That was a good manager you had, jere. Highly effective. As a manager its always all around better when people WANT to work, when they pace themselves push themselves to get their jobs done, not out of fear of you but because they actually like, trust and respect you and have a grounded reality in how THEM doing well benefits THEM and you. Hovering over people, nagging them, threatening them – all this has plantation-slavery overtones. You can drive people that way and get work out of them, and they may defer to you and be very sweet and nice to your face because, well, you sign their checks and they need you. But do they really respect you? Not if you frequently lack impulse control. Not if you don’t set an example by treating them fairly and decently.
In my experience at Flog in the late ’70s, Christmas was pretty much a normal day though good friends might give others gifts IF they could afford to buy anything. Xmas Day was warm enough for swimming in the pool, but New Year’s Day wasn’t — even for those of us from north of the Mason-Dixon line. The blow-out parties were New Year’s Eve, featuring hot buttered rum, which went down smoothly, IIRC. No auditing was scheduled because no one was expected to be sessionable. 😉
I guess they think it will all be worth it in the future when the tech will have started to work right. It shouldn’t be much longer with Miscavige at the helm. The next few eons after that will be smooth sailing.
Great you are back this week RB.
It seems hard for us who quit the cult but who have family in to imagine the mindset and logic of the last poor saps(in this case our family).
Weekly reminders are needed as our own personal nightmares fade more and more.
O/T. Bethany Mandel was kind enough to quote and retweet my most recent tweet about the antisemitism of Scientology Freedom Medal Winner Nation of Islam Minister Tony Muhammad. As a result, my Twitter video excerpt has been viewed over 3,600 times.
I’ve been following the collapse of both Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and i’ve noticed that one flaw that the JWs have that Scientology does not have has to do with family relations. In both, recalcitrant family member are to be shunned, but a Scientologist does not get blamed for their behaviour nor does it affect their status or standing in the community. In the JWs, however, a man that has a non-JW/exJW wife or children definitely IS blamed for it, has lower status and even may not become an Elder. This is due to the whole “how can you control the congregation if you can’t even control your own family” idea. Although, to be fair, this isn’t uniquely a JW thing, many fundagelical christian groups do it too, preventing men from becoming pastors for this reason.
Also, the line “This year, we’re expected to triple …without lowering…” made me laugh and cry, since this is exactly my company’s attitude towards work. “We need you to do more, and you’re not getting the resources you need to do it nor any extra compensation for your efforts.” Yeah, Capitalism is the best system ever./s
Interesting post, James Rosso. I didn’t know that JW’s and “fundagelica” christian groups hold responsible the JW whose family member(s) go astray. Not surprising though as these people are just as nuts as Still In Scientologists.
As to what you shared with regard to your company’s urge for more production while holding back on the resources and/or compensation for their staff to do so, I’ll offer my own anecdotal proven method of getting people to produce in my small business, which is, first and foremost, to pay them in full VERY promptly, ALWAYS. My staff get paid before any other bills and I include paying myself as a bill. I also give them little fun bonuses during the year for their birthdays. About 3 or 4 times a year we go out for dinner usually Chinese or Italian, nothing very fancy or expensive. At year’s end they get a generous bonus. Other than the financial acknowledgements, its just to be there if/when they need me and stay out of their way when they’re doing their thing. Temper any correction with duly earned praise and keep criticism to a severe minimum because even mild criticism can be devastating when someone is trying their best. I swear, and don’t hate me when I tell you this, but in truth I frequently have to insist that they NOT work and take some time off. I suppose its a “reverse vector” thing… I don’t know. It works, they’re happy, I’m happy, and stress between us is very low, because there’s enough stress in the business itself without it occurring between the staff and myself.
I worked for a forward-thinking company which rolled all vacation/holiday/sick/birthday /mental-health time into one big “Choice time” reservoir, usable in 4-hour chunks and the Managers worked to ensure we (particularly *me*) used it each year. I’ve since heard it called “flex-time” in the HR universe and it’s been shown to decrease absenteeism. Allowed us to balance work and home obligations. Each sailing season, no one expected me to be around after Lunch on Friday until Monday, so Pat and I had mini-vacations every weekend of that 6 month “season”. As high-pressure as the work was, my co-workers were generally pretty “chill” as a result. And that contributed to high productivity. We rarely spent much time getting all up in each other’s faces.
