yeah, that's the conclusion i came to after actually reading about hubbard's life. the point is that the narrative about scientology that's coming out now, courtesy of marty rathbun and mike rinder (former head of security and former head of PR, both OTVIIs who reported directly to Miscavige), is what i said above: that scientology (including the "teachings" and hubbard the man) itself is fine, and it's miscavige that is ruining everything. and although the defectors piling up are good, i don't think it's *that* positive of a development, because it just legitimizes scientology further as a functional religion... in fact, it's not hard to find mainstream news articles talking about rathbun like he's martin luther and saying that every young religion goes through this, with reformists splitting off from the main group. i prefer people like paul haggis who are willing to denounce the whole lot of it, rather than rathbun, who a) hasn't apologized for a single life he's ruined (to my outsider knowledge, at least) and b) runs a halfway house for ex-scientologists, complete with an e-meter and everything.