Category Scientology

Exiled and looking for friends

Geir Isene 53 Comments

Facebook can be seen as the third biggest nation on earth. With 7.5% of the earth’s population as active users comes bigger responsibilities.

Most nations have mechanisms for handling justice and injustice. A nation is expected to treat its citizens according to well established traditions and agreed upon laws. A company like Facebook does not have by far the same requirements. But when a company builds a virtual nation like Facebook, should there not be requirements beyond the usual mom and pop shop?

Facebook is building not just a virtual nation. It is well on its way in establishing a communication monopoly. As a user you have extremely limited power. Not even powers to appeal an arbitrary decision seem to be granted to some struck by injustice. It lends credence to Wild West forums such like WhyWeProtest.org where lightning may strike from above but not from a blue sky.

Here’s my time line:

A month ago I sent friends requests to some old acquaintances still in the Church of Scientology. Apparently among them were people who felt offended by a renegade like me trying to hook up on Facebook. I received a complaint from the Facebook administration. Lesson learned: Do not communicate to anyone hitting the Kool Aid. I stopped sending out friends requests altogether. I still received a good deal of friends requests and proposals from my friends that I accepted.

A few days ago one of my FB acquaintances (let’s call him Jack) sent out a message to some 20 people complaining about a person (we’ll use the name Paul) allegedly impersonating him on Facebook. I was on the list of people he sent this complaining to. He kept on ranting about how bad this other person was until one of the 20 recipients (let’s call him Rusty) dared to query him about the incident. Jack all of a sudden jumped on Rusty and claimed he was ganging up with Paul in attacking him. In between calling Rusty a liar, a unionist, an idiot etc, he threatened legal actions. Jack went completely ape shit. I asked them to take this off the list and handle this only between the two of them. Jack was offended by this. Others on the list asked the same as this was spamming their message area. Jack started generalizing his attack and ended up sending complaints on perhaps everyone on the list to the Facebook administration. One innocent bystander asked Jack to stop it as she had received a Facebook warning.

The next day my own account was disabled. Apparently Jack managed to also hit me with an FB warning and it seems one is exiled after a second warning. I asked why my account was disabled. Here’s the answer I got from Facebook support:

“Your account was disabled because it was in violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Nudity, sexually explicit, and other graphic content is not permitted on Facebook, nor is any content that contains self harm, depicts violence, or attacks an individual or group. In addition, harassing others through unsolicited friend requests or messages is prohibited.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to reactivate your account or respond to your email directly. This decision is final and cannot be appealed.”

It cannot be appealed. Wow. No explanation. No appeal. No recourse for the injustice. Now there’s a recipe for debarring someone you don’t like on Facebook. Cook up some reason for complaint and they’ll get hit by lightning from a blue sky. Amazing.

If you wonder if the crazy story about Flippin’ Jack is also Scientology related… yes indeed it is. Around the Church of Scientology is a mine field.

This little story exemplifies why a serious debate is needed about the responsibilities of social networks. For me it’s certainly not the end of the world. I got onto FB less than a year ago and had only some 1200 friends. But for those who have invested much more time and effort into this social network such arbitrary injustice may inflict real damage. A debate on consumer’s rights, freedom of speech, recourse for injustice and democratizing social network seems timely.

Maybe it’s time for a democratic, Open Source, SETI-at-Home type of Facebook alternative?

Now I may well be barred again for trying to bounce back, but such arbitrary injustice without possibilities for appeal should not stand unopposed.

So I have created a new Facebook account. I refuse to be shut up. I love to have many friends. I cherish the many different viewpoints. I am enriched by people having very different views than myself. Communication is dear to me. And so I will accept anyone asking to be my friend on Facebook or elsewhere.

Want a new friend? Use this link to hook up on Facebook:

Geir Isene (if that link doesn’t work, try this link)

Wanted: Inconsistencies in Scientology

Geir Isene 330 Comments

Here’s a challenge for you: Please name actual inconsistencies in Scientology (ethics, tech or policy) with proper referencing.

Not looking for stuff you don’t believe in or think is off. I want to see proper internal illogic in form of inconsistencies.

Anyone?

Clarification: I am not looking for inconsistencies in the practice of Scientology. I am looking for inconsistencies in the actual philosophy of Scientology.

