I disagree.
The ONLY reason some of you/us recall the "good 'ole days" with fond associations is because Hubbard had not yet consolidated the CONTROL of the Scientology organizational groups (missions, orgs, etc.). But, he was ALWAYS working in THAT direction. It was sometimes "fun" pre-1982 (Mission Holders conference, mass declares and WDC missions), because orgs, and more so the MISSIONS, could and did PICK & CHOOSE what to follow and WHAT NOT TO FOLLOW.
Hubbard has always been fond of CONTROL. The word appears all throughout the subject materials of Scientology. Look at check sheets and routing forms. Hubbard created and designed them both. There is absolute control of each "particle" (human being) at every step of the way, whether it be where to send a new walk-in, where and how to "crush reg" a "winning PC", how to manipulate with the ruin-finding drill, the strict enforcement of mandatory "success stories" and "attestations" of absurd states (where it is per policy Treason assignment to change your mind later),
following orders as the "best solution", INT level org boards, command channels into orgs, "command intention", and on and on.
Hubbard LOVED control and he began the tendency to micro-manage every aspect of Scientology. DM simply took it to the logical conclusion that had already been started by Hubbard. I would say that Hubbard took the idea of the thetan-mind-body analogy to management, to INSANE limits. The "thetan" CONTROLS the body. The thetan CONTROLS all aspects of its environment (Hubbard wrote lots about extending CONTROL out into ones environment).
Control - control - control, manipulate and manage start-change-stop, effect changes at every point in ones environment (the Scientology IDEAL), "total cause" over everything, "management" (of all particles, terminals and people), making the environment conform to YOUR wishes and desires, again,
ad nauseum.
The Admin Scale is basically rooted in CONTROL. Goals, purposes, plans, policy, projects, programs and orders flow from THE TOP DOWN. Always, always, always. In the "good 'ole days", the "command and control lines" (which Hubbard had always been perfecting, fine-tuning and struggling VERY HARD to implement across the planet in his orgs and missions) had yet to be "slammed in". This "golden age" that some of you wax romantic about was a simple transitional "passing moment" that was NEVER to Hubbard's liking.
The great insanity of Scientology is deeply woven into the subject materials themselves. Sure, you can choose to
ignore, omit, and alter great amounts of Hubbard's lunacy, but then really, you are NOT "practicing Scientology". You can say, claim, assert and demand that you are, as some have done and some continue to do here on ESMB, but that is total bullshit.
Some of you who call yourselves Scientologists freely toss out SP declares, the nutty lists of suppressive acts, heavy ethics, condition assignments, the RPF, crush regging, hard sell, manipulation of others through ARC trickery (ruin-finding drill), per policy PR, and so forth. That shit, and much more,
should all be tossed aside. But what is left is NOTHING Hubbard would have approved of - other than in some of your delusional over-imaginative minds.
The truth is that some or many of you pick and choose abundantly (which is good and necessary considering the great amounts of SHIT in the subject), yet still think with this absurd notion that you "are a Scientologist", and are "practicing TRUE Scientology".
Hubbard did not want any "natural"
evolution of Scientology (which you mentioned above). Again, he MANIPULATED every aspect of it, as best that he could, from PR, to regging drills, to how to cave-in a critic, to how to get a "response" from a public Scientologist, to command channels, to Hard Sell,
ad nauseum.
When I got in back in 1976, in Boston, and then at NYC (1977), it was easily obvious that what was going on in the big NYC missions was FAR different than the Class IV orgs (that were under Sea Org control). The Missions had far MORE highly trained auditors, the staff got paid FAR MORE, the stats were often far HIGHER than the orgs who they were supposed to be channeling public to, the rules were FAR looser, they had NO STUPID SEA ORG MISSIONAIRES coming into their missions to screw them up, and on and on. They were not yet "under Hubbard's control". Hubbard, through DM and others, was happy to decimate what was a highly successful "expansion of Scientology" to INSTEAD obtain greater long-term CONTROL.
The concept and
ideal of "control" runs rampant throughout the subject and practices of Scientology.