It’s Saturday. That means it’s Terra Cognita time.
Words that Hurt: Scientology Nomenclature
I never realized how dehumanizing Scientology nomenclature was until my spouse and I began tossing out words LRH and his followers assigned for humans. Turns out, scientology is great at degrading people. If you weren’t one hundred percent onboard with Ron and his tech, he had a name for you—and it wasn’t complimentary.
Note: It would take too long and too many words to try to define all these pejoratives. Google “Scientology Tech Dictionary” for links to sites to help you clear these definitions if you’d like.
WOG WORLD
Scientology labels people before they ever set foot inside one of their organizations. Outside the front door, he’s considered RAW MEAT. The second he crosses the threshold, he’s a BODY IN THE SHOP.
Everybody living in the outside world—without the benefit of L. Ron Hubbard’s technology—is a WOG—a Worthy Oriental Gentleman. Not only is this term degrading, it’s racist. To this day, the term is widely used inside the church.
Ethics
Perhaps no section of Scientology uses degrading terms more than Department 3, Ethics. Pretty much everyone is considered ETHICS BAIT, until they’ve visited the Ethics Officer and completed their first course on the subject. For many, it won’t be long before they return.
A few of the more endearing terms used to describe “OUT-ETHICS” people are:
DB-DEGRADED BEING
SP-SUPRESSIVE PERSON
ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY
CHAOS MERCHANT
PTS—POTENTIAL TROUBLE SOURCE (all types)
DOWNSTAT
1.1—COVERTLY HOSTILE (especially if you’re gay)
JOKER AND DEGRADER
CRITICAL
MOTIVATOR STARVED
JUSTIFIER HUNGRY
OPEN MINDED
OTHER DETERMINED
OUT OF VALENCE
ROCKSLAMMER
SQUIRREL
THEETIE-WEETIE
GLIB
NATTERY
ENTHETA
OUT-INTEGRITY
SERFACY
And for those with one or more feet out the door:
DISSAFECTED
BLOWN
FAIR GAME
DILLETANTE
SP
DECLARED
DB
PREGNANT
Make More Money!
You are mistaken if you thought Registration/Treasury (the money makers) are immune to name calling:
DOWNSTAT
FREELOADER
OUT-EXCHANGE
WHALE
DB
PARENT
Pick Up the Cans Please
The Technical Division is not immune from labeling and evaluating its students and PCs:
CLEARED CANNIBAL
SLOW STUDENT
BOGGED STUDENT
STUDY CASE
DOG PC
HEAVY DRUG CASE
PROBLEM CASE
NO-CASE-GAIN PC
OUT OF PT—PRESENT TIME
OUT OF VALENCE
DB
ABERRATIVE PERSONALITY
OCCLUDED
INTERIORIZED
SOLID
MASSY
SAD EFFECT
ROLLERCOASTER CASE
COMM LAGGY
RESISTIVE CASE
DISPERSED
REASONABLE
Tone Level
Scientologists love assigning emotional tone levels to people, especially to those lower than 2.0 on the Tone Scale (who are on a “succumb postulate”). To name a few favorites:
ANTAGO
1.1 COVERTLY HOSTILE
UNEXPRESSED RESENTMENT
NO SYMPATHY CASE
HATE
FEARFULL
HOPELESS
APATHETIC
HOPELESS
CONTROLLING BODIES
Being LOW TONED is akin to having an inoperable brain tumor. There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re screwed.
Conditions
Scientologist or not, everyone is in a Condition. If you’re a WOG, pretty much the best you can hope for is being in NON EXISTENCE. Because unless you’re playing the game of Scientology, you don’t have the tech to pull your sorry ass out of your degraded state.
Everyone one who’s ever been in Scientology more than a month has been assigned a lower condition:
DOUBT
LIABILITY
ENEMY
TREASON
CONFUSION
The Sea Org
I was never in the SO but I’m sure the corps brims with unflattering monikers for people not up to their exacting standards. I wouldn’t mind if a few of you ex-SO members filled in the blanks.
(And maybe this isn’t applicable, but I always thought addressing female Sea Org officers as “Sir” was silly.)
For the Weak Minded
Labeling people builds walls and forms divisions between people; it creates an “us vs them” mentality. Making others “less human” is a prop for the weak—making the name-caller think they have something others don’t; that they’re superior. It’s a trick used by Nazis, white supremacist groups, school ground bullies, and by bigoted people throughout the world afraid of people slightly different than themselves.
Labeling people erodes compassion and empathy—for both the “eroder” and the “erodee.” Scientologists feel little but scorn for those unfortunate enough to be slapped with a label of degraded being.
People lose confidence, think less of themselves, and become interiorized from being labeled. Many Scientologists get stuck with labels that follow them around throughout their time inside the church. Once a DB, always a DB. Once a SLOW STUDENT, always a SLOW STUDENT.
One of the goals of Scientology is to extrovert people. Labeling does just the opposite.
Last Words
By labeling people with degrading terms, Scientology puts itself on par with all the other racist and bigoted organizations in the world.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
MIKE:
I’m replying to your post to me & everyone else here because there was no reply button. Don’t know what’s up with my phone today.
Anyway, I understand completely. You got it.
Cheers.
Just in case some people aren’t sure what I’m referring to:
Mike made a reply about the endless back and forth with Foolproof and how it’s a waste of time & bandwidth. I agree.
Is there a special world for “pedophile” in Scientology? I’m thinking of that Miscavige freak.
Jim, if a pedo donates a lot of money to scamology they are given the title of Upstat.
Yes, there’s a special word for pedophiles in $cientology: PROTECTED.
They’re protected by the organization in hopes of the cult keeping up a good PR image. The victims are punished while the disgusting criminal is protected.
Makes me sick to my stomach.
That is not true, flourish and Prosper
I believed the partial truths fed to me about psychiatry, most of which were based on data prior to the 1960s and most of which was the extreme terrible treatment of patients in psychiatric hospitals or institutions. I had no personal experience to compare at that time. Many people in the mental health field have worked hard to clean up their profession and to find workable solutions to help people with psychological problems, starting way back. While there were atrocities happening, there were just as many well-intentioned practitioners actually helping people cope with day to day life. Practitioners share their studies and findings so that up and coming psychologists and psychiatrists can use the latest useful techniques. These people aren’t SPs! Of course you have bad apples, but the huge majority are people that care about other beings and dedicate their life (and livelihood) to DOING something to help them live a happier life.
Today, to be a licensed professional counselor, it’s required that you have a master’s degree, minimally, and you must be licensed in your state, which requires 1500+ hours of supervised practice. Today’s LPCs approach counseling in many different ways; from spiritual, religious, physical, educational, many different aspects. They use the latest scientific data available in their “treatments” because they want to be successful and have clients who are getting better and living happier lives.
I bring this up, because LRH could have taken the time and energy to actually get educated in the field and could have shared his findings and perhaps created procedures that other psychologists found useful. But then why do that when you can fool people into thinking you’re educated and qualified in the field and make tons of money without doing the work required. You want to talk about “group agreement” – Dn and Scn are the proof of how you can fool a few people, who then fool a few more, where you see the snowball effect; all these people agree with each other, that these “stories” are actually true. As long as you can keep them from learning other stories out there, you keep them fooled.
Dn and Scn could only “help” a very small minority of people who have no psychological issues to speak of. But then it creates psychological issues (mental illness) in most, depending on how long you stay and how deeply you fall for the stories it tells.
Well said T.
Walter Kotric’s favourite was “Loser” and “Wimp”. And don’t forget “Ethics particle”. You’re not anymore human, not even an animal, just a particle. Disgusting.
Watch the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers to understand how paranoid Hubbard trained Scientologists to turn on each other using the so-called Knowledge Report. I have first hand knowledge of how sad it was for the person reported on, while working at AG CC.
The Sir thing for Female SO officers actually comes from the Navy. In formal military courtesies, you’re supposed to refer to all Commisioned Officers as Sir, Higher ranking enlistedmen as Sergeant/Petty Officer/Chief and warrant officers as well as subordinates as Mister no matter their gender.
It’s rare in the actual armed forces now, my CO would have kicked my ass if I referred to her as Sir, but it used to be common and still is in some settings like boards and Courts Martial where the President of the Court is always referred to Mr. President no matter what.
The Army loves to knock points off during boards if you refer to a female incorrectly, and I know this for a fact because I did it wrong and came damn near getting passed over from starting a reply to a question with Ma’am.
That the SO does it is actually surprising to me. It’s not a common thing at all. Learn something new everyday I guess.
Out PR. Flap. Down stat. 1D oriented. 2D. 2D oriented. Dispersed. Randomnity.
Watching Aftermath and finding Mike’s blog have brought back so many memories for me. It has been so therapeutic to share these with my husband. I got Janis Gillham’s book and showed him the diagram of the Royal Scotsman/Flagship where we ran laps from poop deck to bow and back for punishment and where I was imprisoned in the chain locker.
One such memory is sparked by Terra’s excellent essay today. Words can be powerful. When you are bullied with words and attitude, sometimes the effect is that you “rise” to that type of person yourself. The messengers on Flag treated the in-training kids like crap. It was as if we were competition, not reinforcements to help them support the Commodore. They never had the mentality of building a bench. So if you made it through the abuse, you were worthy to serve. From my era (and wave of incoming trainees) only Tonja Burden and Barbara Dutton are on Janis’ list. I can only assume they sustained the awful environment long enough to make it to full-fledged messenger.
After leaving Flag, my parents returned me to Jr. High. Had to go back to the 8th grade, which I’d already completed. We had NO schooling in the SO, so I had to repeat the last three months of 8th grade before going on to 9th. My school was in the middle of gang territory in the San Fernando Valley. We also had our share of stoners and surfers or at least the entry-level versions of these. A couple of girls in my classes spoke openly about smoking pot and how one of the girl’s Moms supplied them with weed. One girl named Rochelle, called herself Roach. The other named Lynnette, called herself Squeaky after the Manson devotee.
My superior Scientology attitude and newly learned SCN bullying empowered me to treat these girls like dirt. If seated next to them in class, I never spoke to them. I ignored direct communication to them, refused to exchange tests for peer grading, and never looked at them or acknowledged them on the quad or in the lunch line. I stayed away from them in PE and would switch teams if placed on theirs. It was received and understood. Poor Rochelle got so frustrated she would kick mud at me or throw something at me, just to get me to even look at her. To me, she was so low on the tone scale she didn’t deserve my attention or communication.
I don’t know what turned my heart, but on the day of graduation I could not leave the school without finding Rochelle and extending a sincere apology for treating her like nothing. This poor, sweet girl melted into tears and hugged me so tight. I can only hope that it helped to undo some of the damage.
To me she was a WOG, a Druggie, a DB, PTS…and every other stupid, fake, misapplied derogatory term I learned in SCN.
Thank you Terra.
Thank you #1 Son. Thank you for sharing that.
We all have our judgemental horror stories. I remember thinking someone was an SP and that’s why we did not win a music contest. I blamed this person in the audience that my imagination titled an SP.
My deluded imaginary certainty, my deluded powers of obnosis, fed complete horse shit into my being. And I was certain of my viewpoint. Because “Scientologists know.”
So deluded! Such a mind fuck.
This one is not a wonderful essay, Words that Hurt. I thought one understood as the EP of TR 8 that words mean nothing, it was the intention that counted. You could say “I’m hungry” and “give me a ham sandwich” while causing the ashtray to “stand up.” That was the whole point. That was what TRs were for, to rid the person of the idea that words can hurt. Flatten every word button. So this late in the game what are you trying to prove that words can hurt? It isn’t the words. Please don’t go into agreement with the alt-Left. It isn’t the words, it is the intention behind the words. You can take any word and make it hurt with intention. How could we even do Scientology if we couldn’t label properly a PTS person or environmental menace? But there is a difference in the intention, to say PTS so as to properly c/s the person for a PTS rundown, or use PTS with a make-wrong derogatory intention.
And as LRH said, “There are no dog pcs.”
However, the words you mentioned might make a great motivator list to assess for people who still have bypassed charge on Scientology. Assess it M-5, handle reading items itsa earlier similar itsa.
