Not
all bad. IMO, Scientology was designed to be good on the outside and rotten on the inside. It's tricky.
Yep. Another way of saying that is Hubbard strategically placed various "good ideas" and "useful methods" within the larger subject, and especially
near the beginning of any person's involvement with Scientology. These various "good ideas" and "useful methods" acted as a lure, as bait, to attract the person to the larger general subject (which contains a great deal of deceit, control and trickery).
The person was also encouraged (tricked) into misidentifying these various "good ideas" and "useful methods" with all things Hubbard and Scientology. Hubbard studied about the identification and association of ideas and thought when he was looking over Korzybski's subject. He also learned about "fixed ideas", and he well
caused his own followers to adopt various incorrect identifications, associations and fixed ideas.
For example, many people talk about how they enjoyed the lower auditing, such as Life Repair, the Grades, and even Objectives, and I for one most definitely incorrectly ASSUMED for awhile that this "great stuff"
must exist everywhere in Scientology. Of course, I paid attention, and I saw rather quickly that this was NOT true. The great experiences I had with early auditing did NOT extrapolate equally to the operation of the organization, to other aspects of the subject, and even to Hubbard himself. But, I was swept away for awhile in the intense experiences that I was having from the auditing, and I falsely assumed that
everything else in and about Scientology was equally amazing. Hubbard, the way Scientology is setup, and the way it functions very much demands such "A=A=A" thinking. Interestingly, this is just another of many contradictions, because while Hubbard is talking about "reducing
identifications of the reactive mind", he is creating them in other ways in the minds of his followers!
Hubbard worked hard to make it appear that Scientology was an
integrated and complete subject, and also built into the organization the strict view that members may NOT ever examine and choose to use any isolated aspect of the subject apart from the "whole rest of it". Hubbard claimed over and over that it "only worked" when
ALL of it was there working together - Ethics, Tech and Admin.
Ethics - the nonstop oppressive control
Tech - the auditing (the good and the bad)
Admin - the Scientology organization, especially the management section known as the Sea Org
Hubbard stressed and forced the idea that ALL THREE must be present for Scientology "to work". There is no doubt to me, that as a MIND CONTROL oppressive scam, yes, very much so, all three needed to be present!
I do agree somewhat that if large amounts of the Ethics and Admin are
removed from the overall subject, that what is left might be useful and even helpful to some folks in some other context.