Rathbun gives a valuable exposition for any past, present, or future person interested or involved in Scientology.
While primarily laying responsibility for Scientology's current state of affairs with Chairman of the Board David Miscavige (who took control of the church after Hubbard's death), he nonetheless does not let L. Ron Hubbard of the hook. This is a welcome perspective. It breaks with an otherwise inviolable church canon or straightjacket that holds that Hubbard is so correct as "source" as to have a papal infallibility.
Rathbun exhibits reason and rationality. As a conceptual thinker, Rathbun grasps that concepts, context, and common sense matter. Rote or robotic interpretations serve no one. Through Rathbun's line of reasoning, the opportunity for freedom might be reintroduced into a religion that was founded on the concept of being a bridge to total freedom, but which arguably lost its way as it descended into totalitarian enforcement of its rules. The forest was lost for the trees. Rathbun points the reader back to the big picture -- the forest.
Further, the author validates the wisdom inherent in all humans, piercing the conceit held by many Scientologists that only Scientology holds the answers -- a conceit, it must be said, that is not uncommon among religions. By validating great thinkers of the past and present, Rathbun elevates Scientology's potential to connect itself to the human dialogue in a meaningful way. By tying Scientology's thinking and concepts to ideas more commonly understood by the general public, Rathbun legitimizes and humanizes Scientology in a way that might -- just maybe might -- lead to what is good and valuable in Scientology being of service to humankind. And which just might lead to the end of the cultish, self-ostracism of Scientology from society by helping terminate Scientology's disparagement of non-Scientologists (e.g., referring to them with the demeaning term of "wogs").
Hubbard's thoughts in some areas are, in this reviewer's opinion, unworthy of serious consideration -- for example, his work on radiation (the book does not touch on this specific topic). Rathbun sanely recognizes that Hubbard was not infallible and urges the reader to adopt Hubbard's own stated advice: Something is only true for you if you yourself find it to be true -- though this logically valid, gnostic position is often a double-bind for Scientologists who are also taught by Hubbard that the believer must uphold Scientology exactly in all its processes without question or variation (cf., "Keeping Scientology Working").
Further, Rathbun makes the case that despite failings on Hubbard's part (or misinterpretations taken out of historical context of the church), that there is a baby in the bathwater that should not be thrown out. The argument boils down to this: Yes, there are errors, but there is much to be valued as workable. Similar assertions could be made about other past thinkers. No one would, for example, insist on discrediting the value of calculus just because Newton (one of two acknowledged discoverers) also sought the alchemical (and chimerical) Philosopher's Stone. Nor would most people discount Tesla's electrical genius simply because he was irrationally phobic of germs in social situations, displaying what appeared to be an obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Current Scientologists may see Rathbun's book as treasonous, indoctrinated as they are to brook no disagreement with the words of Hubbard -- or the official church. However, if Scientologists can listen openly to Rathbun, they may find that he envisions a viable direction for the truest aims of Scientology to be achieved, a way for the subject of Scientology, if not the church, to rise renewed from the seismic upheavals reportedly plaguing it today.
Some critics of Hubbard will surely say that Rathbun's book is too forgiving of Hubbard. Some of them will note that while certain problems may have increased in the church after Hubbard's death, many if not all of those problems were certainly not absent before Hubbard's death. Put another way, the debate is not resolved for many as to whether Scientology's church is suffering its woes due to Miscavige's leadership, or due to Hubbard himself.
For many other readers, I being one of them, Rathbun hits the mark. He evokes in some ex-Scientologists the memory of what was good and right about Scientology, and what the spiritual and philosophical aspirations were that led people to Scientology in the first place. Those spiritually inclined will pick out nuances and subtleties that have rung true across the eons for many humans. Scientology's contribution of a very unique and structured spiritual path is significant and is certainly deserving of study from all perspectives and at all levels.
Rathbun himself has been labeled elsewhere as "Scientology's heretic" and has been compared to Martin Luther of the Protestant revolution in Christianity. The parallels are certainly obvious. However, this reviewer suggests another analogy: Spring.
Spring is a time of rejuvenation. The term Spring has been applied to political revolts against totalitarianism and dictatorships. The Prague Spring of 1968 comes to mind. This year, we saw the Arab Spring, where dictatorship after dictatorship has fallen. Perhaps now we are seeing the Scientology Spring. After all, when all the dust and the words settle, Rathbun is calling for freedom, self-determination, rationalism, inclusiveness, validation of all people of good will, and a faith that is not only validating of what is workable but which insists on rights and good treatment of its own adherents.
In the end, this writer pictures Rathbun, Zen-like, pointing to the moon and saying "You will not get there by studying the hand pointing at it." If this is indeed a Scientology Spring, this reviewer wishes everyone the best of outcomes -- everyone with any past, present, or future connection to the subject.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2012