Agreed, wog is certainly a down-trending word, quite a racist word, that is why LRH called it Worthy Oriental Gentleman. A tongue-in-cheek. Back then, people weren’t so touchy about nicknames like “chink” and such that he used. And cleared cannibal, nothing wrong with that, he made his point re: clear and education–a cannibal eats people–a cleared cannibal eats people until he has been reeducated. It was a brilliant way of putting across a technical point.
I can certainly empathize with anyone who spent a long time in the COS, especially in later years. It was all so hard-nosed. I remember how shocked I was, new to the Tech Division attending my first muster to hear half the AO members chanting “Get their money, get their money”. Granted it wasn’t the tech people calling out, but other staff especially the registrars, but it was greedy and generally awful. It wasn’t the Scientology I had known to grow and love.
Problem with a valence that has committed a bunch of overts justified by keeping the show on the road is not so much the overt actions themselves, but the aftermath of sympathy for the victim which leads to the pit of being a victim. Victims are far more dangerous than you or I. They will covertly trash the good of all you believe in.
Pat
Hi Pat, maybe I’m misunderstanding you. Are you saying that sympathising with victims somehow “empowers” them in their victim-hood, encouraging them to remain in this “pit of being a victim”? Because I would have to vociferously disagree with that. Offering sympathy to someone who is hurting, for whatever reason, is basic human kindness, and kindness is one of the best of all human attributes. Equally, when one is at a low point in their life what could be more valuable in that moment than a fellow human offering comfort and support? The ability to empathise makes us human.
Pat for the most part I agreed with your post and said “right on!” to myself at several points. But I don’t understand your last paragraph. Can you elaborate on that last paragraph?
And TC, why is “parent” considered a pejorative in the church? I never knew it to be. “Wog” is interesting because my friend who is from England and is a NON Scn used the term “wog” as a pejorative to decribe someone. I turned to him and asked him what he meant because I was incredulous that a non Scn would be using a word I thought was a Scn only word. He gave me the definition and he had used it as we used it. So I think Ron lifted the word “wog” from the English, probably from his time at St Hill, England.
Cindy: I was being facetious…partly. Since kids cost lots of money, parents are left with less to donate to Scientology.
dodobird1 blathered insanely, “Agreed, wog is certainly a down-trending word, quite a racist word, that is why LRH called it Worthy Oriental Gentleman”
No you brainwashed cultist, Worthy Oriental Gentleman WAS what it stood for. It was an inside racist joke. LRH knew this as did EVERYONE living in England at the time.
Let’s get this absolutely straight – in the UK these days in common parlance ‘wog’ is a derogatory racist insult to any person of colour or more recently African origin. Even after years of reading about Scientology and it’s bizarre practices their use of the word is still shocking to me. I can’t imagine people using the term daily in speech and writing.
American readers … imagine your worst racist word and insert it where scientologists use the word wog – yeah now you’re getting it … revolting. And against the law.
Scientologists of colour if you use this word – shame on you!
Dodobird1, There are many contradictions in your comment. It is a good example of the twisted logic that makes it difficult for those deeply involved in Scientology to think straight.
1. Contradiction Number 1: You said that words and what they mean don’t matter, that it is the intention that makes the difference. If your statement were true, there would be absolutely no use for the Student Hat course or any sort of wordclearing, or even dictionaries. In fact, why would humans use language, gestures or inflection at all if their words don’t matter? How could science progress without language and understanding each other at a higher intellectual level, which language makes possible?
Of course words and gestures matter, particularly the written word, where tone, inflection and gestures are not present to clarify intent.
2. Contradiction Number 2:Your negative, aggressive comments toward those who were abused, your grouping and labeling of them all together with the general term “victim” is the sort of statement that L Ron Hubbard described as low-toned. It is also wrong target: kicking the cat you hit with your car because you got a scratch on your bumper. I believe it would indicate a tone level somewhere around “punishing bodies,” since you don’t regard any who have suffered from abuse as valuable people or even as individuals. We all know what Hubbard thought of low-toned people from SOS.
Using generalities is a bad thing in Scientology. Hubbard stated numerous times that psychiatrists were wrong to label others and not treat them as individuals. Yet Hubbard himself used labels, and you also use labels and generalize rather than grant beingness. That is not empathy and it is an effort to push away and reject, rather than understand and improve. That is also below 2.0 on the Tone Scale.
If you are going to use Scientology, these rules all apply to you: The Misunderstood Word, the Tone Scale and other basics. You can’t use one part of it and reject the rest. Scientology is loaded with contradictions and its no surprise to me that many Scientologists who are in too long lose their ability to see contradictions, to think rationally and logically and have an “us vs them” attitude toward the rest of mankind.
I was given advice early on by a wise friend that went thus: If you have contempt for your employees , soon all you will have is contemptable employees.
LRH and DM seem to be good object lessons of the above.
Good point.
If a gr8 big octopus starts suckin your soul, contempt comes naturally.
Blame blame.
When there is no more octopus, DM is used and confused.
Contempt is restimulated from all places as we wake up.
Leah, no need to be so contemptful.
Personally, looking forward to getting back to a democratic group dynamic of radical Buena Ondas.
Good on you Lyle.
*Kyle
Mike, thanks again for providing the platforms for open discussion. I can vaguely imagine the task this must be and will not try to waste your time with blah blah comments. May the force be with you.
“Leah, no need to be so contemptful.”
Pretty sure “contempful” is not a word. Are you referring to Leah Remini?
If so, she’s not full of contempt. She’s angry as hell. That’s a completely normal reaction to what people have suffered at the hands of the CO$.
Yes! You took the words right of my mouth!
Oh and Katherine you’re right it’s not a word ~ I looked it up ?
Yes I made it up. Better than saying, “don’t be so Medusaesque”. Ahh, your right though, we all have our own natural reactions to things, thanks for reminding me. I’ve been through the ringer and just hope everyone can get out safely and feeling good.
M8 —
I’m so sorry you’re struggling from being involved in the CO$.
Why do you think Leah Remini is “Medusaesque”?? What do you mean by that exactly?
You don’t think she (and Mike, of course) are extremely brave to take on the cult on TV? You don’t think she’s sincere and rightfully livid about what people have gone through?
I’m a never in and my first exposure to Scientology was the leaked Tom cruise video. Ever since I watched that years ago, I’m still trying to figure out what the hell scientologists do differently when they approach a traffic accident?
Hilarious!! When I first heard him say that I thought what the Hell is he talking about? What is it with Scientologist are people in COS why do they talk in circles And riddles and games why can’t they talk normal?? Is it just me?
GREAT essay Terra!
99% of those hurtful terms now only apply to the leader of the pirate shit, um ship.
Terra: Your provocative nominal ruminations sure evoked a lot of comments today.
“What is in a name?” asks Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet- “That which was call a rose by any other word name would smell just as sweet.” Unfortunately in LRN and scientology lingo this is twisted and other words for sweet things or people is just not needed in its vocabulary.
you missed two words Terra.
Those words are “clear” and “OT”
Anybody who is not “clear” is still considered “not rational” or “dramatizing” and anybody not “OT is also viewed as inferior.
The strength it takes for your guests to share their stories is palpable. I pray they know just how awesome they are & what they are doing for so many others. Ep.2, however, struck me about you, Mr. Rinder. Your sadness, guilt & shame that I saw a couple of times on your face shook me. You, as well, Sir, are the finest example to all. Your willingness to put others before you, no matter the circumstances of the story, is the true meaning of goodness. Thank you & thank all of you who are willing to put the truth out there. Something will change because of your efforts. God bless you all.
Yes…you see it in Mike’s eyes. His face. When I see him I want to crawl inside the TV and hug and tell him it’s going to be OK?
Me 3! It’s brace of both Leah and Mike to do the work they’re doing. But I think it weighs hardest on Mike. His eyes get a little vacant when something really affects him. It looks like he’s trying so hard to focus on the stories and pain of people on the show, and not make himself the center of attention. He’s in my mind a lot… as are some of the other scientologists, like Lee (the PI) who mourn not only the time and people lost to COS, but are walking the hot coals of atonement. I’m in awe of you all and hope to model your behavior in my own life. Huge hugs to you!
“Brave” not “brace.” Stupid autocorrect.
IMO, This “labeling” really is just an organized and systematic way of bullying and the tearing down of a human psyche to its most vulnerable state…….then an individual will typically seek acceptance and do anything, comply with anything, and agree with anything suggestion/instruction given. They are ripe for the picking….hence, get your CC out and let the brainwashing commence.
This is repulsive and reprehensible, really. I am literally sick to my stomach.
Brilliant piece, TC, as usual. Brought up a great many excellent comments in response.
So true, Terra Cognita.
When I first left the slurch, I truly didn’t know how to experience emotions anymore. I had continually and gradually transformed myself into an emotionless being who analytically chose which emotion would be appropriate to the given situation, based on LRH’s tone scale. Completely FAKE because I wasn’t experiencing anything as-is; EVERYTHING ran through these filters.
It was probably about four months after my departure, that someone did something that really upset me and I felt these emotions coming up and started to suppress them, but realized WTH am I doing? I had good reason to be upset and instead of the thought-stopping I’d done for years, I just let it flow – all the thoughts of what a jerk this person was, how I didn’t deserve such treatment, on and on; the normal flow of thoughts that humans have. From then on, I decided to allow myself to experience any and every emotion I had and think any thought I wanted to. I hadn’t really examined how I was using the tone scale though.
I experienced a HUGE amount of relief and EXTROVERSION when I realized just how introverted I was by the constant labeling of tone levels. As has been mentioned so many times here, there is a huge amount of fakeness (pretending to be high-toned when you’re not) that goes on in the slurch – at EVERY level.
When I really took a look at this “habit” of mine, I realized how I was constantly analyzing others and not really just being there with them and experiencing whatever was going on. It’s so introverting to be constantly doing that!
I’ve decided the tone scale and chart of human evaluation are pretty much useless; just a whole lot of words labeling people and putting them into a box they don’t belong in. I find absolutely NO benefit to “spotting someone’s tone level”. If someone is crying, yes, they are in grief, but not as LRH described. They are simply experiencing that emotion and it’s for whatever the hell reason it is. That’s as far as you can go with that. No predicting their future behavior because of it – nothing.
Labels can help identify (and treat) illnesses and conditions (diabetes, chronic depression, etc.), but those come from cumulative studies that involve hundreds of thousands of people; knowledge we’ve gained through time and experience. And these labels change as we gain more knowledge.
T-Marie: Wow. Thanks for sharing that.
“If someone is crying, yes, they are in grief, but not as LRH described. They are simply experiencing that emotion and it’s for whatever the hell reason it is. That’s as far as you can go with that. No predicting their future behavior because of it – nothing.” Beautifully said, I’m still pealing the onion that you describe as the “habit”.
TMarie, speaking of faking tone level, what abou training–did you do the tone scale drills where you had to talk to a wall, recite and memorize all tone levels and corresponding numbers?
Also, I found the TR bullbait useless, if not disasterous in life. During bull baiting you have to sit there unflinching, unblinking while someone hurls insults at you
I go out in the real world and think I had to be an auditor all the time anybody could say anything they wanted to me and I can never say anything back because I didn’t want to invalidate the PC
“Repeat the auditing command,” is total non sequitur in most cases..
And like you, I had a lot of difficulty displaying the proper emotion it took a while. It was awkward for a long time I had to think about what is my personality and what is the cult trained personality?
I was stuck with the label of auditor for many many years without even realizing it…
Some jerk would be rude to me and I’d say “do birds fly?”.
Kidding on that one…!.. But I was kind of stumped on what to say a lot of the time!!!
Awkward..
I never want to be part of an organization, group, religion where being labeled “Open Minded” is a bad thing. In fact, that would be in my Top 5 of life advice to my children.
One of our personal “bibles” is Dr Seuss’ “I Had Trouble In Getting to Solla Sollew.” Explores the motivations and downside of following those promising you won’t have any problems if you just do what they tell you.
As I was reading through the long list of very useful and precise words used to describe actual (or, to be fair, sometimes invented) real and existing situations in life and the world out there, with each of the words listed I was thinking (after a good chuckle) “my word, these words really describe Terra Incognito, No-Wynski, Brain, Harpoona Oblongata, Theta Unclear and a few others who comment on here that spend all their time calling Scientologists various derogatory and insulting names!” But then I thought “no, no that would be uncharitable!”
