What's new

My thoughts on the cult - please feel free to comment

Forum Rules

1. Treat others with respect.
You are to respect every other user on the board despite any personal, religious and political differences. The following will not be tolerated:
Personal insults
Ad hominems
Threats or promotion of violence
2. One user account per person.
The use of 2 or more posting accounts is prohibited. Using a proxy account (or sock puppet) to cause trouble will not be tolerated. If you can't say what you need to say with your user account then it probably shouldn't be said in the first place.

If it is found that you have registered a sock puppet account (by matching IP addresses) the second (and any subsequent accounts) Will be deleted without notice and the primary user ID will incur an infraction.

3. No posting of complete copyrighted documents (fair use snippets are accepted)
We don't really want to be bothered by Scientology lawyers and lawsuits because of posted copy written material. There are plenty of sites that already host those documents and they can be linked to. Posting "Fair Use" snippets is ok if you want to refer to something to make a point, just don't go posting the entire "History of Man".

4. No private PMs or emails are to be posted without prior permission from the other party.
This is a violation of privacy and won't be tolerated.

5. No posting of other members personal information.
In this group of ex Scientologists we are bound to run into people who we knew in our former "lives" as Scientologists. Given the extreme violations of privacy already rampant in the church it is quite likely that you may know of some personally embarrassing information about another poster. For example: you may have known poster "John" in the church and know that he had gotten into trouble for gambling or theft or promiscuity etc.

To bring up these personally embarrassing things (whether true or not) as some sort of oneupmanship or as a form of retaliation in an argument is really bad form and will not be tolerated on this message board.

6. Link to long pieces of text where possible.
Instead of copying and pasting long pieces of text, snip the bit you want and link to the rest. Experience shows that the longer your post is the less likely it will be read anyway. Of course if your post (your own words) is quite long because you are telling your personal story, that is different. Personal stories will be always be read no matter how long they are because people are interested.

6. Respect the moderators.
Moderation is a thankless task. You can't please all the people all the time but the moderators will do their best to be fair to everyone.

If you disagree with a decision a moderator has made please don't make a huge scene on the board. PM or email the moderator in question and put your case forward. Usually disputes can be resolved amicably by doing this. If you are still unhappy with the outcome, email or PM the board administrator who will have the final say.

7. Don't feed the trolls.
By its nature, this board is likely to attract its share of trouble makers. Trolls thrive on attention so the best thing you can do is to ignore them and report any offending post to a moderator who will deal with the situation. Getting into flame wars with a troll is exactly what they want you to do, so don't give them the satisfaction.

Warning/Infraction System

The warning/infraction system is used to remind ESMB members of the rules and guidelines. If you make a post that violates the rules of ESMB you will be given a warning that will outline what rule has been violated and your may be asked to edit your post. If you have logged off the board and are unable to edit your own post, the post may be edited by a moderator.

Warnings
A warning will be given to a member the first time he/she violates a certain rule. There will only be one warning given for each type of violation. If a member continues to violate that rule an infraction will be given.

Infraction system
Accumulating 4 unexpired points will earn an automatic ban for two weeks (minimally). All points are removed after a certain time period without further incident. Infraction points will be given out based on the following criteria:
Personally insulting/abusing another member : 1 point / expires after 2 weeks
Posting private communications from, or personal information about another poster: 2 points/ expires after 4 weeks
Posting copy written material: 2 points / expires after 3 months
Found to be operating a sock puppet account: 2 points / expires after 6 months
Promoting dangerous or illegal activities: 3 points / expires after 6 months
Some bans my be longer in length depending on how long an infraction takes to expire. For instance; if a person is found to be operating a sock puppet on January 1st they will incur a 2 point infraction which will expire 1st July. If that same person posts some private information about another poster on February 1st they will incur another 2 point infraction that will expire March 1st. As they have a total of 4 points they will be automatically banned until enough points expire to bring them back below 4. In this instance it would be March 1st, effectively making it a 4 week ban.

Infraction points can be viewed by the individual user and moderators but not by other users. i.e. you can only see your own. If you receive a warning or infraction you will be notified by PM and given a reason. Any disputes are to be first taken up with the moderator who issued it, and if it can't be resolved it is to be escalated to the board administrator whose decision will be final.

If you find yourself having to take several "holidays" in quick succession you may be considered for a permanent ban by the administrator.

