A new piece from the author of the recent post “An Evaluation of Scientology.”
Fear: That Which Drives the Church of Scientology
Religions go through cycles. They begin as seemingly benevolent and benign organizations with the intention of improving conditions and answering the basic questions of life. After a while, though, many—some would say all—devolve into strictly controlled practices ruled by fear in order to control their members and solidify their power base.
The Church of Scientology has followed this pattern and is steeped in a culture of fear, permeating every aspect of the organization, from the new person just starting out in Div 6, to the grizzled veteran redoing his Student Hat for the fourth time.
The Fear of Disconnection
Perhaps the biggest control mechanism of all is the fear of disconnection. Be it family and relatives, or friends and acquaintances, the thought of never again interacting with the people one loves the most is frightening.
Man is a pack animal. Most prefer being part of a group. Per LRH’s theory on the Dynamics, groups are instrumental in man’s very survival. From the moment a person walks through the front doors of his local Org, Scientology staff are there to provide such alliance and support.
All too soon, however, one comes to realize that this same staff is all too willing to revoke his membership for stepping out of line. The fear of getting kicked out of a group can be frightening. Actually getting the boot can be devastating. [Ed: Actually getting the boot can be LIBERATING]
Fear of Derision and Unacceptance for not FULLY Playing the Game
Scientologists are expected to fry no other fish but those strictly endorsed and approved by management. Contributing to the group and moving up the bridge as quickly as possible are the goals. Anything that would get in the way is considered out-ethics.
Fear of letting down the group by not attending events falls into this category. Filling out the after-event survey with anything but glowing praise is a related fear.
The fear of the group looking down upon one for not donating enough to the “ideal” org fund is a feeling many have experienced. Not helping to file folders in CF is another example. The guilt of not doing “new and improved” versions of courses one did years ago is another.
Not living up to the high standards of Scientology can be a real fear.
Fear of Ethics
I doubt any Scientologist has not experienced the fear of being routed to Ethics. From bypassing an MU, to questioning an HCOB, to staying connected to Uncle Harry, no crime is too small for HCO. The MAA is like the proverbial cartoon devil whispering in some poor soul’s ear. “Better not do that or you’re going to Ethics!”
Scientology has made getting sent to Ethics institutional. All you have to do is sign up for a service. Seeing the EO or MAA is a step on all routing forms! It’s expected that everybody has overts and withholds.
The fear of being assigned lower conditions occurs all too often. Having to grovel and do amends before the group accepts you back can be humiliating. The fear of having to “handle or disconnect” from friends or family is enough to turn on physical reactions.
Confessionals originally intended for the purpose of unburdening one’s soul, have metamorphosed into Gestapo-like interrogations aimed at uncovering things unflattering to the church.
If not only humiliating, the indignity at having to sit before a sanctimonious MAA thirty years one’s junior can be cause for fear. Many have feared that by not ratting-out friends per Ron’s policy on reciprocity, they would be assigned the same penalties and lower conditions as the perpetrator.
The fear of standing before a Committee of Evidence and Courts of Ethic is the ultimate threat to some.
The chronic fear that all of one’s problems stem from his quadrillions of years of overts and out-ethics drives others up the bridge.
Fear of Questioning Tech, Policy, and LRH
Questioning tech, policy, or LRH is not done in Scientology for fear of getting sent to Review or Ethics. One must tread lightly even when discussing these subjects with friends. One errant word can become the subject of a KR, a trip to the ethics officer, and lower conditions.
For a church built on a foundation of communication, the amount a Scientologist is forced to withhold is astronomical.
Fear of Committing Overts and Withholds
The subject of overts and withholds in Scientology is huge. For only if one confesses his sins and becomes totally “clean” can one hope to achieve spiritual salvation—and attain true OT abilities.
Many fear that committing even the most minor infraction is a roadblock to freedom. A majority have come to believe that not revealing ANYTHING, whether it actually follows an overt act or not, is a withhold. Doesn’t matter if it was only a thought or a consideration. To withhold ANYTHING from a Scientology terminal is out-ethics and subject to penalties. “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”
Fear of Study Tech Violations
The fear that one bypassed a misunderstood word, skipped a gradient, or didn’t sufficiently demo-out a concept is a near constant source or anxiety for many students. Not finishing a course by Thursday at two is a recurring source of stress—if not contention!
The fear of Method 9 word clearing fills many with dread.
But by far, the biggest fear of all: the sup seeing one yawn!
The Fear of Never Handling One’s Ruin
Per LRH and his “Dissem Formula,” everyone who enters the hallowed halls of Scientology has a ruin. (And “something can be done about it.”)
The fear of not handling this ruin often drives church members from one level to the next. Reg’s and Dof P’s are fond of assuring PC’s that their doubts and negative thoughts is simply the bank manifesting their next case level. (Nothing that a dozen intensives won’t handle!)
Fear of Not Metabing or Getting Enough Sleep
PC’s and their D of P’s and auditors have come up with more hair-brained solutions to get a needle to fall prior to starting a session than a junk yard dog has fleas. The fear of not having gotten enough sleep and not metabing is real to anyone who’s ever heard the words, “this is the session.” Older and less spry PC’s, whose metabolisms aren’t what they once were, are especially susceptible to this fear.
Fear of Burning through Your Hours and not Finishing
How many who’ve ever held a pair of cans, have worried they wouldn’t have enough hours to finish a process? And feared having to sit before the Reg and have to max-out yet another credit card after securing late night approval from your significant other?
For many, not making enough money to go up the bridge is a real fear. Many have quit vocations they loved for unsatisfactory jobs with greater compensation to achieve spiritual freedom.
Fear of Not FN’ing at Exam
How many have sat before the Examiner waiting for their needle to float? And waited. And waited. And waited. Wondering if you should say something else. Fearful of the dreaded RED TAG! Worried that something was missed and another intensive would have to be purchased. And that you’d have to return the next day. And the one after that. And get routed to Review. Or, god forbid, Ethics!
And the boss only gave you the one day off.
Fear that What’s Revealed in Auditing Will be used Against You
Confidentiality in Scientology is a myth. Field group, mission, and Class V org auditors, D of P’s, CS’s, Qual personnel, Ethics Officers, and FES’ers all have access to a PC’s folder. Anything said in session will likely be read by a whole hoard of staff. And that’s just the beginning.
Once the folders are forwarded uplines to an advanced org, scores of other strangers will peruse its sacred contents. To think that staff don’t discuss with each other what they’ve read is naïve.
Blackmail—especially of disaffected Sea Org members—is practiced by the church. The fear that what one said in session will be used against them is one reason why more ex-Scientologists don’t come forward and speak out. The fear of “Fair Game,” is all too real.
Fear that one hasn’t Taken Enough Responsibility for Saving the Planet
Scientology is mankind’s last and only hope for salvation. If one isn’t doing everything he can to help clear the planet, he’s not merely out-ethics, but is at risk of having to eternally wander a dark, unknowable universe. If he’s really slacked-off, he faces getting electronically glued to some stranger with a corporeal body. Yikes!
One is taught that not “playing the game” is an overt and is a barrier to one’s spiritual advancement. One can’t go OT without contributing—be it joining the local OT committee or donating truck-loads of money to one or more of the church’s numerous ancillary organizations. Flying to Flag without a thick wallet is foolhardy.
Fear of Disseminating; Fear of Not Disseminating
Disseminating can be scary. Not disseminating is an overt! Just know this: if one truly believed, and was absolutely certain, that Scientology was one hundred percent legitimate and would unequivocally solve their friend’s problems, they would get that person into an org. Since little to no FSM’ing of new people is happening, church members must have serious qualms—if not grave doubts—as to the value and efficacy of tech, policy, and management.
Parishioners obviously fear their friends won’t be handled and will be turned-off by many of the practices with which they themselves are uncomfortable. Revealing the true cost of going up the bridge is wholly un-confrontable!
Fear that there is no Other Tech for Handling Oneself
Psychiatry, psychological counseling, self-help organizations, and other religions, if not mere “other practices,” are enemies of the church. Per KSW, there is no other tech for freeing man. Period. If you don’t follow Ron’s prescription for redemption to the letter, you’re basically fucked. For eternity! Bummer, dude.
Fear of Life outside the Church
Leaving Scientology can be daunting. Life outside the church can be especially frightening to Sea Org members. Its rank and file possess few skills transferrable to the modern world, and thus, prospects for employment are poor. Many have been forced to leave with little or no money and with little or no help from family, friends, or relatives.
Many staff have grown up in Scientology and hold little reality of the outside world. Knowledge of life beyond the insulated walls of the church can be very limited. Many have become jaded from years of indoctrination.
For public as well, living without “guidance” from the church can be fearful.
Fear of Seeing or Listening to Something Forbidden
Scientologists must be vigilant for fear of seeing or hearing something taboo. The internet is rife with websites and blogs teeming with “black PR.” Not only does visiting one of these sites court disaster, the act becomes an instant withhold.
Talking to an ex-Scientologist is best avoided. Talking to a declared Scientologist is grounds for Ethics intervention. Seeing either one strolling down the sidewalk is reason enough to dash across the street.
Scientologists are taught to fear a dangerous society.
Fear of David Miscavige
Though Miscavige’s suppression extends throughout the organization, Sea Org members are the ones most directly affected by his rage, insanity, and vengefulness. The fear of demotion, being “RPF’ed,” or thrown in the Hole, must be palpable.
From all the stories of his abuses and cruelties, those around him must operate in a perpetual state of fear. I would not be surprised if Sea Org members were especially fearful of being transferred to the Int Base outside of Hemet.
Fear of Scientology Finding Out Who Wrote this Shit!
Despite not caring if I get labeled an SP or not—I figure it’s only a matter of time—I admit to the fear of Scientology meddling in my affairs. On one hand, I have nothing to hide. On the other, the church is famous for spreading lies about people, and I don’t need the stress and hassle of being hounded by the dogs of the OSA.
That said:
a) I’m the same person who wrote “An Evaluation of Scientology” that Mike posted on his site on May 11th;
b) I hold little hope of any kind of meaningful reformation by the church; and
c) despite guesses to the contrary, I am fully OUT.
The more I read others comments and articles, the more thankful I am that I was more on the fringe as a part timer at Stevens Creek from 2009-2012 and not fully exposed to what was going on! Initially my Oxford test was so high in most areas they didn’t have much of a “ruin” to work with other than a dissatisfaction with my 2D relationships. I was initially just the purif for several months which made me feel great (an enforced reason for exercising and eating properly), then went on TR’s & Objectives with a really nice young lady in her 20’s. I wasn’t experiencing lots of sales pressures. All was good, until they recruited her for the Sea Org and yanked her away suddenly, which hit me hard. At that point my eyes opened that the Sea Org was Scientology’s SS, and I stayed as far away from them as possible. Because there were so few public there it took a long time to find me another twin, so I ended up studying “The Basics”…and parttime on staff in HCO a few nights a week working under the DirComm distributing all the despatches etc. Not supposed to read them but (as the DirComm told me) of course you end up reading a lot of them. More eye opening, seeing things go by that told me the Org couldn’t really pay its bills, and lots of KR’s. The good thing about reading the Basics was that apparently I did what they don’t REALLY want you to do…applying what you’ve read to what you are experiencing in the Org! The more I read and listened to lectures, and the more I got regged, the more I saw the disconnect. I did end up finally getting a new twin, finished TR’s & Obj. Ended up in a few Ethics cycles for A) being 5 minutes late to my night course due to traffic, B) letting it out that my parents didn’t approve of Scientology, C) complaining about Reg’s waiting for me outside my office and coming to my house after 9pm. Ended up off staff after telling a Sea Org member that I was part time for no pay and just helping out; they could tell I wasn’t “all-in” and got me out of there before that attitude could spread. I’d “donated” for an auditing package by then though, so I did a couple of Grades. That did it. I could tell that things were being dragged out to maximize the profit, unnecessary actions. I went until the money ran out, and refused to donate anything else, didn’t go back. The main casualty of all this was that my family doesn’t fully believe me that I am entirely disconnected from the CoS now! Ironic.