Argh, oh please, can you go away. Go smell the daisies and the daffodil’s.
How uncharitable of you! Are you a Scientologist?
Great confront and shatter.
Not sure who you are referring to , but I believe this particular naming (“Confront and Shatter” )was later on the chain so to speak and is (or seems to me anyway) to be a Miscavige invention of angry tough-guy words to describe PTS and SP handling.
Fine. Keep calling me a 1.1 and a DB. In return, I’ll keep calling you an asshole and a fuckstick, words that have greater universal meaning among us wogs and provide a much better description.
Proof of Fool indeed.
I didn’t call you anything, this weekend anyway, but if you insist. You should really cool your compulsions to reply negatively to any post I make just because it is me making it. Strangely enough the original idea of labeling people something in Scientology is so they can be helped. Even SPs! Now if your psychiatrist labels you a paranoid schizophrenic presumably with the intention of helping you, do you object to that? No you don’t do you? You don’t call him an asshole or a fuckstick do you? And do you then follow his treatment, whatever that is?
A psychiatrist goes through years of schooling and training and receives a degree to treat people. Very different from Hubbard who called himself a “doctor” despite the fact that he flunked out of his college courses.
Someone like Hubbard who lies about his past, his accomplishments and credentials, then claims to want to “help” people with made up words, derogatory labels and control mechanisms is hardly the same thing.
And helping “SP’s”? Anyone who didn’t agree fully with Hubbard was deemed an SP. How convenient for him. So, please, just enough of that already. It’s so tired.
“A psychiatrist goes through years of schooling and training and receives a degree to treat people.” – and has never cured anybody of anything and thinks the mind is the brain. And no, only those (correctly) declared SP were SP. The only thing that is tired here is the nonsense that you write.
And you think Hubbard with his non-existent degrees “cured” anything?
So there’s a correct way to declare an SP? Who died and made Hubbard some kind of supreme being to stand in judgement of everyone else? That man had so many skeletons. He was the absolute last person who should be judging anyone else’s actions.
Sorry, it’s all rubbish. Not buying it.
No one is asking you to.
Foolproof, I have to point out that it shows your tendency to resort to the false generalizations of Scientology orthodoxy when you write something like:
‘“A psychiatrist goes through years of schooling and training and receives a degree to treat people.” – and has never cured anybody of anything and thinks the mind is the brain.’
To begin with, I want to note that I actually agree about some of the critiques of psychiatry, that Hubbard made and Scientology continues to harp on – though many were far more relevant to the earlier psychiatry of 70 years ago, than modern times. In particular, I had some family members who did old-fashioned psychiatric analysis (since mostly abandoned, since it proved time-consuming and ineffective) – they were convinced they were getting life-altering “insights” but seemed no different than anyone else learning to deal with life’s issues, rather like Scientologists.
There are some conditions psychiatry can effectively cure, and success rates for treating several major conditions are in the 70% – 80% range. Psychiatry, like a number of medical specialties, inherent deals with a difficult area where the absolute notion of “cure” is often not relevant, but they do provide scientifically provable improvements for a wide variety of conditions – while Dianetics and Scientology have not an iota of real proof of doing anything at all.
And while psychiatrists tend to have a materialist view of things, it’s not true that all or necessarily even the majority (especially nowadays) think ‘the mind is the brain.’ I know some psychiatrists, particularly in Buddhist communities to which I have connections, who are more spiritual than a lot of scientologists.
As Mike has disallowed several of my later replies to all these questions then I will give up answering any more on this thread.
Foolproof —
I’m replying here because your last post to me didn’t have a reply button to click.
I’d like to say something. I hate arguing. Debate is fine and healthy, but I hate arguing and having tempers flare and whatnot. I’m a nice person. I’ve always tried to do my best to be kind and loving to my family & friends. And I’ve always tried to be kind to people I don’t know.
My point is, I have no interest in never-ending drama and arguments with you. But you have to realize something — it’s very difficult to understand how a person can believe Hubbard, especially when it’s been proven time and again that he was a liar, a hypocrite, a racist, abusive and sought to control his adherents…among other things.
So that’s it. All I wanted to say.
I am trying to put an end to the endless back and forth that Foolproof foments in the comments. He stirs people up and they feel the need to respond and then he responds with something else and pretty soon there are endless strings of comments ABOUT what Foolproof thinks and what the person responding thinks and the original topic gets lost.
This is a textbook trolling activity.
New comments that are on point are fine.
The endless back and forth with Foolproof is tiring, boring and distracting. And it accomplishes nothing.
I am making this statement for all who wish to engage in back and forth with Foolproof — including Foolproof. Let him start his own blog as I have suggested on more than one occasion. He can do whatever he wants there.
I am sending the back and forth comments to the trash. They are a waste of bandwidth.
KatherineINCali, don’t expect an insane cult member to even acknowledge the truths you just stated by Hubbard and how relevant they are. They are programmed to not respond.
That is a test to see if you are indeed conversing with a Ron Bot rather than a sane human being.
That’s for sure. Don’t know why I bother.
Katherine, for the sane it is a natural response when encountering complete insanity. One is in disbelief and tries to reconcile
Ah! Wynski – wondered when you’d show up. The reactive mind is instantaneous so you might be controlling yours better or was it just a comm lag?
“As I was reading through the long list of very useful and precise words used to describe actual (or, to be fair, sometimes invented) real and existing situations in life and the world out there, with each of the words listed I was thinking (after a good chuckle) “my word, these words really describe Terra Incognito, No-Wynski, Brain, Harpoona Oblongata, Theta Unclear and a few others who comment on here that spend all their time calling Scientologists various derogatory and insulting names!” But then I thought “no, no that would be uncharitable!””
I am sorry that I ever did that to you, Foolproof; I guess that I got caught in the “anti-Scn narrative” of it all. I should have been more respecful to you, and grant you the beingness to believe in what made sense to you. My “arguments” – most of them, at least – were ad hominem, which is never fair play nor a compassionate and responsible debating.
And Foolproof, you were right about this :
“As I was reading through the long list of very useful and precise words used to describe actual (or, to be fair, sometimes invented) real and existing situations in life and the world out there…..”
Most of those words are fine, though there are a few of them that can be misinterpreted and used in a “Us v/s them” mentality. LRH wasn’t right about everything, you know. Some discernment and critical thinking is necessary. You have to understand that if you are to use Scn effectively.
Don’t waste your time trying to prove your point here. The only thing that you are going to “win” is ARC breaks. It ain’t worth it.
Oh! I don’t know… It gives OSA a welcome break and something to read that is at least pro-Scientology rather than worrying about their failing stats every week. And of course I somewhat enjoy the banter and repartee. I am a well-audited and trained case so any “entheta” as such has no effect on me, much like water off a duck’s back, and of course I can confront evil, pretty well anyway. So I take on board your comment and thank you, but as I say, if I feel like commenting (and Mike allows such), then I will carry on doing so, now and then anyway.
Ok Theta, thank you for your comment. I usually only comment when something really jars my reality or is just horseshit. A lot of people here are operating under the false assumption that I am still a member of the Church but I left decades ago when the Miscavige shit hit the fan. But I am still a Scientologist. And yes, I have seen words mis-used in Scientology as we all have but to throw the baby (the tech) out with the bath water (church management and ethos) is my main objection here.
“Ok Theta, thank you for your comment.”
You are most welcome!
“I usually only comment when something really jars my reality or is just horseshit. A lot of people here are operating under the false assumption that I am still a member of the Church but I left decades ago when the Miscavige shit hit the fan. But I am still a Scientologist.”
I understand, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a Scientologist. It is your life and you do with it what you like. If the subject helps you, and you are not harming anyone nor violation any Human Rights while doing so, then absolutely nobody should be objecting to it, whether they like Scn or not.
“And yes, I have seen words mis-used in Scientology as we all have but to throw the baby (the tech) out with the bath water (church management and ethos) is my main objection here.”
I understand. And the “baby” can still remain home, 🙂
I won’t be posting any more here, probably, as the way things might develop in a near future, would make it very awkward to do so and unfair to the moderator. Sometimes the greater good requires sacrifices that our friends might not understand.
So you are very much welcome to communicate with me via email :
Thetaclear68@yahoo.com
I wish you the best,
Peter
Hey Foolproof, good morning 🙂
You said:
“And yes, I have seen words mis-used in Scientology……… ”
How do yo misuse these paraphrased words?
“All critics have criminal pasts” L Ron Hubbard
Quite simple – you apply them when they don’t apply. Wasn’t that hard to work out was it? Or were you just trying to trip me up on something?
Having re-read your post I see what you mean now. Hmm, let me see, “all critics have criminal pasts”. How could one misuse such a phrase – well – one could expand it and say “Brian, as a constant critic who is spending huge amounts of his time and energy working out ways to attack Scientology, must have had had his withholds missed and is probably on the run from the galactic police if not the NYPD.” Something like that?
“Having re-read your post I see what you mean now. Hmm, let me see, “all critics have criminal pasts”. How could one misuse such a phrase – well – one could expand it and say “Brian, as a constant critic who is spending huge amounts of his time and energy working out ways to attack Scientology, must have had had his withholds missed and is probably on the run from the galactic police if not the NYPD.’ Something like that?”
Foolproof, are you CLEAR that you are NOT representing here what most Indies in the field think about that? Do no pretend please, that your words are what most liberal Scientologists like Hemi, Dani, Mike Eldridge, Mark Sheffler, Ray Robles, etc, etc, believe.
This is EXACTLY how “Scientologists” gives a bad name to the subject, by uttering that nonsense.
Posters here, I assure you that there are many good Scientologists out there who just DON’T agree with LRH’s destructive policies at all. They don’t use “Disconnection”, or “Attacking the dissenters and critics”, or “You are just a Wog”, or stupid things like that. They are people like you and me you just love to help others any way they can. Foolproof here is NOT representing them in any way, shape or form; I assure you that.
These people I am telling you about are not into shunning anybody for their beliefs, sexual orientation, or about pushing the subject down your throats. They are not against psychiatry. They are not against “other practices”. They are not against responsible medication. They are not against proper medical treatment. Oddly enough, you don’t see them posting here any nonsense. Some food for thought.
Again you are assuming something about me. I don’t give a hoot what Dani, Mark etc. thinks. It is not a question of being a “liberal” Scientologist. What is stated in HCOBs works out in real life as I have observed so often so if these other people want to be “liberal” with their use of the HCOBs then fine, but that is not Scientology. What you are saying is that as auditors they won’t pull their PCs withholds and the manifestations of missed withholds are not true. Have you asked them if they agree to that? And you are changing the subject by implying I am commenting on the other subjects you mention, which I didn’t mention at all.
And actually all of the subjects you mention above I am not against at all so please stop trying to besmirch me by implying that I am, in some sort of effort to prove your point.I am actually so liberal it would make you wince!
Foolproof, I’m something of a lurker here. You’re certainly a clever fellow, but what’s coming through loud and “clear” in your posts is a smug sense of superiority. You seem to be seething with hostility and a desire to insult others, which, I’m guessing, is why you came here. Viz, your extremely insulting comment on Brian, above. Simply based on your comments here, I don’t see in any way that scientology has made you a better human being; quite the opposite, in fact. Just sayin’.
You will notice bixntram that I never start the insults and Brian, Wynski, and a few others ALWAYS start that particular bill rolling. I have been called far worse. Now, why don’t you state that about Wnyski? And in fact many of the other posters on here who spend their time and comments insulting me and for that matter, Scientologists in general? Just have a look up and down the page. As to “Seething with hostility”? well I do have a way of writing things in a direct manner and as I see them but I assure you that I am not seething. For that just peruse Wnyski’s posts. Please read my comments above as to why I come here and it has nothing to do with insulting people.
I must admit to being tongue-in-cheek with my comment so perhaps I wasn’t being as nice as maybe you think I was, but your apology is sincerely accepted. I actually always try to be fair and comment on exactly what I have observed, and where someone in the Church has done something wrong (of which there has been a lot admittedly – down to bullshit managers), then I comment on that as well if it falls within the subject being discussed. But I try to be fair without any bias. A lot of people commenting on here are rabidly confusing the subject with the way it is managed and I don’t think they really care about the people remaining in the Church either.