Moderators have the ability to warn and give infractions to users but not to suspend or ban. So if you are suspended or banned and wish to discuss this with someone, please take this up with the board administrator only by email at [email protected].
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Pithy

Patron
You are probably a young college kid still wet behind the ears... quite immature... unable to get along with anybody... wanting sex but obnoxious with girls too.

That is my reading of Mr. Pithy.

.
This guys reading is bang on! Maybe OT's do have super human powers ... also now that you've pointed out where I am going wrong I hope to remedy the problem and start getting lucky.
 

Veda

Sponsor
Pithy -

Below provides a glimpse of what I think, if you're interested:

http://forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=65167&postcount=11

http://forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=94279&postcount=25

http://forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=19183&postcount=1

The last link at the end of the 'Scientological Onion' post has a link to an examination of a 64 page booklet called the 'Brainwashing Manual' - the examination is about 100 pages long, if you wish to take the time. If not, it takes about 1 minute to read the table of contents.

To see the context of any particular post, click upper right.

Pithy, did you read any of the above?
 

Pithy

Patron
I need to stop reading this message board. I find it infuriating as well as pointless. When I see ex scientologists exhibiting the same characteristics as a normal scientologist i.e. trying to quash different views and ganging up on people who would challenge them I feel compelled to point out how stupid they are. Although I am aware that arguing in the face of obtuse ignorance is by enlarge pointless I feel compelled all the same.

I would just like to leave you with this thought ... sitting around slapping each other on the back and acting superior because you managed to find eventually that the whole thing was a sham is not only completley useless it is also an extension of the mechanism that makes the organisation what it is today. You are scientologists by another name.

Human again - sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to you ... most of your points were valid and some of them were genuinely funny.

To the OSA moles who have managed through espionage and rat cunning to make it onto this website (your so skilled) - your evil farkers, the work you do is evil, the organisation you assist is evil. Go and google "civil liberties" or "Civil rights" and compare those universaly regarded rights of all people to the rights of those involved in the cult. Surely you must then ask yourself "is this right."

Stop consoling each other, stop back slapping and do something productive in making ure this cult isn't further propogated.

Bye for now.
 
I need to stop reading this message board. I find it infuriating as well as pointless. When I see ex scientologists exhibiting the same characteristics as a normal scientologist i.e. trying to quash different views and ganging up on people who would challenge them I feel compelled to point out how stupid they are. Although I am aware that arguing in the face of obtuse ignorance is by enlarge pointless I feel compelled all the same.

I would just like to leave you with this thought ... sitting around slapping each other on the back and acting superior because you managed to find eventually that the whole thing was a sham is not only completley useless it is also an extension of the mechanism that makes the organisation what it is today. You are scientologists by another name.

Human again - sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to you ... most of your points were valid and some of them were genuinely funny.

To the OSA moles who have managed through espionage and rat cunning to make it onto this website (your so skilled) - your evil farkers, the work you do is evil, the organisation you assist is evil. Go and google "civil liberties" or "Civil rights" and compare those universaly regarded rights of all people to the rights of those involved in the cult. Surely you must then ask yourself "is this right."

Stop consoling each other, stop back slapping and do something productive in making ure this cult isn't further propogated.

Bye for now.
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
 

Vinaire

Sponsor
This guys reading is bang on! Maybe OT's do have super human powers ... also now that you've pointed out where I am going wrong I hope to remedy the problem and start getting lucky.


One doesn't have to be OT for this kind of simple reading. I haven't told you the real things about you yet.

.
 

Feral

Rogue male
WOW!:biglove: :biglove: :biglove:

:rose:


I never felt I had a "faith". I was born into a Scientology family who said religions were for weak people who couldn't take responsibility and that Scientology was a "technology" that claimed religious status so it could get a tax break. Sounded fine to me at 15 when I guess you could say I started thinking for myself and when I signed my SO contract. Today I wouldn't claim any 15 year old has enough variety of thoughts to choose their own. They have the thoughts their parents have, their teachers, books, TV and their peers, that's it to choose from. I first questioned the whole paradigm about 10 years AFTER I had left, when a death in the family had me finally realise that I didn't have all the answers. Up until then I fully expected to be able to contact someone who had just dies for example. Finding out I couldn't was a complete shock, it was the first time I questioned my "faith" and began to realise that my beliefs were not neccesarily truths just because I believed them. Until then I was a walking talking advertisement of "what you believe is true is true for you." I finally opened my mind and began to read and listen to others. The other ways of looking at the world that I had held in contempt and seen as inferior, were now open for me to actually see without that pre-judgement I had grown up with. And I only realised how much "faith" I had had - after I lost it.