The current scene of Scientology: What works and what doesn’t

Geir Isene 158 Comments

Looking back at my two years of research into the current scene of Scientology (2007-2009), I’d like to summarize what was useful and what wasn’t. Everything is clearer in hindsight 🙂

Firstly, there are two scenes – the internal scene, the daily situation of the scientologists in the church – and the external scene, the public view of Scientology.

The life of a dedicated scientologist is well documented around the net. It summarizes to increasing pressure as one goes up the Bridge (spiritual levels in Scientology) – pressure to donate ever more time and money. Non-compliance is met with various forms of sanctions and punishments, with the ultimate threat for disobedience being declared a suppressive person. Scientologists learn to adopt a certain attitude of dedication.

The PR machinery of the church is massaging it’s parishioners, rolling out the spectacular international events 6 times per year. Mesmerizing, if long drawn, speeches by the Pope of Scientology, David Miscavige flanked by state-of-the art 3D animations summarizing the latest in real estate acquisitions. Steadily increasing statistics are shown signaling an unprecedented growth of the religion, all while the factual scene shows signs of deflation.

Many scientologists know something is wrong. They suspect or know the statistics are fake. They silently object to the sometimes insane pressure. They pity the slave labor staff and they realize that the goal of a salvaged planet is not within reach for at least another millennium. But they hang in there. Mostly because they don’t want to jeopardize their own spiritual progress. Others because they push on in a very honest effort to help their fellow man despite being bullied by misguided staff wanting to squeeze even more hours and dollars out of their most dedicated.

Dedicated scientologist don’t see much of the external scene. They are trained to not look at any opposing or critical views. They bluntly dismiss such as “entheta” (opposite of good).

The external scene is run by the media. The reason is not that the media is inherently evil like many scientologists are trained to believe. It is because the media is populated with pumped-up, frantic truth seekers looking to push another sensational story out before a deadline. It’s business and an the Church of Scientology is skillfully paining a bullseye on it’s chest. Church spokesman Tommy Davis is lying with just enough straight face to fool the cool-aid drinking scientologists. But not the rest of the world.

The public at large despises Scientology. And the current church management has done much to achieve that. Because the Church tries it’s best to equate Scientology with the Church of Scientology, the public image of Scientology as a subject is at par with the dreadful image of the church. Lack of differentiation means very few will ever get to experience the very helpful parts of the Scientology philosophy.

Despite the church touting it’s contributions to society through it’s PR-powered social betterment programs, it’s influence is negligible. Scientology is a fringe subject.

People’s attitude toward Scientology ranges from the die-hard fanatic scientologists to the seemingly dedicated staff to struggling Scientology public to the indifferent general public (by far the largest group), those with a vague negative impression, the critics, Anonymous and the fanatical critics.

Most, except for the fanatical scientologists, would agree that any and all abuses should be stopped – such as forced disconnection breaking up families, coerced abortions, extortion and slave labor. Some wants the demise of Scientology all together. A few wants to act as thought police, to burn the books and outlaw it’s practice. As insane as the latter sounds, they do in fact exist. And some want to practice Scientology in peace outside the iron grip of the church – these are known as FreeZoners or Independents.

Most would agree that free speech is important and welcome an open debate on Scientology, and that transparency is valuable. Discussions abound on how to wake up the kool-aid drinkers inside the church in order to stop the human rights abuses.

Having been a dedicated church scientologist (albeit somewhat of a rebel), I can at least offer a view on what worked in making me finally walk out the door. It could serve as an indication of what works in helping scientologists on the inside see the actual scene.

In this motley landscape, I will rate the efficiency of several elements that helped me (or not) make my decision – on a scale from -5 to +5. A score of -5 indicates it was contra-productive to my decision. A score of zero means it didn’t have any effect, while a +5 indicate it was very helpful. Here goes:

+6 Meeting David Miscavige
+5 Realizing that the ant hill innovation model should encompass Scientology
+5 Reading friendsoflrh.org
+5 St. Petersburg Times’ “Truth Rundown”
+4 Increasing pressure in the CoS to “toe the party line”
+4 Terril Park’s postings; “Wins from Scientology outside CoS”
+4 Getting to know about alternatives in the FreeZone
+4 Jeff Hawkin’s story
+4 Seeing fewer executives at international events
+4 Seeing that the statistics presented in the CoS is a lie
+4 Seeing forced disconnections in the CoS
+4 Reading about David Miscavige beating his staff
+4 Postings by Marc Headley (BFG)
+3 Seeing Tommy Davis refute forced disconnection
+3 Marty Rathbun’s blog
+3 Declarations of independence on the net
+3 Hearing about coerced abortions in the CoS
+3 The increased pressure for more time in the CoS
+3 The increased pressure for more money in the CoS
+3 Postings by ex-scientologists offering real information about the old days
+2 Reading that Dan Koon was out
+2 Reading that Marty Rathbun was out
+2 Reading that Mike Rinder was out
+2 Ex-Scientologist Message Board (ESMB)
+1 The original Anonymous announcement
+1 The first three Anonymous world-wide protests /Feb-April 2008)
0 The Golden Age of Tech (new releases in the practice of Scientology)
0 The Golden Age of Knowledge (new releases of Scientology material)
0 Anonymous after April 2008
0 Operation Clambake
-2 Operation Clambake Message Board (OCMB)
-3 WWP – the Anonymous forum
-4 Postings by die-hard critics like Zinjifar and Alanzo
-5 Uncertainty about doing Scientology outside of the church
-5 Wondering if the abuses can be handled most effectively from the inside
-5 Seeing that I help people with my seminars and personal coaching and wondering if I could do the same outside the church

One of many conclusions can be drawn; To make a scientologist in the CoS see the factual scene, one has to reach their reality level. Critics and Anonymous are seriously misguided in this area. They often make more damage than good with their cultish black-and-white judgmental attitude.

Please ask any questions about this by adding comments to this blog post. I have certainly forgotten important and less important elements, and I may extend the list as I get reminded of them.

More on your rights to your own viewpoint

Geir Isene 10 Comments

It was 1994, aboard the Scientology cruise vessel MV Freewinds. It was my first trip to the ship and I signed up for the ship-only course “Secrets of the MEST universe” (MEST = Matter, Energy, Space & Time). It was a wonderful course – struck right to the core of my nerdiness. It enhanced my understanding of physics, a field I have been deeply in love with since my childhood.

Plugging away in the course room, I encountered a word I didn’t know and looked it up in a dictionary. It had a couple of different definitions that both could fit – but the meaning would be very different depending on which definition I used. I called the supervisor.

“I don’t know which of these two definitions to use. And the meaning of the sentence will be very different if I pick that one over the other“, pointing in the dictionary.

Scott looked at me “What do you think?”

“Well, I think it would be that one“, moving the finger to the second definition. Scott looked at me, said “Thank you” and walked away.

“Must have been lucky“, I thought.

The next day I was faced with a similar situation, only this time it was even more difficult to figure out which definition to use.

“Scott, come over here… there is this word…blah-blah-blah“. Scott countered “Well, what do you think?“. Me: “Oh, I think it’s this definition“.

“Thank you“, turning around and attended to another student.

Three is a charm, and an hour or so later I raised my hand. Scott looked over. “Nah, forget it“, taking my hand down. Scott smiled and said “Now you get it“.

For this and many other reasons, he is the best supervisor I’ve ever had.

You just got to take responsibility for your own observations, your own viewpoints and your own learning.

In the article “How to study Scientology” (Ability Magazine, Feb 1959), Hubbard writes:

“You are asked to examine the subject of Scientology on a critical basis—a very critical basis.”

“So then we ask you to look at Scientology, study it, question it, and use it as we present it and you will have discovered something for yourself. And in so doing you might well discover a lot more.”

“When you have applied it as it should be, and applied as it is taught at the school, and still find it unworkable, it is your privilege to question it and, if you like, reject it.“

When disagreement is forbidden

Geir Isene 64 Comments

In the Church of Scientology it is always your fault if you disagree with any material. You have misunderstandings (M/Us – yes it’s right there in M4), you have a lack of mass and need to clay demo the concept, you have transgressions in the area (Overts), you are PTS (a Potential Trouble Source), or you’re just plain stupid.

The material is never wrong. You are.

Even when the materials are later claimed to have been wrong in the first place (ref. Golden Age of Knowledge), it is still you that were at fault.

So what happens when a person disagrees with the material while taking a course in the CoS? He gets sent to the word clearer. He gets cleared right down to the last dot. If that doesn’t work, you get sent to the Qualification Division to get your understanding of the material sorted out. Still disagreeing? Then there is always the ethics officer. She should be able to fix you.

Somewhere along the line, the student will either a) really believe he is the one at fault or b) invent some odd way to make the materials right – by paper clips, chewing gum or some other MacGyver hack.

