this day! RUE THIS DAY, I tell you!

Something I never thought I’d read

From Marty Rathbun’s blog, yesterday:

“About the closest thing scientologists are going to find to that original L. Ron Hubbard package is David Miscavige.”

You’ve come a long way, Marty. It’s good to have you over on this side.

Read the entire post

ML,
Caliwog

The times, are they a-changin’?

A conversation I never thought I would see take place on Marty’s blog:

http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/scientology-intelligence-manual/#comment-283741

The interesting stuff starts at CommunicatorIC’s comment.

Long read (and still growing), but worth it — lots of people making legitimate criticisms of LRH, pretty severe ones at that — entheta to be sure. And yet Marty is letting the conversation take place! I added my own comment, we’ll see if it escapes censorship.

ML,
Caliwog

The Rathbun lawsuit

As you’ve probably read on Tony Ortega’s site, Marty Rathbun’s wife Monique is suing the Church of Scientology.

My issues with Marty remain unchanged. I wasn’t sure where he was going for a while there, but it’s clear from the latest posts that he still thinks Hubbard is some great spiritual guru, and I still think he’s derailing potential ex-Scientologists from their path towards the light by trying to whitewash that old shitheel L. Ron Hubbard (despite recent admissions that maybe LRH wasn’t the person he said he was — no shit, Sherlock). I still don’t like what the guy is doing.

But I stand 100% in support of the lawsuit against the Church of Scientology. Marty and the indies and I may disagree on the source of the Church’s evil ways — they try to blame them on Miscavige, we know they came from LRH — but they are still evil and they are still wrong. The harassment Marty and Monique continue to deal with is terrible, and I admire both of them for dealing with it so stoically.

Caliwog says: Go get ’em, Mosey!

ML,
Caliwog

Two viewpoints on LRH

“Hubbard’s theory [of prenatal engrams] never makes it really clear, at least in a manner that would be accepted by most medical doctors, exactly how engrams can be planted before a foetus had developed a nervous system or the sense organs with which to register an impression, or even how a person could retain or ‘remember’ verbal statements before he had command of a language. Scientologists simply accept his theory on faith, that if a husband beats his pregnant wife and shouts ‘take that’ as he hits her, a ‘take that’ engram can be planted in the womb. Thus, when junior grows up, he might react to this statement literally, and become a thief whose goal is to ‘take that.'”

— Paulette Cooper, The Scandal of Scientology, Chapter 3

“Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard discovered methodologies that can enhance self-determinism, increase freedom of choice, and bring about higher states of awareness and beingness to those who practice them.”

— Mark “Marty” Rathbun, 31 Factors

[L. Ron Hubbard] is quite literally viewed by millions worldwide as Mankind’s greatest friend.”

— Official Church of Scientology website

Hmm. Which of these two go together?

ML,
Caliwog

“Great Middle Path:” The straw-man argument

Have a look at Marty’s latest, The Great Middle Path Revisited. In it, Marty claims that the polar reactions to his book — Church-goers saying Marty is trying to destroy Scientology on one side, “Scientology ridiculers” saying the whole subject is a pile of shit on the other. This, according to Marty, proves that he is right:

“On the one hand I am accused on attempting to destroy everything L. Ron Hubbard stood for. On the other hand, I am accused of being Hubbard’s greatest defender… It makes me feel like I must have hit the ball right in the sweet spot.”

Now, there are no shortage of “Scientology ridiculers,” myself included. But who does Marty cite? None other than his old buddy Tony Ortega, who has done more than anyone (even Tobin and Childs) to give Marty a fair shot in the press.

Except, for the sake of this argument, Tony is not Marty’s friend. Instead, he is, Marty says, “the most prominent and persistent of Scientology ridiculers.”

If ever a sentiment were worth of ridicule, that’s it. Tony has been so fair and even-handed about Marty’s indie movement that I’ve wondered in the past if Marty doesn’t have him snowed about Scientology. (I don’t think he has.) While I don’t agree with Tony’s light-handed treatment of Marty, I do admire his fairness and objectivity — even when Marty is perfectly willing to throw Tony under the bus, as he has in this blog entry.

