With respect, the point is not what
you believe. The belief that counts is that of the
practitioner of what he/she considers as the left-hand path.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Hand_Path
"The terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path are primarily used by advocates of the Left-Hand Path, who hold varying opinions of the Right-Hand Path."
So Hubbard, Crowley, Parsons, et al would be the ones who considered
themselves left-hand-path Mages. This is not my opinion, it is the belief of the left-hand path practitioner. Read LRH's admissions and you will read his belief in left-hand path magic.
From the wikipedia article:
Left-Hand Path belief systems generally share the following properties:
* The conviction that individuals can become akin to gods, usually through spiritual insight.
* The conviction that there is no such thing as a selfless act. Fulfilling one's desire is acknowledged to be selfish, at the least reaping an individual sense of satisfaction. Altruism is considered self-deception, created and fostered by conventional religions.
* An exoteric interpretation of concepts like karma, divine retribution, or the Threefold Law, resulting in flexible rather than rigid codes of morality.
* The conviction that the individual is preeminent, and that all decisions should be made with the goal of cultivating the self (though not necessarily the ego).
* The conviction that each individual is responsible for his or her own happiness, and that no external force will provide salvation or reward actions which do not advance one's own happiness in this life.
* The conviction that the forces of the universe can be harnessed to one's personal will by magical means, and that power gained and wielded in such a manner is an aid to enlightenment, to self-satisfaction, and to self-deification.
This is exactly what Hubbard was attempting with his affirmations.
He believed himself to be a left-hand path magicican.
His scientology concepts of "the highest purpose in the Universe" and "at cause" are
his reworkings of
his left-hand path magic. Considering his subsequent philosophy and behaviour there is no reason to suppose he abandoned his left-hand path magical beliefs.
Therefore, whatever
our personal beliefs about these things, I maintain that Scientology was Hubbard's magical workings to achieve his left-hand path purposes. He created a cult of slaves and sought material things as a benefit. In addition he also sought self-deification through his willpower, as per his affirmations. In Scn he reworked this magic by calling himself "Source".
His original OT-levels were reworkings of his magical spells to assert and cultivate his willpower over the physical universe and other beings. They failed and like many left-hand path magicians he suffered the physical and psychological effects that are the liability of the left-hand path. His solution was to seek dominion over elemental spirits as per his admissions. His scn re-working of this magic was called NOTs.
Now, here we are left with his magical workings called Scientology, and we see a "church" more or less fullfilling the above bullet points and causing a perversion of the leaders' psychology towards self-inflation.
Of course there is a middle way, but that is not in the remit of the left-hand path mage's belief system. At cause and at effect can be balenced and harmonised, but a left-hander does not believe this. Therefore Scn emphasises "cause" as the highest purpose and the philosophy relegates effect to low judgements such as "victim", "theeety-weety", "PTS". It is a harsh, cruel, selfish philosophy, because it is based upon left-hand path magic.
The philosophy known as scientology is set up this way with these concepts because it was Hubbard's black magic spell to deify himself, as per his affirmations.
Good luck, Fluffy in your attempt to transmute Scn black magic into a Middle Way.