The student ends up invalidating his own viewpoint (or he ends up quitting the course). Making less of his own viewpoint and understanding, he ends up making less of himself. His personal integrity starts to slide. He blanks out his own viewpoint and is really “not quite there” as a student to really evaluate that material anymore. He becomes robotic. He starts blindly trusting the material just as he starts to blindly distrust himself every time a pesky disagreement comes creeping in. He becomes more fanatical.

Robotic. Fanatic. I have seen that. Have you?

First principle in recruiting

Geir Isene 13 Comments

Having reached an overall conclusion as to the workability of L. Ron Hubbard’s management system, it is time to take care of the babies in the bath water.

First on the list is Hubbard’s main principle regarding recruiting staff to an organization. He writes that one should hire based on results and not based on personality*.

I used to run a recruitment company for 10 years (U-MAN Norway) – from 1990 until 2000. The recruitment business is rife with opinions on how to conduct interviews, what to emphasize when evaluating a candidate etc. But nowhere did I see such a cut-to-the-chase as Hubbard’s.

U-MAN originally based its recruitment services solely on the OCA test (The Oxford Capacity Analysis is the test devised and originally copyrighted by Julia Lewis-Salmen and used by the Church of Scientology). Although the OCA test is a remarkable tool for assessing personality, it is a far cry from a whole recruitment process.

For the first half of the 90’s U-MAN sold the test and was happy doing just that. But sometimes the candidate we recommended turned out to be a mis-recruitment. Perhaps 10-20% of the time. It is a testament to the excellence of the OCA test that such a high percentage of recruitment success was achieved with the test as the main focus.

An effort was made to come closer to 100% recruitment success.

And the Hubbard’s recruitment focus was stressed, and very rightfully so, by the owner of U-MAN International, Mårten Runow. With the focus of uncovering the actual production record of a candidate during the interviews, the success rate of our recruitments jumped to a whooping 93% – probably the highest in the industry.

I have later done recruitments without the OCA test and with the main focus on the candidates earlier results. From this I conclude that one should be able to achieve some 85%-95% success without the use of personality tests but with the main focus on earlier results.

Further progress was made with the use of even better reference checking and with devising specific skills tests for various jobs. We finally reached a success rate of 97,4% before I left the company in 2000. I believe this to be by a margin the best recorded success rate in the industry.

It is not that other recruitment companies didn’t focus on an applicants proven production record. They sometimes did, but never consistently and earlier results were often overshadowed by other factor such as personality, school grades, presentation skills etc.

The moral of this blog post would be that a company would do very well by shifting the focus in recruitment to a diligent uncovering of a candidates earlier production results.

The way to do this is quite simple (here’s a WOIM list):

Recruitment interview (in part)
  Ask the candidate for his/her main results in life
    What is he or she is proud of achieving in life?
      Emphasize results created for others
  [?] The candidate has earlier job experience
    [1,3] Earlier job positions
      Ask what results/products the candidate was supposed to produce
      Ask how the candidate would measure those result
      Ask the candidate to draw a graph showing production over time
      Ask the candidate to explain any ups or downs in the graph
      Ask for a reference that can verify these results

There is of course a lot more to the whole recruitment process, but with these data, you can better evaluate which candidate to hire.

*) After having spent more than an hour trying to find the exact reference where Hubbard describes the main focus of recruitment, I gave up and realized again the need for the project LRH4ALL.

The flawed management system

Geir Isene 20 Comments

My recent reexamination of LRH admin tech sparked some interesting discussions – some on this blog and more on other forums and mailing lists. I would like to follow up and addresses a rather odd stance taken by some.

While nobody can point to a successful implementation of LRH’s management philosophy (the admin tech) some justify this by pointing to one or more of the following:

a) No-one is trained well enough to implement it
b) People have M/Us (misunderstandings) regarding the tech
c) The admin tech will not work in the presence of suppression
d) The tech has been altered (presumably by others than LRH) sufficiently to render it unworkable as a system
e) Too few know about it – hence there are too few implementations for significant statistical data.