Here’s what Marty says about Tony’s review of the book:

On the other extreme Tony Ortega, who has spent seventeen years attempting to make nothing of Scientology, calls What Is Wrong With Scientology?: a ‘predictable mass of Hubbard apologetics’, a ‘bundle of contradictions’, [the apologies are for a religion that is] ‘permeated with sickness’, ‘expensive malarky’, [attempts to pass off] ‘Eastern woo woo as ‘scientific certainty’, and the defense is a bunch of ‘new age happy talk.’

Sounds like the opposite extreme, correct? Well, yes… unless you actually read Ortega’s review of Marty’s book.

The review, though excessively long, is written with the fairness and even-handedness that marks Tony’s work. Yes, he says that Hubbard is full of shit. Yes, he questions the effectiveness of Scientology in such terms. But the bulk of the review, like the bulk of Tony’s stories about Marty, is fair and even-handed. Tony translates what Marty is saying for an audience unfamiliar with Scientology, and the small percentage of time spent ridiculing Hubbard and Scientology shows admirable restraint.

This is a straw man argument if ever I have heard one, which is funny, because there are no shortage of true “Scientology ridiculers” out there. Perhaps the problem is that few have enough interest in balanced coverage to slog through Marty’s latest diatribe. With limited time to devote to this blog, even I have wondered if reading the book is a worthwhile endeavor. (As it happens, I’m too morbidly curious not to read it, though I can’t say I’m looking forward to the experience.)

As for Marty’s treatment of Tony Ortega in this blog entry, it’s clear that Marty doesn’t understand the concept of not biting the hand that feeds him…

…probably because Hubbard never wrote a policy about it.

ML,
Caliwog

Science catches up to L. Ron Hubbard

When I set out to write my series on the Credo of a True Group Member, I promised myself I would spend a straight week writing about LRH tech and not get distracted by any Marty Rathbun fuckery. But then he posted Life After Death and the Scientology Axioms, and it’s so farging funny that I just… can’t… help… myself!

Here’s the gist of the post: Marty starts off with a few of LRH’s “Axioms” – I’ll get to those in a minute – and then cites a pair of articles by Robert Lanza as evidence that LRH was right. Robert Lanza is an acclaimed doctor who has made great strides in the field of stem cell research. He is also a proponent of “biocentrism,” the theory that biology is the highest of the sciences and that the presence of life is what brought the universe into existence, and not the other way around. It’s a belief that loosely aligns with LRH’s idea that “thetans” (spirits) “postulate” the universe into existence.

Marty links to two of Lanza’s articles, Does the Soul Exist? Evidence Says Yes and Is Death An Illusion? Evidence Suggests Death Isn’t The End. (If Dr. Lanza owned L. Ron Hubbard’s album The Road To Freedom, he’d know that “Death is only an invention.”) Here’s the over-simplified version: Since what we experience of the world around us (sights, sounds, smells, etc.) is actually our brain’s interpretation of stimuli, and since experiments seem to indicate that the act of observing an experiment affects the outcome, then the universe around us is actually our own creation; and since fields like quantum physics have shown that many of our scientific theories break down at a certain level, science is wrong about the nature of life and all bets are off. Dr. Lanza’s opinions have met with mixed reactions; personally, I think they’re a bit too simplistic, indicative of the human need to come to firm conclusions rather than accepting that there are things we can’t quite understand. (It’s the same phenomenon that leads to our belief in God.)

Anyway, back to Marty, who uses these two controversial articles as proof that science is finally catching up to Hubbard. Wait, let me use his own words, because the jab at the organized Church makes them even funnier:

“Is it not a travesty that corporate Scientologists would be burned at the stake (figuratively) if they were to dare to even take a peek at such a magazine? Is it not a travesty that Scientology Inc is busy using the billions you have donated to them to stage public demonstrations of their flat earth mentality while science catches up with L Ron Hubbard?”

Lesson learned: Do not drink soda while reading Marty’s blog. My nostrils still hurt.

(Marty’s “burned at the stake” comment stems from the fact that the articles appeared in Psychology Today, which Scientologists are about as likely to read as Pedophelia Today. Shame, though, since Scientologists usually grab right onto anything that purports to prove Hubbard right. That said, given the scientific community’s mixed reactions to Lanza’s biocentrist theories, the Church might be smart enough to think twice about casting their lot with him.)