Even At Flag, I ran into an enlightened Superior who stopped me working 16-hour days, 7 days a week. Forced me to a 40-hour workweek WITH “personal enhancement” time (course work & auditing) which was a vacation of sorts to me. Helped keep me saner, longer.
Lovely Hana.
BTW, even with spending less time filing, I got more actual work done. Some of the worst places I worked for, the ones which accomplished less with more people, demanded extra hours to try to fill the gaps between what could be completed satisfactorily and what the *chiefs* wanted done. In each case, the companies or divisions failed since. Most of the time, the problems were ‘Managers’ changing their minds mid-task, requiring us ‘indians’ to do the programming and debugging two or more times.
I remember being hired as a third shift supervisor in a printing plant. OK so far, good pay, great benefits. The they consolidated two plants into one – we were the plant that continued, the guys in Tennessee all lost their jobs. But overnight we had twice the workload, exactly double the number of orders, with no increase in machinery or number of operators. That meant I worked almost a hundred weekend shifts for the next year. Sure, I got some remuneration, a whole $2500, about three bucks an hour.
But the bad thing was all the late orders, which affected our annual reviews. That, and some idiot decided that was the year to put out an employee satisfaction survey. What will all the extra hours, the union guys were very tired, under great time pressure, but making good money with all the time and a half over forty, and double time for Sunday work or any hours daily over eight. They took their tiredness out on every manager below plant manager level. So at the end of the year review, all of us first line managers got a horrible reviews, a miniscule raise to embarrass us, and we had to read a bunch of nasty comments from our line workers. We had thought we were doing well by them, working extra hard to help them avoid production errors which would have cropped up as a negative in union wage negotiations. Anyway, that year almost broke me into tears – and the workload oly lightened up a little over the next ten years, but luckily I got installed into Engineering so only had to work two jobs instead of three. Hmm, some luck. At least the money and raises finally came through – one year my increase was so large the plant manager actually did a double take when he was going over my review with me and saw the paper with the increase I had earned.
So it is not uncommon for extra hard work and extra long hours to crop up, even in good old capitalistic jobs. But at least I got a nice retirement fund, 10% in matching 401k funds, and such good health insurance I could hardly believe it. Beat that for your ’employees’, Mr. Mismanage!
Ohhhh…in SCN you’re punished, barred and blamed, it’s jut not called that. “You’re helped to increase your responsibility for your dynamics and to be pan-determined over the lives of others.”
Family connections in SCN can get you sec checked, plant checked, and given complex ethics handlings that take months or years. $$$$$$$$$
Family connections land you PTS declares which then bar you from any auditing and training other than addressing the PTSness. You’re ordered to do/re-do expensive and lengthy PTS courses, ordered to PTS auditing programs that easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. (and sec checks, you don’t go PTS without overts)
People are barred from staff or executive positions due to connections. In the Sea Org, the actions and opinions of non SCIO family members can get you taken off your post and shipped off halfway across the globe and hidden for…. ever. SO Siberia complete with a new ethics program and bilge water post.
I know of public being ordered to “handle” never-in family members to stop taking meds considered to be psych meds as a condition on OT elig for that public.
You’re made to disconnect from never in Family members for a myriad of reasons.
You are punished in Scn for behavior of family.. they just lie about it like everything else.
What WAS it with Tubby and overts? Somehow, he traced everything substandard to them. Of course, he couldn’t/wouldn’t “see” that everything he ‘produced’ WRT scn was an overt, so he of COURSE pulled all that bad stuff in over the years.
zee moo quipped:”Can organizational collapse be near? Nah, just my postulates getting out of hand, again.”
As far as I can see, scientology collapsed YEARS ago, if no right in the beginning, as he was trying to recover from the dianetics fad fading into obscurity.
“This year we’re expected to triple last years donations towards LRH Hall without lowering our states…”
Seems like a tall order. Maybe there’s an APP for that that can help them come up with a plan to further bilk people out of more money? Do you think they have access to Alexa? Maybe she can help them. “Alexa – how do I get people to give more money to a hopeless cause?”
The implosion has been in effect for quite awhile. You may not feel it, but, it’s there. Scientology is on a deathbed. They’re not getting any people save for the staff. And the staff is bailing out.
