Interesting point. There was another reform that comes to mind. When Anonymous started leaking all of the lectures online, I remember them taking down any lectures that involved Marcab or any sort of space opera but accepting that Xenu was going to be leaked. Some of these space opera references appear to be taken out of current set of basics etc.
They stopped putting starch and iodine on the towels on the purif to do the purple ooze magic trick.
Unfortunately, none of the things that matter were actually reformed. Disconnection, fair game, forced abortions.
Don't forget fraud, bait and switch, psychological manipulation, exploitation, and abuse by way of a system of intimate mental probing and conditioning, also known as "Hubbard Guidance" and the "Grade Chart."
Scientology's game has been to make things so bad, that by making them slightly less bad, we are supposed to be relieved. Tighten the screws, loosen the screws, tighten the screws, loosen the screws, etc.
Disconnection and Fair Game extend logically from Hubbard's earliest writings, going back to his Tone Scale writings of 1951. The first half of Fair Game is trick and lie to.
Miscavige has tightened the screws and Debbie Cook wants them loosened slightly.
And it's natural to be relieved when the screws are loosened.
I'd feel more confident in the demise of Scientology if predictions similar to the ones now being made had not been made in the 1980s and the 1990s. Realistically, if Scientology really does have billions of dollars of accumulating interest in foreign bank accounts, and a collection of interlocking international corporate entities, it can go on existing with 5,000 members very easily. How many people does it take to run the mafia?
Miscavige knows that this is the monument-building phase of Scientology, and that's mainly what he's doing, with Scientologists being the caretakers of the monuments. It takes money to ensure preservation of monuments in perpetuity.
Miscavige also knows that Hubbard lied when he told Scientologists that there were lots of OT levels above the already existing ones and, more than anything, the missing piece, resulting from the absent upper
upper OT levels, is what is perplexing and demoralizing Scientologists.
Apparently, Debbie still believes that these upper
upper OT levels exist, and hasn't grokked concerning Hubbard's "real goal" of establishing an LRH fan club that will care for his monuments and preserve and protect his name and "image."
In the meantime, Scientology still has a big front door and a big back door and, while its orgs may not be crowded, and some even empty, it continues to snag new people here and there, and to "run them through the Org."
If the obnoxious Miscavige is replaced with a charming new leader, and this charming new leader somehow finds - or concocts - a bunch of upper
upper OT levels "from LRH," and makes a convincing show of it, who knows?
I mean, the hard part has already been done, including bringing the USA IRS to submission, and that happened eight years after Hubbard's death, at a time when, by many predictions, Scientology should have been fading into obscurity.
Even if the institution of Scientology, and its corporations and bank accounts were to magically disappear tomorrow, there would still be plenty of "walking wounded" to deal with. But that institution is not likely to disappear any time soon.
And, speaking of walking wounded, Independent-Scientology Hubbard-fan-club member #1, Marty Rathbun, will be coming out with his book in a few months so, as depressing as this post may have been
- sorry about that - there is some comic relief in sight.