Marty’s evidence is the first ten of Hubbard’s “Axioms” (if you don’t want to read them on Marty’s site or a Church site, here they are in PDF). The Co$ says the Axioms are “truths which are proven by all of life and which represent the most succinct distillation of wisdom regarding the nature of the human spirit.”

In fact, they are made-up baloney that rely on a) careful redefinition of words and b) the utter certainty that Hubbard knew what he was talking about, and wasn’t just a blowhard who couldn’t tell an ion from an eon.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

“AXIOM 1. LIFE IS BASICALLY A STATIC. Definition: a Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive.”

One could spend hours arguing the intellectual merit of this. (A jellyfish has no brain; it can perceive but probably not postulate. So does it lack a life spirit? Or is each jellyfish inhabited by the spirit of some poor fucknob who meant to inhabit the body of a dolphin, but missed?) However, to accept this as a “truth” is completely and totally absurd. There is no proof and no way to prove it. But that doesn’t matter to Scientologists, who accept what Hubbard says as fact.

“AXIOM 4. SPACE IS A VIEWPOINT OF DIMENSION.”

Not according to Webster’s dictionary it isn’t. It amazes me how a man so obsessed with dictionary definitions was so willing to abandon them when it suited his purposes to do so. Scientologists do the same thing; tell them LRH was a fraud, and they’ll whip out their dictionary, look up “fraud,” and explain why, even if Scn is a scam, LRH isn’t, by definition, a fraud. But give them something ridiculous like “Space is a viewpoint of dimension” and they’ll buy it without question. Unfuckingbelievable.

“AXIOM 9. CHANGE IS THE PRIMARY MANIFESTATION OF TIME.”

Sounds legitimate and defensible. But there are a host of other theories about time, and ironically, both of the Lanza articles Marty mentions cite an argument, based on an experiment, that time is more liquid than we thought, and that change can occur irrespective of time. But I don’t want to get into an intellectual debate, because that is another Scientology tactic: Argue the minutiae of something until your audience’s brain turns to mush and they just accept it, assuming that the reason Hubbard’s arguments make no sense is because Hubbard is smart and they are stupid. (Considering they’ve probably just paid $1,000 for a “course” that involves screaming at ashtrays, they might be right.)

“AXIOM 10. THE HIGHEST PURPOSE IN THIS UNIVERSE IS THE CREATION OF AN EFFECT.”

I love this one, because after nine axioms that can be explained away, Hubbard drops in this non-sequitor. I’m tempted to say that I could just as easily claim that “THE HIGHEST PURPOSE IN THIS UNIVERSE IS THE CREATION OF A PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH,” but Hubbard apologists will dismiss that as a “glib” non-argument. Fair point, so let’s try this:

I would argue that since Hubbard’s axioms say that change is the primary manifestation of time, and a change in relative position of particles is a natural occurrence, then the creation of an effect is not the highest purpose, since effects are a by-product of the passage of time. A higher purpose would be to impose one’s own order on the universe – to stop the effects of time. So I would say that the highest purpose in the universe is the cessation of an effect.

That makes sense, right?

Of course it fucking doesn’t. I made it up without the slightest bit of thought. But because I can talk my way around it, it seems to make sense. I always talk about Scientologists mistaking verbosity for intelligence. There we are, I’ve just made it work for myself. (Give me a grand and I’ll give you an ashtray to scream at.)

Let’s get back to Marty’s premise: The fact that someone wrote an article in 2011 that happens to correspond with some of Hubbard’s writings does not lend even the slightest shred of legitimacy to his theories, let alone prove the absurd idea that science is “catching up” to L. Ron Hubbard. Both Lanza’s and Hubbard’s theories are questionable, and Hubbard wasn’t the first one to think of them, although he would like his followers to think he was.

That said, I will accept that science is catching up to L. Ron Hubbard when they prove the following theories, which you can hear in Hubbard’s own words:

• Space is warm, not cold
• Lung cancer is caused by not smoking enough
• There is intelligent life on Venus
• There are freight trains on Venus
• Blindness is caused by guilt, and sight can be “turned back on” with auditing

ML,
Caliwog

Read more about Hubbard taking legitimate concepts and completely fucking them up in Positioning, Misunderstanding Of.

