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Little help anyone?

goodinbf

New Member
Thanks a ton to people that seriously answered me. I have researched the group, I have read up on a lot of what you guys are telling me. That's a large part of why I came here to ask if it was safe to go into a church. I will start off by saying that I in no way planned to give them information about myself. I was kind of caught between telling them this was for a school project and not telling them anything. I was somewhat afraid that if I told them it was for a school project, they wouldn't want to talk to me or answer questions. To anyone who told me to change my project idea, I am pretty confident in this project. Like I said, my findings are supporting the fact that there is, in actuality, a great lack of community in the world of Scientology, which is what I plan to base my thesis around. Special thanks to Claire, I'll be shooting you an e-mail soon.
If you guys could answer some demographic questions for me, though, that would be great, as this is where I'm trying to start gathering data.
I'm interested in sex, ethnicity, age/year you joined, age you left and current age.
I'm also interested in what initially attracted you to the community. Were many of you genuinely interested in Scientology and joined of your own accord, or do most of you feel that you were conned into joining? It seems most of you feel this way.
Also, I'd be very interested in speaking with someone that was born into Scientology and later decided to leave.
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
I got into it when I was 17. My dad bought me a communications course. I liked it. If I were to take it today, I would still like it. I took some more courses, got some auditing, and felt that I'd found the truth.

The courses were nice, the concepts are interesting- he took a lot of that from Buddhism anyway- and that's what really convinced me. Not Dad.

But it escalated. Like almost every member, I was approached to join staff and I did so. It was really really bad, though I have to say that others have had worse experiences than I did. It was still bad and it was predatory and I felt like- because I was- an indentured servant. Then, when I wanted to leave, even though I came in and did Ethics handlings with them, I was screamed at and given an ultimatum, that I could rededicate myself to staff there, or go do it at DC or be expelled.

Then they sent me a "freeloader debt" of all the stuff they paid for for me when I was on staff (though they never did pay me) and it was padded with stuff that I'd paid for myself.

Plus they asked for my books and meters back even though THEY did not buy them for me and my DAD had given some to me. Of course, I said no. Anyone here can tell you that I do not submit to bullying. (It's made me vastly popular with some here. LOL!)
 

Semper Phi

Patron with Honors
Thanks a ton to people that seriously answered me. I have researched the group, I have read up on a lot of what you guys are telling me. That's a large part of why I came here to ask if it was safe to go into a church. I will start off by saying that I in no way planned to give them information about myself. I was kind of caught between telling them this was for a school project and not telling them anything. I was somewhat afraid that if I told them it was for a school project, they wouldn't want to talk to me or answer questions. To anyone who told me to change my project idea, I am pretty confident in this project. Like I said, my findings are supporting the fact that there is, in actuality, a great lack of community in the world of Scientology, which is what I plan to base my thesis around. Special thanks to Claire, I'll be shooting you an e-mail soon.
If you guys could answer some demographic questions for me, though, that would be great, as this is where I'm trying to start gathering data.
I'm interested in sex, ethnicity, age/year you joined, age you left and current age.
I'm also interested in what initially attracted you to the community. Were many of you genuinely interested in Scientology and joined of your own accord, or do most of you feel that you were conned into joining? It seems most of you feel this way.
Also, I'd be very interested in speaking with someone that was born into Scientology and later decided to leave.

My thought about how worthwhile it is to talk with an active Scientologist about community is that you will absolutely not get an honest answer. They don't see the lack of a real community or if they do, they sure won't share that with a newcomer or especially a student who is researching a paper about the subject. You will only get happy happy joy joy from them when you ask. They will never tell you that socializing only happens during courseroom breaks or the interminable time spent in the auditing waiting room. They will tell you about the various seminars, briefings and events that happen each month, but they will never tell you that these are in fact SALES events that experienced members avoid if at all possible without being called into Ethics for skipping too many events.

Should you decide to go into an org, just know that the extremely friendly people who will greet you at door are part of the division that is charged with taking "raw meat" and getting them on board to move to the more expensive services. They are salespeople, pure and simple, and their credibility on the entire subject of Scientology should be weighed with that in mind.