RE: language :giggle:- You confuse "doesn't exist" with common usage. If you understood etymology you wouldn't make this mistake. By your way of seeing things, the quantum physisists are all using language that "doesn't exist" and are all fools. As are medico's, tax attorneys and film makers. Do you really believe that anything that is "correct" can be found in the Oxford English dictionary? That's a lot of faith to place in the academic authorities of the day.

You show a lack of compassion in not understanding WHY people find comfort in familiar terms and relief at actually being understood when they use concepts and terms that mean something to them and haven't to the general population around them. Have you never noticed how foreigners LOVE to go to their home country? They come back romaticising about hearing their own language spoken? Any foray into the world of neurology or even basic psychology would have given you an appreciation of the very normal need to contact the familiar. Languages have their own neurons and when they are exercized again after a time of being dormant - wow, it feels good, like relief and excitement all in one. Have you ever gotten together with a bunch of old friends after a long time and talked about old times? Part of the joy is re-using language and images and concepts that belonged to you back then which you have not exercised for a while.

You also forget that people had big wins (yes there's a word you wont like, yet it is prevalent in many other practices actually) within their lives during their Scientology years. They achieved goals they had set, they managed to help people, (be it their juniors on staff, public or individuals they trained - even if the entire technology was fools gold, finding the shiny stuff still felt good - remember a value does not have to be a true value to be enjoyed - just something that is desired) and so there is probably some aspect of good feeling connected to those times. Reminiscing is a human pasttime and not solely the weird activity of ex-cult members.

Surely you are aware that adversity can bring people close? There was always a current adversity in the orgs, if it wasn't Int Management or quicksilvering unreasonable seniors, it was tough targets, the birthday game or "the planet that needed clearing" - the adversities don't have to be real to help people bond, just agreed upon - ever watched reality TV shows?

You claim to have dismissed "standing in judgement of others" years ago as somethingyou observed in the org and rejected. And yet here you are doing it right now - about those still in the church and those who are out of it. You're labelling us right now, as you read this I am sure. You certainly were when you wrote yourpost - in your head if not in your words. Pithy, your contempt shines through.




I can't talk for others but I grew up within the Scientology paradigm, when did you expect me to realise it? When I was 3, 5, 10?

You're in a paradigm right now, which one I have no idea of, perhaps a middle class paradigm, perhaps a military one, perhaps a lower class thugs one - you know gang affiliations, secret handshakes? Who knows? And it has its own truths and ways of seeing and some of them, I can guarantee it, are as stupid as the scientology ones, and some are helpful and provide great structure to live your life in.

Furthermore, the entire employment paradigm of the western world is designed so very few stray. It is a structure of thought that controls enough people to keep the economic fires burning for the enrichment of a few and with varying levels of reward for the workers. Some of whom are 70 years old and work for tips - barely eaking out an existance.

Individual endeavour is not supported by the underlying paradigm.
Think about the ridicule and ostrasing suffered by those who choose not to get an education and get a real job? What about Mr and Mrs Average?
How many people live in their home town just because they were born there? Not because they choose to? How many would-be-artists are accountants or housewives because that was expected? Because they believe they have to have a family and a house and a mortgage etc. When they could be free to follow a dream instead. Why don't those people realise it?

When did I realise it? Only after I had been out of Scientology's physical paradigm for years and finally stopped justifying the way I saw things ( the scn way) and could see there were other ways of looking at things. I could finally step out of themental paradigm. Some people who had stepped out of their own paradigms helped, (mostly not scn) people who had stepped out of financial paradigms, relationship paradigms, etc. You see ANY belief system is potentially restricting.

If you realised it so quickly how crap scientology's paradigm was, you know what - YOU NEVER ENTERED INTO IT -good on you. I mean that, sincerely, but it gives you NO RIGHT to think you understand what it is like to have been in it fully and then found a way out. You are kidding yourself about your imperical viewpoint here.

When will you realise the ways in which you are controlled now? By your current group - your current culture- your current think. Do you really follow every dream and fullfil every potential you have? What thoughts/group agreements keep you from doing that?



