Preserving the Authenticity of my Religion

I personally have quite a bit of respect for all great religions of the world.  I think that by and large, their founders and original proponents were quite enlightened, and had some fairly star-high goals for man – both in terms of morality and enhancing mankind’s ability to interact with one another, as well as high goals for mankind’s inherent spirituality.

Hear-say or Heresy?

There’s been an impediment that (I would say) every religion has had to deal with, however, and that is with respect to the communication and preservation of their exact religious beliefs, scriptures and teachings.  In the earlier days of man, the primary way that beliefs and customs could be passed on generation to generation was in song, in the spoken word, and in some cases – someone was bright enough to write down what it was that they heard into book form.

Unfortunately there is often a wide variance between what the founder of a religion actually said, and what the individual who hears it all verbally takes away from such an experience.

Every religion has this issue to one degree or another.  From the Bhagavad-Gita to the King James edition of the bible, so many enlightened texts have relied in whole or in part on the interpretation of another (or of committees & parliamentary bodies) on what the founder originally taught.

Now please understand, I mean positively no disrespect to any enlightened text which forms the scripture of any religion.  In all cases, having such beliefs written at all has uplifted hundreds of generations, and that can’t be discounted.

Case in Point

My reason for writing this, is I recently finished a study of the Dianetics Professional Course lectures at the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, DC.

The Dianetics Professional Course lectures were originally known for some decades as a book called “Notes on the Lectures” – a compiled book, taken from the notes of students who were there in the fall of 1950, listening to L. Ron Hubbard give the lecture.  It was assumed for some years that the original taped recordings of the lectures were lost, so this verbal transcription – amounting to what the students understood from the lectures as they were given – were all that remained.

Then, just a few years ago, the original tapes of the lectures were located.  However, due to the fact that the tapes had been sitting in suboptimum storage for over 50 years, it was assumed that they were not going to able to be reproduced for public listening.  However, after a massive effort by Golden Era Productions, the tapes were in fact able to be restored so that all could listen to them.

A fantastic video to watch which gives the details of how much care was put into such, is available to watch on the Scientology website:

Now, I’ve had the opportunity to read the previously-issued Notes on the Lectures book nearly-back-to-back with the actual lectures that Mr. Hubbard gave, and the result is pretty horrifying.  There are some portions of the book where you can fairly well understand which lecture it is that the student note-takers were talking about, as it seemed they were tracking with the lecture.

In other places, though – especially with some of the diagrams they came up with, it seems like they either missed the point entirely, or were making up their own vision of what Mr. Hubbard was talking about.

The actual lectures give the first, best, and most amazing view of the relationship of the properties of affinity, reality (agreement) and communication, and how they relate to a person’s mental health. It’s really quite an amazing study – even if someone studying it wasn’t planning on giving someone a Dianetics session.  I’ll write more of what I got from it on my Scientology parenting site.

But my painful realization, in this case, was not only how wildly off-base the Notes on the Lectures book had been, but it gave me such a respect for entities like Religious Technology Center, and the Chairman of the Board RTC, Mr. David Miscavige, who have as their mission preserving the purity of the Scientology religion.

It made me wonder – how much of what we know of today’s world religions is actually how the founder or spiritual leader taught or said?  How much of it was faithfully passed on with fidelity, and how much was either altered completely or made up whole cloth?  That much, we’ll unfortunately never know.

BUSTED! Marty Rathbun Arrested for Drunkenness and Disturbing the Peace

Wow – can Freedom Magazine call it or what. 

As you may or may not know, Freedom Magazine’s latest issue is devoted to debunking the travesty of a show Anderson Cooper put on with chump expelled-Scientologist ‘witnesses’ that blame all of their wrongdoings on their bosses, in an attempt to defame Scientology management.  In this issue, Freedom Magazine stated:

“And that’s the real story of Rathbun, Rinder and DeVocht. They don’t belong in front of cameras, unless it’s for a mug shot.”

In any case, in what I would consider one of the more prophetic moments of modern journalism, on the very same day as the release of the above Freedom Magazine issue, Mark “Marty” Rathbun was arrested in New Orleans for Public Drunkenness and for Disturbing the Peace. 

Personally, I think that’s pretty choice.  Rathbun has been in a non-stop attack of his former religion, blaming every last wrongdoing he’s ever done on his former boss, and asserting that he himself had no responsibility for any of the calamity he caused whatsoever.

So again, I think it was pretty prophetic of Freedom to say before the fact:

It’s a well-known mental phenomenon, mostly seen in institutions for the criminally insane or maximum-security prisons. That is, unable to come to grips with the depths of evil one has engaged in, one instead has an ‘epiphany.’ One ‘realizes’ one day that ‘None of it was my fault! Those were the cards I was dealt and I was just a victim of fate!’ At which point one has a euphoric resurgence, losing touch with all reality of one’s past, and reinvents oneself as what they wish they were. They blame their failures on somebody else (No Responsibility For Anything) and when they look in the mirror they see a ‘warm and fuzzy guy,’ while the rest of the world sees someone in need of an exorcism.

That’s Marty Rathbun. Because while he paints himself as a lovey-dovey, pop-psychology guru to the indigent, his actions belie his self-proclaimed façade. Worse, he seems utterly unaware of the turmoil that is his life. He could have kept fishing from his used trawler like the Old Man and the Sea. But all he sees is an endless battle to be picked and imaginary war to be fought.

For PDF versions of his arrest, see:

• Mark “Marty” Rathbun Arrest
• Marty Rathbun Arrest Ticket

Marty Rathbun & AC360: Why Rathbun was Busted by Mr. David Miscavige

Just read a great post on the Mark Rathbun the Squirrel site which details a question that Anderson Cooper was trying to leave unanswered in his all-drama / no fact series on Scientology Management that attempted to deify an apostate who lies to his friends and beats up people as a default handling.

The post goes over why Rinder & Rathbun were removed from post, and specifically addresses the question brought up in the Cooper show of Rathbun’s violent behaviour being dealt with internally by the Church.

In 2003, while COB RTC was away handling legal matters that Rathbun had badly botched, knowledge reports were filed by staff members on Rathbun’s off-policy and out-ethics activities internally in the Church. Fifty incidents were documented of his violence and intimidation of executives and staff. When Mr. Miscavige returned and learned of this, he promptly expelled Rathbun from RTC and stripped him of any last vestiges of status or authority, even if by insinuation or association. Rathbun knew it was over for him. So did many others.

Thought it was fitting to mention, as obviously Cooper had no intention ever of the true story coming out of what really happened to Rathbun.

Full Basics Release Presentation by Mr. David Miscavige now On-Line!!

Incredible!  Formerly just available on DVD, the release of the Basics books & lectures by Mr. David Miscavige has now become available on-line, and in-full. 

The release of the Basics was, in my mind, one of the single most important and significant moments in Scientology history, as it signified the first time that just anyone could simply – by reading books – know all of the basics of the Scientology religion – and know it better than many who had been involved for years.

If you haven’t yet seen this presentation, and wish to get a tour through what makes Scientology tick – and in the process get an appreciation for how much work Mr. David Miscavige put into making sure that the Basics were precisely what L. Ron Hubbard intended – watch the video here.