I agree with you completely, OSD. Scientology’s demise is a “death by a thousand cuts” kind of thing. It has been dying, it is dying, and it will keep on dying. I used to believe that the Still Ins didn’t know this, didn’t see this. I no longer believe that to be true. They know, and pretend they don’t. They see, and pretend they don’t. They’re not innocent; their problem is an unwillingness to confront. Life punishes severely and sometimes very tragically those who refuse to confront. I speak from experience that is not cult-related.
I hear you. Thank God we’re not them. No decent person could live comfortably with that on their conscience – or maybe they’d have to come UP to having a conscience.
It is a very common ending for these criminal cults that as the membership plummets, the Leader just cannot stand the thought that he will not indeed run the whole world one day. They tend to sink into madness and depression and either take their own lives or do some kind of insane act with the goal of regaining their imaginary role of “King of the World” and that winds up causing them to be arrested and imprisoned.
Either way will be fine with me. I just want to see all the slaves returned to freedom and for Sam to finally realize that his mother (Mary Kahn) has always been the best person in his life and he will return to his loving family.
Wow! A picture of life inside an org. It reminds me of an old time Xmas song that made home at the holidays sound oh so dreary.
Can you imagine living at one of the orgs and being faced with the goal of tripling last year’s donations even though you only have half the number of members now?
It just sounds far too dreary and depressing to even go on.
I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow
And mistletoe
And presents ‘neath the tree
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
From the old sentimental movie of the same name. Quite a few Christmases went by when I was at the Int Base, exercising the “only in my dreams” option.
So for me that is the most bittersweet Christmas song. For a time the New Year’s event was scheduled for the same week as Christmas, so my yuletide cheer mostly involved running cables for the event at the Shrine or tracking down some elusive crackle or buzz in the sound system. While singing that song in my head and wondering when or if it could ever come true.
Spare a thought for the deluded, lost souls in the Regraded Being strip, as you sample your egg nogs and greet your family and friends over holiday cheer. Somewhere under all that bluster and BS they are thinking of you too. May we all meet again in peace some day.
Have yourself a Culty Little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Keep your credit cards and wallet out of sight.
Have yourself a Culty Little Christmas
At an Int Event
First though, pay your bills and pay your rent!
Here you are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Being begged to donate again,
Give them all you’ve got, once more!
Postulate that you will not go bankrupt
Fend them off somehow
Smile and stay uptone and don’t you start a row!
And have yourself a Culty Little Christmas now.
I just wish the our former resident idiot, FOOLproof, was here to ‘word clear’ Hymn of Asia for us. That would be a great way to start 2020 with a good belly laugh. Maybe OSA could send in another KSW-clown to provide some entertainment who is just as capable of doing a real, live demo of a mind on scientology.
Ms. B. Haven, I’m afraid all the suppression got to him and he’s having to redo the PTS/SP course for the fifth time. I would suggest he buy a fifth of Scotch and spend the next few weeks devising a strategy to put all the ungrateful apostates in their place. Looking forward to future barbs from Fool pooped. Happy New Year OSA!
Gadfly, I’m afraid that the FOOL done floofed the goof or goofed the floof or screwed the pooch or whatever. He definitely crossed a line when he got his sorry ass banned from this site. Too bad for the rest of us. We never got a glimpse of Foolproof the human being, but we saw plenty of FOOL the scientologist. Even the most cursory glance at that would put off even the most desperate spiritual seeker. scientology is the toxic waste dump of the spiritual world and only the most naive, foolish and wretched would even think of going near it. FOOL was a stellar example of what scientology does to the human mind.
Banned, was he? Mike was generous enough to give him a platform to vent his spleen, but alas, Foolproof became as welcome as a Nazi at a Holocaust survivors meeting. Hopefully he comes to his senses, and not by doing A-E!
Did L. Ron Hubbard really believe he had been the Buddha in a past life or was that just another one one his tall tales? If he did believe he was the Buddha, here’s a story about how that might have come about.
Years ago I was playing around with a Walter Mitty fantasy. For those unfamiliar with him, Walter is a fictional character in a short story. He’s an ordinary guy who likes to play around with fantasies like being a hero or a rock star and so on. One morning while having my morning coffee I was playing around with a little Walter Mitty fantasy for about an hour. It was kind of fun and I continued thinking about it while having breakfast. After breakfast I went out on my back porch and played around with it some more. Things were going really well!