Thank you Susan for sharing this important story, as it illustrates the true nature of what scientology actually IS,
as opposed to what they tell you.
This church is so sinister and heartless that it is very difficult for the uninitiated to believe.
The initial benefit is simply bait, to trick you into thinking all the wonderful things they offer are plausibly real. And in your case, the one truly good thing that came from your “donations” was the friendship with your twin, and they had to ruin that… And then hammering you with “Ethics” punishments for being honest about your parents, just to make sure your flaws stay “real” inside your head, keeping you trapped in their unholy game. ..
To me, that shows how much they really care about the faithful individual,
And what should really be done with this so-called “church”, organization of deceit so hungry for your money and nothing else. So the world may better know – Thank you again.
Does anybody know what happened with the RPF centre in Dundas, Sydney?
This write up should be included into a new “What happened to Scientology” book written by former Scientologists some day. Excellent piece with zero exaggeration.
OSD, I’ve read many of your comments. I’m new to commenting. But been reading quite a while.
Thank you for your response. I warm my hands at the hearth of your heart.
Fear of missing muster, being outed for out of uniform, razzed in front of the group, liberty csw disapproved after you’ve promised your kids a visit, I&R inspection of stats, white glove flunks, berthing moves, assigned to an all-hands.
Heck – I got assigned to the RPFs RPF for kissing my husband!
Wow Cece the penalty for showing loving feelings was so awful for you.
Hi Cece, I do know what it is like! Being assigned to the RPF’s RPF for kissing your husband would have made a convoluted Ron-Aid sense to me when in.Now I am appalled.Honestly I should have been skinned alive for falling in love with well someone very much a senior officer to me.We were spiritually very close etc.I do see now why I got the grief I did,but why not have sent me right to the RPF.Trying to RPF me and keep me on post and exspect me to drag thru the conditions for a year,over & over just nutty.I put up with the abuse as lond as I did because Imwas frightened of the real world.Now I am growing to love it.XO Ann B.
Hi Cece, Edit as long as I did and I was…Ann B
Wow, this is a hell of a lot of comments, Author, you hit a sympathetic nerve. Your rant about the Church of Fear, is so spot on. Though as a never in I can’t really know how deep that fear is or was. John Sweeney wrote the ‘Church of Fear’ book and it echos very well your observations.
MIscavage has accepted the long slow decline because he gave up the public space when the clampire lost the internet. 4chan and Anonymous drove several nails in the coffin, nailing that was began by Paulette Cooper and many others. Media is not afraid of the CO$ anymore, and stories like the Authors are getting lots of coverage.
The beatings will continue until only the beater is left. Author, you just added another nail to the coffin. Now, if only we stake the Vampires heart, will it die. Or is it holy water and garlic?
Double-bind and phobia, the classic method of mind control…
Classic example of Fear driven Scientology is REX FOWLER
bankrupted his company,murdered his CFO,then botched
his suicide. now in prison doing a life sentence.
David Miscavige ;pocketed all lhis money and bought the judge
in the murder trial so Scientology looked like it had nothing to do with this .
Hi Jose Chung, Rex Fowler I know that name but can’t recall the whole story.Eerie how a name comes up like a wraith out of the mist.No,wraith would be too good for him.xo Ann B.
Fear of loosing scientology .. that is the point build up by LRH ..
Thanks for the revelatory article, which I will be mailing to Scientology orgs in their own postage paid envelopes.
Thanks to the many commenters for their thought provoking comments.
A BIG thanks to Mr. Rinder for publishing all of the above!
Fantastic idea!
I felt every one of these fears.
Also, I agree that religions mostly start out as benign help flows and devolve into entities which control thru fear.
This is a superb article and I thank the author.
I, too, felt every one of these fears. It IS a superbly written article and I’ve saved it for further use. Many thanks, and to Mike for posting it.
Someone should get the NY Times or LA Times or Washington Times or any other publication to publish it. The title of this article would be sufficient to gain maximum attention from those never ins and even those still ins.
If most the still-ins didn’t or couldn’t bring themselves to read it, it would certainly keep new public out. That alone is valuable.
I, too, experienced all these fears.
(except that I was out before DM came along)
This article is indeed superb.
The remarkable person that wrote it is taking advantage of a singular vantage point from which she has managed to reconstruct a reality of the outside world while still residing inside the bubble.
That is the kind of hurdle that few before Hubbard ever managed to achieve, much less write down.
She has defied the insidious, meticulously orchestrated and well-fortified workings of the trap,
and then turned around to present to the world, in wonderful detail, just how that well-guarded secret works.
This is pure gold.
And a liberating experience for me indeed, just to read it. Thank you. I love you as I love my own mother.
Or, Dad. I don’t actually know your gender, but I know you know what matters more.
I loved reading this. It was cathartic. And up bubbled this fearful memory from ten years ago. I really felt the memory jolt at at your descriptions of fear that you’re not a good scientologist. It makes you be polite and respectful to staff even when you are being treated abominably. God forbid you inconvenience a staff or Sea Org member who is there all the hours of the day like a later day Jesus Christ on the cross for your freedom.
If you inconvience them, maybe you’re not OT enough to be allowed to go on the next secret OT level that you have impoverished yourself for. An auditor mishandles you and you feel like a bad person if you say so to someone. They “know the tech” more that you do so that’s not possible right?
You end up after some sessions just feeling wrecked. I mean really bad. Now you’re fearful that you’re going backwards. You’re less free than when you arrived. It kinda hides the real problem; they aren’t helping you and you’re spending tons of money. Money you borrowed. And you’re spending time, which they are wasting.
You’re fearful of getting deviated off the auditing program you’re on, even though you’re doing horribly. That’s because while you’re there, you’re not making the money you need to pay your massive debt that you incurred for this current auditing that is supposed to handle you.
You finally go to the LRH host (like an Ombudsman) at Flag, a total fucking wreck, mascara smeared, looking “downstat” because your ruds are so far out. Because you’ve squandered days fearfully sucking it up to look upstat. But you are now not metabing, (can’t get in session) not sleeping well and even if you could go into a session they’d spend your whole $1,000.00 an hour auditing on rudiments. Not your program. They’d audit your present time problem of having been mishandled or worse your overts that caused you to “pull in the mishandling” and your overt of not “taking responsibility” and letting it get this out of hand.
It’s always your fault. If anybody else, like in the real business world ever treated you this way they would get a YELP review that would singe their eyebrows. But because of fear, the church is not at fault, it’s always you. And you know it.
You snivelingly hope they can handle you and you borrow more money without telling your spouse, for a special program “just for you,” to get your “sit” handled. You can’t see the insanity because fear skews your thoughts, your observation skills, your critical thinking skills and robs you of the ability to articulate what ails you. Because you are a mass of contradictions.
You’ve been badly treated, you came in fine and hopeful, got reamed and are a quivering wreck on one side and on the other you see their viewpoint that the bank is really kicking in because you’re so close to going free and that’s what happens. So yeah it’s you, not the church. So pay up or lose your eternal freedom.
Oh yeah and that manufactured state you find yourself in is actually a good thing, because “getting through it” will bring you closer to eternal freedom. You’re lucky that this hidden bit of “case” was found so it can be handled. And because of fear you believe this shit.
wow clearly not clear, I really felt your post . INSANE!
Wow, well written. You must have been at Flag?
If my wife had written her story it would have been nearly word for word what you have said.
Indeed, it was Flag. Give your wife a hug for me. If she went through one of these traumatic times it may have had echos back home like mine did. It was a frightening time for me in the aftermath. I’m OK now, but I learned what feeling really bad felt like. It was a mind and spirit hit and I bled. But I feel strong and that scar is healed.
You’ve described it exactly, Clearly not Clear. Horrifying though it is, yes, we go back for more. Good point about the fear masking the truth for one. It’s a wonder we ever got out, under the circumstances. It says a lot about us.
So, Clearly … other then those things … how was your stay at Flag?
Joe,
It was great!
No actually it was stressful. As a people person my happiness was the conversations with public.
I was always so super happy when I came home. I thought that was a win.
In retrospect it was relief. Like surviving a “little” death
The ugly underbelly of loyalty. Even the most loyal of us must look at who or what we are being loyal to and do an audit once in a while. I learned that in the cherch.
Wow! I even felt bad reading your post, Clearly not Clear. What a mind fuck this cult is. So very glad you’re out and have your life back! Thanks so much for sharing….
It IS cathartic, this post, and wonderfully, so.
The fear that is Scientology, what holds the trap together, wow.
Amazing, isn’t it, that someone can come along and build a bubble of reality and everyone winds up working inside that bubble, new beliefs all neatly in place, nicely “believing” and not doubting… and what holds it together, in the absence of Truth? Fear. You would think it impossible. And now, with this post illustrating those false fears, installed “under the wire” if you will, intuitions prove correct: Scientology does not work, and it does not work because it CAN NOT WORK, as fear cannot conquer Truth.
This, or some form of it, should be required reading for anyone still in. Because it provides directly the tools one needs to rebuild his confidence to ask questions, the essential questions about what is going on around himself. These are the tools methodically removed as the control mechanism is installed.
You are giving these people their minds back, putting them back into the driver’s seat, restoring their confidence to face and then re-enter the outside world, equipped with a sense of identity and knowing just how that identity was once threatened by the Church of Scientology. Well done.
Very well done, indeed.
Thank you. I would like to add that I was specifically told that if I refused further auditing (at the age of 16) then I would be declared an SP and be forced to disconnect from my only family. So I had to make myself ‘be enthusiastic’ about something I inherently hated, because only evil people hated auditing, right? What person wouldn’t welcome thousands of hours dedicated to their eternal freedom, especially if they were lucky enough to have an auditor, just for them, available from 9 in the morning until 10 at night?
And God forbid you waste a single Auditor Minute! I got maybe one hour’s worth of breaks the entire day, if I was lucky, locked in a room unable to eat, go to the bathroom, close my eyes, take a breather, or change the subject without express permission by the auditor, who knew such petty excuses as ‘I’m hungry’, ‘I’m exhausted’, ‘I have to pee’, ‘I’m thirsty’, This goddamned session is causing a PTP’ and ‘I can’t take this anymore’ were not valid originations, they were the bank manifesting distractions and problems and just running away, failing to confront. Now, if I failed to metab, then I was treated to all sorts of consideration–is the room too hot? Too cold? Are you thirsty? Do you need to eat? Use the restroom? If you are tired, have some vitamins. Do jumping jacks. But be quick about it–we’re on the clock and every Auditor Minute is precious.
Another point–while I was going through the proverbial hell of 9am-10pm ‘auditing’, 7 days a week, unable to read except for fairy tales, watch movies, listen to music (or interact with anyone or anything that might ‘key me in’ and interfere with my processing) I had to be ecstatic at the end of each session. I learned how to fake floating needles just to save my sanity, but it cost me part of my compass because after a while I started believing that I really did love this, that my mind-blowing cognitions (also necessary, along with VGIs, to finish a process) were real, but were they? Was any of it real? Did I really blow up that planet, massacre those children, and somehow become miraculously good this lifetime?
And after thousands of hours of processing all my past evils and present failures and slowly demolishing all hope of any future where I could look in the mirror without hating myself, I was ‘almost there’, they promised me. Almost there, just one more set of 12 intensives, almost there, just one more set, one more set, aren’t I lucky, I have four more sets, that my mother just paid for. I begged them to stop, to let me go home, to let me do something normal just for once–but of course that was not a real origination. They could fix me, they could make me good again. Just one more set of intensives to finish this program.
