I remember sitting watching the event and for me it was surreal, and just the latest in a chain of events that caused me to have serious doubts.
But I didn't have anyone back at the time I felt safe talking to about my doubts, either inside or outside CoS.
I recall during several times like that where I'd get these gut feelings that something was REALLY wrong and I needed to get the hell out of there.
But then I'd have doubts creep in about
my feelings, wondering if I was wrong about how I saw things, and there was some valid explanation for all that was happening that I just didn't understand yet. So I'd stick around longer as I didn't want to mess up my eternity should my feelings about the CoS be all wrong.
Hubbard was smart in not allowing Scientologists to discuss these types of doubts or even discuss their "case" with other Scientologists.
If we were all freely allowed to compare our observations and impressions with each other the CoS would have shrunk
much faster than it did in the pre-internet days.
I've been out since '89 and also am very curious about these types of things. We'll have to get some EX'es that are recently out over here in the thread and pick their brains.