Someone sent this latest scientology promotion piece to me and it highlights the insanity that is the world inside the bubble.
I don’t know Peggy Alexandre, but I do know Helena Kobrin. She is a LONG term scientologist who is infamous for her efforts seeking to squash criticism of scientology on the internet.
Back in the 90’s she was on NOTs. I recall she then did OT VI and was auditing on Solo NOTs subsequently, but this may not be the case. I am sure someone can see if she ever completed OT VII or OT VIII.
Regardless, she had climbed the ladder in scientology to near the top, and had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so. Those ladders are expensive. They are made of gold and encrusted with diamonds, they are “ideal” ladders. As for the chutes (where I come from they were the more traditional, and appropriate, snakes). The difference in the scientology world from the board game is that there is a down chute on EVERY square at the top so you can NEVER make it to the end. That last square before the mythical end (OT IX and X) is the longest chute of all.
Like all other scientologists who ascend the “Bridge to Total Freedom” Helena soon came to learn that her ascent was shortlived.
David Miscavige “discovered” that it had all been done wrong and everyone had to start at the bottom again.
Here is a 70 year old woman who has devoted her life to trying to attain the “spiritual freedom” that scientology sells, who has been sent down the long chute to the bottom of the board to start over. The theory is that this “tech” was incorrect and skipped when it was done the first time so you have to pay to do it all over again to “ensure you get the full gains.” They don’t quite explain how if this is a gradient of steps and you have to complete one step before you can do the next, whether anyone ever completed any steps AFTER the “out-tech” version and if you have to re-do everything after that step or just 3 designated ones that require no auditors to deliver: Student Hat, Purif and TR’s and Objectives…
After 40+ (?) years in scientology, they have now completed the introductory level of “TR’s and Objectives” (renamed Survival Rundown) which according to the official grade chart means Helena is finally “oriented in the present time of the physical universe.”
Phew, that must be a relief. No wonder they have such natural smiles…
PT = Present Time. The best question is always to ask “How long is Present Time?”. You will find that a scientologist has no answer about.
Helena looks OK, considering how she looked in the 1990s..
She always made me a little sad – I understood that she went in to get her husband out of the clutches of the criminal organisation known as the”church” of $cientology. Plus, she was super ineffective at shutting down the Internet 🙂
DANG! It’s just too easy to sling zingers at DM’s cult:
( formerly known as scientology.)
I think the Chutes and Ladders analogy (with chutes at every step) is the best one I’ve ever heard of the endless “bridge” of scamatology.
It should be conbined with monopoly money and something that alludes to the passage of time to get a real feel for it.
Hi Mike and Leah and everyone,
I have never now or at any time been associated with Scientology! My interest has grown since your great television series aired on Australian Television.
Born and raised in England in the 60’s I had never heard or come into contact with such a scurrilous Organization (I won’t use the word Religion) and I can assure you that at that time I worked for a company of over 6.000 employees and I am sure somewhere along the line I would have heard that name, Also since emigrating to Adelaide in Australia and working for a very large company GM (5,000 + employees) again not coming across this organization?
I can only deduce that it is a scam mainly aimed at the American people, in saying that I have noted that there have been expansions into other countries.
Australia at present has only shown season 1 of your great eye opening production so I along with Australia wait with baited breath for the follow up series.
I feel such great sadness for those that have been defrauded out of both money and family connections through a very contentious and inhuman ideology, I do hope those people who have left will find peace and solace when the walls come crashing down on this wholly ridiculous scam.
Mike, I follow yours and everyone’s post daily together with the Underground Bunker with great gusto trying to understand the how and why people are seduced into such a crazy scheme and just wanted to let you and your fellow aftermath scribes know how far reaching your stories travel and are read with angst.
I have never before felt such an impulse to write about a subject so poignant and heart breaking as the one yourself and your fellow sufferers have endured but I am sure that your movement will be the undoing of the COB and his sycophants in due course.
Very best wishes on your quest
Smudge
The Scion brainwashed seem to be under something similar to an occult possession by an LRH demon and only an exorcism by an ordained Cult Buster will snap them out of it.
Oh the delusions mankind is capable of willingly putting themselves under.