So, now having been out, there is another fear– that I might not ever find my ‘real’ self again, the one I had to fit into a tiny little box just to maintain my sanity; the chameleon I had to become to survive is so ingrained that I have a hard time remembering what I was before I changed, before I became convinced of my inherent and pervasive wrongness. Thank God I am out and I can develop a real support system, a real community, that is actually helping me.
That’s a very sad story, Jo. I am really sorry that you had to go through all that. Help can be found here at this following link :
http://www.emofree.com/eft-tapping.html
It is free, VERY easy to learn, I found it incredible workable even if it looks even child-like, can be self-applied once you go through all the tutorials (at least up to part II, included), have lots and lots of videos demonstrating each part, and thousands of individuals have used it to improve their lives when everything else had failed.
If you need a friend to communicate with, or any help in understanding/using the above technique (“Emotional Freedom Technique” or EFT Tapping), please feel free to contact me at :
thetaclear68@yahoo.com
As I said, all the tutorials are free, and any help from me will be as well.
I hope that you be able to find a true path to enlightenment, real freedom and happiness, this time.
Best wishes,
Peter Torres
Thank you so much, Peter! This is very encouraging and helpful.
Dear Jo,
Thank you for sharing your story. I’m suddenly feeling so lucky that my sucky auditor had three pc’s on the line up.
Being the only one would have been awful.
I ache for the fact that your mom didn’t get what she was doing to you.
That seems unintentional, but suppressive.
I hope you have ex scios to talk to who understand what you’re dealing with.
I find it incedibly ironic that so much of auditing is about finding you. Who is me and that sort of thing. And yet you go away from you because speaking your truth gets you into ethics. Which we fear and rightly so.
You did right to fake f/n’s, like an abused wife fakes orgasms.
Celebrate those lies, they were your armor protecting your integrity, as weird as that sounds.
You did right. You did right. You did that. Celebrate that.
Thank you, Clearly Not Clear (and by gosh do I resonate with that name–except I was thrilled to pieces when I was told I wasn’t clear because it meant they couldn’t push me to my OT levels).
I should clarify my mom was not in any way harmful or suppressive towards me. I was always ‘in the middle of a process’ and she was at Flag on her 6, and later home on 7, and she was told to leave me in the middle of a process was out-ethics and likely suppressive.
I had no doubt that if I had left Scientology, she would have left with me, but how could I force her to make that kind of choice, if she was doing so well and was so close to the top of the Bridge? Little did I know she had almost quit several years earlier, only she didn’t want to take away my chances of doing well, like we were all promised. Plus her experiences were isolated, like mine were. Surely not everyone went through this, or the place would be a graveyard. Also my little brother was in, and seemed to be doing well, so how could I make him choose between us and Scientology?
I was expressly told not to convey any problems of any kind to my mother or that would be discussing Case, and I went through enough ethics cycles discussing rather benign problems with my mom (who, up to that point, had been my mom, my dad, my best friend, etc.) and I had not had reason to lie to her before. So suddenly I have to lie, because she calls me every day to check in and see how I am and I’m smiling into the phone, laughing, just thrilled to pieces, because it was that or sob. And if I had cried she would have said to heck with ethics, I’m getting you out of there, and what would she have had to suffer then? Little did I know everyone suffers on 7 — or at least I have yet to meet someone who was on 7 and didn’t suffer for years.
After I would hang up with her I would sob, sometimes for hours, and occasionally I walked in front of cars hoping to remove myself from the equation–no more of me, no more to audit, no more extorting money from my mother. Thank God I was never successful. Now I’m actually grateful because I know what it is to be in an abusive relationship without going through the broken bones and hospital visits, and I have a lot more compassion for many sides of life that I could not have grasped through imagination. Of course, we broke other things than bones, we carry inner tormentors that remain even after escaping the abuse, but I think that is true with everyone in an abusive relationship.
Wow, powerful writeup, Jo. I could so relate to all you said. I have been in your place and “too much of a good thing” is a bad thing. I am especially sorry your mom didn’t know how she was harming you by pressuring you to get auditing and even paying for tons of it when you didn’t want it.
When I would route into the HGC on refreshers, they board I/C would say, “Be here at 8:00 am fed and rested for session tomorrow. I’d say, “But that is 5:00 a.m. my time cuz I’m from the West Coast and I’d have to get up at the equivalent of 3:30 a.m. in order to dress, eat, and walk from the FH or Yachtsman over to the Sandcastle by 8:00 am Eastern time, because the busses don’t run that early.” I said I was tired and jet lagged from the trip and that my normal waking time is NOT 5:00 am. And the poor board IC would argue and push because it was her ass if the only pc there couldn’t get in session by 8 am and go until 10 am. The real why for all of this was NO PC”s. Their watering hole was drying up as more and more went under the radar or just plain left. So if one luckless person wanders in there as a pc, they will keep you in session all day and night, will run over your wins, not let you have breaks etc just to “get the auditing stats for Well Done Auditing Hours up.” Where is the concern for the pc in that? Where is the concern about helping the pc and improving their case in that? Nowhere.
And even more than just getting the WDAH’s up, it is the idea of bust through this intensive so we can debit the next intensive and spend the money and then reg more money. It’s about the money and not the pc these days. It didn’t start out that way but ended up that way under DM.
Thank you, Cindy. It helps to have your perspective and experience.
See my answer to Clearly Not Clear for my mom. I was Fitness Boarded out of the Sea Org (thank goodness I only had to endure 3 weeks on the EPF, as I was headed to the ship as an LRH comm, and there have been horror stories from the ship). But I went into the EPF as a confident, bighearted, successful person (who, on the side, was terrified of leaving home at 16, and terrified of my anger issues rearing their ugly head and hurting someone) and I came out a terrified and broken person who vaguely had some sense of once being self-assured and happy.
So my mom, who wants to help me recover, offers to pay for my auditor training, up to Class 5, and offers to help with the PTS situation (reason for the FTB; I was getting sick from a mysterious fever, five days in a row, and I couldn’t study the Basic Study Manual because I was so exhausted the words ran together.)
The C/S then tells my mother I am a Special Case and need auditing for my PTS condition. Then I need auditing because I say I am Clear. Then I need auditing because I wasn’t clear. I can’t co-audit because I am a special case. I can’t train because I am a special case. But I can get auditing and through auditing they can fix me. They can make me capable to train. After this program. And this program, because of something I originated. And this form, and this process, and this program, but it’s okay, it should only take three intensives. Well, for normal people it takes three intensives, but I’m a special case so it takes me 12.
You know what it means when you have thick case files, right? An auditor asks me, hefting my eighth folder, so we need to do another process. It’s only a three page form, though, so no use crying about it.
It’s not like the auditors were themselves evil, but they were severely misguided. I mean, everything that isn’t in support of Scientology is either suppressive or bank manifestations. So of course they treat me accordingly and I, having grown up in Scientology, don’t know anything different.
As you said, they are on the line if they don’t comply with their superiors, and god knows what they would have to endure– we know of some stories and that seems so much worse than endless conditions and threats of public assignment of conditions, that I don’t find it in me to hate any of my auditors, C/Ses, etc.
Oh, and my mom did end up finally rescuing me from the endless auditing – in one conversation with her I accidentally let it slip that I was cleaning my entire apartment with a toothbrush, per my auditor’s instructions, and that I wasn’t allowed to listen to music while I was doing so, and that I couldn’t do anything other than clean to relax, because everything else, including my own writing and creative outlets, could possibly key me in. She went ‘What??!!’ And then proceeded to tell me that was insane, and completely out ethics, and she would help me write a KR but I was coming home on the next train. Mid process be damned. I was so ridiculously relieved, I almost told her the rest, but several bouts of ethics kept me quiet. It wasn’t until years later that I could tell her other things that had happened under auditors and their supposed instructions for my welfare. But no, my mom was and is my hero — she also got me out of the EPF, and I didn’t think they would let me go.
Congratulations to this writer for getting out of the cult! Your own thoughts and instincts serve you well, so well done for not letting the church try to take them away from you in cycles of fear and intimidation.
As for being made to be afraid of yawning in the course room after being forced to listen to the material yet again, that’s a riot! I’m tempted to take their stress test just for shits and giggles, and yawn while they give it to me. It’s a known fact that the test is rigged to tell everyone that they are a horrible person that needs Scientology, but what if I give them an indication that I find them boring and dull? Would they call the cops?
no, Ethics.
$camology has out-Kafka’ed Kafka. Stalin and Beria must be orgasming litres of ectoplasm in their graves when they think of Demento and his kingdom of evil.
Beria was the smarter of the two. He was a sharp security enforcer. Stalin just killed lots and lots and lots of people.
Kafka was a lawyer who lived in Prague, under the Hapsburg Empire. Just thought I’d clarify.
ok, but this reverse-humor “dead-agent” tactic gives me headaches, to be honest, it is not always easy to figure out what you guys are saying, exactly.
Don’t get me wrong,
I’m glad we learned something from the con. Watch out now, here comes Willie…
If it doesn’t hurt you are not doing enough to help mankind. Be afraid of hurting others. Be afraid of not doing everything you can to comply to everything Command Intention demands. Know that if you were hurt you deserved it for your overts you committed on the whole track. Know that the only chance you have in life is
to do everthing for the COS. Now with good TR1 say the above to the wall until you have it implanted in your head exactly.
+1! Exceptional post, Willie. Bravo!
I think I know who you are. I enjoy your write-ups. ?
I don’t think so, Tony
Ever heard of TR’s? This can mean one of several things evidenced from your post:
1. You never heard of TR’s.
2. You were mistrained on TR’s.
3. You are deliberately trying to ARCx someone.
Try to answer honestly. 🙂
Here’s my answer Lawrence:
You are so hypnotized that you are asking questions about applying a scam “technology” that has no validity.
Ban the jive-talk language: scientolo-gese,
I do suggest.
That way, we all will wind up speaking more clearly, as in precisely, more honestly and more universally understood.
A secondary benefit of dropping the Scientology jargon is that it forces people to reframe their thinking. However, I prefer to read it because it shows me how odd the experience was and how people had to be taught to think about it in particular ways. It brings to mind the idea that the overseer is not necessary if you can get people to enslave themselves. .
If you control the words that people use, as Syme, who worked on the Newspeak dictionary, observed in “1984”, you also control the thoughts that they can have because if there is no word for the concept, they can’t conceive the idea. It was a point of pride for Syme that Newspeak was the only language where the number of words declined from year to year. He hoped that the reduction in language would eventually make thoughtcrime impossible
A slightly amusing example of jargon being changed in my experience is the change in name from “strippers” to “scrubbers” in pollution control equipment. They remove certain components from air streams, such as sulfur oxides or nitrogen oxides.
Welcome OUT! You will notice that your life will get so much better now!
You are so right about Scientologist’s at the tone level of FEAR.
He does more than declare himself out.
He (and I do feel uncomfortable leaving out the evermore plausible SHE)
gives the key to opening the door to freedom from the mind-manipulating and fantastically coercive cult.
I don’t think that an active scientologist, however manipulated, is going to identify with the statement that he “is operating at the tone level of fear”. That is a phrase straight out of the playbook, that he would be recognizing, then, applying his “knowledge” to your statement, rejecting.
Scientologists operate at a most passionate level. They are hard-core.
-The “church” takes every advantage of this, and installs the fear of repercussion “under the wire”, so to speak, so as to leave the victim unaware of the fears and anxieties he does indeed possess. You are correct in saying that fear is playing a cause-and-effect role in the game of intimidation that scientology employs. I just needed to state more accurately that the frame of mind of the actual scientologist – is in doing his or her best to be a “good” scientologist. The scientologist “believes” he conquered fear some time ago. That is why it would not work to break down the doors and walls of the big, blue building simply announcing
“You’re all free!”.
Nobody would leave, or say that they want to leave.
We owe this writer more than welcome. I give her my praise, hoping to be as much a writer in doing so.
This eval is right in our time. But when I started in 1972 it was not like that at all. Any such idea would be simply false. Invented by ennemies.
