[3] Skeptic Magazine described the Free Zone as: "a group founded by ex-Scientologists to promote L. Ron Hubbard's ideas independent of the Church of Scientology".
[4] A Miami Herald article wrote that ex-Scientologists joined the Free Zone because they felt that Church of Scientology leadership had "strayed from Hubbard's original teachings".
[6]: 141 [7]: 262 Often called "freezoners",[7]: 267 [8]: 1 some prefer to describe their practices as "Independent Scientology" because of the associations that the term "Free Zone" has with Ron's Org;[7]: 265 Key to the Free Zone is what scholar of religion Aled Thomas called its "largely unregulated and non-hierarchical environment".
[8]: 29 They often claim to be the true inheritors of Hubbard's teachings,[9]: 248 maintaining that Scientology's primary focus is on individual development and that that does not require a leader or membership of an organization.
[10]: 451 Free Zoners have also accused the Church of "squirrelling",[8]: 121 maintaining that it has changed Hubbard's words in various posthumous publications.
James R. Lewis suggests that these "sincerely-held beliefs of Free Zone Scientologists [...] offer the best evidence that Scientology is a religion in the legal sense of that contested term".
Headquartered in Switzerland, Ron's Org included affiliated centers in Germany, Russia, and other former parts of the Soviet Union.
[13][14][7]: 262–4 Robertson claimed that he was channeling messages from Hubbard after the latter's death, through which he discovered OT levels above the eight being offered by the Church.
[8]: 11 There are also Free Zone practitioners who practice what Thomas calls a "very individualized form of Scientology",[8]: 96 encouraging innovation with Hubbard's technology.
[8]: 107 Scientology Commissioner Ursula Caberta in Hamburg said that the Free Zone is a type of "methadone program for Scientologists", and, in any case, "the lesser evil".
There is some cooperation between members of the Ron's Org and state authorities who observe the Church of Scientology and investigate their activities.
In 2000, the Religious Technology Center unsuccessfully attempted to gain the Internet domain name scientologie.org in a legal action against the Free Zone.
[34] The groups have argued that because Scientologie was not written by L. Ron Hubbard, the Church is unfairly monopolizing control over its practice.
[35] The trademark rights to the use of Dianetics and the E-meter (invented and created by Volney Mathison[36]: 49–52 ) was allowed to lapse into the public domain in 1976 by Hubbard.