Foolproof you said:
“A lot of people commenting on here are rabidly confusing the subject with the way it is manage”
I do not think there is confusion at all. There is auditing tech; which most people who defend Scientology are battling to defend.
And then there is the L Ron Hubbard play book on critics which you can call 3rd and fourth dynamic tech.
Ron’s penultimate writing on leadership is Bolivar. Bolivar is in the Org series right?
Were is the confusion on applying Bolivar? Who do you know who incorrectly applied The Responsibility of Leaders?
Or
How can someone misapply “of course if you can ruin them utterly”
Or
How about instructions to get people fired from their jobs a bring their life to ruin?
These are all instructions and called 3rd dynamic and 4th dynamic tech.
Please help us to understand how these can be misapplied
I don’t know why you are getting on a moral high horse – if somebody attacks you cannot one attack them back? Oh! I get it – what you are saying is that Scientologists should turn the other cheek? Can’t see Scientologists doing that. Try some other convoluted theory.
I have given up attacking people Foolproof. I have found attacking, retaliation, revenge, evening the score, runining utterly is self defeating and ultimately self destructive activity.
Attacking is a Scientology past time and moral imperative to protect man’s “only hope”, “man’s last chance out.”
I do not name call Scientologists in my criticism. I try to deconstruct, what I consider to be dangerous and false doctrines.
But I will call Ron a Malignant Narcissist though, because I believe that to be an objective truth that accurately describes his behavior.
Foolproof, were you a Sea Org member of OSA? I’m just curious.
One more point:
It’s come to my attention over the years on these blogs, that those who still hold Ron in high esteem equate being criticized with being attacked.
That is because Ron’s “tech” on critics was that they are evil demons who who hate bunnies and puppies.
So many times I have offered a view about something that was critical of Ron or his doctrines and I would be accused of attacking Scientology and Ron.
Ron, in his inability to deal with criticism, imprinted that trait on his followers.
So now Scientologists equate any points of view that does not fit the program as an attack.
Experts at communication? I think not.
…says the person who’s still falling for Hubbard’s horseshit.
Now that’s just…rich.
Yes, it is – very rich.
You are hilarious! I am a never ~ in but I have been learning a lot. Now I don’t understand though how you can not be in the COS but still be a Scientologist? Hubbard….He created Scientology so if you still practice Scientology you follow Hubbards teachings, yes?
Isn’t that just plain insane?
Hallo Marie, I am an “Independent Scientologist” is the term we use – like a protestant in a relation to a catholic. Yes I still follow Hubbard’s teachings, unlike Mr. Miscavige! Insane? Er, well, Scientology and Dianetics is/are the only therapy that can actually handle insanity so I can’t agree with that phrase but you didn’t mean it that way I know.
Hello Foolproof,
Do you have hopes that official Scientology reforms, and allows you Independents to re-connect to official Scientology, like for instance is that a possibility, like after Miscavige is out of there? Or do you see your Independent Scientology group/connections likely being independent for a long time, since Miscavige does not appear to be quitting or absconding with his money to the hills of Bulgravia or similar?
I’ve always put the indies into the “Field Group” category, and at best, small Mission category. But more they are Field Groups, and Field auditors/self-C/Sing (as can be done).
Are you Class 6 or Class 8? My former appreciation for indie Scientologists was based on the degree of tech proficiency and experience as auditors/C/Ses they were. Some of the indies like Trey Lotz were long ago “auditors of the year” category, so in LRH’s lingo, they were “natural auditors”, that’s kind of just people who love auditing, and maybe if their lives turned out differently, they’d have enjoyed careers as counselors or psychologists.
And psychologists seem to be like dentists, and more than not, are small practices, NOT some big organized “Ideal Org” setups, as psychologist practitioners.
But Scientologists, neither official nor indies, have gained enough societal reputation to be allowed to be institutionalized or recommended as practitioners within the medical field.
Scientology has some major hurdles, I think it comes back to lack of results, and just too many Hubbard ideas that cannot be accepted by the medical field today, to allow them to even let Scientology practitioners hang out in a more institutionalized way.
Ideal Orgs being under the “religion angle” as “churches” is a major decision by LRH.
Do you as an Independent Scientologist get your wits and thoughts around this issue?
Chuck Beatty
ex OEC/FEBC Course Sup
Hello Chuck,
the independent scene isn’t big at all really AFAIK. And some of the groups are in my opinion squirrel anyway.I see them more as being a tool to be able to pry people away from the awful state of affairs in the Church, rather than as an alternative movement. But all the materials are available if one knows where to look and one can get good auditing from good auditors and training is also available. .I train people.
As to re-joining the church, yes I would do but a lot would have to change. DM would need to be gone – he’s not going to change anything. Thing is those following in his footsteps will probably have been trained by him so it is pointless to contemplate it all until we see how the dust would settle.
As to being accepted by society I don’t believe such is important at all. If Miscavige hadn’t interfered with Scientology then it would have grown and grown, regardless of what society accepts or not. I think it was Cindy here who mentioned it took 15 minutes to call the roll on the BC years ago. Now it is not even being delivered I read.
I think it was not just DM that brought down Scientology. Though he certainly was very good at beating people up. Nasty pope that boy!
It’s my view that the internet was the singular force that is crushing Scientology.
Knowledge of:
Psyches are from Farsec
Jesus was a pedophile
There was no Jesus
Diantetics cures eye problems
Diantetics cures arthritis
Diantetics cures leukemia
Smoking doesn’t cause cancer
Smoking is dramatizing VOLCANOES!!!!! Lol!!
The human body is a BT condo
Ron was suicidal while running BTs
Ron was still running BTs after he created OT 8
Ron claimed to be the prophet of Buddha
Ron lied like a rug about his history
Ron betrayed his wife, David Mayo
Ron created a punishment gulag of submissive servitude
Are there positive things in Scientology? Yes.
Are there dangerous mind numbing delusions that rip common standards of decency out of a person? Yes
And therein lies the cognitive dissonance.
Marie, Hubbard’s cultists can be part of the formal church or not. You are right though. It requires a lack of sanity to be one of his cultists. One says potato the other says potato. They both follow Hubbard’s insane and destructive instructions.
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/?s=Battlefields+
Brian, I loved this article of yours when I first read it, and again today.
Sometimes I have to remind myself about benevolent interaction also Spike. It’s so easy to get lost in the shadows of the human mind with its capacity to project our own deficiencies onto others.
May all beings be happy.
Brian – I didn’t think I really cared anymore about the C of S, seeing as how I drifted away so long ago.
Turns out I was mistaken.
I’m watching the unfolding developments with great interest. Peace.
And you post here Why? To troll and name call? Or do you just like fighting with people?
Foolproof: Although we often don’t see eye to eye, I love your contributions to this blog and all the discussion you engender. You’re a good writer. We may not agree on things but I appreciate you bringing your views to the table.
Ok Terra, yes, well, thank you. However see what Mike has written about me posting here.
And now to Mike, surely my postings and the resultant answers are at least somewhat entertaining? Haha! Obviously many of your commenters are interested in what I have to say and even those who don’t post (in support of my comments for fear of being browbeaten by others or for not running with the herd here) I would take a bet are also reading all or many of my comments and the resultant debate. I also notice many favorable comments to mine. And even those who are totally against what I write nevertheless will read what I write, I believe.
Otherwise all I see here (now and for the last several months) are various people letting rip with their own chagrin and rage at Scientology or its Church or Hubbard or DM without some sort of balance and counterpoint and more importantly an alternative view. You know and I know that much of what some people write is nonsense and divorced from the actual situation. But many of these “things” are seen from an extreme jaundiced viewpoint. But as you know many times when something (bad) is true and has happened I have never denied such. In fact I probably detest what DM and his cronies have done to the Church just as much as you do. I would also like to correct these things. But many of your commenters gain to my mind anyway, a completely false and biased view of Scientology based on the relentless, warped and vitriolic outpourings of some others. I also notice that when I (feel I cogently) reply to a reply to my comment that when my reply is not posted it looks as if the (my) theme is incorrect and I feel that that is an unnecessary bias on your part.
I won’t be posting that often here if you are concerned at the amount of (your) time my comments provoke but quite a few of your regular commenters have at least expressed the desire that I be allowed to post in response to articles. Even Terra, of whose articles I am extremely critical of as he knows, suggests he would like me to carry on posting, as above. I get the feeling that many of your commenters here who tend to support my comments don’t originate posting (other similar) comments for fear of simply being bashed down by the replies of others, whereas I don’t give a shit. So, if this blog is simply and really an anti-Scientology site (now) then I will stop posting here.
And ironically, and which is going to be probably my main point, I feel that my comments, by providing at least some sort of balance, are going to do more to make people still in the Church, sit up and think, and perhaps correct what is going on (unlikely I know but at least there is a chance), rather than click here once – read a few of the vitriolic comments and hastily beat a retreat back to the perceived safer haven of even Miscavige’s church.
Well, you have a different idea of what is important on this blog than I do. If you think people are coming here to find “balanced” information about scientology and it is going to impress them, I think you are delusory. I also think you are delusory about the number of people who agree with you but are afraid of commenting for fear of backlash.
I think the ratio of supporters to those who have been hurt by scientology is pretty accurately reflected here. There are multiple more who feel they have been hurt than helped.
But the real objection I have is the endless back and forth and prolonging of discussions ad nauseum. This comment is to LAST WEEK’s Terra article. I dont mind anyone commenting on postings. But turning this into a forum for back and forth arguments “shouting across the chasm” I just don’t have time for.
Please, I have asked many times. WHy dont you start a blog to do what you feel needs to be done to cater to the audience you feel is out there.
Victim.
That word still kind of gives me a bad time while watching Aftermath because of all the horrible connotations scientology attaches to it.
Ingrained in our psyche from the day we walked in the door was the worst possible thing we could be was a victim. Sure, there are those who play the victim game in the real world, but scientology takes victim shaming to a breathtaking level. If a wife is beat by her husband, she is not the victim of domestic abuse, she “did something to pull it in.”
Yes. This really happens in scientology. In the early 1980s (a long time ago in a life that no longer exists), my ex sister in law witnessed my ex-husband beating me severely enough that I lost a baby and my sister in law called 911 to stop it. When she told her OTVII mother, my ex mother in law said. “She must have done something to deserve it.” (In his mind I did, you know, my sister in law and I walked in in him having sex with a 17 year old girl and “f*^}ed t up for him and her because she didn’t know I was married with children” – his words as he was beating me).
I was checked out of the hospital and told to quit being such a victim, had to write up my OWs and get a sec check for the bad PR I brought to scientology. My husband, paying public, didn’t even miss a day on course.
Valerie, oh my God, that is terrible!
Valerie….your story and experience was horrendous. I’m so sorry you were abused physically by a spouse and abused emotionally by family and Scn. Abusers thrive on convincing and manipulating us to believe that “it was our fault”. Even without the “Scientology” teachings, this is a common theme in domestic violence. This is why so many abused do not leave.
There are so many parallels between Scientology and Domestic Violence.
Not only are you a Survivor of Scientology but of DV as well. Congratulations on breaking the cycle and being so courageous to see value in yourself enough to make the changes for a safe and beautiful life. I pray you have achieved this in all areas of your life. I’m in awe of you!
Valerie, I’m so sorry you went through that — but very happy you have your dog l!
I know the routine… Write up KRS, report it and then the EO says, “Well YOU must have done something to antagonize him. Right up your ows because you’re going the effect– another great label to be saddled with, “being effect.”
Sexual assault and sexual harassment are “the fault of the victim,” the offender gets away with it because it’s ‘just his 2D case, he’ll get handled one day.”
That never happens.
Probably the worst thing that could happen to a rape or domestic violence victim is Scientology….
Valerie – oh my, “When she told her OTVII mother, my ex mother in law said. “She must have done something to deserve it.” (In his mind I did, you know, my sister in law and I walked in in him having sex with a 17 year old girl and “f*^}ed t up for him and her because she didn’t know I was married with children” – his words as he was beating me)” that about sums it up. And I know of these horrific stories and more.