The church has complied and has become what anti scientologists describe.
Up to 1995, I could study and receive auditing and have wins. There was some “hole”, strange shit with ethics but didn’t affect yet the overhaul activity. I was never affraid that someone disconnect from me. Only recently.
I’m sorry to say but the guilty one is Miscavige. Like Hitler in Germany plus some stupid out valence follower.
Putting Miscavige in jail would be a top therapy
Only if his cellmate and counselor is named Bubba……
Did you see on the news the other day, the 10 year old that sings opera better than Joan Sutherland could at 52? David Miscavige is waiting for all the former BT’s to get of age to man the new Ideal Org buildings. It is sad that he doesn’t trust people who are already OT around the BT’s they set free. Something about that reeks of something. 🙂
I got in around 1974…
and in each category of fear mentioned I experienced a specific, unpleasant, recollection I personally endured as a Staff member. I was afraid of thinking an “illegal” thought. I was afraid of violating a policy if I spoke to a forbidden subject. I was afraid of Ethics. There was a thing called the Guardians Office that was inherently intimidating as an obvious purpose. I was afraid of applying Student Hat correctly, which insured my indoctrination. In auditing, I was always afraid I might be too troubled to “improve” to the standards expected. I “learned” to float my needle at will. My case file was shared with many and used against me when they decided to give me the boot. I feared the thought of not being a good scientologist, even long after I got out. All this “thinking” is attributable directly to L. Ron Hubbard, and his overtly methodical, rigidly closed belief-system, the policy-maker. The Source. Miscavige, and I do mean David, is only his wooden-headed puppet. That could have been anybody.
But, anyway, the guy IS doomed. And his cellmate will be Mr. Hubbard, who already is waiting there.
correction: fear of [not] applying Student Hat correctly.
Leave it to scientology, for such a thing to exist.
and while i’m here i’d like to say:
“applied religious philosophy my A__.*
*happy moon-shaped object” Sincerely, blue moon
by Panopea Abrupta
Ten little clams
Were sure they were divine
One went bankrupt
And then there were nine
Nine little clams
“Knew” COB was great
One saw Going Clear
And then there were eight
Eight little clams
A-looking for fake heaven
One went nuts
And then there were seven
Seven little clams
Did fraudulent tricks
One was arrested
And then there were six
Six little clams
Swallowed Hubbard’s jive
One got indigestion
And then there were five
Five little clams
Saw their families no more
One got homesick
And then there were four
Four little clams
Were locked up at sea
One escaped
And then there were three
Three little clams
Still believed that crazy woo
One read “Ruthless”
And then there were two
Two little clams
Followed rules to shun
One saw the Philboard
And then there was one
One little clam
Couldn’t hit ‘n run
“Night night, Dave,”
And then there were none.
Out-fucking-standing post! Wow! Very clever! Thanks singanddanceall!
This is very clever, Bravo!
May I present the cultural achievement in poetry award for
the Shakespearian death at the finale, OLE, !!!
Se magnifique!!!
Wunderbar.
Give me about 64 more languages, please,
for yippie caye yay!
I don’t ever recall, ever being quite so happy at a funeral.
Love your poem, singanddanceall. It’s happening!
Thanks Dawn but I am not the author who posts at The Underground Bunker. I thought it would fit nicely with today’s post.
Author: understand that you are OUT. I got that when I read your Evaluation of Scientology! Thanks for your articles, which are insightful and introspective. Please, keep on writing.
Excellent! This is a fascinating portrait of the scientology experience. Clearly, unless you’re Kelly Preston or some big-shot whale who is fawned over by his lessers, it is NOT fun to be a scientologist. At some point in reading this your sympathies begin to evaporate and it becomes funny. Laugh out loud funny. This is ancient Greek FARCE!
The joke is all this wailing and gnashing of teeth (suffered in silence of course) is all for a system that doesn’t work at all! It’s all for the belief that scientology can cure the problems of mankind when it can’t even cure the problems of a single human being! (All reports of lovely ‘wins’ and ‘cognitions’ notwithstanding)
Scientologists are bound to a wheel by tethers made of nothing but their own unexamined assumptions. First it becomes a crime to ask questions then it becomes a crime to inquire in the privacy of your own mind. Then it becomes a habit to not wonder about things at all and just do as you’re told. The scientologist acquiesces every step of the way all for something that never existed in the first place!
Yes, that’s the really shocking bit – that it was all for naught. It IS funny. Afterwards! “Much ado about nothing” – Shakespeare.
That’s right,
for all his revelation and discovery, all those thousands upon thousands of pages of countless words – inspiring us to give up ourselves…
scientology in the end amounts to only so much straw, piled up and ready to burn.
David Miscavige,
Let me see you sell a bridge, …now.
Dear Author,
I am so glad you are here. ❤
Well done.
Great analysis and I hope many others benefit from your efforts.
If you fancy getting even further out of the Rabbit hole I’d highly recommend Susan Jeffers writings on this same subject.
That is what makes this writing [FEAR] so great:
Those on the outside will shudder at the mere imagining of what it is like to be inside, as an active member of this cult.
But, the “golden child” quality of this post
comes from knowing what the words would do for ANYONE ON THE INSIDE, lucky enough or intent enough to break through the barriers and find it.
SO WELL WRITTEN, It would all be instantly recognized:
Sharp references to daily routine,
every sort of injustice,
incongruence,
and the very absence of reason as part of the daily life as a scientologist,
this is what The Church of Scientology perpetuates on every single member every single day. That’s it. Identified. That’s it. Game over. That is all the solvent a scientologist needs to get him/herself unstuck, unglued and able to pop the bubble blinding him for all this time. Yeah, the communication course was good.
I remember it kinda like I remember being a five-year old. Maybe it was just… bait! Exclamation, POINT.
Spread it around, OSA, “The Source” has a new author. A few, actually. Since you’re reading this, why not be the first to spread it around?
My most liberating moment may have happened when I decided I would no longer cooperate with anything the church asked or demanded. Not a single thing. Just say NO. Seminar? NO. Event? NO. Complete your Basics Library? NO. ARCX session? NO. Ethics handling? NO. Comm Ev? NO. Declare? Ask me if I care. Then the cherry on top of my disobedience sundae was that I wouldn’t even provide an explanation or a list of grievances. It was no longer any of their business. They didn’t disconnect from me. I disconnected from them. Liberating.
Murray Luther,
Loved your post. That’s how it happened for me also, including the “no explanation”, because it was “no longer any of their business”. Exactly!
This last was indeed the best part; realization that I didn’t have to explain anything at all. No necessity to make anyone understand or agree.
Just, “This is what I’m doing. Its not a discussion.”
Liberating indeed – quite!
Murray Luther, your story is similar to mine. Over time, I did less and less: refused to redo courses, refused to repeat the objectives, didn’t appear at seminars and events, didn’t take phone calls, unsubscribed from all the email addresses. I’d changed my postal address and never furnished any org with the new address so don’t receive any advertisements and endless post (mail, in American). I’ve blocked all the phone numbers, cell or otherwise so phone calls don’t even get through. No one knows where I live, where I work or what’s happened to me! I vanished. 🙂
OH yes, I resigned from one of the groups I belonged to, and left that. I did the disconnecting, too. It’s been wonderful, so liberating, words can never express it.
Correction. “Over time…” It was a little more than six months.
Without saying a word, I told them to go to hell. It may even eat them up not to know or they don’t particularly care. I wasn’t a whale, after all.
Dawn, you’ve created the perfect life for yourself when it comes to the cult. It’s like you put up a giant “STOP” sign. All the bad shit you endured…has stopped. You’re one smart cookie. And the cult is still a bunch of dumb asses.
I shamelessly express my pride in saying the church of scientology has forgotten me.
So, Murray, I guess this proves that Nancy Reagan was right after all when she coined the term: “Just Say No!” And I REALLY liked the way you left! A big “FUCK YOU” to everyone there. Nice.
That was heroic, Murray Luther.
What you wrote is true and a long list of specific examples will take us days and days to recount them.
I am so glad you are OUT. That is a huge relief in itself. You can now decide for yourself what do you want to do, with whom you want to enjoy time, whatever…it is your own life and that is what counts.
It may take a while to get rid of all the nuances associated with this cult, the criminality of miscavige, the indoctrination of many. But you will get through as many of us have done; talk about it, read other books, live your life and things will get better and better every day.
Yes, the ‘church’ may hound you or harass you, but you should fear no longer. They have no power over you no matter how annoying their (OSA, RTC and MIscavige) actions may seem. They can NOT hurt you any longer. They, really, have no power over your own life.
I am happy you’re out of the Church of Fear.
It seems the level of paranoia and suspicion has reached an all time high.
I still can feel the oppression I suffered when doing ‘services’ e.g. at Saint Hill/UK. Sometimes it got so bad that I became physically ill within minutes after a confessional session. The authoritative attitude of the auditor, the making wrong, etc. It is something you have to gone through to understand it. It’s like being in prison and not knowing why or what is going to happen.
Hi Sara,I am pleased to meet you.I can relate strongly to what you went through.Very well said.Always, Ann B.
Hi to you too, Ann.
“It seems the level of paranoia and suspicion has reach an all time high.” BUT, I think it can go even higher, sara. With everything in the cult falling apart, the paranoia and suspicion will increase exponentially. The ‘crazy’ factor will be off the charts. And…everyone will be at the throats of everyone else. Woo Hoo!
Thanks to the author of this essay, though I must say the last emotion I expect to experience when I walk into my local church is fear. True, you are supposed to “fear” God but the word in that sense is from the King James translation of the Bible, better rendered in modern English as “strongly respect”. Churches that rule by fear are mostly ones that are trapped in the middle ages. There are a few of these. Not too common around my neighborhood.
Maybe the sequence of a religion’s development could be described more accurately as passionate early growth, degeneration into manipulation by fear, then maturation into an appeal to reason, moderation and respect. It is a lot less exciting to be a member of a squishy tolerant modern religion but it is necessary in our pluralistic modern world.
But certainly the “Church of Fear”, as described by John Sweeney in his book, is an apt description of the current Church of Scientology. Funny story – right after GAT 1 came out someone from the Planetary Dissemination Unit came around to interview me for a magazine article. Her first question was “What prompted you to develop the Drills Simulator?” My answer was “Fear.”
I went on to explain that I meant fear of letting the team down etc. etc. but she never got past it. You could see the terror in her own heart, reflected on her face. No article about Bruce Ploetz, inventor of the Drills Simulator ever graced the pages of Impact Magazine.
Thanks for your doubt announcement. I look forward to signing your liability formula 🙂
?
And I look forward to signing your ‘Welcome Back to Sanity and Reality’ formula!
Liability formula! Oh you clams crack me up!
Just remember, Chee, that when you have linguini with clams…you’re eating your family.
Great description of how Scientology uses fear to control people, and then once controlled, people are sucked dry by the culture of greed.
It’s my belief that more and more people are feeling the fear when they first walk in the door. The love bombing is tainted with the secret purpose. “I have to sell him something…I have to get a stat…I need to get some money out of him.”
They can’t just sit down and chat with people. There has to be a hook.
The Church of Scientology is not a real church. It is a flimsily networked for profit criminal group that camouflages itself in the world’s case. One Church of Scientology ALONE gave me 6 different written out versions of an LRH reference, each for a different price. (at one time, the church’s services increased at a rate of 10% each month). People can just afford to turn that kind of stuff down. THAT is the church’s greatest fear, knowing if others know how to know before the church gets around to telling them. They just don’t know they have it fear yet. 🙂
This is downright exceptional. Thank you.
“The fear of getting kicked out of a group can be frightening. Actually getting the boot can be devastating. [Ed: Actually getting the boot can be LIBERATING]
After nearly 20 years of respectable service to mankind in the Sea Org I got the boot Jun 11th 1996 – given 15 minutes to gather my belongings and exit the building. It was devastating. It was not until mid 2010 – 14 years later it began to be LIBERATING. That’s how glued into that insane belief system that I thought was a science I was. As it turns out even with all that crap going on in there it was the easy way out. To let someone else do my thinking for me… never again.