Let’s take up each of these:

a) Nowhere have I seen such an emphasis on training in any management philosophy than in the Church of Scientology, and it only barely works there due to slave labor. If the management philosophy would require even more training to see to its success, then what we are looking at is such a complex system that it fails to carry its own weight.

b) If a management system requires flawless understanding of it to make it work, it is a failure compared to the many other management systems that works very well with people even sloppily trained on it.

c) The admin tech is supposed to be the perfect way of handling suppression.

d) Why did the admin tech not include elements that guarded it from such alterations? Also, other management philosophies have been altered far more and still works very well. This is called evolution.

e) WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises) claims: “Hubbard management technology has been applied in more than 140,000 companies across the globe. At the root of this success is its consistent workability — where it is exactly applied it uniformly brings growth and prosperity to businesses and organizations of all sizes.” I would call that significant statistical data – yet nothing but small companies with Scientologists as owners step up claim it successful.

The fact remains; There are no visible successful implementation of LRH admin tech – “successful” implies a significant positive deviation from the mean of the market in which it is implemented. If there are I will surely stand corrected.

If the lack of success should be attributed to some other factor than mere unworkability, should that not apply equally well to other technologies – like voodoo, flat-earth science, psychiatry, breatherianism, et al.?

I understand how some really would want LRH admin tech to be the “only workable management system”. But it isn’t. It’s not even close. As a system, it’s a failure. This is not to say that there aren’t babies in this bath water and that one should chuck out the whole lot. There are great bits an pieces in there – especially in the Management Series (three books containing several series of policies, including the PR series, Personnel series, etc.). As always, pick what works.

Hubbard teaches in his admin tech to look at the actual results to judge a systems workability. If he is right in that, then the admin tech is flawed. If he is wrong in that, well… that lesson is part of the admin tech, and hence it is flawed.

I advocate applying Occam’s razor to this; LRH admin tech as a whole system is seriously flawed.

WANTED! Value in LRH admin tech

Geir Isene 67 Comments

Continuing my reexamination of Scientology information accepted at face value, I am tackling the whole of LRH admin technology.

But before I dive into the technology itself, let me briefly cover from where I do this reexamining:

I have been an executive in companies for more than 23 years, 17 of them as a CEO – mostly very successful. I have studied LRH admin tech intensively while I was the CEO of U-MAN Norway from 1990-2000. I have implemented the LRH Org Board in several companies as well as Admin Scales, LRH communication systems, management by statistics, recruitment tech, marketing tech etc. I have also studied other management philosophies such as the ISO 9000 series, Six Sigma, Lean/TPS, ITIL, COBIT, PRINCE2 and a few others. I have extensive experience with ITIL and also PRINCE2. With this as part of the back-drop, let’s dig in.

The management philosophy in Scientology was created by L. Ron Hubbard for managing the various Scientology churches and organizations. The Organization called WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises) was set up to promote this LRH Admin Tech. On the web site, we find:

“We disseminate the administrative works of renowned author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard to use in organizational, professional and private endeavors. The product of more than three decades of research, piloting and codification, this body of knowledge is the world’s most comprehensive system of management and represents the first true technology of management.”

…and also:

“WISE is a fellowship of thousands of business people across the globe who recognize that the organizational and management principles developed by author L. Ron Hubbard have application to all businesses. And that where used, they greatly increase the prosperity and growth of an organization.

For 25 years WISE and its members have been disseminating these principles to business people everywhere.”

…and then:

“Our two greatest assets are the uniform workability of L. Ron Hubbard’s organizational and management principles, and the dedication of our members.”

While the latter may be true, I dispute the “uniform workability of L. Ron Hubbard’s organizational and management principles”. In fact I dispute it’s overall workability. WISE has even gone so far as to call it “The only workable administrative technology“. Really?

Let’s take a few examples:

Recruitment: Hubbard teaches an organization to recruit many staff in parallel and then keep a big back door open for those who fail. I dispute this hire-and-waste principle. I believe it to be disruptive and detrimental to an organization.

Manning up an organization: Keeping an admin/tech ratio of 2 to 1, meaning you would have only one third of the personnel delivering billable service. Do the math. What service organization can survive with this over-administration without the use of slave labor?

Management by statistics: Weekly statistics. Several statistics for each post. Managed from top-down. I have seen this creating frantic and neurotic organization with little long-term vision.

The organizing board: Hierarchical, over-administered with people stuck in boxes of responsibility and where very few are able to fulfill the implicit responsibilities of the vertical they are in charge of.

The three-basket system: Out-dated. Somebody invented the computer.

The handling of opposition: The LRH management principle here is to “always attack, never defend“, to handle any attack by discrediting the source, to dig up or invent something bad to shut up the opposition. Seriously.

These are but a few examples of non-workability within LRH admin tech. And while I have had excellent success using the Administrative Scale, having helped more than a dozen organizations and more than 250 people personally with this tool, I can also here see an even better and more workable way.