No matter what horror it is, you always pull it in. Funny though, with all that’s going on now, is the church “pulling it in” and what about DM isn’t he “pulling it all in”, hmmmmmmm?
Oh my God, Valerie. Amazing.
I’m stunned Valerie. I respond with a blunt sort of justice pretty swiftly with people who do that sort of thing, I hope you got yours on him.
Wow Valerie. You’re not the only one who was beat by their spouse/partner and then made wrong/responsible for what happened. I can’t say I know of many, but I do know of a few women who experienced this and because their partner/spouse paid lots of money, they were “forgiven” and moved right on to that next auditing action or course, etc. Disgusting.
I’m sorry you lost your baby. And I know you were not allowed to grieve or show anything but remorse for what you did to cause that to happen to you. Truly evil.
You were a victim (a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action) and it’s total bullshit to say you caused it, pulled it in, are responsible for it, deserved it, all that BS they put on YOU.
Valerie, tears?
Valorie, OMG, I’m so sorry this happened t you. And even more shocking is the mother in law’s resonse “she must have done something to pull it in…” And my blood boil that the perpetrator doesn’t skip a beat, doesn’t have consequences, doesn’t miss a day on course. I would have made a formal complaint and brought charges with the police over this. Losing a baby from the beating is plenty of proof he was a wife beater. But in the C of S you can’t sue others and can’t even make a police report against them. That is the prison of belief right there.
Valerie, I’m – I’m I don’t have a word for it. You, pregnant with his baby, walked in on your husband whilst he was having sex with a seventeen year old girl (jail bait, not at the age of consent), then, he beat you up, then you lost your baby, then the cherch sec checked YOU…beyond amazing, beyond incredible. These people were insane, completely. Monsters, evil, nuts… I know you’re over it by now, but still, hugs to you – there aren’t enough hugs – and I don’t have the right words. I’m so sorry.
Let’s not forget overt-y. And let’s spell ser-fac-y (service facsimile) out. Where your facsimiles or mind pictures and your case give you reasons to act badly. Like questioning the church, the direction of your auditing and where Shelly is. All ser-facs. Clearly.
Oh I was accused of having a “ridge” when they couldn’t re-sign me to the next course. Unbelievably I stayed on. A slow student, read, I asked uncomfortable unanswerable questions which leads to another insult Scilon style – being “open minded.” Oh the horror.
Someone who insists they are right, (they probably were) if they don’t agree with you, is called a “know-best.”
On the topic of being crush regged, if you can’t make up your mind, you’re “stuck in a maybe.” Can’t you just decide in the moment to not decide? Not in Scilontology. I remember Chris Shelton doing a funny impression where he said, “Now, now, now now!” How can you make a measured and sane decision when everything has to happen now? Uh, you can’t. If you say you’ll pay and leave and don’t pay like you said you would, then clearly you’ve received black PR. Or perhaps you’re a plant. Or you’re Qing and Aing. (Questioning and Answering with no decision made.) That Q and A thing, is a big insult. How can you be a BIG BEING if little worldly things like writing a check or pulling a credit card out of your pocket are slowing down your O TEE speed of particle flow.
Thank you to the other commenters for remembering and adding to the Scilon vocab of repression.
thank you for reminding me of MORE that I no longer have to deal with as I hide away.
As the months pass, more and more….I can’t believe I ever thought of all of this as Normal.
***shakes head.******
These terms seem so juvenile. LRH was a cunning, stunted little man.
Thank you Terra. Bless you for Not joining The Sea Org. You are very articulate about Scientology and I read all your posts. One term I heard ad infinitum in SO was “Make It Go Right & Back flash me one more time and it is toothbrush duty for you.” One of my superiors would yell that at me on a routine basis. I used to smile at her & drove her nuttier than usual. ?
OMG!!! This is appalling behavior…. I thought I couldn’t be shocked anymore of Scn shenanigans but I am proved wrong every day on this blog and Aftermath. Really, how much testimonial is needed to shut this fucking psycho cult down?
As a never in I am so inspired by those of you that have left Scientology and the insight you have gained, or re-gained since leaving the cult. If it’s not too much to ask, what was the pivotal moment you all decided to leave? Or was it a combination of things or events? And how did you actually leave? Did you tell anyone? Or just quietly stopped participating?
Leaving quietly was never an option for me, unless you make it plain you have no interest in scientology they will continue to hassle you for everything under the sun. After I said I had had enough a few people did try to recover me, I told them to get lost in no uncertain terms and they mostly leave me alone now.
And you were smart enough to not get involved with the cult.
I have always been interested in the “why” that ends in someone leaving as well. For me it was in stages as questions or flags were raised in my mind.
The first one was very early on. I had read a policy or bulletin, can’t remember which where LRH is talking about something and says, “Otto Roos” did something in the class room and LRH thought it was a good idea and was making it official. No problem with that, but a year or two later, it was revised, and the original canceled. It now read “a student”, instead of Otto Roos. Otto had been declared SP, so he needed to become an unperson.
Later on, I eagerly went clear and attested to OT3, on to the original OT7, then back to OT3 Expanded. I was excited about this, as all the other OT3s I knew talked about it being so much better. When i eagerly opened the course material, I thought I had been given the wrong pack, it was the same as OT3, which I had already finished. I asked the course supervisor and was told it is the same, but now that I have done OT 7, I have more intention and I can get rid of BTs that I wasn’t able to before. To my mind then and now, that was jsut not right.
When NOTS came out I found out that it was just more hunting for BTs, so I didn’t bother and jsut faded away as best i could. NOTS later became the new OT4-7. Still not interested in that.
Mark, as I recall, OTIII EX was done before the advent of NOTs but does not (now) in any way enhance NOTs, as someone would know told me.The first steps of NOTs are to repair any prior problems with OTIII and previous auditing. There are plenty of NOTs auditors in the field now.
Fool Proof, you are a troll on this site! I think you should take your comments to Marty’s site where the 6 of you will be like minded! Your constant make wrong of the posters here and your 1.1 insinuations and name calling are getting old! Your intent appears only to enturbulate and even in that you are failing!
Sandy – “just quietly stopped participating?” but they haven’t realized it yet. I receive at least an acre worth of trees of letters per week.
Terra, unless I’m mistaken, you missed a couple: 2D Oriented and Other Determined. These were used to describe someone who cared for spouse, children or children and someone who was interested in other subjects that were not Scientology. Both very much frowned upon in my day in the SO.
Children or family….
When I first came to ASHO in 2002, the popular putdown for the above was that they “had other fish to fry” (except of course if the CoS validated your other fish frying as being of value to them, as with Chick, Tom, John, Nancy & Co.)
I have a few choice labels for “the organization powers that be”…..sadly Mike would NOT be able to print them here….but use your imagination.
Just thinking of what you might have said inspires me. Thanks for that!
Thank you OSD….I really hope it inspires everyone….especially the IRS to look in exactly what’s gong on with the way they treat adults & children.
Being called names is like placing a red hot iron and “branding” someone…those names stick with you for your entire life most names are not complimentary. It lowers one’s self esteem & makes them feel never good enough. All too sad….
Thank you Terra, another fine essay. When I finally left Scientology a great relief for me was dumping the labels.
At some point I realized that I was constantly seeing my life and people through Ron’s labels.
So so so many labels.
It was the tone scale that I dumped at first. I realized how much judgement and self righteous arrogance using these additives to human relations.
He’s a this or she’s a that. They this because of so and so.
The essence, for me, was that these practices of evaluation were, to a great degree, a way of defining and pigeon holeing people into neat and tidy boxes of judgementslism.
These judgements were part of my separating humanity into divisions and categories.
While I can see the use of understanding people through knowledge of psychology, Scientology’s version brought division between myself and humanity not division.
When I dumped the Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation as a negative form of inter personal neurosis, I heaved a sigh of relieve……. literally.
Is there some truth to it. Yes. But just like all things Scientology, you get your mind ripped apart while learning a few truths.
I meant brought division not unity.
Some words and phrases used for “thought stopping”….to control emotions…… Scientology uses these “implants”
To control the cult member!
Here are a few:
“Don’t “figure-figure”
“That’s HE& R”
“ITSA”
Mind control
I experienced the same things, Brian.
I have to admit I am guilty of resorting to name calling, like referring to David Miscavige as a yellow-eyed deviant.
But sometimes there is a grey area between a factual description and degrading label. For example, a factual description of L. Ron Hubbard would be “Malignant Narcissist”, while a degrading label would be … well, I am sure you can think of a million labels to pin on ole’ LRH.
Marty Rathbun has labeled everyone opposed to scientology as being cultists, members of an anti-scientology cult (his “ASC” label) which is factually untrue.
He labels Mike Rinder, Leah Remini, and Tony Ortega as “the Troika”, I guess because there are THREE of them (?)… imaginative, yes, but factual? No. They just happen to be at the spearhead of a movement of those who see injustice and abuse in scientology, and are fighting back. The “troika” doesn’t drive them, it is the other way around. The “troika” is driven, inspired, and lifted by those who are fighting back at scientology.
So Marty has it wrong. Here is a label for Marty (and I say this with compassion and sympathy) … CONFUSED.
Marty’s labeling is just as manipulative as Ron’s “wog”.
Marty was in Doubt for awhile it seems, but he dropped down into Treason and when he started working the steps he realized who his friends really are, then began making up for his transgressions by doing this Emmy-worthy series of mini-hate segments for the cherch.
Or, if you don’t like that scenario, it’s also possible that lil davey has his one-time BFF by the short and curlies, all bent over a barrel and is now coercing him under threat of blackmail to do what he’s been doing.
Of course, some hybrid combination of bribed and blackmailed is also possible in Marty’s case because, when it comes to the cult, it’s always going to be worse than you could expect.
Dear Harpoona Frittata:
I don’t know Marty personally. We never worked together when I was ‘in’. I only saw him in Louis Theroux’s ‘My Scientology Movie’ (Netflix) where Marty’s anger was very apparent.
Today, almost 40 years after escaping from the Fort Harrison I became aware of the fact that the teachings and management of Scientology omitted COMPASSION for one’s fellow man…thanks to Jon Atack (the man’s grasp of the history and ramifications of Scn are amazing not to mention his tenacity). If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link: http://sensiblyspeaking.com/2017/08/26/sensibly-speaking-podcast-105-scientology-fair-gaming-recovery-ft-jon-atack/. We ( the S.O.) were only as valuable as we got the stats up. Compassion? Non-existent.
Compassion for one’s self has to exist before anyone can share that with another. As far as ‘clearing the planet’, impossible without compassion (and not just at the registrar’s desk either). We were not allowed to feel and, in fact, were strongly discouraged from doing so (HE&R interfered with getting stats up).
Getting back to Marty: I believe he’s a very tormented person. I think he’s was trying to resurrect himself. Towards the end of the Theroux’s movie, some of the unscripted dialogue is very telling: Theroux says to Marty, ‘you were portrayed as the ultimate suppressive’ to which Marty replies, ‘I am done with it’ (the church). Then in a discussion with Theroux, Marty says, ‘we can’t make friends. You might be surveiled. I have no life. I can’t even make friendships. I am unemployable.’ This is a man who is very deeply hurting…and failed. He has been destroyed by the church.
So, after all this (sorry to be so long winded), Marty could use as much compassion as anyone I know.
Imagine going through what he has. Imagine going through what Jon Atack went through. And there are many others who fought the Goliath..and ran out of stones.
Compassion is a tough one. I agree that all Scientologys victims deserve compassion. Where it gets tricky for me is feeling compassion, never mind respect, for someone that denies any abuse ever occurred in COS. For rape and abuse victims to come forward takes way more cojones than I personally have, so they have nothing but my admiration.
Charles Manson deserves compassion. He was bullied and abused as a child.
Even those spreading the newest strain of Scientoxicity, bot ulism, and buttulism need compassion.
Support is different.
Rheva, were you married to Bob Acevedo?
ALWAYS!