Thank you much for putting all this down so eloquently. May many more find the courage to leave and think for themselves. Knock of the ‘What would Ron do’. That isn’t even in a policy letter anyway.
“To let someone else do my thinking for me…never again.”
“Knock off the ‘What would Ron do’.”
Amen, Cece.
Amen.
Excellent written analysis. Having said that all these fears go away by simply walking out the door. Really the only fear that remains is disconnection.
Yes walking away helps lower the fear factor, but it does take a bit to finally feel free and unafraid. That first year after leaving – at first one hides when you see staff coming to your door to get you to come back or stop answering your phone with the continual calls from staff (block the numbers) but then eventually that calms down and you can come out of your shell, being happy and unafraid is the best feeling of all.
Shadow, you don’t have to EVER fear the cult again as they’ve become a ‘Paper Tiger.’ They’ve been declawed.
When I learned I was declared, I experienced tremendous relief. I was practically doing somersaults. All the BS was over and I was free and cc\ould do whatever I wanted.
Walking out helps a lot but there is more than disconnection
that can stay with the individual after he cuts the ties. PTSD
can envelope the person to such an extent that he/she needs
professional help.
A good way to get out of one’s fear of the Church is to realize that L. Ron Hubbard is not source. You are.
Well put indeed .
“Wasn’t religion also meant to bring comfort and safety to individuals?” Well, as a Scot, I naturally grew up in the Presbyterian Church, going to Sunday school there. I was just a little kid and it was fun! But, I left religion behind many, many decades ago. They did stop me from leaving and wished me well. No one ‘disconnected’ from me. I was never locked up doing manual labor. My family stayed together.
With Scientology, religion also meant to bring hatred & horror to individuals. I mean, a “religion” that operates its own Slave Labor / Reeducation Camps? A religion that gleefully destroys families? A religion that demands a Billion Year contract? A religion that is so paranoid, everyone is walking around trying NOT to be noticed? And finally, a religion with sociopath at the helm who beats his own staff and gets his kicks by degrading others and lives lavishly while his members work 112 hour weeks for pennies on the hour?
theman77, that’s my take on it.
The title of John Sweeney’s book is “Church of Fear”. He had some very good reasons for that title, reasons that are disclosed in the book. As Casey Casem used to say, “The hits just keep on coming!” As LRH used to say, “You inflow what you outflow”. Any way you look at it, the poo is going to hit the fan. With natural disasters like earthquake and tsunami, or unnatural disasters like $cn ethics or nuclear attack, there is only one defense: BE SOMEWHERE ELSE when it happens. That ensures that when the Co$ goes down, it doesn’t take you with it. And go down it will
I didn’t write this. But I could have, and they’re my thoughts. It’s terribly comforting to read my own thoughts written by someone else.
Pulling away and stripping away is a process. In my case it’s a lonely and dangerous process and also exhilaratingly liberating.
It’s wonderful to just let the Verboten Thoughts flow. No more mental gymnastics making Wrongs Make Sense. No more “justifying” and “rationalizing” the contradictions and “outpoints”.
I was writing in my head the other day…and telling an imaginary person how happy I was that never again would I have to read ‘Dianetics’, all the while fighting the many pronged internal war with the million questions. (why am I clear but don’t have the abilities, why are other clears no different than I, where are the clears he’s talking about, why isn’t it like this, why am I afraid to question it, why can the sup give me his OPINION on this, but nothing else, etc etc) (and how can you have zygote memory if the thetan joins the body just before or after birth?)
I was only able to pull out and look after a huge trauma. I don’t think that one could “educate” a devout scio into the realizations needed to be able to pull out and view it.
I think we have too much experience playing “whack a mole” with disagreements and outpoints.
That’s all we are – were – Whack-A-Mole Champs.
Our futures, our eternity as a being was at stake. We spent years and years molding and rationalizing our thoughts. That it was all bunk…. was unthinkable. Just the SPs barking in our dust.
I’m so glad you folks are here.
and someone, for the love of Christ, tell me what Normals say instead of “outpoint”. “flaw” doesn’t cut it for me but I’ll rip my tongue out if I don’t fine the right word.
So glad you’ve reached the other side. I’d never accuse myself of being “normal” but I think for Scientology an out point is actually a truth.
I think the executives at the mission were, in part, motivated to give me the boot because they knew that DOING SO WOULD INSTALL FEAR in all my friends left behind. That would be (nearly all) the 180 other Staff at the Delphian Foundation in Sheridan Oregon, an org that was run strictly by the book and very much like Sea Org, without actually being Sea Org. (except, we were fed better)
” Driven by fear” is an excellent way to describe this cult.
shortcoming, fault, deficiency, failing, defect, etc. Go to thesaurus.com and type in “shortcoming” or any other word of your choice and see the list of synonyms that comes up.
Mistake, error, failure… lots of choices.
I see a future Regraded Being strip with a thought bubble of outpoint whack-a-mole.
Try scapegoat since anything that goes wrong is ALWAYS caused by an outpoint. Word salad indeed.
thank you all for your suggestions. Scn taught me to distance myself and label things – “thought stopping cliches” (such a great new term for me) – so “outpoint” is so fully ingrained as a blanket term, so easily and broadly used.
Learning to Speak Again, I’ve found mainly that I need to examine the exact thing I’m trying to communicate, and then I find all kinds of ways to actually describe it. (like I’m no longer “keyed-out”, I’m happy, joyful, thrilled, pleased as all hell, etc)
But ‘outpoint’ is so generic, I’ve liked that aspect of it, and I was looking for a generic term to match it. But I don’t think there is one, and that’s probably a good thing. It again makes me communicate exactly, not with a label, a thought-stopping label.
It was handy to label “contrary facts” with the word. (Like DMSMH, and where are those clears?)
Red flag. Discrepancy. lie, flaw, … there are words…to find.
I’ve joyfully rid myself of the vocab, but sometimes I get stuck and realize I don’t know how to speak.
I’m not a wog. I’m just a person. A normal person. 🙂
Maybe I should change my handle to “Norm”. 🙂
(oh, and I was quite pleased with my concept of Whack-a-Mole rationalizations. I freely give it to anyone who wants to use it to describe anything)
thanks, Norm
“rid myself of the vocab”
well, it has been a joyful and richly rewarding experience for me,
liberating, if I may say…
Deat fully OUT, your analisys is brilliant and focused. Thanks! As you probably now know, you can throw away some (or all) the fears: out here is a wonderful place and you are a loved one for all you wrote. Thanks again.
Maybe a little off the subject but has anybody seen that movie on Youtube called ” The Profit” that the cherch tried to have banned in 2001? I watched that the other night and thought it was right on the mark! L. Conrad Powers! What a hoot!
Amazing and so true and very spot-on. This anonymous person is a great writer and I hope he/she will reveal themselves soon. The fear is so palpable and having experienced it for the 4 years leading up to my declare in January of this year, it is absolutely true. I had never experienced such fear as I had in those 4 years. I just hope that my son and other family members will wake up soon and realize they are in fact living in fear. Thank you!!
Me too Lois. I went through so much hell my last 5 years in because of fear of losing my family.
Dear Anonymous poster,
Great post. A truthful post.
I only find one thing missing (being me I would have to go there); these fears have a source. It’s called Scientology; Ron’s psychological profile in written form.
it seems when folks start uncovering inconsistencies, dangerous doctrines and inhumanity, the word Scientology is used. Scientology is this or Scientology is that.
Ron is source of this madness. It may take time to see it because of the hypnosis of this one command being given us for years and years and years and years:
HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CRITICAL THOUGHT TOWARD L RON HUBBARD?
Knowing full well that if any blip on the meter that was critical could send you to ethics, word clearing, fear of loosing friends and family, this diabolical hypnotic command is the beginning of loosing sovereign control of our minds.
L Ron Hubbard created this envi-Ron-ment of fear. David Miscavige may have perfected the process of control and fear.
BUT DAVE GOT HIS CUES ON BEHAVIOR FROM THE MAN, RON, WHO INSTRUCTED HIM TO SPIT IN PEOPLES FACES AND PHYSICALLY ASSAULT THEM.
I believe the final deprogramming happens when L Ron Hubbard is seen as source.
That all of this deviant behavior has its inception in HCOB and any other writings.
The four most dangerous doctrines in my view:
1) GE is a family man
2) Bolivar
3) Fair Game
4) KSW
GE is a family man is the doctrinal source of devaluing the family.
Bolivar is the attack on conscience, making violence to protect Sciwntology a religious duty
Fair Game de-humanizes critics and gives church sanctioned cause for violence
KSW makes Scientology more important than life itself. And it supports group condemnation for anyone stepping out of line.
Threats of punishment for being a free thinker came from this one evil, sick and paranoid doctrine:
ALL CRITICS ARE CRIMINAL. RON SAYS THAT THIS IS A TECHNICAL FACT. TECHNICAL FACT??????????
No, a hypnotic command.
“HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CRITICAL THOUGHT TOWARD L RON HUBBARD?”
Hahahaha! I used to fear that question. Now, I quite happily say, “Why yes, he was fatassed blowhard who loved listening to himself talk, and pulled “facts” out of his ass to support whatever bullshit story he happened to be making up at the time. He called those storytelling sessions “lectures” and made all of that crap up. He “became a cop,” “was a blood brother of the Blackfeet,” “instructed shamans in wherever,” “he was Mettreya.” It was all bullshit. He was chock *full* of shit, and then died in a trailer with an assfull of Vistaril, blabbering about body thetans. Is that critical enough?”
LFBD.
LOL!
I love it. Preach it GUS And tell those clams that are still in to go and fuck themselves. LOL
THAT”S IT!!!
Gus Cox has just completed the…….
Happy Feeings When Criticizing L Ron Hubbard Rundown!
Roar of applause
God I love the smell of bashing Hubbard in the morning.
That……… Gus…………
Was magnificent!!! Lol
Your needle is floating. End of session:-))))
WOW, Gus. Thank you for that post. I would like to certify it as truthful, as I have reached identical conclusions to all yours. I think your facts are quite accurate, too, in case anyone was doubting. I have to thank you, for I could never have expressed myself quite as colorfully. Another cathartic post, yes!
O, Gus…!
I had that very same fear, fear of the question: Have you ever had a critical thought of L. Ron Hubbard?
I still get a knee-jerk reaction, imagining being hit with that question in auditing, and back then I prayed it would never happen. We were pretty well informed about that type of question, that it was a security check process out of the Ethics dept.
(which had a supervisor, tucked in at the bottom of the third dept. of Division 3, as I recall. And I did wonder why, for all the importance it was given)
Can I tell a story?
It says something of my courage, just telling it, but, we’re all friends here, right?
Well, at long last, after having been on staff maybe 6 months or so, I finally got my first chance to listen to one of the fabled lectures of L. Ron Hubbard himself. I was quite excited. That led to disappointment, even after the first hour-long lecture. He just talked in circles, never arriving to any sort of point. I did notice. At which point I thought, “Oh, shit, I can’t complain, certainly not about THE MAN himself!”
Anyway, it was like listening to an endless stream of fascinating statements that went nowhere. It was still interesting. He certainly was enjoying himself, as you could easily hear the audience’s laughter. I was about to get worn out and felt like I heard enough when, casually, he makes an off-handed remark, after mentioning the word “prostitute”:
“If you want to turn someone into a prostitute, simply destroy their self-esteem. This can be easily done with heavy doses of invalidation.” Gasp.
And someone chuckled.
And I had a whole new perception of the man. In that instant.
“Well, that was easy.” I thought. Did he conduct some kind of experiment? He sure had fun saying it.