Picking Apart the 31 Factors: Part 3

I’ve been writing a series of articles on Thirty-One Factors for Scientologists to Consider, Marty Rathbun’s attempt to define the Independent Scientology movement, which itself is full of lies and half-truths. (Part 1, Part 2.) Let’s continue, shall we?

Six: Miscavige has persuaded those at the top of the Scientology organization that to disclose the secrets of his unconscionable acts would harm the religion and violate “the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.” Thus, the truth of what goes on behind the façade of false PR that Miscavige creates is hidden from the vast majority of Scientologists and the general public.

Yes this is happening, and – credit where credit is due – thanks to people like Marty, we know about some of Miscavige’s “unconscionable acts.” But we also know the exact same thing is true of Marty’s hero, L. Ron Hubbard. LRH’s screaming fits, his temper tantrums, the abuse of staff that he ordered (overboaring, locking children in the ship’s chain lockers, etc.) were all supposed to be hidden from the public behind a “façade of false PR.” Like Miscavige, Hubbard was unable to hide all this from the public (thank you Paulette Cooper, Bent Corydon, L, Ron Hubbard Jr., Russel Miller, Jon Atack, and many others. You can even watch LRH lie about his marital history). And yet Hubbard apparently was able to hide this from Scientologists, even people like Marty, who still appear believe that this scheming shitbag was a kindly old man who just wanted to help mankind.

Seven: Miscavige uses confessions of Scientology managers to invalidate, castigate, and embarrass them into acquiescence and silence.

We know that the Church does this, and it brings up an interesting point: Priest-pennitent confidentiality. Scientology routinely breaks this in order to “ruin utterly” (LRH’s choice of words) apostates. Is this yet not more proof that Scientology is not a proper religion? Oops, wait a minute, Marty, better not go down that road – it might get the government looking at Scientology’s tax-exempt status, no doubt one of the Church’s biggest crimes. And if they do that, Marty, you might have to start paying taxes yourself.

Eight: Sea Org members who voice or even hint at any hesitation to carrying on with his tyranny or supporting his actions, are routinely physically beaten by Miscavige.

I refer you to chapter 17 of Bare Faced Messiah. Scroll down to the photo of a Scientologist being tossed over the side of the Apollo. The photo was a set-up and the caption (supposedly) a joke, but as it happens, it wasn’t — search the text for “thrown overboard” and “overboarding” and you’ll see that the legacy of physical abuse originated with LRH. The only difference is that Miscavige at least has the balls to do some of his own abuse. Hubbard, the cowardly fat fuck, had his goons do it for him.

(Incidentally, things like this contribute to my belief that Hubbard was a sociopath. Same thing when he let his wife go to jail while he fucked off and hid out without her – LRH seemed to put himself in situations where he could not be affected by the negative consequences of his own acts.)

Nine: Those Sea Org members who have attempted to correct Miscavige’s off-policy and out-tech actions have been subjected to belittlement, invalidation and false propaganda. They have been silenced through imprisonment and mental and physical duress.

This one is purely a matter of semantics. Anyone who is familiar with LRH’s “tech” – especially the admin tech, the bizarre set of policies by which the Church and other Scientology businesses are run – know that LRH often contradicted himself. If Hubbard changed his mind, it didn’t matter – whatever LRH wrote was “tech” and “on policy,” and any attempt to contradict or (God forbid!) correct them resulted in the same shit-storm. Miscavige does the same thing, but since he is not “source,” his actions can be considered “off policy” or “out tech.” (In truth, I think Miscavige is grasping at straws to make a non-workable way of doing things somehow work. Frankly, with Hubbard dead and no new policy, I’m amazed Miscavige has kept the whole scam going this long, and not surprised that it’s falling down all around him.)

And because of the contradictions that LRH wrote into the policy (and spoke in lectures, the content of which form part of Scientology gospel), it’s pretty easy to prove that any action is both on-policy and off-policy. (Take it from someone who frequently made use of these contradictions to get what he wanted!) Witness the “Ideal Org” strategy that is draining the Church of money. Independants say it’s off policy, Church-goers say it’s on-policy. Who is right? Well, according to LRH policy, both of them!

