The old man believed that auditing could help, himself and others. He continued to try to elevate himself, and others, spiritually, through the auditing. But the elusive end product couldn't be achieved, not with himself or others.
(snip)
And the new developments were trying to get pcs the gains they'd been promised in earier levels. The only trouble is, it simply didn't work. Sure, there were gains, but not the life changing OT/clear type phenomenon which was the "bridge".
(snip)
But he tried. He felt his assessment of the mind would work. but it didn't. His underpinnings were flawed.
I have had the same idea, and it has been difficult to express it exactly.
Hubbard started with the idea that we are each fundamentally a separate and distinct "thetan" that could be "disconnected" from the physical body and mind. That idea comes from eastern philosophy and practices. Sort of.
He began with the simplest of "processes":
Be Three Feet in Back of Your Head
And, if you just DID IT when told to, then the auditor could run you on
Route One from
The Creation of Human Ability, and DRILL YOU on developing all sorts of "abilities".
But, nobody could ever do it - not outside of their
imagination. Often people
imagined doing it, but that is NOT the same as
actually doing it.
Old OT IV, V and VI were versions of
Route One, and they didn't work either. I knew people who did those levels back in the mid-late 1970s, and they were very unhappy. They enjoyed the levels, but they did NOT get anything even remotely close to what was advertised and promised.
Eventually Hubbard had to cancel those too, and replaced them with NOTS and SOLO NOTS, which were really just more OT III.
The "bridge" kept getting longer and longer, and despite that, it did NOT deliver the goods as promised, though as you correctly point out, often
something happened that was beneficial.
As I see it, Hubbard had the
feeling, or the strong idea that "since it is true that a a thetan is what I think it is", that thus, a person should be able to advance along a path according to his detailed "bridge". In truth, as I see it, Hubbard's MODEL was not correct. It is missing key components, and it was flawed right from the beginning.
All of Hubbard's "advances" and "new releases", all of the additions to the Scientology Bridge over so many years, were aimed at
undercutting the case so that eventually, FINALLY, somebody could end up THREE FEET IN BACK OF THEIR HEAD, and do the damned drills that Hubbard came up with
in the early 1950s!!!! But nobody ever has. :confused2:
The theories that all of Scientology is based upon hinge on some key FALSE assumptions and/or postulates. Hubbard probably (maybe) did think that his "understandings" were correct, and that his processes should be able to do what he claimed/believed they should be able to do.
But, they did not.
It is weird how some people, people who have stuck with Scientology for so long, are unable to see and/or refuse to see that obvious FACT.
I suppose the promise of Scientology comes down to this. To experience yourself as a "spirit", and to develop some control over separating that spirit from the mental, the emotional and the physical.
Interestingly, I often do one of Hubbard's drills called the
Spacation Drill, and THAT gets me as close as I about ever am to "being there with nothing else" (as a "spirit").
As I see it, Hubbard might have done much more for people in the long run if he simply had gotten as many people as possible to do that ONE DRILL. Everyday for 15-30 minutes. Sort of like how TMers do their meditation 20 minutes each mornng and evening.
But then, it seems that Hubbard's aim wasn't really to HELP people, and he obviously had more attention on OTHER goals - making money, controlling people, staying out of jail, being a total egomaniac, etc.