Long story short, about 48 hours later the thing had taken on a life of its own. For every counter to my rock star status in the fantasy my creative imagination was immediately countering and keeping me in my rock star status! A Scientology term came to mind – “freewheeling”. I realized I needed to break the cycle and I said “Go Do Some MEST Work!!!” which I did for a few hours which broke the cycle. Phew!
The point regarding Hubbard is did he go into a Walter Mitty fantasy about being the Buddha, freewheel into it for a day or two and then pull himself out firmly believing he had been the Buddha?
“Hubbard And The Buddha”…catchy…great name for a Scientology sitcom, Richard. People might even start watching Scientology TV More interesting than endless reruns of “The War Is Over”, that’s for sure!
Richard asked:”Did L. Ron Hubbard really believe he had been the Buddha in a past life or was that just another one one his tall tales?”
AFAICT, the answer is a definitive “Yes.”
It was a tall tale AND he wanted to believe it with all his might. OR, at least he absolutely wanted the clapping seals to believe it .
It’s a shame he couldn’t have actually studied it and learned something. At best, his “understanding” of things like science and religion were at the level of a child who only overheard what his prejudiced and bigoted parents said about the subjects to each other.
That was a good manager you had, jere. Highly effective. As a manager its always all around better when people WANT to work, when they pace themselves push themselves to get their jobs done, not out of fear of you but because they actually like, trust and respect you and have a grounded reality in how THEM doing well benefits THEM and you. Hovering over people, nagging them, threatening them – all this has plantation-slavery overtones. You can drive people that way and get work out of them, and they may defer to you and be very sweet and nice to your face because, well, you sign their checks and they need you. But do they really respect you? Not if you frequently lack impulse control. Not if you don’t set an example by treating them fairly and decently.
OKAY! I GOT THAT! THANK YOU!
How to say ‘fuck off’ in Scientologese.
In my experience at Flog in the late ’70s, Christmas was pretty much a normal day though good friends might give others gifts IF they could afford to buy anything. Xmas Day was warm enough for swimming in the pool, but New Year’s Day wasn’t — even for those of us from north of the Mason-Dixon line. The blow-out parties were New Year’s Eve, featuring hot buttered rum, which went down smoothly, IIRC. No auditing was scheduled because no one was expected to be sessionable. 😉
I guess they think it will all be worth it in the future when the tech will have started to work right. It shouldn’t be much longer with Miscavige at the helm. The next few eons after that will be smooth sailing.
RB, How do you take something so tragic and make it so funny? Sent to Ethics for fighting over LRH/Bhudda! I did a spit take.
Great you are back this week RB.
It seems hard for us who quit the cult but who have family in to imagine the mindset and logic of the last poor saps(in this case our family).
Weekly reminders are needed as our own personal nightmares fade more and more.
O/T. Bethany Mandel was kind enough to quote and retweet my most recent tweet about the antisemitism of Scientology Freedom Medal Winner Nation of Islam Minister Tony Muhammad. As a result, my Twitter video excerpt has been viewed over 3,600 times.
https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/1212401609327759360
/
Bethany talked about the Aftermath on her podcast, which is how I found out about all of this.
Yeeeaaa. This is the think all right.
So glad I’m out.
And ALL of us are glad you’re out!!!
I’ve been following the collapse of both Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and i’ve noticed that one flaw that the JWs have that Scientology does not have has to do with family relations. In both, recalcitrant family member are to be shunned, but a Scientologist does not get blamed for their behaviour nor does it affect their status or standing in the community. In the JWs, however, a man that has a non-JW/exJW wife or children definitely IS blamed for it, has lower status and even may not become an Elder. This is due to the whole “how can you control the congregation if you can’t even control your own family” idea. Although, to be fair, this isn’t uniquely a JW thing, many fundagelical christian groups do it too, preventing men from becoming pastors for this reason.
Also, the line “This year, we’re expected to triple …without lowering…” made me laugh and cry, since this is exactly my company’s attitude towards work. “We need you to do more, and you’re not getting the resources you need to do it nor any extra compensation for your efforts.” Yeah, Capitalism is the best system ever./s
Interesting post, James Rosso. I didn’t know that JW’s and “fundagelica” christian groups hold responsible the JW whose family member(s) go astray. Not surprising though as these people are just as nuts as Still In Scientologists.
