Boojuum
Silver Meritorious Patron
Who's to blame? Philip.
My conclusions are mostly from the article's information. Yes, we can easily paint a logical picture that involves Phillip being force fed Scientology from an early age by parents who were eager to treat their child like a grownup inhabiting a child's body. Marie, his mother, was an ardent supporter of the cos and all it stood for. I think she was a SHSBC grad as well. It's a simple conclusion that Phillip's formative years were very stressful and wierd and perhaps lacking in the love or protection that he should have had. Imagine yourself as a thorough Scientologist, with money, and your genius kid is smoking dope and appears to be a terrific success but is trying to adjust at the most prestigious technical school in the world and you're not sure it's working but your kid seems to be very, very capable of handling things for himself. What do you do???? He's as smart as you and has been on his own for years and doesn't want auditing or training and certainly not ethics handlings.
If Phillip was getting auditing, training or otherwise on lines, it makes for a stronger case against the cos. Maybe we can blame his parents for their beliefs causing undue stress on Phillip but it's a stretch. The date of the suicide points to the teachings of LRH. I dunno. Interview a number of people and you'll find about 100% of them came from disfunctional families.
A suicide is something done by an individual. Phillip's suicide note was pretty clear. It wasn't a murder. His parents weren't there. It was a terrible tragedy to those he left behind. From the article, it seemed as if Phillip was rebellious and not very responsible, not unlike most 19 year old kids.
In 1987 or so, I remember seeing a wonderful treehouse at the Gale's house in Clearwater. They had a pool as well. I thought the treehouse had to be the work of loving parents, working with their children in the hopes that their kids would have a full and happy life.
The death of a child is a tragedy.
I would argue that the Gales did everything they could to prepare their child for a successful life, and Phillip ended up with an empty sense about his place in the world, in spite of his success and abilities. This brings up another point about Scientology--it isn't for everyone; and what does a Scio parent do when their kids aren't buying into the philosophy? I guess it could get pretty wierd but there's a lot of wierd parenting going on and trying to make your teenage kids responsible is not a crime.
He said Philip was often harassed by them, and that he felt alone in the world for a number of reasons, including the odd scn-enforced relationship (or lack thereof) with his mother.
My conclusions are mostly from the article's information. Yes, we can easily paint a logical picture that involves Phillip being force fed Scientology from an early age by parents who were eager to treat their child like a grownup inhabiting a child's body. Marie, his mother, was an ardent supporter of the cos and all it stood for. I think she was a SHSBC grad as well. It's a simple conclusion that Phillip's formative years were very stressful and wierd and perhaps lacking in the love or protection that he should have had. Imagine yourself as a thorough Scientologist, with money, and your genius kid is smoking dope and appears to be a terrific success but is trying to adjust at the most prestigious technical school in the world and you're not sure it's working but your kid seems to be very, very capable of handling things for himself. What do you do???? He's as smart as you and has been on his own for years and doesn't want auditing or training and certainly not ethics handlings.
If Phillip was getting auditing, training or otherwise on lines, it makes for a stronger case against the cos. Maybe we can blame his parents for their beliefs causing undue stress on Phillip but it's a stretch. The date of the suicide points to the teachings of LRH. I dunno. Interview a number of people and you'll find about 100% of them came from disfunctional families.
A suicide is something done by an individual. Phillip's suicide note was pretty clear. It wasn't a murder. His parents weren't there. It was a terrible tragedy to those he left behind. From the article, it seemed as if Phillip was rebellious and not very responsible, not unlike most 19 year old kids.
In 1987 or so, I remember seeing a wonderful treehouse at the Gale's house in Clearwater. They had a pool as well. I thought the treehouse had to be the work of loving parents, working with their children in the hopes that their kids would have a full and happy life.
The death of a child is a tragedy.
I would argue that the Gales did everything they could to prepare their child for a successful life, and Phillip ended up with an empty sense about his place in the world, in spite of his success and abilities. This brings up another point about Scientology--it isn't for everyone; and what does a Scio parent do when their kids aren't buying into the philosophy? I guess it could get pretty wierd but there's a lot of wierd parenting going on and trying to make your teenage kids responsible is not a crime.