Ever have a bad thing happen in your life? Can you honestly say you got NOTHING from the experience? Ever had a relationship go wrong? But you had honestly been in love with that person? It wasn't all bad - ever. And to blanket the people on this board as standing by a technology? Well, if you had read this board before you opened your mouth and showed us your thoughts you would know that most of us don't stand by "the tech"and those that do - how about dropping that judgementality you were bagging a few lines ago? How do you know that they didn't get value from it? Maybe it was worth the pain for them? For example, I feel pretty able to communicate, always have, but who's to say someone else who had problems with that all their life and perhaps reading some stuff, or doing level 0 or something changed that for them for the better? And maybe that was worth ten years of RPF's RPF for them? It's all relative to something you have no access to - THEIR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND VALUES.

You mention how the church didn't accept dissagreement - but you don't either! Your view or no value in the view - that's what I am hearing from your post.

You insinuate we percieved gain from something that had evil in it. Good question. Let me ask you. Do you gain anything by eating meat? Well, do you have ANY IDEA the cruelty , pain, suffering and degredation the livestock goes through to ensure you get your steak?

Do you enjoy your Nike shoes? Ever had a bit of coke or drugs that orriginated in a third world country? Do you know what working conditions were suffered by those who made your nike's or your bit of chemical joy? Any idea how many people went to jail or died to get it to you?

Even if you do realise it, there was still a percieved benefit to you, wasn't there? The benefit is not wiped out by the evil that was connected to it's creation. And so it is an individual value judgement - And can only happen AFTER one finds out about the evil. I never heard Lisa McPerson's name until decades after I had left. I never knew the abuse being suffered by SO and staff children, the abortions forced on women, the other deaths due to Scientology organisations going insane. I never knew all those OT's were anything but completely happy and satisfied and getting their full bridge defined gains. How could I? My thinking went, well, they're still paying for them and I don't hear a single complaint. They are OT - They are Class XII auditors, They are at the top echelon's of SO management - if there were anything crap at that level, they are powerful in status and independance and money and abilities that they'd shout about it right? So my work seemed worth it. I knew I had a had a bit of a hard time in the last couple of years, and after a while I could see some of the damage done to me, but how many people having Scientology services today are aware of these things? How many SO members and staff members know that the suffering is widespread, that abuse is happening at Int that would be intollerable in a jail? How many people know that the OT VIII's think it's a load of hooey? How many know that the top auditors are treated like scum? It's like I brought up in my first paragraph - to understand you have to see , if it ishidden you cannot see it. If you are not exposed to different viewpoints you stay in the one you have. If they managed to see - how many would believe them? It is an idealogically isolated society - made so to the public by indoctrinating them against other views and for the SO and Staff? _ There IS NO outside contact - how would they find an exterior viewpoint to see it from? How man HUNDREDS OF YEARS did it take the Catholic Church to be found out in regard to its priests abusing little boys? Did you expect all those Catholics to suddenly go "I no longer believe in God - because of what those priests did?" Have they? Will they?

Now, personally I am working on sorting the issue of "can there be anything good come from a narccistic meglomaniac with evil intentions?" But your way of asking - it's so make-wrong that I expect you only look at the issue in a shallow way. This is a major personal issue, a journey of actual personal development, of choosing beliefs and looking at what is real for me and what is not. It can only be do.ne by the individual in the presence of manyother viewpoints and an open data field.

When I got out, I looked around at the people around me - I saw confused, people with little ability to set goals, focus, achieve, think, and no one I knew seemed to have any control of their emotions. I felt superior. Within a short while I was successful in the "wog world." I aced uni, doing 5 years in 4, I made money like it was second nature, I had a relationship that everyone envied and my partner couldn't believe. I was happy - all the time whereas most people seemed "not bad" or "depresessed'. Was this because of my Scientology experience? I certainly put it down to that at the time. After all I had been an SO member since I was 16 and an exec since I was 17. It didn't even occour to me until at least ten years later that maybe I was just a go getter anyhow, that I might have "turned out" even more happy if I hadn't had those years of enforced Scn paradigm.

How to sort that from the evil I found out about only after I had been out for decades? Woah, this is no cut and dried, black and white excersize here.

So, have another think about your questions, Pithy.



You're about as naive and judgemental as they come, Pithy. To have dipped a toe in and think you know all about the ocean most of us swam in.

PS If this post sounds angry, well, I suspect you don't mind raising a bit of anger in those you communicate with. What's that about, Pithy?
 

dchoiceisalwaysrs

Gold Meritorious Patron
There is much beauty in this world.

I am always awed by the mastery of a Renoir, a symphony by Mozart, and here by a piece of prose by Human Again. :hattip:
 
Last edited:
Top