25 Years of Scn

[Markus]

Fascinating read. I was on Org staff for years and thought I had it bad. Nothing compared to this.

Right - this is one of the best threads of tis board

 

[Ysa'Leia]

Hello! Twin A

I am not a Scientologist in fact I am a Wog (lol) no offense to anyone just a joke,...but I found your post interesting.....I too am fom San Jose/ Santa Clara County and I remember around 1980 when I was around 6 my parents are divorced by now...my dad lives in Sunnyvale, CA and we lived in East San Jose, CA ( I am the youngest of 4)...

When I was around 6 yrs old as I was saying I remember my father always having these Dianetics books he used to pass out or sale at the Vallco Shopping mall in Cupertino and at Eastridge Mall, East San Jose at that time he was always talking about how Science can heal the mind and bullcrap......then 1/2 of the summer of 1980 my older sister and my brother (two middle children) disappeared for awhile with my dad...then reappaered and me being youngest I am just thinking they went for the Summer with my dad... when school was about to re-start we were driving down Stevens Creek (which was a long street) and my dad asked me if I wanted to go to a private school.....and I scrunched my nose up and shook my head no.....I liked the public elementary school I was already attending.....but my brother who was older around 12 and my sister who was 9 had negative reactions......my brother started kicking and punching the back seat of my dad's Lincoln Town Car and screaming no...and my sister was adamant she was like no.........then my brother said " NOBODY WANTS TO GO TO THAT OUTTER SPACE SCHOOL, DAD THAT'S NO RELIGION WHERE THE CHURCH AT...NOBODY GETTING THE HOLY GHOST...." my sister agrees at this point I am scared and like what.....so my dad makes a u-turn and my brother hollers again "DAD, IAM JUMPING OUT" and opens the car door......my dad swerves into a parking lott and get all like Joe Jackson ( Singer Michael Jackson's dad) on my brother my dad says "I'MMA WHIP YOUR BUTT!" and slams the car door shut .....my brother opens the car door grabs my sister and I am scared I am in the front seat so I follow my brother and sister and we are running and I remember crying and back then they had public pay phones and if I recall it was a Lyons restaurant we ran inside and my brother called my mother collect who came and got us......

I did not see my father again for another 4-5 years after that incident.......I remember asking my mom about my dad during this time and she just said "HE DONE LOST HIS DAMN MIND" and she never said no more...my dad did re-appear about 4-5 yrs later and he had moved from Sunnyvale, CA to Oakland, CA ...my dad later remarried...the lady he married was a God Fearing woman who had the Holy Spirit within her and probably would not have liked Dianetics/ Scientology Religious Philosophy..........Till this day my mom nor dad will not talk about that period it is like it is taboo or something....and both my parents are still living....

I think my dad joined scientology for awhile and do not ever want to talk about it

I did not make the connection with Dianetics and Scientology until 2005.....and here recently when I started reading stuff about the Sea Org and Disconnection........we had to re-connect with my father....this is from a WOG (lol) point of view......

 

[Free to shine]

Bump for newbies.
A must read story!

 

[JBWriter]

Learned so much from this thread - thank you Twin A and all.

JB.

 

[sallydannce]

 

[Rocketman2]

Re: Chapter 15

Wow...I knew it was nutso in the 70's...and everyone I knew that joined, returned quickly...routing out. SO needs to be disbanded. If workers are needed, hire them just like private industry.

 

[Free Being Me]

 

[Glenda]

 

[Gizmo]

Yep, this thread is a good place to wade in & find out what everybody else was doing.

Was I that crazy back then ? Apparently so !

But, let a quarter of a century slide by & all that becomes fading memories of some life ago - sort of like a marriage that fell apart.

Was a 'big deal' then but a 'ho hum' now.

On we go, living & loving !

 

[Free to shine]

This is one of the best threads ever posted on ESMB.
Time for a

 

[JustSheila]

Thank you, FTS. I've never seen this thread.

 

[UhLasare]

Amazing thread. Thanks for telling your story, Maureen. I'd seen videos of you on YouTube and heard your interview with Jeffrey Augustine. Your story was the most upsetting ex story I'd been exposed to. Reading it was hard, but I love the happy ending. I hope you continue to be healthy and happy out of Scientology.