As WISE promotes; thousands of members have for more than 25 years been busy disseminating and implementing LRH admin tech. Given that this is “the only workable administrative technology”, surely there must be some stellar examples of its implementation. Right there at the top of Wall Street. Or the UN. Or the humanitarian organizations. Or… somewhere? Even the Church of Scientology is not a good example of its implementation – anything can work when you build an organization using what would normally pass for slave labor.

Are there any factual examples where LRH administrative technology has proven beyond doubt to be more successful than other management systems?

And so I return to the title of this blog post: Please help me find actual proven valuable parts of the management framework created by L. Ron Hubbard.

I am not about to go to any extreme here. I am an advocate for taking what works and using it where it proves valuable. I am simply struggling to list many factual workable parts of LRH admin tech, and not just small bits like “the concept of the ideal scene” or “bits and pieces in the marketing series”. I am looking for whole parts that have proven to be uniformly successful.

Anyone?

Rotten attitude

Geir Isene 41 Comments

When a friend of mine came out an accident and in dire need of help, she turned to a fellow scientologist. She told my friend that she wouldn’t help because she could not get into such “entheta”, being an OT VIII and all.

An other friend of mine turned to his OT VII and VIII friends for some assistance only to be told that it was beneath them to help someone at his level.

If this seems bad, it’s nothing compared to a fellow scientologist here in Norway who refused to work for a friend’s company for a rather sickening reason.

The company collected money for a group of musicians with Down’s Syndrome, making it possible for them to put up concerts and perform. And they are great performers even with their disabilities.

The reason for turning down the job offer? He didn’t want to contribute to such degraded beings (DBs)!

If it is something I’d like to see slayed before sunrise, it is this haughty, arrogant, I-am-better-than-them attitude that I more than a few times saw with dedicated scientologists. It’s a rotten attitude.

Shedding mental lead

Geir Isene 43 Comments

It may be inevitable. It could be that no person is immune to the mental laziness of dropping one’s guard and sacrificing one’s personal integrity in the face of great success or real failure.

All the Scientologists I have met have accepted large or small portions of Scientology by faith rather than by inspection. Their personal experiences have shown them that parts of Scientology has great workability. Maybe it was the communication course, maybe their Dianetics sessions, or the moment they went Clear or an OT level that got them real and tangible gains or maybe something entirely different.

From those successful experiences and gains comes the acceptance by extrapolation. “If that was so excellent, then this must surely also be great“. And thus preconceptions are born.

This of course also works the other way; Presented with some real failure, something really bad, one can get preconceptions as well. Just like some person having bad experiences in Scientology or reading something negative about the subject can become cemented in “how bad it all is”.

A person can become hyper-critical or gullible by extrapolating his experiences.

And so it has been also with me. Although I have tended to inspect a great deal myself and tried very hard to not let my personal integrity slide, I have not been immune to this extrapolation effect.

There have been areas that I have not inspected and trusted at face value. Such as parts of the Admin Tech (the administrative technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard for the organizing of Scientology organizations). I have seen some clear successes with this technology and with that concluded that some other piece of Admin Tech must surely also work equally well. Or, I have jumped to the conclusion that what I have seen as successful must surely also work really well in a totally different setting or field.

And this is wrong.

Take but one example: Even though the Organizing Board developed by L. Ron Hubbard can be an excellent tool, it can also be dead weight. In some areas it can work well. In other areas it can straight-jacket an otherwise thriving organization. It is surely not the silver bullet I once thought it was.

Realizing one’s preconceptions is an important step forward in regaining one’s personal integrity. Shedding such mental lead is the road to regaining oneself.

In the last year I have had ample space to reexamine my own preconceptions and mental lead. And it is coming off, layer after layer.

I no longer think that the Admin Tech is so special. It is perhaps a good way to organize a Church of Scientology. Perhaps. But to extrapolate that into thinking it’s “the only workable administrative technology” (as trumpeted by the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises – WISE), or even good for a particular business is folly. It’s a just a tool, and a business needs the tools suited for that business to operate successfully. And so the Org Board was the latest holy cow slaughtered on the altar of progress. Just yesterday.

Nothing is holy like that. Everything is workable to a certain degree in a certain setting. And there really is no substitute for finding out by real examination. Not by faith or trust or skepticism or distrust.

The answer lies in really LOOKING. For oneself.