Though I think a good case can be made that most of these OT 7s and 8s, after decades in the CoS, actually DO need to be reoriented in present time and recover their lost ability to perceive the truth in the objective environment … Just sayin’ …
Shouldn’t that read, “Surviving the Runaround.”?
Smudge, I like your style:” I had never heard or come into contact with such a scurrilous Organization (I won’t use the word Religion)”
I don’t EVER capitalize the name, not even when my old grammar teachers would be spinning in their graves and *I* get headaches reading my scribbled notes…
Kronomex:
“Shouldn’t that read, “Surviving the Runaround.”?”
I’ve been translating it as the RD where the only possible EP is:”I SURVIVED!!!”
Chutes and Ladders says it best
Yes, after attesting the highest point of spiritual savvy, wisdom and ability ~~ OT 8 LOL…OT 8s are sent back to re-do the Purification Rundown to flush out their DRUG case (done at the lowest entrance of case handling) and then 150 hours of looking at walls to touch walls and life books and bottles “to bring them into present time.”
What ?
That be some crazy monkey shit. You go all the way to the top of the funny farm writing up your “wins” to be told by the head monkey ,” you didn’t get the correct wins… start over”.
If your that blind to see what is going on at that point, then God help you.
And what’s even funnier is that on their high pinnacles of Bridge achievement they actually obey these insane orders that push them right back down again.
Some people are just too stupid to live. If not Miscavige, someone else would be making jerks out of them.
Its a great scam. They don’t get what was promised. So Miscavige unearths some Lost Tech and changes something. Presto! There’s the Why. NOW they know why they didn’t get the gains they were promised! So just start over, way down here, you know, at the bottom of the Bridge. And pay for it. And like it. Big smiles. Keep those Success Stories rolling. Mention COB OFTEN. Let your fellow Scientologists know how GRATEFUL you are to be at the bottom of the Bridge doing this over and paying for it. (Er…you ARE grateful, aren’t you?)
Or, even if some hapless ones ARE satisfied with their gains and wins, well, tough!
This a BLANKET C/S! To the bottom of the Bridge with you! Cash, check, or credit card?
What a scam.
But then, that they don’t see it makes me contemptuous of them. I know that’s wrong. I know its not the right attitude. But that’s the way I feel right now.
Other than they’re being just basically dumb, I DON’T get how the old ones FALL for this. How they AGREE to this. I really don’t get it. If I could only get some window on HOW this is even POSSIBLE for the 40-50 Years-In Scientologists to fall for this, maybe I could feel the compassion for them I ought to feel, instead of what I am feeling, which is an active contempt.
Hey Aqua – I just picked up on your comment. C-span has a weekend show called BookTV where authors discuss their non fiction books. Last week Arthur C. Brooks discussed his book, “Love Your Enemies:How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt”
Part of it, greatly paraphrased was, “Anger is a hot emotion which says I care about what you think. Contempt is what the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called the conviction of the worthlessness of another human being. Contempt is a cold emotion. It says I don’t care about you and you’re beneath caring about.”
One example might be the classic “eye roll”. Another might be the more direct, “You’re an idiot!
Whatever – laughter
Brooks was mostly speaking about political ideologies and relationships. Automatic criticism in politics and relationships can become a “habit” and he suggests that habits can be broken. How or if that relates to Scientology and Scientologists, once again – whatever
Karen #1″… and then 150 hours of looking at walls to touch walls and life books and bottles “to bring them into present time.”
What ?
HOW “In PT” can a PC get? Will they finally as-is and disappear? Well then, I’ve reached that EP: I’ve already disappeared
It’s ultimately magical thinking – John Doe is onto something with the reference to magic. The underlying belief is that some more or less magical result can be produced, if the practitioner is properly prepared and follows the correct rituals – and if the spell doesn’t work, then it is a fault of the working and has to be re-done from the beginning including perhaps more perfection of the initiate. Hubbard clearly picked that up from Crowley, the occult and ritual magick, and then give it a space opera pseudo-science spin in Scientology.
That contrasts with the educational (and scientific) model cited by retiredPRexec. If, let’s say, someone failed a college or university thesis and defense requirement, that would be analyzed and they would be given feedback about specific failings including perhaps additional study required, and sent back to work, possibly even for additional courses – but not sent back to kindergarten.
