I should note up front that this opinion is my own, and does not necessarily represent anyone else’s. However, the role/importance of KSW is a distinguishing difference in the perspectives of the Independent field. Indys and Freezoners have a very wide range of opinions, and the acceptance of KSW is a sharp dividing line. The fundamentalists do their best to deliver auditing purely the way Hubbard presented it, though without the insanity of the CofS. In other words: the fundamentalists would never change an auditing command, but another Indy/FZ auditor might. Or might use an alternate meter, or no meter at all. Or might deliver services over Skype.

I could take the attitude that the fundamentalists are wrong, but I don’t. Plenty of people are happy with the tech-as-written, and “If it works don’t fix it” often is wise advice. I run into head-butting contests with people who are “pure KSW” when they criticize me, but I know some awesome auditors who are happy with what they’re doing by, indeed, keeping actual Scientology working.

The ostensible point of the “Keeping Scientology Working” policy letter — which is one of the few policies you have to read when you start every single course in the CofS — is to protect the organization and the technology from those who would harm them. That is, it could have been written with a message like, “Don’t get distracted from what we’re doing or confuse it with something else; that weakens us and dilutes its value.” Or simply: Stay true. There’s nothing wrong with a sentiment like that.

However, KSW (as most people refer to it) is written in an emotional tone of anger. You can tell that Hubbard was spitting mad when he typed that. And like anything we write when we are pissed off, it’s… not usually what you should have said. (Each of us can remember hitting SEND on an e-mail message when we should have waited until the next morning.) For example, when we’re angry we generalize; we over-simplify; we insult other people instead of sticking to the facts. And KSW did all those things… then became the cornerstone of the organizational culture.

The other problem with KSW is that it includes several statements that are lies, pure and simple. For instance:

In all the years I have been engaged in research I have kept my comm lines wide open for research data. I once had the idea that a group could evolve truth. A third of a century has thoroughly disabused me of that idea. Willing as I was to accept suggestions and data, only a handful of suggestions (less than twenty) had long-run value and none were major or basic; and when I did accept major or basic suggestions and used them, we went astray and I repented and eventually had to “eat crow”.

The truth is that a horde of people contributed to the tech, and in many cases Hubbard took sole credit for their research and their work. I’m told that after KSW came out, quite a few of those people up-and-left, because there’s few things worse than having the boss say, “I did it!” when you yourself did that work. It’s bad enough to not get a thank-you; it’s another for him to take credit.

Some points are a matter of interpretation and opinion, such as:

The common denominator of a group is the reactive bank. . . . Person to person the bank is identical. So constructive ideas are individual and seldom get broad agreement in a human group.

If that were so, we’d never have seen open source software. Or intensely demanding, collaborative projects such as spaceflight. Or any number of other worthwhile endeavors that people do together. So speaking for myself… I very much disagree with him on this point. (Which is not to say that he’s completely wrong about human behavior — there are such things as mobs and Internet trolls.)

But even if everything Hubbard wrote in this policy letter was 100% factually accurate, it’s still wrong-headed, and has had a terrible result. Because in KSW, Hubbard set himself up as the sole source of wisdom and the only person whose word you could trust. And his word was cast in stone, forevermore. If someone else has a bright idea that might get results faster… sorry, unless it came from Ron it’s “squirreling.” If someone wants to learn about a subject beyond what LRH wrote about it (say, on marketing or public relations), it’s “off-source” and thus cannot be trusted.

That becomes increasingly ludicrous on some topics. Once they might have been up-to-date and even valuable, but 50 years later… not so much. Hubbard gets some credit for paying attention to nutrition and vitamins in an era when they were pooh-poohed, but science knows a lot more about those subjects these days. However, since KSW means that nothing can be changed, the CofS follows the original policies to the letter. (Which is why we see the CofS do such bizarre things in public. They literally do not know any better. And they’re sure that LRH was right about everything.)

A common goal for those of us who got into Scientology was to gain better control over our own lives, to think for ourselves. But KSW says outright that you shouldn’t think for yourself (at least not about the tech), because only Ron can do that. It is diametrically opposed to the tech’s purpose.

In the real world, it’s okay to read something and then disagree with it — even if it’s from an authority (such as your boss). However, in the CofS, if you publicly disagree with KSW you will find yourself in a world of hurt, because you’ll be seen as supportive of those who would harm the tech or the organization. So either you shut up and keep your thoughts to yourself (which is not conducive to spiritual enlightenment IMHO), or you decide to agree with that viewpoint, which leads you into a worldview that ultimately I think is harmful.

And then — in part because of that anger — he makes it all so dreadfully serious:

When somebody enrols, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universe — never permit an “open-minded” approach.

In the 50s, Hubbard wrote (somewhere, I haven’t looked up the reference), “If it isn’t fun, it isn’t Scientology.” That’s the attitude I bought into way back when, and it’s what I still buy into. Because every time I come out of an auditing session I think, “Damn that was fun!” If I don’t spend a few minutes giggling, it’s because I’m sitting quietly in a blissful, serene “Isn’t the world great?” haze. That is what I signed up for. Not for someone telling me that he has all the answers and that I’m an idiot who can’t be trusted to contribute.

There’s one thing that Hubbard wrote in KSW with which I agree: “If you can’t get the technology applied then you can’t deliver what’s promised. It’s as simple as that. If you can get the technology applied, you can deliver what’s promised.” Unfortunately, it’s KSW that has kept the technology from being applied. And it’s a damned shame.