As to what you shared with regard to your company’s urge for more production while holding back on the resources and/or compensation for their staff to do so, I’ll offer my own anecdotal proven method of getting people to produce in my small business, which is, first and foremost, to pay them in full VERY promptly, ALWAYS. My staff get paid before any other bills and I include paying myself as a bill. I also give them little fun bonuses during the year for their birthdays. About 3 or 4 times a year we go out for dinner usually Chinese or Italian, nothing very fancy or expensive. At year’s end they get a generous bonus. Other than the financial acknowledgements, its just to be there if/when they need me and stay out of their way when they’re doing their thing. Temper any correction with duly earned praise and keep criticism to a severe minimum because even mild criticism can be devastating when someone is trying their best. I swear, and don’t hate me when I tell you this, but in truth I frequently have to insist that they NOT work and take some time off. I suppose its a “reverse vector” thing… I don’t know. It works, they’re happy, I’m happy, and stress between us is very low, because there’s enough stress in the business itself without it occurring between the staff and myself.
Aquamarine, you sound like a great manager and boss. They’re lucky to have you.
Thank you, Cindy. I try to be the kind of boss I would want. Not always successfully, but I try 🙂
I worked for a forward-thinking company which rolled all vacation/holiday/sick/birthday /mental-health time into one big “Choice time” reservoir, usable in 4-hour chunks and the Managers worked to ensure we (particularly *me*) used it each year. I’ve since heard it called “flex-time” in the HR universe and it’s been shown to decrease absenteeism. Allowed us to balance work and home obligations. Each sailing season, no one expected me to be around after Lunch on Friday until Monday, so Pat and I had mini-vacations every weekend of that 6 month “season”. As high-pressure as the work was, my co-workers were generally pretty “chill” as a result. And that contributed to high productivity. We rarely spent much time getting all up in each other’s faces.
Even At Flag, I ran into an enlightened Superior who stopped me working 16-hour days, 7 days a week. Forced me to a 40-hour workweek WITH “personal enhancement” time (course work & auditing) which was a vacation of sorts to me. Helped keep me saner, longer.
Lovely Hana.
BTW, even with spending less time filing, I got more actual work done. Some of the worst places I worked for, the ones which accomplished less with more people, demanded extra hours to try to fill the gaps between what could be completed satisfactorily and what the *chiefs* wanted done. In each case, the companies or divisions failed since. Most of the time, the problems were ‘Managers’ changing their minds mid-task, requiring us ‘indians’ to do the programming and debugging two or more times.
I remember being hired as a third shift supervisor in a printing plant. OK so far, good pay, great benefits. The they consolidated two plants into one – we were the plant that continued, the guys in Tennessee all lost their jobs. But overnight we had twice the workload, exactly double the number of orders, with no increase in machinery or number of operators. That meant I worked almost a hundred weekend shifts for the next year. Sure, I got some remuneration, a whole $2500, about three bucks an hour.
But the bad thing was all the late orders, which affected our annual reviews. That, and some idiot decided that was the year to put out an employee satisfaction survey. What will all the extra hours, the union guys were very tired, under great time pressure, but making good money with all the time and a half over forty, and double time for Sunday work or any hours daily over eight. They took their tiredness out on every manager below plant manager level. So at the end of the year review, all of us first line managers got a horrible reviews, a miniscule raise to embarrass us, and we had to read a bunch of nasty comments from our line workers. We had thought we were doing well by them, working extra hard to help them avoid production errors which would have cropped up as a negative in union wage negotiations. Anyway, that year almost broke me into tears – and the workload oly lightened up a little over the next ten years, but luckily I got installed into Engineering so only had to work two jobs instead of three. Hmm, some luck. At least the money and raises finally came through – one year my increase was so large the plant manager actually did a double take when he was going over my review with me and saw the paper with the increase I had earned.
So it is not uncommon for extra hard work and extra long hours to crop up, even in good old capitalistic jobs. But at least I got a nice retirement fund, 10% in matching 401k funds, and such good health insurance I could hardly believe it. Beat that for your ’employees’, Mr. Mismanage!