Hi Mike,
I have a question regarding Helena Kobrin. In a back-issue of Impact (#9) from 1986, Helena Kobrin appeared as a “Office of Special Affairs member”:
https://whyweprotest.net/threads/osa-cw-celebrates-legal-wins.107662/#post-2248755
When she was acting as attorney for RTC during the 1990s, was she still a staff of OSA? And had she already been a lawyer when she joined staff at OSA?
The fact that she appears on a promo piece for the organization, suggests that she no longer works for CoS but has become a public. Is that a correct assumption?
Her professional biography says “Helena Kobrin was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1978”
An internet biography compiled on her says “Helena Kempner Kobrin was born on April 27, 1948…. She received a B.A. from Hofstra University, and a J.D. from Seton Hall Law School in N.J., graduating from Seton in 1978. Kobrin was editor in chief of the Seton Hall Law Review….
She got married, had two children, and stopped practicing law for several years during the 1980’s.”
She shows up in Scientology completions starting in 1988, though that doesn’t show conclusively when she first become involved:
https://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/by-name/h/helena-kobrin.html
I think it’s interesting that she’s an example of some of the boomer generation that Scientology managed to attract once they had become young professionals, from a bit before the 1980s through a bit after, most infamously in the era of the Dianetics volcano campaign, and also due to the efforts of WISE to make inroads in certain professions like dentistry.
Hers is also a telling case, in that Scientology has never since been able to attract that caliber of professionals, as they had since the early days, with a very few exceptions. Scientology’s “whales” and other major players are now mostly in sales-oriented businesses, along of course with a few actors including second generation members. They’re not recruiting or even retaining those with advanced education, particularly not in fields requiring rigorous intellectual and scientific training.
The hamster wheel that is known as Scientology. Money greases its axle and stupidity makes it spin.
This post was the perfect time for me to add an item in my online “Special Features” section on my “Fractured Journey” website. In 1979, Westwood Mission Dissemination Secretary Cathy Koon came up with an idea for an ad in our “Outflow” magazine. I took the idea and designed a Scientology themed game board including cartoon illustrations. Apparently we were 40 years ahead of our time.
file:///C:/Users/Shugart/Documents/Fractured_Journey/web/bonus/game-life.html
link corrected.
http://www.fracturedjourney.shugartmedia.com/bonus/game-life.html
Hey Chris – That’s a nicely designed board game. I also liked the funny musical video on the home page. I remember the duck and cover A bomb drills in the 1950’s. Memories – laughter
Chris,
Thanks for the link! I will definitely check it out.
Kat
http://www.fracturedjourney.shugartmedia.com/bonus/game-life.html
Yup, Chris; you NAILED what the initial steps were like back then.
‘Course, we didn’t see it laid out like that at first; only after we’d been caught in the trap, had a “win” or two to ‘hook’ us.
Sneaky bastard….
I can’t imagine how t feels to be a TRUE believer in all this COS fiasco, to pay out continually large sums of money, and deprive yourself & your family of life’s necessities for nothing.
I also can’t imagine to never feel good enough to make it through the entire requirements….once you reach #8…..what then…nothing much…..still broke, old, sick, dumped by the side of the road….. no friends or family willing to help because you’ve disconnected everyone….Wow
That should be used as a dictionary definition of Scientology.
Imagine that you are about to graduate from college, and find out if you have to go back to first grade and start your education all over again because they found mistakes in the teachers’ manuals. How many of you would do that, versus withdrawing from the system altogether and saying “to hell with this”?
I had a similar situation when I was a real estate appraiser in SoCal. I was trained by a bank after I took the classes at a local community college. When the RE boom hit and many appraisers had to keep up with the rising prices being offered on homes… well, let’s say some got too creative or were actually taking money to make it go right. To end corruption, the state enacted licensing plus needing 3 or 4 UCLA priced classes which all added up to about four thousand dollars. You had to pay to test for the license as well. My bank had just laid me off – they were the first bank to be shut down by FDIC for other financial irregularities. I was broke AND out of a job. I said no thanks and moved on.