And that is what I wished I had understood when I got love-bombed into seeing and being pulled into what seemed like a warm, welcoming "community" but that turned out to be a business.
 

Gib

Crusader
I'm actually one who doesn't totally warn against going in for a tour, IF you are up-front about it being a thing for school, and you go in fully knowing what the cult is about and what they are about. When I was in, we had a bunch of college and high-school students that did this sort of thing. The org would go out of their way to give them an amazing tour and be overly nice... the cult is VERY interested in PR.

I never saw one single person who came into the org with this objective join the cult. That being said, ALL of them came in as a group. I would NOT do this alone. Bring other students and don't let them separate you. If you go in as a group, they will be still trying to get you in, but will be stuck in PR mode and not be able to work on getting you 'in'.

Don't do a personality test. That's just setting yourself up. Just tell them you are interested in telling their side of the story and that is your total interest. They will probably try to sell you some books--grab some for next to nothing off of EBay or from a library and tell them you already doing that... one of the big lines in Scio is to not listen to what people say and just read a book to get the truth. If you tell them you are reading the books, they are a bit fucked :).

Don't forget about "stats". Anybody going into an org counts as BIS or bodies in the shop. Plus staff operate off of stats, so they wish to turn anybody that walks in into a stat somehow. And anybody walking in for a tour will more than likely give their name and address and thus another stat will be created for LO and Promo Out, that would be as you know letters out & promo sent out.

My rant, it's a god damn business hidden under the guise of fucking religion. It's all a god damn sales job, pitch, whatever you want to call it, with some know how. Better to just go to the library. :yes:
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
Hmmm...I think being up front with them is something to be considered and reconsidered carefully. If you aren't gonna be put on the e-meter, then I don't necessarily see the point or advantage to disclosing anything that you are really thinking or intending, frankly.

That being said, there's nothing wrong with telling them it's for school- but I only say that because in this case, the truth is relatively innocuous and something they'd get and be ok with.
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
My thought about how worthwhile it is to talk with an active Scientologist about community is that you will absolutely not get an honest answer. They don't see the lack of a real community or if they do, they sure won't share that with a newcomer or especially a student who is researching a paper about the subject. You will only get happy happy joy joy from them when you ask. They will never tell you that socializing only happens during courseroom breaks or the interminable time spent in the auditing waiting room. They will tell you about the various seminars, briefings and events that happen each month, but they will never tell you that these are in fact SALES events that experienced members avoid if at all possible without being called into Ethics for skipping too many events.

Should you decide to go into an org, just know that the extremely friendly people who will greet you at door are part of the division that is charged with taking "raw meat" and getting them on board to move to the more expensive services. They are salespeople, pure and simple, and their credibility on the entire subject of Scientology should be weighed with that in mind.

And that is what I wished I had understood when I got love-bombed into seeing and being pulled into what seemed like a warm, welcoming "community" but that turned out to be a business.


I don't fully agree. I'm not going to equate honesty with truthfulness. Church staff and public are very honest in that they are sincere and they believe what they are saying. They say things that are not true, but only because they have been lied to. Come on. We were all members. We can remember honestly believing that this was the real deal and that we were helping others.

Yes, they are sales driven and they are supposed to sell Scn services. They have stats and reports and everything else. But that doesn't change the fact that they believe what they're saying and doing.
 

Semper Phi

Patron with Honors
I don't fully agree. I'm not going to equate honesty with truthfulness. Church staff and public are very honest in that they are sincere and they believe what they are saying. They say things that are not true, but only because they have been lied to. Come on. We were all members. We can remember honestly believing that this was the real deal and that we were helping others.

Yes, they are sales driven and they are supposed to sell Scn services. They have stats and reports and everything else. But that doesn't change the fact that they believe what they're saying and doing.

Claire, I do agree with you, and I think I may have stated it clumsily (and with 20-20 hindsight). Honesty isn't really the issue with most of them, though there are the hardcore exceptions that do just want to get the stats. That's what I meant when I said that they can't see that it's not really a community, but a business.

And I do remember the powerful and exhilarating feeling I had, for a while, of being in a group of people who were all working for a common goal. So I guess that's a sense of community, but of course it only works for those who have no disagreements and make no trouble. The wonderful community feeling starts to disappear pretty quickly for those who start to notice disagreements, or when the stats go down and survival becomes the issue.
 