I agree with you and would add, group labels such as Clams, Scilons, etc are no better the Wogs, Dbs and the rest. The ASC term makes me laugh and I guess if “we” call them a cult, turnabout is fair play. Terms for specific people I have less of an issue, For LRH and DM in particular. Partly my up-bringing of respect for the dead, so I have more of and issue with calling LRH names. DM i am reconsidering. With him he seems much more pure evil than LRH, making it easier for me to justify the name calling. On a scale of evil, Adolf Hitler certainly gets first place, yet no one has silly insulting names for him. I guess I think the name calling should be left behind when we graduate out of the schoolyard. That said, short jokes at the expense of DM are still on the table.
I think Hitler doesn’t get called names because the name Hitler says enough, much like Manson. I hope some day the same will be true of other names of people who have wreaked such a destructive path.
Speaking of DM and short jokes, I remember this oldie from the mid 70’s by Randy Newman
https://www.last.fm/music/Randy+Newman/_/Short+People
OTOH, “Cleared Cannibals” would be a good band name.
That would be an awesome name for a band! And the cult would have a fit!
I’ll play the bass!
I’ll be therewith my tambourine!!
???
We could play “down stat” music. ?
Someone may have already mentioned this but the worst name you can call someone these days is to call them a Scientologist….
RUN!!!!
Don’t forget David Miscavige’s favorite target, “Clay Pigeon,” Mike Rinder.
Great post TC. So true. Let’s add another to the list,
” DEAD FILE “.
Dead Filed in CofS, is like having leprosy.
Outside it is a high status, finally escaping the mail and phone calls.
The incessant calls & mail. I bet these kids take so much flack over the phone, they can’t be having a good time.
Deadfile yes! A badge of honor. They no longer dare issue the goldenrod badge of honor because people are clamoring for them to prove their exalted status.
It is an honor and privilege to be “DEADFILED”
No more mail or phone calls
I want to be “DEADFILED”
Make a little noise like Leah and Mike and you can also become DEADAGENTED
Big thanks, TC; you covered a topic that’s been on my mind for awhile: how dehumanizing the $scion jargon is. Even their favorite phrase: “clearing the planet” is dehumanizing, making no reference as it does to livg breathing human beings. I mean, Hubbard and crew could have said “helping my fellow man,” or since LRH was such a soi disant Buddhist: “liberating all sentient beings.” On second thought…Hubbard could never have said “helping my fellow man;” it was never on his radar.
TC, Hubbard was having us on about the word “wog”. It is extremely unlikely that it comes from any acronym source, more likely from a source similar to the origin of the “n” word. It was in use more in Britain than in the US in the 50s when Hubbard introduced it into Scientology. Probably he learned it in the US Navy, where it is part of the ritual that is done when a ship crosses the equator. http://dialectblog.com/2013/03/14/l-ron-hubbard-and-wog/#comment-107658
Yep you’re right there – making “wog” an acronym was to euphemize it and make it seem innocent in public. It’s true it is used more in British-Australian jargon and may have Navy roots. But I read that it was a pejorative for anyone dark-skinned, particularly those that came from below the equator (hence perhaps the ritual – we’re in “wog” territory now). Another possible origin brought up is that it came from the British word “golliwog” which was a doll in black-face. Whatever its origin, it was definitely a slur and definitely has racist origins regardless of the attempts to smooth that over. All LRH did was transfer it on to other people in a condescending way.
What I cannot get over is that this organization has a jillion negative terms for people and not even a handful of positive or good ones.
Even the highest attained state is really a negative. Being “clear” at any level just means being less clogged up with cosmic junk.
Bruce, the acronym Hubbard described is correct. Worthy Oriental Gentleman is British and pretty old. I read it in a Churchill work from the 19th century I believe.
And definitely used as a degrading word applied to the many in the world under the thumb of Great Britain in its glory days. In more recent years, I’ve rarely heard any of my Brit friends use it, to their great credit.
Can I be a Worthy Old Surfer Dude?
CAN you be, old surfer dude? I took it for granted that you WERE … (a WOSD that is … but that does sound kinda like the call letters for an oldies station though)
Wynski, Worthy Oriental Gentleman may be a longstanding “acceptable truth” to obscure the real meaning of the word wog, but it’s always been a derogatory term. On the British side of my family there was a naval officer of Hubbard’s vintage who warned me against using the word in polite company, well before I was aware of Hubbard’s use of it – and gave me an example of its use, that I don’t want to repeat for fear of offending people here.
“suggestions that the word is an acronym for “wily Oriental gentleman”, “working on government service”, or similar, are examples of false etymology.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog
I think it’s one of those cases where Hubbard, similar to a trick older children sometimes pull on unaware younger ones, found it amusing to teach his followers a “naughty” word they didn’t understand the real meaning of, and watch them use it.
PeaceMaker what ARE you going on about? When did I say it wasn’t a derogatory term? Have you even READ literature when it was originally used?
The word FAR predates your relatives age. I suggest you seek primary docs.
Thank you Bruce.
Interesting view Terra, I like it. Hadn’t quite viewed the extensive but consequential ramifications extended by Scientology for their labelling of people as a very effective control method. It’s a pretty good trick and certainly justifies and gives an ‘enforcement code’ for the Scio management and the not quite bright to do horrible things to people.
Hubbard sure use to make extended use of the ‘common denominator’ in his so called technical research and stuck to it like glue . That has morphed into a Hatfield & McCoy feudal system. I studied a lot of Hubbard’s early 50s stuff and was indeed impressed by the directions of observations he was going. It was chunky theoretical stuff and showed a lot of promise if one kept it in the realm of “interesting”. But even as Hubbard falsely stated later on that you can’t be serious with Scientology and must keep it “light,” it was inherently designed to do you in, ie you’re either with us or agin us. Geezers, to look at what happened to it in retrospect and the treatment of its members so conceived over time (staff member – another label) as an organised religious practice – fuck! it was uniquely developed as a front for money and power acquisition, what a disgusting & criminal debacle!
The Church of Scientology truly is the wannabe Mafia of religion.
I think Mike uttered a pretty poignant but essential sentence to describe it all in season 2 ep2 while sitting in the car, “what in the hell were we a part of?”
Also, this is another example of one of Scientology’s inbuilt contradictions – labelling. The student hat covers the phenomena of it in detail and spells out how bad it is, yet Scientology is built upon it – go figure?
He/she is an “ETHICS PARTICLE” when somebody is on “ethics lines”.
They are making people into particles now? It doesn’t surprise me.
Pluvo, that was one of the worst … shorthand for quickly reducing a being to a THING and thus invalidating any of their points of view as an individual.)
And further invalidating any individual’s “non church sanctioned desires”? … “PTS to the middle ckass”
Here is another one for you.
My ex-wife Sharron (then Dir I and R FSSO and now CO FSSO ) used to refer to staff as “walking GEs”.
The church loves labels of all kinds. I found that when I was getting an auditing style that I didn’t really like or felt I was getting nowhere, I just did what the auditor asked because the metered registered “just below my awareness,” so I didn’t want to have to “go back” and do or redo something because I was a “resistive case” or a “Black V.” I was a “cadillac pc.”
I was a Studebaker pic.
My dad once owned a gray colored Studebaker…the one with the “cone shaped nose”….and it had a maroon horse hair type interior….very “snazzy” back in the early 1950’s!….Loved that car!
Just as the Inuit’s 50 different words for snow and ice directly conveys to those outside of that culture just how survivally important those finely differentiated concepts are to those within it, the huge number of $cn words that Elron made up or co-opted which are derogatory and dehumanizing labels also serves to illustrate exactly what $cn is actually most concerned about and focused on, which is the creation of the same kind of a binary us vs. them world view that’s always led to the exact opposite of “total spiritual freedom” throughout history.
That’s plenty dangerous right there, but $cn takes it to an entirely different level of diabolical malevolence by demonizing and punishing its own members for their thought ‘crimes’ and subjecting them to a vast array of covert mind control and thought reform techniques which act together synergistically to form a completely self-reinforcing system of mind control, designed to introvert and channelize attention and thought in exactly the same way for everyone who’s a cult member.
Perhaps the most dangerous of these methods of introversion are based on the core $cn doctrine that individuals only become upset with and “blow” from anything because they’ve committed overts against it. Once you firmly believe that it’s all your fault, and that Elron could never be wrong, then you’re set up to be used and abused by the cult, because any protest or objection to being treated badly by the cult is interpreted by every other cultist as a clear sign of your own guilt, never the cult’s.
Thus, every possible criticism or complaint about $cn or its personnel that could be made all point back to the assumed guilt of the individual as the true basis of their complaints or criticism. Once you internalize this ridiculous and logically implausible “stable datum” you’re fucked; every single evil thing that the cult has done to you and your family and friends can’t be described for what it really is, or discussed among your fellow co-cultists either, for fear of being interrogated in order to find out what YOU did in order to “pull in” whatever bad thing that the cult’s done to you.
It’s completely mad when viewed from a safe objective distance, but this is truly one of the most insidious and destructive aspects of the whole whacky $cn cosmology. Introverting attention and channelizing thought for the purpose of controlling and defrauding folks, all the while acting as if the exact opposite was the case, represents one of the most evil systems of soul enslavement that’s ever existed in this quandrant of the universe!
Just say “HELL NO!!!” to any group in which your own personal and private thoughts can be extracted from you, then punished as if they were crimes! Metered interrogation, designed to discover the “crimes” that you must have committed (perhaps in a past life, if nothing can be discovered in this one), and embedded within a highly structured system of covert behavior modification, is one of the most blatantly obvious and egregious practices of mindfuckery and soul rape that exists in the world today…which is exactly why the cult needs to be completely dismantled and its methods fully exposed for what they truly are!
You poor duped and defrauded Xenu worshipers, it’s not YOUR thought ‘crimes’ against the cult which are wrong; it’s the cult’s treatment of you and every one of your fellow co-cultist which is wrong. There are no thought ‘crimes,’ there’s just evil organizations like $cn, which attempt to misdirect your attention away from their evil acts by introverting your attention onto yourself and through whatever other forms of coercion, threat and punishment that are required.
Wow!! Loved this…. So much validation in this post. Beautifully said…
There’s one word that I’ve heard used (and seen written) by a Scientologist: “griefy”.
To give context, someone undergoes a bout of anxiety, depression, or a terrible tragedy (like the suicide of a loved one). The person naturally feels upset, distraught…they’re crying, feeling withdrawn, acting agitated or sombre. Instead of comforting the distressed person with a hug or empathetic words, Scientologists treats the sufferer’s emotions as if it’s a great annoyance. It’s the Scientology equivalent to snapping back at chronic whiners, telling them to “grow up!”. I specifically remember Laura DeCrescenzo’s case where she, as a minor, pleaded to go see or be with her mom during her stint in the Sea Org. Her auditor (Case Supervisor?) wrote down the word “griefy” in her notes. Of course, Laura didn’t get approval to see her mom. So callous.
The world “banky” is used in a similar way to put down one’s feelings.
Wow – this is creepy. Making people feel they need to dissociate from all normal human feelings – teaching them anti-empathy – is really just telling them that being a sociopath is normal. I can’t think of anything more harmful to being alive, both as an individual and as a species. But I see a lot of the stuff that floated around in LRH’s mind as just a justification for toxic masculinity. Native Americans have a word for it that I like – “wetiko” – it’s a disease or madness that takes over people that makes them try to conquer or dominate others, materially and culturally. It kind of explains global colonialism. Hi – we’re doing you a favor by taking over the place because we our tribe is just soooooo superior! And we wonder why the world is at the brink of destruction all the time.
Thanks for pointing out “Griefy” and “banky.” These were common lables hurled at someone just for the sake of picking on their misfortune and getting more money from them to “handle their charge.”
As for OUT EXCHANGE, Pot, meet Kettle.
Certain jobs held by public scientologists were frowned upon and labeled as “out exchange.” Personal injury attorneys and casino workers are two that come to mind..
According to the cult, the PI attorney is “making a profit from someone’s PTSness…” The casino worker is vilified because he/she is contributing to the criminal mindset of, “getting something for nothing.”
BUT — the cult still took money from these “Out exchangers.”
As noted by another poster here, “If it isn’t hypocrisy, it isn’t scientology.
TW,- your comment re: gambling and the one about casino workers reminded me of an early video interview of Maria Pia Gardini by the Lisa McPherson Trust; in which she was subjected to a very rough regging episode and then subsequently came upon Miscaviage out gambling with what she believed to be her funds. She was appalled to find him there nonetheless.