There are so many contradictions in Scientology that you must train yourself to avoid thinking about them if you want to continue to follow that magical dream of getting to the top of the bridge.
For some reason, this post and some comments made me think of the Scientology IQ test, one of among several tests administered to a person before and after they have signed up and received some auditing.
Hubbard claimed in Dianetics that his techniques raised IQ in every person that received auditing, contrary to a then contemporary belief, according to Hubbard, that IQ could not change in a person.
The above statement has not been proven to be true, although Scientology claims it has been proven conclusively.
Another claim of Hubbard’s is that if you drill something enough, if you practice something over and over, you can get quite good at it.
This statement is empirically true, and is not any special kind of discovery of Hubbard’s, although the way he writes about it, he seems to be claiming that his emphasis on the importance of drilling is some unique discovery of his.
(As an aside, Miscavige doubled down on this idea of drilling in his Golden Age of Tech, his so-called rediscovery of “lost” Hubbard tech, that enabled Miscavige to suggest that he is also at the level of Hubbard without actually claiming to be another “Source”, which would be viewed as Blasphemy by scientologists.)
So how does Scientology “prove” that Hubbard’s auditing techniques raise IQ?
After you’ve had your auditing, commonly a week to a few months after you had your first IQ test, they give you the same exact test, which is a timed test. Lol and behold, you do much better!
Let’s not think too hard about it though. Pesky things like you remembered a lot of the questions and didn’t have to work out the answers again.
This happens over and over, taking the same test. You’re drilling taking this test and getting better and better at it. Your IQ score improves! Proof proof proof!!
Decades later, I can even remember that one of the answers is 33-1/3, although I don’t remember the question!
There are so many contradictions in Scientology that you must train yourself to avoid thinking about them …..
If you try to sort out the contradictions in Scn, in general, your mind can get a short-circuit defect.
John Doe stated:
“(As an aside, Miscavige doubled down on this idea of drilling in his Golden Age of Tech, his so-called rediscovery of “lost” Hubbard tech, that enabled Miscavige to suggest that he is also at the level of Hubbard without actually claiming to be another “Source”, which would be viewed as Blasphemy by scientologists.)”
GAT or GAK SHOULD have produced a massive exodus from DM’s cult sometimes represented as scientology. anyone who had studied the tech and admin, especially KSW, SHOULD have recognized just how off-source the new stuff was.
AND that one about Ron never checking the tally proofs of his books? Not even getting flunkies to check things out?
ARE WE TALKING ABOUT L RON HUBBARD? who obsessed about the details of EVERYTHING? I’d have expected him to have them checked 7 ways from Sunday, with the reports filed in triplicate.
TELL ME ANOTHER, Davey-Boy! Perhaps one I might BELIEVE.
Exactly Jere.
Really, it boils down to this:
Either Hubbard was really lax about checking his books before they went to print, and never bothered to even pick up a copy for decades afterward, and it took Miscavige to correct this massive fuck up on point #1 of KSW by the great L. Ron Hubbard himself,
Or….
LRH left the books exactly the way he wanted them to be and Miscavige has come along and tinkered with the punctuation and editing of them to “clarify” what Hubbard meant, despite clear instructions to never do such a thing as laid out in KSW #1.
So which is it? Neither of these things is able to be confronted by the remaining Scientologists.
(By the way, when I’ve presented this as above to still-in Scientologists, 3 times out of 3 a dark cloud of cognitive dissonance fell over their faces, as they tried to start to process it. Never heard if it led to them leaving though.)
Alternate descriptive phrase for Scientology do-over tech: the Sisyphus Route Up and Down the Bridge
Gat 1 and 2 were instituted to reign in the minions and put some cash in mOrgs and Missions. Nothing more and nothing less.
See the man with the stage fright
Just standin’ up there to give it all his might
He got caught in the spotlight
But when we get to the end, he wants to start all over again
A monument to the brainwashed stupidity of these people. If doing the OT levels ONCE and NOT getting super powers didn’t clue you into the scam, just pay for it twice and do again. I’ve got to figure out how to sell these idiots something like dehydrated water for disaster relief…
Fool me once: your bad
Fool me twice: my bad
Fool me again and again and again: I’m a total idiot.