 

[Lia]

Hi! I am currently on page 17 of this thread, I decided since I completed reading to the point you got out, that I'd allow myself to post a comment to you even though I have oodles of pages more to read. First, I want to give you a giant hug and say you are amazing. I also want to ask if I can borrow your courage lol, I'm new & have yet to work up the courage to post my introduction on the new members board...so much fear instilled in all of us to control us on the inside and the fear is still controlling me. As of page 17, which was posted in 2008 I believe, you hadn't been in contact with your sister, I hope i will find out if that changes as I keep reading...my fear that keeps me from posting, is that if anyone figures out who I am, it would mean serious trouble for my family. I am from one of those large multi generational scn families but because of the uh, unique circumstances I have had, I'm lucky enough to have family on the inside who risk alot to keep in contact with me and if i get figured out by saying too much they'd probably not be very happy with me to put it mildly, very mildly.i can't risk it but I need to talk with people who get it, so I landed here....I'm lucky because even as a child, I questioned everything and my family never ratted me out despite my flair for saying some pretty crazy things, they may act as if they don't speak with me, but they do which I hope is a sign that they are questioning the life they are trapped in and will take me up on my offer to help break em out lol..my family member on the outside calls me "the one who they couldn't fully indoctrinate" lol but being the only one in a close, absurdly large family that sees that this is a mind controlling cult sucks.

And I just said more than I feel ok with even in that but I'm gonna force myself to stop deleting parts of what I've written and hit post

And I've gone off track I tend to do.. My point is, I wish I could be even a teeny bit as brave as you.

Lastly, your story has been SO very interesting, that the last two nights I have stayed awake until 5am reading it. I have it saved on my phone and i get my chihuahua, crawl into bed to attempt sleep and decide to "just read a few more posts" in your story and then end up staying up til almost dawn reading!! I'm staying in the basement right now while my room is being fixed up and can't smoke unless I go upstairs and smoke into the fireplace lol so I'd read, get to a intense part, crawl out of bed and go upstairs to read it while smoking and my chihuahua keeps following me, up the stairs and down and up and down and he just wants to sleep and cuddle into me and he actually got sassy. He looked at me and just moaned and sighed when I got into bed and hid his face under my pillow because he hates bright lights and the glow of my phone screen while reading your story was driving him nuts!

 

[Moderator 3375]

Hi! I am currently on page 17 of this thread, I decided since I completed reading to the point you got out, that I'd allow myself to post a comment to you even though I have oodles of pages more to read. First, I want to give you a giant hug and say you are amazing. I also want to ask if I can borrow your courage lol, I'm new & have yet to work up the courage to post my introduction on the new members board...so much fear instilled in all of us to control us on the inside and the fear is still controlling me. As of page 17, which was posted in 2008 I believe, you hadn't been in contact with your sister, I hope i will find out if that changes as I keep reading...my fear that keeps me from posting, is that if anyone figures out who I am, it would mean serious trouble for my family. I am from one of those large multi generational scn families but because of the uh, unique circumstances I have had, I'm lucky enough to have family on the inside who risk alot to keep in contact with me and if i get figured out by saying too much they'd probably not be very happy with me to put it mildly, very mildly.i can't risk it but I need to talk with people who get it, so I landed here....I'm lucky because even as a child, I questioned everything and my family never ratted me out despite my flair for saying some pretty crazy things, they may act as if they don't speak with me, but they do which I hope is a sign that they are questioning the life they are trapped in and will take me up on my offer to help break em out lol..my family member on the outside calls me "the one who they couldn't fully indoctrinate" lol but being the only one in a close, absurdly large family that sees that this is a mind controlling cult sucks.

And I just said more than I feel ok with even in that but I'm gonna force myself to stop deleting parts of what I've written and hit post

And I've gone off track I tend to do.. My point is, I wish I could be even a teeny bit as brave as you.

Lastly, your story has been SO very interesting, that the last two nights I have stayed awake until 5am reading it. I have it saved on my phone and i get my chihuahua, crawl into bed to attempt sleep and decide to "just read a few more posts" in your story and then end up staying up til almost dawn reading!! I'm staying in the basement right now while my room is being fixed up and can't smoke unless I go upstairs and smoke into the fireplace lol so I'd read, get to a intense part, crawl out of bed and go upstairs to read it while smoking and my chihuahua keeps following me, up the stairs and down and up and down and he just wants to sleep and cuddle into me and he actually got sassy. He looked at me and just moaned and sighed when I got into bed and hid his face under my pillow because he hates bright lights and the glow of my phone screen while reading your story was driving him nuts!