NoName

A Girl Has No Name
I don't want to give demographics, but I will say I was only involved for a few weeks pretty recently, after a long time friend introduced me to it. I got a really bad feeling pretty quickly into it and got online to read about it. Because I didn't want to be disconnected, I just feigned a loss of interest. But I was briefly disconnected later on. I didn't let the disconnection last, however, and the person reconnected with me after a couple of months but it was good roads and fair weather. Stuff happened a few months ago, and while I don't have confirmation they're out, our relationship is on the mend and I strongly suspect it. The friend was in for about 6 years.
 

The_Fixer

Class Clown
You should read here before you go to an org. They are crafty and one of the first things they will do is offer you a personality test. No matter how good your personality is they will still find something about you that you need to handle called your ruin. If your personality test is all in the upper range they will tell you that you are in that range falsely because you are acting like someone you are not. NO ONE EVER TAKES THE TEST AND IS TOLD THAT THEY DON'T NEED SCIENTOLOGY! Sorry for yelling but that is important to know.

Taking the personality test and listening to their lecture after spending some time reading here might be a fun exercise and you can see what a Scientology "Church" is really like for your school report. You might even ask the people who are trying to convince you to take a course some of the questions you have from reading ESMB. I am sure they will have some pat answer to explain it away however.

If you do go to the "Church" you should have a fail safe escape plan. You won't see any ogres there. Everything will look nice and normal for the most part. It is all sugar coated otherwise how would they ever get anyone in. It's what you don't see that will get you. While you are watching the movie they show you or looking at the self explanatory display or taking the personality test there will be people in the background unseen by you who are planning on how they are going to get you to either buy a book or sign up for a beginners course after telling you that you are in very bad shape proven by the personality test that you just took.

My understanding is that if you are associating with us here or at Marty Rathbun's website "Moving on up a little higher", or Tony Ortega's website http://tonyortega.org/ then you would be considered an SP (Suppressive Person). They may then try to get rid of you by kicking you out of the building but there is a chance that they will try and salvage you and explain everything away. They may just want to rescue you from the "defrocked apostates" you will find here and on other websites. If you do risk going into an Org as they call the various Churches then do realize it is a treacherous adventure and a serious risk. You have been warned.

This guy is absolutely right! Be careful.
 

The_Fixer

Class Clown
My thought about how worthwhile it is to talk with an active Scientologist about community is that you will absolutely not get an honest answer. They don't see the lack of a real community or if they do, they sure won't share that with a newcomer or especially a student who is researching a paper about the subject. You will only get happy happy joy joy from them when you ask. They will never tell you that socializing only happens during courseroom breaks or the interminable time spent in the auditing waiting room. They will tell you about the various seminars, briefings and events that happen each month, but they will never tell you that these are in fact SALES events that experienced members avoid if at all possible without being called into Ethics for skipping too many events.

Should you decide to go into an org, just know that the extremely friendly people who will greet you at door are part of the division that is charged with taking "raw meat" and getting them on board to move to the more expensive services. They are salespeople, pure and simple, and their credibility on the entire subject of Scientology should be weighed with that in mind.

And that is what I wished I had understood when I got love-bombed into seeing and being pulled into what seemed like a warm, welcoming "community" but that turned out to be a business.

Not only that, but they also get in the shit if they don't produce the sales figures every week - otherwise known as "Stats" or statistics. They have a minimum quota to reach each week and if they don't meet it the consequences aren't - shall we say, not very nice? So, that means full pressure on YOU to ensure they get that stat figure. This is NOT a joke, it is real. The pressure is real, the fear is real and the consequences are real too. Both for the staffer and you. No joke.
 

TG1

Angelic Poster
IMHO, per standards for academically reviewed research, I don't see how asking a few random posters on this board the kinds of question you posed offers you and your research anything other than a lot of non-response bias.

Ethercat (who moderates this board) has already done that research for you. There's a thread here about her survey site at http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?26421-Through-the-Door-10th-Year-Anniversary

Her site is at http://alley.ethercat.com/door/index.html or http://alley.ethercat.com/door/index.html.

Best wishes,

TG1
 
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