My Jewish friends say it this way:
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Wynski,
“dehydrated water’ LOL- LOVE IT!!!
Kat
Yeah, that was a good one, Wyn. I’m stealing it 🙂
Wynski: Another multiple up votes for “Dehydrated Water”. My wife’s still chuckling about it.
A fool and their money are soon parted….sadly…some of these old fools will DEPART this Earth, never to ever achieve their life long committed goal to get to the top of the heap. Most of them will die broke, alone, and be buried & forgotten never to achieve their new “meat body”. It’s all a load of crap.
The rip off of having to “do it all over again” was one (not the only one) of the reasons I blew this fucking money grubbing cult. Sadly I’ve seen too many folks who remain duped pour hundreds of thousands more down the chute to nowhere. And that’s only because they haven’t been able to confront the truth of it all. I hope they wise up and join the growing number of us who have found true freedom.
Thanks Mike for all you are doing.
Very well said, Glenn. Now this is a true scam! ‘You have to do everything all over again’. They didn’t find shit, because it’s all made up. Say it with me, it’s all make believe.
It is ALL MAKE BELIEVE!!!
The one and only truth that can be found in the cult.
Coming from the same part of the globe as you Mike, I can only agree that the correct term is ‘snake’ not ‘chute’. And in the case described, the poisonous and serpentine nature of $cion truly supports the nomenclature.
They should be well indoctrinated to the perpetual merry-go-round to nowhere. It’s just amazing that they stay for absolutely no purpose. Every time I see NOT, I think of it as a sarcastic “NOT!” Lol.
If the goal is to get clear and then clear everyone else, then they should be able to look around and see that no one is actually attaining that magical state. They may have had to back off all those wonderful abilities that are supposed to accompany It. I don’t know about anyone else, but I haven’t seen any cult members flying around in the sky above flag. I guess that was the “problem” with the existing tech that needed to be corrected. Those damned misplaced commas again! And we’ve seen how good the cult members are at punctuation, so this could become a new cottage industry for Miscavige.
Miscavige can’t let anyone “graduate” completely. He has to keep recycling since Hubbard is no longer around to create more money making levels. Miscavige is simply not creative enough to forge Hubbard’s style and come up with something new. He can’t trust anyone else enough to do it either. It’s gotta be lonely and stressful in his little kingdom high atop Clearwater’s downtown.
Sick! Triple brainwashed, clueless cultists getting reamed by the cult — all for the low, low price of everything they can drain out of your banks accounts, paychecks, credit cards, second and third house mortgages, pawned car titles, children’s college funds, inheritances, 401Ks and all the loose pennies under your couch mattresses.
Suggest you read all the OT documents online at WikiLeaks before you become a long term food source trapped in a goo pod for COB David Miscavige. There is no Xenu, Wall of Fire, State of Clear or Bridge to Total Freedom. Or body thetans.
***
These people are toxic and radioactive. I literally would not rent to, hire, befriend or otherwise associate with ANYONE I knew to be a “Scientologist”. Body routed and body snatched Ron Bots. A real life nightmare!
I’ll guess that the cost of living has increased tenfold since the mid 1970’s when I started Scientology. Not including the “specialty” rundowns offered at Flog, the entire bridge cost $5,000 back then which would be $50,000 today. If someone thought Scientology was a fast track to Nirvana/Enlightenment/OT (At Cause over everything) then many people thought it was worth it.
Sacrificing a year’s salary to attain Enlightenment was less of a fleece than giving up one’s entire net worth. Elron was moderate in comparison to Miscabbage!
Richard, historic price comparisons indeed provide some interesting perspective, and if you google something like “inflation calculator” there are a number of useful tools to be found, including one from the government based on the very relevant Consumer Price Index:
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
That shows $5,000 in 1975 being the equivalent of about $25,000 today. However, if you figure that the minimum wage was $2.10 in 1975 (Google, again) – wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living – Scientology was always fairly expensive. The bridge then would have cost more than a year’s worth of earnings at minimum wage.