Ten: Miscavige’s abuse of Scientology executives and staff became so extreme and continuous, he resorted to locking all of CMO INT and Exec Strata into a building and called the prison “the Hole.” RTC, CMO/WDC, Gold, IAS, CST, OSA Int and ASI executives and staff have regularly been deposited in the Hole and subjected to Reverse Dianetics, including physical beatings and severe mental abuse for months or even years at a time.

No argument here, but there’s an important fact that Independent Scientologists never talk about, and Marty always glosses over: Who came up with the idea of an in-house prison camp? That would be L. Ron Hubbard, who established the Rehabilitation Project Force in 1974. The RPF did get worse under Miscavige, but it was LRH who originated the idea of segregating those who didn’t do what they were supposed to do and limit their freedoms, activities, and even contact with their spouses and children. Read all about the true origins of the RPF in The ABCs of the RPF.

Okay, wogs, I think that’s enough truth for now! More on Marty’s 31 Factors when I get around to it.

ML,
Caliwog

Is Marty Rathbun losing his faith?

Some strange goings-on at Marty Rathbun’s web site this past few weeks!

In a recent post, Scientology Inc “Justice”, Marty quoted an LRH rant against the FBI, prefacing it with this:

“Irrespective of how exaggerated his rancor might have been about the target of his wrath…”

That may sound perfectly rational, unless you know about Scientology — in which case you know that’s like a devout Christian calling Jesus “a lover of young men and boys.”

Add that on to the strange February 22nd radio interview (the one I keep promising to write more about, but keep not getting around to) in which Marty said that the OT3 story wasn’t to be taken literally, and I have to start wondering: What’s in the water down there in Texas?

Understand that 100% allegiance and adherence to L. Ron Hubbard and his “tech” are paramount to being a Scientologist. If you don’t buy into all of the bullshit, the scam doesn’t work.

Needless to say, Marty’s heretical words aren’t sitting well with all of his flock. A couple of sample comments:

“Exaggerated? Exaggerated rancor? I disagree, utterly. I think LRH was not reasonable [Scn. definition: Finding reasons to let bad behavior continue] with Suppressives…I would expect that more people would be interested in discussing the Global Sit[uation] and objectively whether LRH did exaggerate about FBI’s intentions and activities, which Marty posted as “exaggerated rancor” which I think he should revoke.”

“Was LRH’s “rancor exaggerated”? Google FBI’s “cointelpro”. 85% of cointelpro budget used to investigate suspected communists, civil rights leaders, Vietnam war protesters etc. and 15% of budget to investigate Ku Klux Klan hate crimes.”

(Marty posted an update as a result, but good for him, he didn’t backpedal.)

Still others took the role of LRH apologist, basically saying “It’s okay if LRH was full of shit, because his work is still good.” This is the line Marty usually takes. Again, some sample commentary:

“There is lots to reject about the man as a husband, a father, the Founder etc. and I don’t mind discussing the negative as a matter of course, but in the end, not one person has delivered anything close to what he created. So all else pales in comparison.”

“…the nit-picking over LRH is simply reactive mind. … one (not one) has anything even remotely resembling a better solution than Scn.”

My favorite was this justification of the Scientology infiltration of the government, when they were caught breaking in and stealing files:

“I see it as a group of OT’s vs real enemies in the government.”

BUT – it’s also bringing out some of the doubting Thomases of the Indie set, many of whom are raising their own doubts about LRH’s credibility:

“…according to my observations and experience going back to the 70′s, most of the Ron letters* were fake. Signed either by a machine or someone trained in his signature. It was a big fat lie.”

* Ron’s Standing Order #1 was that anyone could write to him, and he would write back. Thousands of Scientologists have “Ron letters” among their treasured possesions.