Little did he know that my last girl-friend was a topless dancer when I met her. She quit after we moved in together. One night, while I was at work, she was raped. What hit me the hardest was that nobody had any sympathy for the girl, including my boss at the supermarket, and he was one that did not know anything about her being a dancer. And now here’s Hubbard, talking just like a cracker. I absolutely detected the absence of sympathy, probably my personal biggest complaint about modern society…
And loving it.
Oh, man. Oh, man. Dear Lord, I mean auditor, whatever happens don’t ask me that critical question… not today, not ever.
So began my secret. Which you know is contraband in the Church of Scientology. They have a word for it, “with-hold”. Sorry, with-holds are illegal. They make the needle jump all over the place.
Can’t audit with a with-hold. (please don’t correct my spelling, thank you).
Well, as it turns out, having a critical thought of Hubbard is a healthy thing, because, to make a long story short, that little thought, […does Hubbard have a mean side?…] wound up leading me to my early escape, thus my mind was preserved, eventually restored. That’s right, boys and girls, one critical thought, properly targeted, can actually set you free, maybe even bring the whole house of cards down, truth be told.
I love your story Blue.
“It seems when folks start uncovering inconsistencies, dangerous doctrines and inhumanity, the word Scientology is used. Scientology is this or Scientology is that.
“Ron is source of this madness. It may take time to see it because of the hypnosis of this one command being given us for years and years and years and years:
“HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CRITICAL THOUGHT TOWARD L RON HUBBARD?”
I love it – nail on the head!
I read the first post from May. Thoughtful, but it seemed that the author thought there was something worth saving through reorganization. Does the author still conclude that there’s anything worth salvaging, or did she follow that string just a little further and find out that string is all there ever was?
Dave,
People are just not interested in coming down with a bad case of your OSA fleas.
I am guilty of all of the above except one.
Fear of David MiiscAVIGE. I want a legal arrest warrant
on the COB so I can go get him personally.
I will cut through his security force like a SUPER heated chain saw through
cheese then grab the midget in my jaws like Pit Bull attacking a rag doll
delightfully presenting him to every Judge ,district attorney and
Court in the World that HANGS CRIMINALS !!!!!
it’s no surprise that anyone coming out of this situation will experience PTSD. this is an emotional war-zone.
Pretty comprehensive list of things to be “a fear’d of.” The Church of Fear would be an apt statement.
There is another fear that is based in fantasy. The fear of actually realizing you’ve never made or lost the gains you actually stated in your success stories. The gloss soon fades with group compliance as to how you should be after services and a sort of charade takes its place. Self delusion is rife in the hallways of Scientology. Fear of being honest with yourself is just as frightening as any other on that list and is better left alone while drinking the kool-aide.
Nothing good comes from being a member of the Church of Scientology. (except maybe the same sort of relief you’d get when you stop hitting your thumb with a hammer, if you ever wised up and escaped from them).
Yes, fear it never worked. Fear that means you might be a No Gain Case. Fear of what that implies. So exhausting.
Yeah, one of my fears was not realizing the goal of reincarnating, fully at cause, with full perception after body death, and full recall of this life (and previous ones) in my next life. Because really, when you come right down to it, that is what Scientology promises (couched in words like eternity and whole track and OT IX and X and whatever). But cut out the flowery shit, and that is the whole promise of Scientology – the big carrot they dangle in front of us. It *would* be great though, wouldn’t it? Who wouldn’t want that?
But Scientology can’t deliver. I’ve swung full-pendulum to the other extreme. I now think that when I croak, it’s over. Done. No more. And I’m enjoying life a helluva lot more for it! No putting things off “until next lifetime” anymore. Gawd, that sounds so fucking stupid. Soak up life now, and enjoy!
But that’s just my opinion now. I could be wrong, and maybe I’ll change my mind in the future and swing back toward middle ground.
But one thing is for damned sure certain: Scientology can’t deliver. Not one clam, including His Sourciness the Fatman himself, ever attained that goal. Ever.
Another possibility is Scientology won’t deliver. Either way it’s productless. I do think one should not disparage oneself about it, It’s a subjective thing and self confidence is what Church goers fear the most from us evil apostates – splurge on it!
Yep. There is a reason John Sweeney titled his book about Scientology “The Church of Fear”.
I felt very sad for you (writer) and other members while reading this. Because you went into it with idealistic, humanitarian hopes and became disillusioned.
Also because you seem to think that most (or all) religions follow the same pattern of sucking people in under false pretenses, then controlling them by fear, (per your opening paragraph) when that’s not actually a trait of countless other religious groups and organizations.
I’ve been a member of a few religious bodies, and they have never tried to control me with fear, or even put the slightest pressure on me to do anything; volunteer, donate, etc. When your group tries to control you, that’s a cult.
I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were hoping for, in Scientology.
I’m glad you are fully out. You may be able to find another group that more closely aligns with your beliefs and goals. There are good groups out there. Thanks for writing this! – T.J. 🙂
I’m an OTVIII, Classed Auditor, Interned Ethics Officer, Data Evaluator, KTL/LOC, and PTS/SP 4 or 5 times and much much more. Yet the FEAR, humiliation, intimidation and more I felt from this “Religion” the last 10 years have been to excess. Where in fact I felt I was a “useless bag of s__t!” I would tell my wife that constantly and she would say, “why”? I would be interrogated for hours on the same overt/withhold of years past; even though it was long handled and now overrun to the point I would be so demoralized I would just leave in shame. I would be sent to Ethics where I would be accousted by my Auditor, DoP, Cramming Officer and whomever else could squeeze into the room to reg me for the next big thing (books or buildings), as part of the Ethics Handling. They straw that broke the camel’s back was the Debbie Cook Letter wherein I realized it wasn’t me; that this was happening to lots of people. I never would look at the internet sites for FEAR of loosing my religion and any hopes of salvation. WOW, was I brainwashed. Now, I’m OUT, OUT, OUT and loving it. Yes, I was declared because I refused to disconnect from people I new and a bunch of trumped up charges. I still don’t want to give my name only because this ‘RELIGION’ is so very mean, vengeful and I don’t want anymore abuse in my life. Since I left I have never been happier or free to experience life amongst the living (they are definitely a dead group).
Wow Stan, that is a good write-up you gave and I totally “get” how you felt. Went through the same things. I am also happier and feel free even though I have lost my family and a son. Due to the disconnection personally affecting me, I no longer have the FEAR of speaking out and because I have a lot to say, having worked with LRH directly, as a messenger, for 8 years, I now feel it is “my duty” to get the truth out and to fight, especially against disconnection. For the first time in 32 years I no longer have the fear that I have been living with.
Hi Lois, so sorry about your son and family but, I think “times are a-changing” and the masses are waking up. just as we did Hopefully your family will too. It took me years of allowing them to “spiritually and mentally abuse” me – to awaken. Most of my family were never-ins but one disconnected and the others walked away from the Cherch to be with me. So there you go. Stan
Lois, I’m so sorry for your loss due to disconnection of precious family. I too am suffering from the loss of my two kids. But reading your post, I smell a book there. I want to encourage you to write your history and experiences with the church, with the CMO with Ron. If you need help writing it, Dan Koon did a good job with Ronnie’s book. Let’s keep those books coming because they are a beacon of light on the evil being done.
Congrats, Stan! Once you walked out the door you got your life back! And now, it’s actually your life again! No more sec checks. No more fundraising. No more late night knocks on your door. No more living in fear. And, believe me, I know the feeling. You’re free to do whatever you’d like to do. Now that’s what I call a major win! Enjoy my friend…
Hi OSD, Yes I am free to BE ME verses Scientology’s DO mentality. DO – donate, go on course, DO fundraise, go to events, go here, picket there…DO, DO DO It is aways “what did you DO to get your stats up?) with no time to BE. I’m now FREE TO BE. thanks for that observation Dude!
My pleasure, Stan! It’s ALWAYS great to hear that someone is OUT. The day I left staff in Honolulu, I went surfing at Waikiki Beach. I never felt more liberated in my life!
Hi Stan, Great to meet you.Your post touched me because you describe so your escape & how you are out & free.This is wonderful!And I absolutely agree with your comment ” I don’t want anymore abuse in my life.”Past,present or future abuse from the cos bunch is not what anyone should have to worship.
My many trips to Ethics when @ Asho F and then fun and games with GO/Intelligence,.let me just say Never Again! Always,Ann B.
Hi Stan, describe so well…oops! Ann B.
Yes Ann, so true. Never Again!! What I learned and got out of this Group was “Never relinquish your power to another and leave your life to be controlled by another”. Never Again!!
VWD Stan! You’re out.
The Church of Fear only has the power it is assigned by its members and their stolen money to buy lawyers. The brainwashing of its members is the only source of power they have that keeps them around. Step back from the whole show and have a good look at it and BINGO! It’s all bullshit and freedom is just a few steps away. Your abilities and knowledge don’t leave you, they are enhanced being away from that crap.
Hi, yes, the only power this Cult can carry is the Fear Card and allowing them to take our own Power away. I realized that and took my Power Back. They huffed and puffed but didn’t blow me down. I’m here and they are there. I’m back in charge of my life and that’s one thing this Group does not want or like; for us to be free and make our own decisions. They have lost control and are loosing more and more control as I read these posts. YEAH TEAM RINDER and all who stand up to their Suppression.
Independent action – what a BLAST! More please…
Independent action? INDEPENDENT ACTION??? Ok, I Yawn, who are you PTS to?
OK, you got me. The cat!
Hi, Stan – I feel ya, man! Same damn thing for me! Isn’t it great being done with all that crap?
Life is great, now that I’m not, er, PTS, to that damned organization!
So true that Debbie Cooke’s email made thousands realize the problem with Church of Scientology is not THEM but the Church of Scientology’s off policy and out ethics. Terrific write up, Stan.
“THEM” meaning the members.
Condition of Power: Disconnect from the false fear of the Church and connect with greater life outside the walls of the constricting bubble.
SCARY! 🙂 I really enjoyed reading this and remembering all the fears I’m not carrying around anymore. Thanks.
OMG spot on; I had many if not all those fears while in. I truly believe my cancer stirred itself up from all those fears manifested from inside. I am so glad I am out.
I have a friend who is once again contemplating not resigning org staff (she has gone through the mill while on staff – I am so surprised she continues to stay. Part of it is she has a husband on staff (org) and 2 kids (young adults) in sea org, plus I am sure it is the fear factor that keeps them all in.
Hi Shadow, I can really relate to your post.I truly believe with absolutely no family histories,my two cancers surely may have come about because of the fear factor.When I really look at my fears when confronted with those operating in what was amusingly called Guardian’s Office Information laughter! but those of us caught knew better.For me fear could come quietly creep up on me like a fog it did not have to be violent or cruel,just made me aware that Ron’s Way was the only way.I wish your friend and her family could know what waits for them once out.At first the world without in my case Ron/Sea Org was absolutely terrifying.That was when I realized how far in I had been.Still working some bits out from my Sea Org journey,but being free to do so,is the best gift.xo,Ann B.
The SO is truly evil. And the fish rots at the head.
An excellent synopsis of the ‘church’, these are the sort of thoughts most of us have had in our minds at some stage but set out in a clear and meaningful way.
These are some of the best insights into dissemination I’ve seen, of course if everything was brllliant you would want your friends and family to benefit, in fact you would hardly need to act as they would see you breezing through life and want to know your secret. The fact is that involvement with scientology makes life 10 times harder as you struggle for money, time and the guilt they try to instill in you, who would want this for anyone they know?
I love the bit about the Fear of Method 9 Word clearing, I’ll add to that the fear of being asked to work with foreign students whilst they read aloud making constant mistakes, which you have to correct – I think this was method 7? I remember spending nearly two hours on this looking at the same page the whole time.