But the bridge in the mid 1970s also didn’t go as far as it does now, including some of the most time consuming and intensive parts such as OT VII. And the extravagant cost today includes all sorts of detours like sec checking and re-dos which while probably worse than before, aren’t entirely new. It would be interesting to do a more apples-to-apples comparison; it usually turns out that things were worse than you might think, under Hubbard.
I occasionally mention that the prices were at least “more reasonable” in the old days in case a Still In lurker happens to read the blog. Other than the Old Timers, most of them are unaware that donations for status, fundraising and the like were not part of the earlier standard operating procedure.
Richard, you are clueless about scamology management. Miss Cabbage didn’t take over pricing in the late 70’s (when he was a child). El Turd ordered the HUGE price increases that continued after his death in ’86. The HUMONGOUS price inflation happened under and at Hubtard’s orders.
Wynsky – I split around 1982 because of the second round of monthly price increases which was obviously ordered by Hubbard and didn’t follow what was going on in scientology after that. Did Hubbard suggest organization wide regging, selling status, mandatory donations and fundraising? If not then DM is just as good a con man the Old Man hisself IMO.
Richard said in part:
“… Scientology was always fairly expensive.”
UNFAIRLY expensive, since it delivered NONE of its promises. Now it’s gotten so the one-percenters can’t afford the cost of getting to the “top”, OT VIII, which basically gets you back to where you were before falling into scientology’s trap. It was all in your imagination, [as required by Ron who claimed that EVERYONE on Earth … err… Teegeeack experienced the SAME engram & implants. EXACTLY the same.
Well, WHY didn’t any of my PCs stumble across that mess in Dianetic auditing? Why didn’t *I*?
“UNFAIRLY expensive, since it delivered NONE of its promises.”
You hit the nail on the head jere! It has ALWAYS been a criminal scam. Thus COMPLETELY expensive
The lower part of the bridge to a great extent addressed mundane things like communication, problems and regrets as well as unwanted attitudes, emotions, sensations and pains. Some people got benefits and some didn’t.
It was PM who said Scn was always expensive and it was. That’s why I never bought into clearing the planet.
Auditor joke in the early 70’s:
OT VIII will be really simple, “Do TR-0, only do it right this time.”
(With full recognition to The Buddha)
Now that would be a great board game…. how about it Mike.? Add it to the bobble head that I would have loved… but the postage!!
A Scientology board game? Holy shit! Count me in!
I thought you already played that game?
No. But I have a lots of money to spill on that game board. Lead me to it!
OSD. Wouldn’t it be better named a bored game?
I heard that! I hope the boredom doesn’t kill us.
LOL, good idea OSD! How about Scientology Monopoly! Maybe The Game of Life in Scientology.
JD, Monopoly money is fine by me. Hand it over!
Are postulate checks or IOUs accepted if you’re in “good standing”?
OSD:
“JD, Monopoly money is fine by me. Hand it over!”
HEY! Isn’t that DWARFENFührer’s line?
I should have typed “Dwarfenführer” even though I don’t want to offend any little people who might be out there. In my exuberance, I flicked the caps-lock key.
Sorry, folks.
Meanwhile, I love Chris’s game. Some nice touches in a game that encapsulates beginning scientology back then so well.
The board pieces would be fun to design. A Bluebird motor home, the Apollo, the Fleecewinds, etc. etc.
The magic is in the ability to persuade these lifers to be excited to start over from scratch. Willing to bet that excitement goes no deeper than the surface.
Andrea “i-Betty” Garner said:
” The magic is in the ability to persuade these lifers to be excited to start over from scratch. Willing to bet that excitement goes no deeper than the surface.”
It HAS to go deeper than that or the sec checks will catch them and force even MORE money out of them. IF they’re still in the bubble, they better be all-in, no reservations, OR ELSE! (though I can’t really think of a worse punishment than being still-in.)
You gotta hand it to david miscavige, getting that religious tax exemption was quite a coup. Buying a car from a shyster is safer – at least there are Lemon Laws. Too bad there are no Lemon Laws that can be applied to the church of scientology.
Mary Kahn:
“Too bad there are no Lemon Laws that can be applied to the church of scientology.”
Too bad there are no LAWS that apply to scientology other than “Do as thou wilst shall be the whole of the law.”