Oh my, so true. You were not allowed to mourn death or loss. That was not a good thing. You were required to bottle it all up inside.
All these years later, I still catch myself pushing to react in a detached manner to those situations and having to “force myself over the hump” remind myself that HE&R (human emotion and reaction) is not a bad thing and it’s ok to cry.
It’s healthy to cry, Valerie. Those are true emotions.
TC – another great essay. The us vs. them is so prevalent and especially staff vs. public.
This might be a little OT but I have to mention this here so that a few of you can enjoy a good chuckle. I receive tons of mail weekly from all the orgs and just toss them out without opening. But yesterday my curiosity got the better of me so I opened one of these letters. Now mind you this is a staff member trying to get me back in. This is how the letter starts:
Dear….. “This must be your scientology PO box that you just pick up and toss once a month or so”. The next sentence made no sense and sounded like the person was completely insane. WOW this surely makes me want to run to the org and start on course. LOL. And this people is a glimpse of their on going insanity.
I think the stat is letters written/mailed. The quality or potential effectiveness is not part of the stat. and to your point, “And this people is a glimpse of their on going insanity.”
Thank you for this post Mike, my ex is a Sea son, his mother a Sea hag and a founder, it’s difficult to list all the words they used for others but, to make it simple, any words or adjectives ending with or sounding like the word sea. For instance… I am in Heresy in stating” I was forced to file bankruptcy before my divorce, this was a sequence of events that were kept secret from me.”
I’m so grateful for all the work you do Mike and your blog is a great help mentally and physically in my purge of this notorious evil cult that started with The opening of the The Devils Gate Dam and funded with child prostitution and Pharmacy.
Saturday’s are “Terra Cognita” posts on Mike’s blog. Just letting you know. KAW – Keep Aftermath Working.
I just cogged full circle on something, when I began reading TCs post today.
I have long said that Hubbard was equally genius as he was criminal, con-artist, and even other things.
I have said that he was multiple personality disorder.
But I did not have certainty (clear certainty) on those explanations, viewpoints and labels or conditions.
But this morning it happened.
Just before I opened up this page, I looked up “comorbidity” and dissociative persosonality disorder for another purpose:
See definitions below:
And Chris Shelton has a pretty good youtube video, with him interviewing a psychologist and discussing Hubbard’s condition. Which was very informative on Hubbard’s condition. I looked for it, but could not find it.
Now I have come full circle and fully understand what multiple personality disorder is and why Hubbard was the way he was.
Comorbidity: the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder)
(Dio: I was surprised at the following fairly enlightened definition, from some psychiatrist.)
Dissociative identity disorder, formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder, is a condition wherein a person’s identity is fragmented into two or more distinct personality states. People with this rare condition are often victims of severe abuse.
Definition
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities, or personality states, are present in—and alternately take control of—an individual. Some people describe this as an experience of possession. The person also experiences memory loss that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.
DID is a disorder characterized by identity fragmentation rather than a proliferation of separate personalities. The disturbance is not due to the direct psychological effects of a substance or of a general medical condition. DID was called multiple personality disorder until 1994, when the name was changed to reflect a better understanding of the condition—namely, that it is characterized by a fragmentation, or splintering, of identity rather than by a proliferation, or growth, of separate identities. As this once rarely reported disorder has become more common, the diagnosis has become controversial.
Some believe that because DID patients are easily hypnotized, their symptoms are iatrogenic, meaning they have arisen in response to therapists’ suggestions. Brain imaging studies, however, have corroborated identity transitions in some patients.
DID reflects a failure to integrate various aspects of identity, memory, and consciousness into a single multidimensional self. Usually, a primary identity carries the individual’s given name and is passive, dependent, guilty, and depressed. When in control, each personality state, or alter, may be experienced as if it has a distinct history, self-image and identity. The alters’ characteristics—including name, reported age and gender, vocabulary, general knowledge, and predominant mood—contrast with those of the primary identity. Certain circumstances or stressors can cause a particular alter to emerge. The various identities may deny knowledge of one another, be critical of one another or appear to be in open conflict.
Possession-form identities often manifest as behaviors that appear as if a spirit or other supernatural being has taken control of the person. Many possession states around the world are a normal part of a cultural or spiritual practice; these possession states become a disorder when they are unwanted, cause distress or impairment, and are not accepted as part of a cultural or religious practice.
Symptoms
The following criteria must be met for an individual to be diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder:
The individual experiences two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self). Some cultures describe this as an experience of possession.
The disruption in identity involves a change in sense of self, sense of agency, and changes in behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and motor function.
Frequent gaps are found in memories of personal history, including people, places, and events, for both the distant and recent past. These recurrent gaps are not consistent with ordinary forgetting.
These symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Particular identities may emerge in specific circumstances. Transitions from one identity to another are often triggered by psychosocial stress. In the possession-form cases of dissociative identity disorder, alternate identities are visibly obvious to people around the individual. In non-possession-form cases, most individuals do not overtly display their change in identity for long periods of time.
People with DID may describe feeling that they have suddenly become depersonalized observers of their own speech and actions. They might report hearing voices (a child’s voice, the voice of a spiritual power), and in some cases, these voices accompany multiple streams of thought that the individual has no control over. The individual might also experience sudden impulses or strong emotions that they don’t feel control or a sense of ownership over. People may also report that their bodies suddenly feel different (like a small child, huge and muscular), or that they experience a sudden shift in attitudes or personal preferences before shifting back.
Sometimes with DID experience dissociative fugues, where they discover they have traveled but have no recollection of the experience. People vary in their awareness of their amnesias, and it is common for people with DID to minimize their amnestic symptoms, even when the lapses in memory are obvious and distressing to others.
More than 70 percent of people with DID have attempted suicide, and self-injurious behavior is common among this population. Treatment is crucial to improving quality of life and preventing suicide attempts.
Causes
Why some people develop DID is not entirely understood, but they frequently report having experienced severe physical and sexual abuse, particularly during childhood. Among those with the DID in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, approximately 90 percent report experiencing childhood abuse.
The disorder may first manifest at any age. Individuals with DID may have post-traumatic symptoms (nightmares, flashbacks, and startle responses) or post-traumatic stress disorder. Several studies suggest that DID is more common among close biological relatives of persons who also have the disorder than in the general population. As this once rarely reported disorder has grown more common, the diagnosis has become controversial. Some believe that because DID patients are highly suggestible, their symptoms are at least partly iatrogenic—that is, prompted by their therapists’ probing. Brain imaging studies, however, have corroborated identity transitions
Interesting Dio.
DID is most common with victims of “religious” ritual sexual abuse. I treated a patient with DID with this background and, through my research and consultations with DID specialists in the field (one of whom provided supervision and consultation throughout my work with this patient), this is a common theme.
I wouldn’t presume to diagnosis him (LRH) without a full assessment; however, if specialists are post-death diagnosing DID, this makes LRH’s life choices and behaviors even more intriguing. I mean, if he follows the common theme of religious ritual sexual abuse as a child….then he starts a religion? Cannot be anymore macabre…
If it’s not hypocritical, it’s not Scientology.
Whilst Scientology defines ‘normality’ and uses labels to distinguish those who deviate, it heavily criticises Psychiatry for…yes, that’s right…defining ‘normality’ and using labels to distinguish those who deviate.
For example…
“…every single psychiatric label stigmatizes the person being labeled and as long as we continue to use psychiatric labels (contained within the DSM) to describe behaviors – psychiatry will continue to profit while the public suffers.” [1]
“In psychiatry, there are no tests, there is no science and there are no cures. There are just words, ideas, beliefs, views, assumptions, speculations, opinions, illusions and guesswork. We should not resign ourselves to this deception, and submit to the psychobabble. Don’t allow the next generation to be stigmatised with unscientific labels that don’t peel off.” [2]
“Being labeled…can be an enormous burden: on individuals, their families, and their friends. It’s a label that can hang like an albatross around someone’s neck, instead of serving as a guide to the most appropriate support. All such labels rest on a definition of what’s considered ‘normal,’ but normality is extremely contentious.” [3]
1. https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-disorders/psychiatric-labels-are-the-problem/
2. http://www.cchr.org.uk/latest-news/hace-heard-associative-competitive-disorder/
3. https://www.cchrint.org/2014/05/06/whats-normal-the-politics-of-psychiatric-labeling/
CCHR has no idea what they’re talking about.
During the 16 years I was involved (including time on ASHO staff and as Flag public), I was never comfortable using derogatory terms to “define” others. Somehow I knew people were most likely doing their best, or what made the most sense to them. Injustice was rampant, and lashing out against it struck me as sane. I simply wasn’t able to rid myself of empathy. Maybe that was the crack that let the light (finally) shine in. 🙂
TC wonderful article. Scientologist are taught from the git go to be judgemental to the nth degree. That also applies to themselves and their own self worth.
I dont recall a lot of sea org specific insults and i was there 7 years. Favorites of sea org are DBs or degraded being, serfac, down stat, 1.1.
I can say that these terms are used in a very derogatory manner.
Its funny how low victim is on the tone scale and thats miscaviage favorite tactic. Loom what mike and leah did to me.
“Lifer” – in the RPF or Rehabilitation Project Force, one who is unlikely to graduate in the foreseeable future.
But there are a lot of slang terms about disasters and cruelty in the Sea Org.
“SRA” or “Severe Reality Adjustment”, a stern lecture given so forcefully and so close to you that you often have to wash your face afterwards. Also called a “Face Ripping”.
“Condition One” or “All Hands on deck”, literally means every person on post or on watch station, but typically this involves awakening anyone who is off watch sleeping. So in practice it means we are up until the situation is resolved.
“Hill 10”, explained by Hubbard as being from military usage as in the extreme effort to take a hill with a numbered designation. In practice it is just an extended emergency that results from someone’s incompetence. Since the entire Sea Org is a volunteer amateur organization with little real training or professionalism such emergencies are commonplace.
“SNAFU”, “Cluster F” and “WTF Over?” in many combinations mixed with other profanity, borrowed from the military, are also common. I hesitate to explain them on a family friendly forum. Get your mom to tell you if you don’t already know.
“Evolution”, strictly this just means an action that involves the participation of more than one unit. Like the “Statistics Evolution” every week where every staff member reports their statistic, the reports get forwarded to management and they are all graphed. But in practice it means a large organized effort to resolve a “Hill 10” and may involve many “SRA”s. Like the “Flood Evolution” at the Int Base, ongoing for many days with little to no sleep.
“White Night”, all-nighter where you really stayed up all night and didn’t catch a nap.
“Mid Rats”, midnight rations or late evening meal, for those on the late shift or planning to stay up all night.
“Canteen”, this is the same as the English word except that it is much more like a little necessities shop with toothpaste, razors and such along with packaged snacks. Rarely they have cooked or prepared food, mostly it is candy bars and chips. All the Sea Org bases of any size have this. On the Freewinds it is just a closet. It is generally never seen by the public. In the 80s there was no proper canteen in the Big Blue so people went to a local drug store (which is now a clothing shop) to get their necessities and snacks. There was even a taco truck that pulled up in the parking lot, that did a brisk business when the base was on rice and beans. As the tyrannical grip of central authority tightened they established these little shops so the Sea Org did not wander around Hollywood too much.
It is funny to note how many of the slang terms involve disasters of all kinds. Just as the Inuit were said to have many names for different types of snow, the masters of disaster in the Sea Org have many names for the different types of foul-ups.
a very rational Explanation of this phenomena:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/10/09/why-do-intelligent-well-educated-people-still-believe-nonsense/
enjoy
I think it’s also because we just love being in tribes, clubs and hierarchies. It makes some people feel secure or that life has meaning. And justifying your own tribe because it’s good (and therefore all others are bad) is a pretty typical phenomenon, too unfortunately. You would think as a species we would have learned to balance that out with other impulses, but apparently not. Talk about fear-based.
Thanks TC, I enjoyed this. I remember almost all of these words, too. It was a very accepted practice to label everybody! How to introvert someone, just stick a label on them.
Someone just stuck a label on me. It says, Eat at Joe’s.