“…Also, around 1974 I wrote a letter and the response came back the next day. I asked the Sea Org Missionaire and the LRH Comm who handed me ‘Ron’s’ letter if they knew where LRH was and they replied they thought he was in Ireland or some such place. I watched the LRH Com’s eyes twitch as I said, “Hmmm, pretty good. I sent the letter yesterday. It went to LRH in Ireland six thousand miles away and he answered it and it was transported all the way back to me. In just a day. Wow. That’s speed of particle flow. I thought maybe it was some highly advanced secret transportation device they were using in order to magically make this happen. Or maybe OT powers!!”

And then there’s this one, which miraculously made it through the Marty censor:

” [quoted from another comment] >>the fact that thousands (conservative estimate) of people have gotten gains from auditing, and at present ,people still do get gains from auditing, is simply an unintended byproduct of his true intentions.<<

…or that auditing “tech” wasn’t original to Hubbard.

And here’s a really odd one. One commenter wrote:

“LRH had to use a toilet just like the rest of us. This is because he had a body, just like the rest of us. He got angry and irrational at times, just like the rest of us. He probably went out-ethics sometimes, just like the rest of us…” (there’s more)

And Marty’s reply:

“If one is capable of parking his or her reason at the door for L Ron Hubbard he or she is capable of parking it for David Miscavige. In fact, if it were not for the proclivity toward the former phenomenon the latter phenomenon never would have materialized…”

Wait a minute – am I reading this wrong, or is Marty saying that following LRH unquestioningly is the same as following the current Church unquestioningly?

What on Teegeack is going on here?

Two possibilities: One, Marty is a secret agent of the Church, trying to blow his own Independent movement out of the water by proving to die-hard Church-goers that his group is an anti-LRH squirrel group, therefore driving true Scientologist back into the arms of the Church where they can get “pure tech.”

Two: Marty is slowly beginning to see the light through the cracks.

I’m pretty sure it’s not the former, and boy oh boy, do I hope it’s the latter. Now, I don’t expect Marty to renounce Scientology any time soon. After all, he’s been “in” for decades, and besides, it’s paying his rent. But it appears he acknowledges that there are holes in LRH’s “tech” (not to mention his claims about his life and accomplishments) that cannot be rationally explained.

If Marty truly sees the light – if he realizes that this so-called “religion” is a scam, not just one perpetrated by David Miscavige, but one perpetrated by L. Ron Hubbard – it’s possible that we could see the end of the money-grubbing, life-destroying, family-rending, tax-evading con job that is Scientology.

I, for one, am holding out hope.

ML,
Caliwog

L. Ron Hubbard Killed Lisa McPherson

If there’s one sure-fire way Marty Rathbun can make my blood boil, it’s when he tries to blame the death of Lisa McPherson on anyone other than L. Ron Hubbard. So his latest headline, David Miscavige Killed Lisa McPherson, got me going right away.

But rather than simply write a blog entry denouncing Marty as a self-serving, profit-seeking, Hubbard-worshiping piece of shit, I decided to try to put my bias aside and hear what he and Mike Rinder had to say.

For those who are new, I talked about the Introspection Rundown in a post called Read for yourself: The LRH “technology” that killed Lisa McPherson. Make no mistake: The reason Lisa McPherson is dead is because a group of Scientologists attempted to treat a legitimate psychiatric problem with Hubbard’s bullshit quackery.

(By the way, I found it hardest to keep my temper when I read this tidbit from Rinder: “…she DID die of a pulmonary embolism – it happens all the time in hospitals with doctors on call – so it is not certain that medical attention would have saved her life…” If Mr. Look-Don’t-Listen could be bothered to look on the Internet, he’d know that one possible cause of a pulmonary embolism is being inactive or bedridden for a long period of time… like 17 days locked in a hotel room without sufficient food or water. Honestly, Mike, you’re such a fucking twit sometimes.)

Anyway… The basic point that Rinder and Rathbun make is that while the Introspection Rundown may have contributed to her death (May have??? Sorry, can’t help myself), the real problem is that David Miscavige got personally involved in Lisa McPherson’s “case” (her Scientology status), declaring her “Clear” (a level in Scientology) when she wasn’t. Hubbard did say that applying certain Scientology processes to someone who had not had the prerequisite brainwashing preparation could be dangerous. According to Marty and Mike, if her status had been accurately assigned, she would not have been eligile for the Introspection Rundown, and would not have died. (At least I agree with them on that last part!)