As for yawning in the course room, at flag, the ship and possibly the advanced orgs they watch you like a hawk so no getting away with this, at the local org it was one bored, unpaid sup who didn’t want to be there any more than I did. I used to sit with my back to them and have a nap to see how long I could get away with it, all the time the basics cd was playing in my ears! Little wonder I had to go back to the transcript in order to answer the questions at the end of it.
Fear of SP’s was another thing I witnessed first hand – when Anonymous turned up outside all the book sellers bolted indoors, this seemed quite contrary to the idea of conquering supression, especially as all of us had been made to do and redo the pts/sp course.
Hi gimpy, I love the image in your post about Anonymous and the booksellers bolting indoors! What a riot! I wish I had been there to witness all those Bad SPs at work! Always,Ann B
I was one of the book sellers at the time, they were a scary lot in their masks, actually quite harmless, but as a paranoid scion this is not what I thought then. We went in the building and peeked out the windows trying not to let them see us.
Hi Gimpy, Thank you for your memory.When I was in the Sea Org my second day before I went to Asho, I was handed a bunch of personality tests and DMSMH and shoved out by myself onto the Hollyweird Blvd.from the Inn.1974 and anything and everything could happen.Right then I learned I could have no fear if I was going to corral folks in to take a test or buy a book.A lot of masks on the Blvd back then,unfortunately not Anonymous! xo Ann B.
Nice report Same Person. It’s good to see and hear that the cherch continues to dwindle and to know that fewer and fewer lives will be affected by this dangerous cult.
Yo Dave,
Are you afraid you are losing more and more control good buddy? It’s palpable! In these final days I suspect you will experience all of the fear your have tried to export onto others. So be it. It couldn’t be happening to a greater ecclesiastical wannabe.
Dave,
It is all of the ‘mainstream’, ‘credible’ communications that are penetrating your minions’ ingrained defenses and dissolving your grip on the cult.
Not FULLY Playing the Game.
Makes me think of the Tom Cruise video. I think it’s the most damning moment from him — when he says, “you’re on board or you’re not on board,” and the rest of the related gibberish. Cruise is acting as brutal enforcer in that moment. He should answer for that one day. Tom Cruise certainly never gave up endless hours of his life to attend fundraisers or to sort files or to man a sales phone bank.
It’s easy for someone to be ‘on board’ when your church is making sure your house is clean and is finding you your next hookup (spouse)
Yes, Mr. Cruise talks real tough doesn’t he? He talks a good game, but I suspect he’s your basic 50 plus metrosexual movie star more interested in the results of his latest botox injection that will allow him to continue playing 25 year old action heroes. And where has Big Being Number 3 been lately, by the way, with all the hits the church has been taking? Talk about the sounds of silence. No doubt he’s been advised that Co$ is death to his brand. Yeah, he be soooo tough.
Fear of Spiritual Death. It is included under the heading Fear that one hasn’t Taken Enough Responsibility for Saving the Planet, but I feel it deserves its own mention.The idea of being a ping pong ball of suffering for all eternity, spiralling down toward more unawareness and pain “with jetpacks” is quite frightening. At least I thought so.
Then there’s fear of your (or others) reactive mind(s) and what you aren’t aware of. Fear of BTs. Fear of not “making it” this lifetime. Fear that one’s doubts are written all over one’s face that one (can’t or won’t) hide any longer. Fear of abandonment and damnation. Fear of being found out to be a schmuck.
This organisation revels and specialises in fear. Hope and fear, its two-pronged attack on the individual. It taps into existing evolutionary fears and feeds those. It herds the silent fearful lambs to the slaughterhouse, some of whom still think they are headed for paradise, like the genetically engineered servants in Cloud Atlas.
Mike, thanks for posting this essay from UTR still in.
Well written and laid out in a way we can all relate to.
I think many of us have followed the path of fear down to the abyss which drove us to an insanity necessary for us to realize we had to get out or die. Once there we did not give a sh-t and we could leave.
Persons whose only purpose is to control others use fear as their main tool. Scientology is fully dedicated to that control. The world can already be a scary place and that is what drives people into the cult. It is a classic example of “out of the frying pan and into the fire”. Thank you UTR for your second essay. I hope many other fence sitters read what you wrote so they can stop supporting the toxic organization that needs to be disbanded.
Hi Rinder 2016, It is good to meet you and what a great post.I sent it to archive because you posted exactly my thoughts before I blew.I had been driven to that place where I knew I would die if I did not leave.I had to jump back into the world without Ron.That is very frightening at first and it took me years and years to realize the extent to how toxic cos has become and really just my opinion that toxicity was always there.Hidden perhaps but there.Always, Ann B.
Bingo!
This should be the first thing every newbie reads. If he is fully on board with this, THEN read KSW. It would be more honest of the church to make it known from the get-go what he’s in for.
Heh! Whoever you are that wrote this, Before you get officially declared, would you go hand a copy of this to my son? It may jar something.
Good point – please give it to my disconnected son as well – works at the Orange County Org if you are in that neck of the woods, contact me through Mike R. We haven’t heard from him in over a year and want his ass out!
This is well described. Hopefully some one got copies leeked into the church especially in the area where the Dictator can rant on about if he will see it.It needs to be seen and read within
agreed
Fear everywhere.
But you put up with the robbery and degradation because you want the product.
After paying tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours exorcising space cooties,all I achieved was 20 pounds extra weight
Actually doing ot7 made me more introverted since i spend all my time talking to the cooties and did not talk to anyone else.But ot 8 would really handle everything.
Truth revealed:I had been mocking it all up.Except I was not mocking it up until they started telling me to mock it up.It is easy to confront there is a sucker born every minute.It is harder to confron that sucker was you.
Thanks for your report. Yes, you are certainly on your way out. Past the point of no-return.
It is ironic that the “solver of problems”, that is to say Scientology Ethics, Tech and Admin, has BECOME the problem. Make no mistake, for anyone currently “in” – Scientology and the church is the BIGGEST problem in their life. They may not realize it and probably won’t until they are out.
Once I left my life became simple and easy to manage.
CoS is a problem factory. The closer you get to it, the more involved you become, the more influence it will have on your life; until you find your life is in a similar state as their orgs. Their problems become your problems.
All that goes away when you simply walk away.
“Scientology and the church are the biggest problem in their life.”
BOOM. That sums it up exactly.
AS mentionned above ! SPOT ON ! I am fully out too. I even got in communication last week with “online” publics who gave me some inside information. I won’t mention their names as they are afraid to end up in Ethics 🙂 Nice people ! They still like me even if I am declared (never saw an issue about it). 🙂
Isn’t fear at 0.8 on the tone scale? “the grizzled veteran redoing his Student Hat for the fourth time” this had me laughing for 10 minutes. Anyway I confess I’m doing my part to save the planet by denying any of my assets to the CO$.
“Anyway I confess I’m doing my part to save the planet by denying any of my assets to the CO$.”
First off, john, you’ve got huge balls to make that statement. Second, you need to report to AOLA, the fasting growing Class V Org on Teegeeack, for several years of sec checking. Not sure why you never read KFC…….ummmmm….I mean, KSW. Either way, your goose is cooked.
I believe all these fears really boil down to one fundamental fear: money. Scientology just costs too damn much. I eventually realised after countless hours in sec checks on 7, that I was committing but one overt – having auditing which impoverished me and my family.
Scientology became a religion in 1996 by 2,000 of its members suing the government. They frightened the government into giving them tax free status. But in 1996 they had reasonably good PR and a growing membership. Today this psychopathic cult has trampled on just about everyone the past 20 years trying to get more and more money by hook or by crook so now they have no PR area control and the number of lawsuits against them is increasing daily on its way to 2,000…. Karma
I think that was 1993.
Interesting though that in 1996 was when the first SO Members started showing up at my door at all hours to get me back on services. I hadn’t experienced that before and it seems it just got worser and worser.
They showed up at your door because you’re so awesome and they just wanted to see if some of your awesomeness might just rub off on them. Sadly, they left your place no wiser and currently are scrubbing trash bins with tooth brushes…..
No Robert. The “CoS” became a religion when Hubbard set out to make it one. The IRS doesn’t approve or disapprove whether something is a religion.
Actually, because nobody in any of the three branches of government is willing to take the precarious crawl to the end of that lofty branch of a very tall tree, the IRS does in fact get the job of deciding who is a non-profit, charitable “church”, and who is not, by default.
In my opinion, it is something to write your congressman about, the tax-status of Scientology, but I’ve already sent 50 letters as a taxpayer, to no avail.
WRONG Lost Dog. The IRS makes no religious determinations. Your almost complete lack of education doesn’t change reality.
Well, they DO determine if an entity qualifies for tax exempt status as a religious organization, and have a list of criteria you have to meet to do so. I would say that is making a religious determination.
No, you’re wrong they do NOT make a determination as to whether an org is a religion or not. Look up the Case and statute laws for your self. It is a VERY significant difference.
Well, I spent four years getting tax exempt status for scientology and I am VERY familiar with the law and the case law. What is your qualification for your assertion? Are you a tax exempt organizations specialist? A lawyer? Have you ever applied for exemption as a religious organization under IRC 501(c)3? You seem so busy trying to assert your rightness that it is more important to you to split hairs about whether they make a determination as to whether an org is a religion or not or whateher they make a determination as to whether an org qualifies for tax exempt status as a religious organization. The IRS determination is what is used to “prove” to courts that scientology should be afforded 1st Amendment protection as courts are forbidden to make that inquiry.
I suggest you just bow out of this gracefully.
That’s not fear! That’s just barriers to make it more fun.
With all of Xenu’s 4th Dynamic Engram “body thetan” and R6 implanting damage done to earthlings here on earth, you need a well organized kinda totalitarian church of fear to clean it up, naturally.
Fascinating article.
The biggest overarching fear that drives Scientologists is the fear of losing one’s eternity. It’s the BIG fear that motivates all the other fears and worries.
This is a mechanism that drives established religions. It’s the go-to threat when a religious person’s myth has been challenged: ‘you’re going to hell unless you believe what my holy book says!’
The idea that con man Hubbard had any control over eternity is absurd and doesn’t jibe with the internal ‘logic’ of the Scientology fiction: if you’re already an eternal being who has reincarnated millions of times, why would reading a book and adhering to Hubbard’s absurdist practices derail anyone’s future?
As far as Hubbard noting that man is a pack animal: as with anything Hubbard ever said that made sense, he’s merely repeating conventional knowledge. This is certainly not his discovery.
Scientologists are made to fear all of the above, because once the victims look around and become aware, they realize what a crock all if it is. Find out about Hubbard’s academic failures, how can one take study tech as a thing but distraction and busy work?
I’m very glad you’re coming to terms with what the cult actually does to people.
“The biggest overarching fear that drives Scientologists is the fear of losing one’s eternity.”
You nailed it, Grandeclectus. W/out this basic fear, none of the others would exist, as one would be able to just say “fuck you” to whoever the hell attempted to suppress us. But “staying low and quiet”, becomes a “solution” to “not losing one’s ‘eternity’ “. Ironically, sort of a “the greatest good” solution, from the 7th Dynamic perspective of most Scientologists, as we all want to become “Free”.
LRH KNEW about this button. He KNEW that it was a KEY button to keep others on “The path to freedom”, and he used it PURPOSELY. Whether his intentions were honorable or not – meaning, he truly believed (even if just out of being delusional) that Scn was man’s only route to spiritual salvation – is debatable; at least for me it is, but I won’t engage in any public debate on that as I am way pass that point now.
It is very ironic that a man allegedly having been the Buddha, could resort to such low toned methods of inciting fear to “help” others. What the hell was he thinking ? Even if he was right – which I am NOT asserting that he was at all – as regards to the future that man was/is facing w/out Scn, STILL, the “Cause does NOT justify the means” in any way, shape or form. W/out “Freedom of Thought” and “Power of Choice over Data”, any “freedom” gained is not freedom at all, but an enforced reality.