Ohhhh…in SCN you’re punished, barred and blamed, it’s jut not called that. “You’re helped to increase your responsibility for your dynamics and to be pan-determined over the lives of others.”
Family connections in SCN can get you sec checked, plant checked, and given complex ethics handlings that take months or years. $$$$$$$$$
Family connections land you PTS declares which then bar you from any auditing and training other than addressing the PTSness. You’re ordered to do/re-do expensive and lengthy PTS courses, ordered to PTS auditing programs that easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. (and sec checks, you don’t go PTS without overts)
People are barred from staff or executive positions due to connections. In the Sea Org, the actions and opinions of non SCIO family members can get you taken off your post and shipped off halfway across the globe and hidden for…. ever. SO Siberia complete with a new ethics program and bilge water post.
I know of public being ordered to “handle” never-in family members to stop taking meds considered to be psych meds as a condition on OT elig for that public.
You’re made to disconnect from never in Family members for a myriad of reasons.
You are punished in Scn for behavior of family.. they just lie about it like everything else.
What WAS it with Tubby and overts? Somehow, he traced everything substandard to them. Of course, he couldn’t/wouldn’t “see” that everything he ‘produced’ WRT scn was an overt, so he of COURSE pulled all that bad stuff in over the years.
That is an all too real depiction of mOrg life. Can organizational collapse be near? Nah, just my postulates getting out of hand, again.
zee moo quipped:”Can organizational collapse be near? Nah, just my postulates getting out of hand, again.”
As far as I can see, scientology collapsed YEARS ago, if no right in the beginning, as he was trying to recover from the dianetics fad fading into obscurity.
“This year we’re expected to triple last years donations towards LRH Hall without lowering our states…”
Seems like a tall order. Maybe there’s an APP for that that can help them come up with a plan to further bilk people out of more money? Do you think they have access to Alexa? Maybe she can help them. “Alexa – how do I get people to give more money to a hopeless cause?”
Last year, I asked Alexa to get the Scientology PI’s to stop driving around the block but it didn’t work. I guess that order was over her head.
2020 might be the Year of Unprecedented Collapse at best for $cientology. Let’s hope so. Let the implosion begin!
The implosion has been in effect for quite awhile. You may not feel it, but, it’s there. Scientology is on a deathbed. They’re not getting any people save for the staff. And the staff is bailing out.
I agree with you completely, OSD. Scientology’s demise is a “death by a thousand cuts” kind of thing. It has been dying, it is dying, and it will keep on dying. I used to believe that the Still Ins didn’t know this, didn’t see this. I no longer believe that to be true. They know, and pretend they don’t. They see, and pretend they don’t. They’re not innocent; their problem is an unwillingness to confront. Life punishes severely and sometimes very tragically those who refuse to confront. I speak from experience that is not cult-related.
…and some know (know it is shrinking, know of its plethora of abuses…) and don’t care. I know of several in this category.
I hear you. Thank God we’re not them. No decent person could live comfortably with that on their conscience – or maybe they’d have to come UP to having a conscience.
I couldn’t have said it better! You’re hitting all of them! Well done!
It is a very common ending for these criminal cults that as the membership plummets, the Leader just cannot stand the thought that he will not indeed run the whole world one day. They tend to sink into madness and depression and either take their own lives or do some kind of insane act with the goal of regaining their imaginary role of “King of the World” and that winds up causing them to be arrested and imprisoned.
Either way will be fine with me. I just want to see all the slaves returned to freedom and for Sam to finally realize that his mother (Mary Kahn) has always been the best person in his life and he will return to his loving family.
Peter. from your keyboard directly to xenu’s screen.
I concur:”2020 might be the Year of Unprecedented Collapse at best for $cientology. Let’s hope so. Let the implosion begin!”
Wow! A picture of life inside an org. It reminds me of an old time Xmas song that made home at the holidays sound oh so dreary.
Can you imagine living at one of the orgs and being faced with the goal of tripling last year’s donations even though you only have half the number of members now?
It just sounds far too dreary and depressing to even go on.
Goodbye to The Scam.
From the old sentimental movie of the same name. Quite a few Christmases went by when I was at the Int Base, exercising the “only in my dreams” option.