Sorry OSD … I closed the diner and moved to the tropics.
Haha good one OSD!
I’m mind boggled that you can actually call Scientology a religion ! Who would want to be a part of such a nasty, antisocial, hate filled group? How could anyone think that ripping families apart is something good? Can’t wrap my head around it….
It’s why so many of us left in the early 80s! We simply could no longer tolerate the real inside activities and behaviours.
Hello! First time commenter, long-time reader. 🙂
Great article, TC. This cult messed with my mind so badly. I feel I did get some good out of it at one point but the cost was way too high. In the end, it took a huge toll on my self-esteem, family, and finances.
In the time leading up to my finally waking up and saying “Screw this!”, I was very depressed and had suicidal thoughts. I kept my kids and family in mind which kept me from doing it. Glad I didn’t but I am still dealing with the consequences of having been involved in their madness.
A huge thank you to Mike, Leah, and everyone who has been speaking out.
WELCOME ASTRO —-It’s always great to have a new contributor join us. I am looking forward to your insights . Stay Strong !
Thank you! I will.
Hello Astro. Welcome. Yes, it’s messy alright. Don’t blame yourself for walking into the minefield of Scientology, a lot of us did. The fact you woke up and made your way out of it is what matters most. Kids and family come first. Good luck to you and yours. Let us know what you think of things every now and again.
Thank you. I sure will. It feels good to finally have written here.
Astro – welcome. It took me close to a year to comment here and two years before commenting on Ortega out of fear of OSA tracking me down. Enjoy the blog, comments and your freedom.
🙂
Welcome aboard AP. Glad you’re here.
Thanks 🙂
Welcome Astro Plasma 🙂
Thank you
Thank you for this, TC. I believe this exemplifies LRH as a man of his time. But his time was close to 100 years ago. By following his “scripture”, his teaching, the hate is still embraced, perhaps not even knowingly, embedded deep.
I wanted to mention Scientologys public embrace of NOI, and the NOI’s Anti Semitic hate speech. Scientology embraces another hate group while accusing the world of its own crimes against humanity.
The building blocks of a criminal cult. Compliments of a criminal cult leader.
Well pointed out Terra!
Thanks TC for filling us in. As a never in I wondered what WOG stood for. I’m truly appalled.
Same here TC….We’ve heard quite a few not so nice terms used for those never in, still in, blown, or tossed out……wow, as noted, nothing but insulting.
I’d like to post a few of my own terms for the COB & his legion of loyalist to the end and beyond that minions….but sadly, it would be so terrible Mike would NEVER be able to port it.
Here’s a definition of WOG I just found — from the Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wog
I had no idea all these years.
TC – you mentioned the us vs them barrier, which is highly accurate. I believe that was the point from the beginning.
To oversimplify, Hubbard wanted to take over everything and have it under his dominion. Those who fell in lockstep, great. Those who didn’t were either potential adherents, potential enemies or straight enemies.
Us versus them seems paramount in the foundation and formation of the CoS, and is as prevalent today as it was when he started writing the policies and procedures that would come to harm so many, despite if they were in agreed with his stance, connected only via someone they cared about who was in, or simply an unaffiliated observer. The words you wrote help illustrate the wonderful point you’ve made.
Us versus them in not only KSW, its part of the shackles (& the key in some situations) that helps keep the CoS cogs turning, even if turning slower everyday.
And it all is further encompassed within administrative policies, named:
“The Business of Orgs”
and the premiere policy advising never to let the customer ever veer off track
“Handling the Public Individual”
and LRH’s final whole track theoretical handling of the followers
“Routing Forms, How to Write One”
Don’t forget “coins” from the FEBC tapes
“Pork Bellies”. ASI advice for slimming Norman Starkey and Lyman Spurlock
“saboteurs” for Gold staff LRH scapegoated. Also “criminals”
There were a whole slew of made up slang.
Not from LRH but I overheard the “Slack PAC” one in the early 80s
Chuck, someone told me there was an advice from Hubbard that any evaluation done on the PAC area had to have out-ethics as the number one why. As though everybody in the LA area led a typical movie star life with multiple wives and mistresses on the side.
I guess he would know, he lived there in a bigamous relationship in a house full of practicing followers of Aleister Crowley.
And of course the ever popular way to COMPLETELY nullify a being’s communication about anything … it’s all just HE&R.
Excellent essay. The. Cult of greed is a cast system, it has even slaves and even the slaves think they are superior. Just think the opinion the three greatest beings in the universe must have of them selves: L. Ron, Little Davey and Tom Cruise!!!!!
Ah yes, the pecking order of the statics, the big beings of amplified nothing. Their opinion of themselves is all they have in their tiny little charred clinker of a shared group conscience. Separate jail cells with a view of a brick wall would be moral step up for them, they just don’t know how good that would be for the rest of humanity.
I’ve been describing the social hierarchy within $cn as a caste system for some time now. It’s very obvious to all who’re willing to look that while the rules and regulations governing the words, thoughts and deeds of $cilons purport to apply to every member equally, the historical reality there is that high-caste cultists (i.e., wealthy, famous and powerful clams) virtually can do no wrong, just so long as they keep their noses clean and continue to feed the beast on a regular and generous basis.
Everyone else in the cult is consigned to the lower castes of $cn, who all get shat upon, used and abused, but to differing degrees.
The essential unfairness of this internal justice/ethics system is so blatant that it absolutely has to rankle those low-caste $cilons who’re making huge personal sacrifices for the cult, yet being treated like criminals by it, while high-caste $cilons can buy their way out of any trouble they might find themselves.
Even if you don’t question any part of Elron’s idiotic space opera cosmology, and you believe in every word like a good little Ronbot, you could still get pretty pissed off about the inequality of treatment within the cult. Too bad these low-caste $cilons are so cowed and craven that they can’t even speak up for themselves concerning this fundamental issue of equal justice and fair treatment.
*************************************************************************************
Dear still-in Scientologist,
How could a person tell if they are in a dangerous mind control cult?
One clear sign of that is if the group that they’re a member of purports to treat everyone within it equally, yet does not, and you’re prohibited by the group from discussing that fact openly with others and from seeking redress of instances of unequal treatment which affected you personally.
When the rules of conduct within the group don’t apply equally to everyone in the group, yet that unequal treatment can not be discussed or even thought about without those acts themselves being considered an ethics violation by those enforcing the group’s rules, then you know for sure that you’re in a cult and it’s time to look for the exits.
Your comment would also apply to Congress! LOL And most of the levels of any governmental group.
Someone needs to SUE this cult (cos) for being RACIST ! I bet that hubbard’s early family owned Slaves !
The cherch does to this day. It’s part of the $cientology CULTure.
Python, If you re-read TC’s, you’ll see that ElCon, hisself owned slaves. That was the whole reason for his efforts. Sadly, he became an expert at creating them.
A thought which keeps coming up in my psyche is, “Who were Hubbard’s parents?” I’ve heard virtually nothing about them and it seems they never existed. Perhaps that’s where the Hubbard drama actually began? It’s always puzzled me.
Of the many books I’ve read on the cult the best source of info on Hubbard’s early life, and his entire life really, is Russell Miller’s ‘Bare-Faced Messiah’ (due credit to Gerry Armstrong). Hubbard’s father was in the US Navy and as such had to leave the family to serve on distant posts. Is this where the drama actually began? Considering Hubbard later created a fake navy and policy which tore and continues to tear families apart…I’d say yeah.
Wow. I am amazed that more people dont really lose their minds. I wondered about the suicide rate within CoS.
Are there still people in the “hole”? Anyway to get them free?
Regards
On the site http://whyweprotest.wikia.com/wiki/Scientology_Suicides there is a list of suicides related to COS. I haven’t counted myself, and I haven’t checked if all the people who committed suicide were in. I think there are about 140 names and I assume they were all in.
On Kristi Wachter’s completions site http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/ there are about 100,000 different names. Now there are a lot of problems there like spellling, women having different names through their lifetime etc. Also the database may not be complete. But let’s assume it mentions about half of the people who were ever in. So that gives me 200,000 members in COS from 1950 until now.
Suicide rates are given for every 100,000 people PER YEAR for a lot of countries here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate . Sri Lanka tops this list with 34.6 per 100,000 per year.
It would be tempting to say that the COS had 70 suicides for every 100,000 members it ever had, but that would not be correct. Then we wouldn’t take the “per year” in account.
However, you may want to try and reach your own conclusions.
Ouch!
While I appreciate the attempt to make suicide not only correlative but perhaps causal with CoS membership – that may just be too hard to extrapolate. So many variables influence that having nothing to do with religion, or geography or other demographics..
What is absolutely crystal clear though is that the organizational response to those who are suicidal is negative, dismissive and cruel, as is the response to those who lose people to suicide. THAT is measurable and can be analyzed and judged. It’s another response to life that does nothing but blame, control and punish. How could that possibly be “clearing” the planet of anything but decency?
Very true, Cecybeans. What makes it more incredulous though, is that they purport to have the solution to any and all mental health problems. If this were the case (which we know it’s not) then there should be no suicides in the group, or at least far fewer than normal.
Selective help, $cientology style. Crazy thing is really, having lots of money only makes it worse if you stay in. There seems to be some correlation between justifying your investment and the risk of caving in very hard when the scam of it all becomes obvious. People still in and especially those whales supporting Scn are a walking, talking, time bomb. There’s a very pronounced grey, risky kind of area in the minds of all Scios, when they find it, fall or are pushed into it, oh my…
Of course I know that correlation (if any) does not equal causality. I’d like to point out though there is (IMHO) nothing wrong with trying to get an idea of the statistics of suicide within the COS.
I would think that being in a group, such as the COS, that has high control over its members and asks a lot of them enlarges the risk of suicide.
I linked to the wiki page with suicide rates per country as a thoroughly examined example for the statistics. I would absolutely agree that a better comparison would be made with suicide rates for other high control groups. I’d welcome any insights on that.
Oh I wasn’t criticizing that aspect of your comment. I think it’s interesting to look at any organization or geographic location that might have higher than normal rates of suicide, just to be aware of a risk factor even if it cannot be identified. At least it makes people aware. (And I’d think simply the pressures of being a CoS member would suffice as an undue stressor that could contribute).
I like T-Marie’s approach because it avoids any possible pushback or defense of that angle by the organization, in that any rate of suicide at ALL, given CoS outrageous claims, would tend to contradict them simply on the face of it.
Psychiatry certainly doesn’t claim to be that infallible, and even other religions, which seem to think that faith and prayer are substitutes for a more scientific or educated approach, while they may therefore consider suicide a mortal sin or a shameful or selfish act, do not ostracize those who are grieving or who sympathize.
Reactions to suicide are still evolving to a more enlightened and informed reaction, both in the psychological sciences and in modern religions. It just seems a shame that CoS perpetuates the worst of both and seems to in its fundamental ideologically, and in its primary goal of preservation of self, have such a backward and tone deaf set of reactions to a situations that are heartbreaking and difficult to experience.
One could also argue that if CoS had such an infallible theological path, there would be not only be a whole lot more members, but also much fewer “apostates” that are disappointed or critical of its claims. And the fact they are so aggressive and vicious about defending themselves is simply counterintuitive to any large and successful theology, which would expect such attrition and simply move on.
To those of us on the outside, the only time we see that kind of nasty pushback to people who leave is not in legitimate religions but in cults, or sects that are primarily interested in material wealth and not in spiritual gain.
🙂
If they are still in they have ‘lost their minds’. The one they use is called the group mind and the result is group think. The mental health director is Dave and He has a few ‘nurse ratchets’ around to manage the slaves.
The rest of the group follow the orders as ‘per policy’. For more on ‘policy’, watch Mike and Leah as the true group policy is exposed.
Yo Dave,
Howz the scotch goin down these days good buddy. Just like Your stats I suppose ……… smoothly all the way to the bottom! Has anyone in Your thinking group mentioned that You are a loser Dave? No? Hmmmmmm…thats odd!
Newcomer – I LOVE your comments, I actually look for them. You crack me up each time.
“… mentioned that You are a loser Dave? No? Hmmmmmm…thats odd!”
Not odd at all, they are merely trying to avoid the RPF or worse.
Another wonderful essay, TC. Thank you!