The reason they are applying blame to DM is because of the fear he instills: There were Scientologists who should have known that Lisa wasn’t actually a Clear, but went along with the whole thing only because DM said she was clear, and saying that DM is wrong can get you in all sorts of trouble. (And by the way, what does that say about the shitheel Scientologists who would have thought the Introspection Rundown was dangerous, but did it anyway to avoid putting their own asses on the line? Hey, wait, wasn’t Marty one of those shitheels?)

So, anyway, I can kind of see Marty’s point – the belief that Lisa died because she was submitted to the wrong process at the wrong time.

Of course, Hubbard also predicted that reading the Xenu story would cause death by pneumonia. Marty knows that; in fact, in a February 22nd radio interview (discussion of which is conspicuously absent from his blog), Marty basically says that the Xenu story, and the threat of pneumonia, should be taken figuratively, not literally. (I’ll talk more about that devastating interview in the near future.)

So let’s review: The Xenu/pneumonia thing should not be taken seriously (since we know it doesn’t happen), but giving an Introspection Rundown to a mis-declared Clear really is dangerous. Got that?

Marty goes on to say that the state of Clear is not ambiguous, “given it is accompanied by the UNMISTAKABLE meter phenomena” (he’s referring to a certain needle movement on the E-Meter). Marty kicks into fluent Scientologese, saying, “If one understands the St Hill Special Briefing Course (SHSBC) and one understands further L Ron Hubbard clarifications and developments with respect to the state of Clear after the SHSBC (Dianetic Clear Special Intensive – DCSI – and Clear Certainty Rundown – CCRD), there is no more simple cycle of action in the universe than sorting out whether an individual is Clear or not.”

The bit about “clarifications and developments” may be an end-run around those who have read about Hubbard’s first presentation of a Clear in 1950. Hubbard said Clears have perfect memories, and yet Hubbard’s own Clear, one Ms. Sonia Bianca, couldn’t remember the color of Hubbard’s tie when he turned around.

“Clear” is one of the few levels in Scientology that makes some firm promises, and as far as I know, no one has ever been able to demonstrate them. One of my favorite quotes from ex-Scientologist Jason Beghe:

“…theres a guy on the internet apparently who’s said he’ll give a million bucks if someone can demonstrate OT. I’ll give a million bucks if to anybody that can demonstrate Clear. There’s no fucking Clear. There’s no Clear. There’s no Clear. I mean, just looking at Dianetics, Clear is, what, are you kidding me? Clear… It’s too good to be true and that’s basically it.”

So, anyway, I think I see Marty’s point: Because David Miscavige personally mis-declared Lisa McPherson as having achieved the state of Clear – a condition that no one has ever been able to demonstrate – Lisa was then put on the Introspection Rundown. Since this process should not have been run on her, either because she wasn’t really a clear or because she had an un-handled Potential Trouble Source (PTS) condition (meaning someone she knew was trying to tell her Scientology is a scam, and she hadn’t disconnected from that person), the process was harmful to her health, so she died. (Except that, according to Dr. Mike Rinder, she might have been ready to pop off anyway.)

This is how a Scientologist justifies his or her belief that L. Ron Hubbard’s “technology” works. It’s easy – all you have to do is ignore the fact that this poor woman was locked in a hotel room for over two weeks by people who gave her the silent treatment and didn’t deal with the fact that she wasn’t eating or drinking. No, those things weren’t the cause of death – it was that evil David Miscavige.

This is blatent ignorance as spread by Lisa McPherson’s real killer, L. Ron Hubbard. And it’s proof that anyone thinks that Marty’s brand of Scientology is any safer than the Church of Scientology is deluding themselves. The “Indies” are just as brainwashed… and they are just as much at risk.

And when I think about it that way, I don’t get angry at Marty – I feel sorry for him.

For the record, I still think Marty is a self-serving, profit-seeking, Hubbard-worshiping piece of shit – but I acknowledge that he might not realize that yet.

ML,
Caliwog

Related:

In Memoriam: Lisa McPherson (one day late)

Read for yourself: The LRH “technology” that killed Lisa McPherson