So for me that is the most bittersweet Christmas song. For a time the New Year’s event was scheduled for the same week as Christmas, so my yuletide cheer mostly involved running cables for the event at the Shrine or tracking down some elusive crackle or buzz in the sound system. While singing that song in my head and wondering when or if it could ever come true.
Spare a thought for the deluded, lost souls in the Regraded Being strip, as you sample your egg nogs and greet your family and friends over holiday cheer. Somewhere under all that bluster and BS they are thinking of you too. May we all meet again in peace some day.
I love that song! I’ve gotten emotional just listening to it. It can certainly bring out the tears in me.
Have yourself a Culty Little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Keep your credit cards and wallet out of sight.
Have yourself a Culty Little Christmas
At an Int Event
First though, pay your bills and pay your rent!
Here you are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Being begged to donate again,
Give them all you’ve got, once more!
Postulate that you will not go bankrupt
Fend them off somehow
Smile and stay uptone and don’t you start a row!
And have yourself a Culty Little Christmas now.
OSD and Aqua,
Applause! Applause!
Thanks, Skyler 🙂
Nice one, Aqua.
I just wish the our former resident idiot, FOOLproof, was here to ‘word clear’ Hymn of Asia for us. That would be a great way to start 2020 with a good belly laugh. Maybe OSA could send in another KSW-clown to provide some entertainment who is just as capable of doing a real, live demo of a mind on scientology.
Ms. B. Haven, I’m afraid all the suppression got to him and he’s having to redo the PTS/SP course for the fifth time. I would suggest he buy a fifth of Scotch and spend the next few weeks devising a strategy to put all the ungrateful apostates in their place. Looking forward to future barbs from Fool pooped. Happy New Year OSA!
Gadfly, I’m afraid that the FOOL done floofed the goof or goofed the floof or screwed the pooch or whatever. He definitely crossed a line when he got his sorry ass banned from this site. Too bad for the rest of us. We never got a glimpse of Foolproof the human being, but we saw plenty of FOOL the scientologist. Even the most cursory glance at that would put off even the most desperate spiritual seeker. scientology is the toxic waste dump of the spiritual world and only the most naive, foolish and wretched would even think of going near it. FOOL was a stellar example of what scientology does to the human mind.
Banned, was he? Mike was generous enough to give him a platform to vent his spleen, but alas, Foolproof became as welcome as a Nazi at a Holocaust survivors meeting. Hopefully he comes to his senses, and not by doing A-E!
He got BANNED from the site? Surely not! He was the comic relief, the court jester.
Oops! Should have specified it was FOOLproof who I was referring to.
Hubbard and the Buddha
Did L. Ron Hubbard really believe he had been the Buddha in a past life or was that just another one one his tall tales? If he did believe he was the Buddha, here’s a story about how that might have come about.
Years ago I was playing around with a Walter Mitty fantasy. For those unfamiliar with him, Walter is a fictional character in a short story. He’s an ordinary guy who likes to play around with fantasies like being a hero or a rock star and so on. One morning while having my morning coffee I was playing around with a little Walter Mitty fantasy for about an hour. It was kind of fun and I continued thinking about it while having breakfast. After breakfast I went out on my back porch and played around with it some more. Things were going really well!
Long story short, about 48 hours later the thing had taken on a life of its own. For every counter to my rock star status in the fantasy my creative imagination was immediately countering and keeping me in my rock star status! A Scientology term came to mind – “freewheeling”. I realized I needed to break the cycle and I said “Go Do Some MEST Work!!!” which I did for a few hours which broke the cycle. Phew!
The point regarding Hubbard is did he go into a Walter Mitty fantasy about being the Buddha, freewheel into it for a day or two and then pull himself out firmly believing he had been the Buddha?
“Hubbard And The Buddha”…catchy…great name for a Scientology sitcom, Richard. People might even start watching Scientology TV More interesting than endless reruns of “The War Is Over”, that’s for sure!
Richard asked:”Did L. Ron Hubbard really believe he had been the Buddha in a past life or was that just another one one his tall tales?”
AFAICT, the answer is a definitive “Yes.”
It was a tall tale AND he wanted to believe it with all his might. OR, at least he absolutely wanted the clapping seals to believe it .
It’s a shame he couldn’t have actually studied it and learned something. At best, his “understanding” of things like science and religion were at the level of a child who only overheard what his prejudiced and bigoted parents said about the subjects to each other.