It is very surprising that a man who started with great ideas and principles (which he basically borrowed from others, but DID simplified them, and put them into practicable/useable form), could have corrupted himself so much throughout the years.
As Brian said, this (the article’s main point on fear) is not a problem endemic to the CofS or DM; the origin lies in LRH himself and in his misguided policies. No KSW Indie like the guys from MS2, understand/confront this point at all. They are all blind as bats, to truth. And so Scn will die – and sadly so – and will be totally forgotten, as its cultish aspect – which could be EASILY removed from the scriptures – will always prevent acceptance and reach from Human Rights oriented individuals, which KSW type of Scientologists will never be.
It is so, so, so pointless to let a very useable subject to just get lost into oblivion, just to “protect” a fixed idea and assert self-rightness. SO stupid indeed. But hey, I guess that being stupid is a Human Right too!!!
Hi thetaclear,Thank you for your post.I have believed that as Ron said he was Source and we should always be On Source,why he ended as he did.You make a good point I have considered also.It was confusing and I recall when Hymn of Asia came out,OODs had all sorts of bits on Ron having been Buddha etc.That is what I could never reconcile when the fear factor was shoved onto me.Ron was a mix of wildly different valences.I have no problem with Indies continuing on with auditing as I do see it is helpful.But all the other situations that David has now stirred up with his endless revisions of revisions and those magic OT 9 & 10 and disconnection,fair game all that needs to go.
Had an amazing sky last night.Big moon and many stars.Hope they shine on you always.xo Ann B.
“Hi thetaclear, Thank you for your post. I have believed that as Ron said he was Source and we should always be On Source, why he ended as he did.”
Peter : Hi, dear Ann; long time no see. Yes, that’s one way to look at it, all right. 🙂
“You make a good point I have considered also. It was confusing and I recall when Hymn of Asia came out, OODs had all sorts of bits on Ron having been Buddha etc. That is what I could never reconcile when the fear factor was shoved onto me.”
Peter : Yeah, I felt the same. Buddha – at least according to the Pali Canon – was very compassionate and just. And Buddhism’s path to virtue – the beginning of the Noble Eightfold Path – is an extremely noble, compassionate, and protective of Human Rights way, unlike Scn is, developed by a guy allegedly having been such a character. Nothing could be that contradictory. Wasn’t Buddha the “Enlightened One”; the one who achieved “Nirvana” ? How come he got aberrated after having awakened ?
Of course, I am only mocking this senseless idea that the Oldman was Buddha (not for lack of ability/potential, as he had ample of that); I am not mocking Buddha himself. I have no problem with Buddha beyond his fixation to “end the game of livingness” by basically “letting go” of ALL desires/passions.
“Ron was a mix of wildly different valences.”
Peter : Tell me about it!!! LOL He had at least 3 BIG ones, totally opposed to one another.
“I have no problem with Indies continuing on with auditing as I do see it is helpful.”
Peter : I have no problems myself, neither. In fact, I Solo with Scn almost every day with good wins/changes. I was referring to “KSW Indies”, and not to all Indies, you know, but about “I blindly follow KSW #1 to the letter” type of Indies. MS2 kind of Scientologists, who – even if unknowingly and unwittingly so – always end up violating the rights of Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Religion, and Freedom of Speech of others who doesn’t agree with Scn/LRH, or some aspects of it. And who are not responsible enough to publicly admit LRH’s errors and even crimes. THOSE type of Indies, they are not friends of human kind; they are but a bunch of fundamentalists .
“But all the other situations that David has now stirred up with his endless revisions of revisions and those magic OT 9 & 10 and disconnection, fair game all that needs to go.”
Peter : Not only that, my dear Ann, but a BUNCH of others things as well, if Scn is to be rehabilitated at all. I had that goal once, but time showed me how naive I was. Not naive about the workability of Scn or lack thereof, but about thinking that others were spiritually mature enough to SEEK such a rehabilitation. They are but a bunch of kids trying to play being philosophers. So I lost interest. Perhaps one of these days, I’ll change my mind and do something effective with it.
“Had an amazing sky last night. Big moon and many stars. Hope they shine on you always.xo Ann B.”
Thanks dear; you are always so sweet. 🙂 XO
If scamology has good uses it will continue. Someone will simply pull out the “good parts” (if any) and rename it. My money is on it dying as whatever “good” exists was simply plagiarized by El Con in the first place and thus, already exists without scamology.
I’ve always had this feeling that a lot of Scientology was derived from Kabbalah so this could be a start point.
Mike : “If scamology has good uses it will continue. Someone will simply pull out the “good parts” (if any) and rename it.”
I am not seeing that “someone”, Mike. Too much bad PR has already obscured whatever good parts it may have, which are many, from my perspective and decades of experience. Nobody – except hardcore strict KSW #1 followers – is interested in disseminating Scn as a subject. But the ones with the enough KRC – to describe it in Scientologese – to take the subject, strip it off of its destructive and cultish parts, strip it off of its hype and poorly defined “EPs”, re-organize it into usable form, and make it WIDELY available in ALL its parts; can be counted with just the fingers of one hand. And I do not think that they are interested enough in that type of project to even bother discussing it. I certainly am not.
Mike : “My money is on it dying as whatever “good” exists was simply plagiarized by El Con in the first place and thus, already exists without scamology.”
Not EVERYTHING was plagiarized, Mike; not by a long ways. LRH made VERY clear from the start – even thought that he changed his approach after the mid ‘60s (but with already signs of it since 1955-56) – that scn was the result of 2,500 years of human wisdom put into practical/useable and easy-to-assimilate form. One no longer needed to be an initiated “monk” in order to avail ourselves of the knowledge and wisdom of the ancient Orient.
Even thought that most of the fundamentals of Scn already existed, the way they got applied to life as in “auditing procedures”, was a new approach. I do not care if part or many of those processes/procedures were LRH’s as such, or the direct discoveries of his research auditors (though before the BC he did not have but a very few of those auditors). Still, they were working under his guidance/direction.
Of course, I am not saying that Scn have all the answers to life; it doesn’t by a long, long, long ways, and in fact, things like “EFT Taping” techniques, are by far more advance and faster than Scn in many aspects. But Scn DOES has many workable processes/procedures worth using and salvaging.
I said everything that was GOOD was from elsewhere. Important caveat.
“The biggest overarching fear that drives Scientologists is the fear of losing one’s eternity. It’s the BIG fear that motivates all the other fears and worries.”
This wasn’t something that was on the radar when I was in a few decades ago. It is internally illogical because the tenets of Scn claim that you live forever and will always be around. So, if you didn’t “make it” this lifetime there was next time. Thus there was no real consequence to leaving.
I agree with you Mike. Based on what I observe from my friends the reasons are: 1) the Scientology “group” are the only friends and business acquaintances they have so they are comfortable in the group, or 2) their family is in and they can’t speak to one another about leaving or 3) they have so much money invested in the scam they keep thinking there is more. One friends is preparing for OTIX. The whales are so protected from the negative press that they have no idea about what is going on nor care to know.
the fear is real enough, nonetheless. Hubbard did put it there, like all the rest of his con.
There is the con, and then there is the policy to keep it rigidly in place, and fear was his greatest tool. Hubbard himself was a polished and carefully engineered tool. Brilliant, isn’t it, to get your believers to actually fear losing their eternity?
You would think it impossible, but it worked with me. I did fear not being the best scientologist I could possibly be, for precisely that reason. And I was so sure that I would be a scientologist forever.
Mike Wynski : “This wasn’t something that was on the radar when I was in a few decades ago. It is internally illogical because the tenets of Scn claim that you live forever and will always be around. So, if you didn’t “make it” this lifetime there was next time. Thus there was no real consequence to leaving.”
You are thinking in terms of “white and black” propositions, Mike; and trying to be “logical” about it, which prompts you to ignore the obvious reality of it all. Of course that we all KNEW that we would live forever, but you totally missed the point. By “Losing one’s eternity”, is meant that – w/out Scn to guide us towards “high” spiritual states where we could “actually” (just according to the Oldman) be able to “operate” as beings – we would be lost into the “dark oblivion” of lack of self-recognition and spiritual “enlightenment”.
This wasn’t about whether or not we would “survive” as beings; we knew we would. This was about the state of case and livingness that we would find ourselves in if we were denied Scn due to our “overts” acts. And there is where the “fear of losing one’s eternity comes in.
I understand TC. BUT, it STILL made no sense. So you lose ONE lifetime of SCN. You just start over next time (40 years later or whatever). THAT was why it was no threat to those who could think somewhat.
Wow! Absolutely, spot on! Thank you so much for this report.
Side note: As a public in 2011, I would have an appointment with ethics an still wait for hours.
‘Liberating’ is the right word when getting out of this organization and the fears accompany it.
Agreed. Really a brilliant article. The fear is such a major motivation for every activity of the church that it becomes transparent and just part of the way life is (yuck).
I remember on the Apollo. I would wake up every morning and be afraid to be late to a 7am muster, held by Starkey, and then afraid I wasn’t working fast enough throughout the day and then afraid I didn’t use my stupid demo kit (a totally worthless concept of playing with paperclips and a marble while reading). And of course, having a session there was more fear of some withhold that would be discovered. Fear existed every day, throughout the day.
It is so nice to live my life now that my only fear is driving 80 in a 65 MPH zone. Freedom….
“After a while, though, many—some would say all—devolve into strictly controlled practices ruled…”
Unfortunately Scamology started life as a way to control & harm people so that the founder could become wealthy and powerful. If you go and read what El Con wrote as to what he wanted to accomplish https://scicrit.wordpress.com/2014/03/29/l-ron-hubbards-affirmations-admissions/ you will see that scamology was designed to harm from day 1. No “cycles”
I always thought LRH’s great-grandson Jamie DeWolf summed up scientology perfectly when he said, “Scientology doesn’t work as stated, but it works exactly as intended.”
Bingo Sunny Delight. DeWolf nailed it far better than I.
Hopeless sinner, repent or eternal roommates with the Devil for you.
Just kidding, good morning.
Thanks for the info.
I do agree, that hubbard was only going for the gold at the expense and harm of everyone else unfortunate enough to cross paths with him.
Fear God, (sorry, I had to say something silly again) but not so Davey. Little man, you seem to missing a few marbles. In fact, you are a puppet to the master, and I fear you as much I would any other wooden head.
A commendable and truthful list of fears, Mike. Wasn’t religion also meant to bring comfort and safety to individuals? Scio ain’t agonna change. More likely get worse. And I have dear friends still in. Makes me wonder if I’ll ever be able to help them.
Hi Mike,Many thanks to this poster for a thoughtful,concise,and well put together piece.I am so so happy that they are Out! I wish all good things for this person and send love to them and those they love.Thank you for all you do here.xo Ann B.
What you wrote is true and a long list of specific examples will take us days and days to recount them.
I am so glad you are OUT. That is a huge relief in itself. You can now decide for yourself what do you want to do, with whom you want to enjoy time, whatever…it is your own life and that is what counts.
It may take a while to get rid of all the nuances associated with this cult, the criminality of miscavige, the indoctrination of many. But you will get through as many of us have done; talk about it, read other books, live your life and things will get better and better every day.
Yes, the ‘church’ may hound you or harass you, but you should fear no longer. They have no power over you no matter how annoying their (OSA, RTC and MIscavige) actions may seem. They can NOT hurt you any longer. They, really, have no power over your own life.
Yes, that’s a worry. I still have family in that mess and I’m lost with how to get them to wake up. They are aging quickly and a real sense of loss has crept into our family of which after over 20 years I still have no solution on how to fix it. Waiting is the pits and Christmas, Thanksgivings & birthdays have a loneliness aspect hard to fathom.
I truly hope that you can be united with your family I Yawnalot. 🙁
Thanks Brian. I’m a bit numb with the whole scene but can still throw a mean punch.
If still in at this late stage, they are beyond help. After the Co$ goes down, they might be salvageable. I said MIGHT.