Destroying Scientology Management in One E-Z Step

Here's something new to chew on ... Why Scientology has been contracting for some 20 years now!

Little known fact here. For those of us that were around in the "day", back in the 70s and early 80s, in the management sector of Scientology as well as at the lower organizational levels, of which I did both, in those days the structure of Scientology was very simple and very predictable. As with most organizations, the orders or strategies emanated from the top, filtered down through command channels and eventually ended up with the staff members at the lowest levels. It's called many things, a command chart, an organizational chart, and in Scientology it is also called an Organization Board. A fact which most people do not know about, but starting in 1981, a "new" operating pattern surfaced. The top levels of management at the international base, started issuing orders directly to people at the next level down (Flag management) without going through their proper org board seniors. In other words, if you had several divisions or bureaus under you (as I did in those days), your juniors were suddenly being issued orders DIRECTLY from the international base above you.

Now, I quite vividly recall the shock I experienced when this first happened as we had NEVER seen anything like this before. I immediately queried up the line and demanded to know how on earth they could be running my staff without going through me, or were they planning to remove me from my position. The word I got down is that they were using an "issue" based on an LRH advice that said in so many words that there was no problem with issuing directives to staff members lower down, without having to go through all the command channels on the way down, as long as you cc'ed the seniors involved.

Needless to say, even with my relatively minor management and organizational training at the time, I saw this as an obvious misinterpretation of L Ron Hubbard, as I knew that he would never offer an "advice" that countered every policy letter he wrote (of which there are hundreds) on the subject of standard organizational channels. This marked the beginning of a destructive practice, on the simple basis that no matter how you stack the cards and what spin you give them, if your boss is telling your staff what to do, you're job is pretty much useless.

And sure as the sun rises every day, that practice spread over the years, from the international base (Int Management), and became the routine. It started to permeate the system. The idea of "bypassing the usual organizational lines and command channels" seeped into the blood of the organization, and the practice started to show its ugly head at lower levels of management in continental zones and eventually into the service organizations.

By 1989 it was in full bloom and orders were flying and the organization system as LRH had set up was being bypassed at pretty much every echelon. It was not unusual to wake up in the morning to find orders from the very top levels of management to people at continental level, or straight into the service organizations. What this began, was the corrosion of our organizations. You cannot continue to bypass the usual structure without eventually causing structural decay, and when you are talking about people, if you don't empower them, at each level on-down, you eventually de-power them and make their position pointless.

1990 is a watershed year in Scientology as it marks a point where the international growth of the Church, based on pure statistics - not the hype that we've heard at the international events - began a serious long term slide. The expansion factor had been broken, and it took many years to do that. In spite of the fact that David Miscavige and possibly others in his crew who "know so well" would have you believe otherwise, the truth is that:

1. It was not because Scientology organizations and management became infested with suppressive and incompetent persons.
2. It was not because everyone was lazy, incompetent or in noncompliance - a favorite attack that is used by David Miscavige to discredit anyone that he wants removed.

In simplistic terms, you could view it this way. If I were to take your body, which you control, and instead told someone to grab your left arm and do such and such, tell someone else to grab your right arm and give them separate orders, and do the same with your legs, you would lose control of YOUR body. You would also eventually go into apathy about having a body. In fact, you'd probably protest so much that your body would get sick and eventually you'd just leave it sitting there to die. Organizations are the same way. SOMEONE has to run them. Organizations are not run by multiple people. Communism has already been shown to be unsuccessful. Running Russia with a bunch of Communist cells eventually nearly destroyed the country. Can you imagine the top executives for McDonalds or Burger King, sending directives to the manager of a franchise in Cleveland Ohio telling him how to flip his burgers, bypassing the regional and continental people over that franchise? Eventually the system would crumble. Such is the case in Scientology.


That is how the picture of Scientology's organizations developed from that time period in 1981 when the process began. Had international management actually held the line, and followed the LRH prescribed org boards, not violated command channels and not introduced a squirrel system of issuing orders which bypassed every command echelon, the organization would have continued to expand.


Scientology is a tremendously potent body of knowledge. It takes a LOT to screw it up. The momentum which LRH and management of that time had set in motion for 30 years leading up to 1981 and eventually 1990 when the statistics started to topple, was weakened at its core. The structure of organization are its pillars. Violate the structure, you destroy the core.


David Miscavige, in 1996, announced so sanctimoniously to the entire Scientology world that he was ushering in a new "era" of management, one where the organizational lines would be followed and bypass of standard channels was history. Possibly he had an epiphany then. Had he not been so high on his horse about this, and had he admitted with some humility that it was in fact the international base that started this whole perverted system and pushed it forward into every level of Scientology, he would have gained some credibility. Instead, he tried to lay the onus of the whole corrupt system on the laps of those of us at lower levels of management. LRH even says that mutinies are started at the TOP and one of the most fundamental datums we all learned back in the day is that "if it is out at Flag management level - it is out in the orgs". That simply translates as - if you're dad is smoking pot, then it's quite likely that the kids will see it and do it too.


David Miscavige, with prodigious amounts of force, threat and other means, tried to enforce his "new era of management," but it never worked because he was the one that sabotaged it from the outset by sending out teams of "the best" executives which he personally trained at the Int base. These teams went to every continent and started running those zones, and taking their orders from who? International management and David Miscavige. We at middle management level were left watching as these teams blew into town, executed their directives and basically snubbed a nose at their actual command. All the while, David Miscavige was hammering and pounding lower level management to get it together and start managing standardly, while at the same time demanding that everyone do HIS orders, and throwing roadblocks in the way so that no one in management could get a single order out unless it pushed his mandates. So once again, the standard channels were corrupted and of course the statistics did not improve and the structure corroded that much more.


I attempted, albeit far too late, to expose the problem. The first time I spoke up, I received an RPF assignment for being disaffected. The next time I spoke, years later, I was summarily removed from my post and moved off the lines where no one would listen to me.


I have taken some bullets on this issue, I assure you.


Unfortunately I knew that would happen - and it did. You don't walk up to Stalin and criticize him without getting a late night visitation from a few of his boys.

In the day, back in the 70s and 80s, you could say anything to L Ron Hubbard, without worry of repercussions. He LISTENED. David Miscavige has created a different entity. It doesn't listen. It just KNOWS IT IS RIGHT.


It takes a tremendous amount of courage, a general greatness and a dash of humility to admit that you have screwed up on something this big and that you caused the problem. But oddly, people in general are very forgiving souls and we would have happily nodded our heads and gotten on with expanding Scientology. Unfortunately David Miscavige is not about humility. He is not about greatness, except in his own head, and he certainly has no concept about true courage and truth, because if he did he would be able to see what I am telling you right now.


As I said above, this whole aspect of the administrative squirreling or violation of fundamental Scientology structure is not widely known because there are not too many of us left who were around before it happened, and who lived through that entire period to watch the slow corrosion of the organizations at all levels.


I thought you should know the truth.

Written by OUTSIDE THE BOX

See my blog at http://nodamnkidding.blogspot.com/