Welcome to ESMB Lia!

I know you are scared about posting and for extra security I have edited out a name and a specific relationship, as I can't contact you until you have posted twice.

As long as you speak very generally and don't specify names, places, dates and relationships there is really nothing to worry about.

You will find a lot of support here and I hope you start a thread in New Member Introductions.

Moderator 3375

 

[dchoiceisalwaysrs]

Welcome Lia

Great first post. You will be fine and keep in mind there may well be other members of your family ready to get out but are ' under the radar' also.
One indicator that the A&E TV series " Scientology the aftermath" is bringing many ex and under the radar and hopefully many 'fully in' to feel safe enough to express themselves more fully as you have.
This is a very good time for all who wish to speak freely.
Leah Remini and 'gang - lol' will be very pleased that you and others are beating back the fear and terror it creates as a tax exempt ' charitable' organization.

 

[Free to shine]

For newbies, lurkers and those who want to read this amazing thread again.

 

[MWH]

Part Three

Here is some more info about that twinning thing that I said, because I think that Programmer Guy has a good point, hopefully it will help make sense out of me having to get my own permanent twin (I'm not saying it was right that Phil required this of me before I started the course, but I think he may have had his own reasons-- Oh and there is the POSSIBLITY that Phil was talking to himself and I thought he meant me and I jumped in and offered my brother as a solution Maybe he would have found me someone to twin with anyway ) : Back at Steven's Creek when I signed up for my Comm Course, which was around 1980, late 1980, there weren't a whole lot of people on course at the times that my little brother and I showed up. :confused2: In fact, there were times when my little brother and I were the only ones there in the beginning. After we started school, we only showed up in the evenings and weekends, then there were more people, there were lots of people, my little brother and I were the only kids, we were the ONLY kids and there were not a whole lot of adults who had the patience to work with us. This course wasn't the watered down version of the Success Through Communications Course that exists now in missions, the pack I had to study had the same HCOBs as the Pro TRs course in it. That's right, I had to look up words like "East Grinstead" and "Sussex" on a basics course. What was up with that? I remember Larryanne McIntyre getting into an arguement with Pat Lee & Jim Leake about it and then for a short while, Jim was explaining things to me, I didn't have to read the entire HCOB. But then someone else came in (can't remember who) and argued him out of it and we were back reading the HCOBs because it wasn't good to get "verbal data" that wasn't really an M7. We did 0-4 twice and Upper Indocs twice through. My brother and I required tons of attention. I fell asleep a lot on course because I only slept for four hours a night (had to do those paper routes still, up at 4:30 AM! and not home until 11 PM after course... then I'd sometimes watch Mission Impossible on TV until 1AM ). And of course, those pesky MUs . Why wasn't I born with a college vocabulary? Sheesh! We so took forever to get through the course, we DID twin with others, I recall at least 10 different people working with me and my brother at different times, but there were many a time when all we had was each other and Jim and Pat and Kathryn and whoever else was available from the staff. Larryanne McIntyre, Brodie Noeske... others...

Hey! Well now I've said most of my part Three already.

My little brother RS was one and half years younger than I was, so he was only 12 1/2 at the time. He was a trooper, but he didn't have as much fun as I did (according to his later recounting). I kind of pressured him into it. I hadn't realized it, but I was more than a big sister to him because our Mom wasn't very proactive in our care and my step father wasn't around a whole lot... so my little bro followed me around out of necessity, not really because he always wanted to.

Here are some bits and pieces more to add to this part three. My little brother and I actually did the 2 hour confront twice, we weren't given any slack on on it. The first time we thought we'd passed it and then I think one of the other students complained that we passed our 2 hour confront even tho we had moved and fidgeted a few times and this other student thought it was unfair that we got a different standard than they did. (I thought the guy was just being a rat fink.. but heck, I was just a kid...) This other student's arguement was because he was hoping to get an easier 2 hour confront!.... little did they know that my brother and I were super heros and we agreed to come in again and RE-DO our 2 hour confront PROPERLY. Ha. So there. It was easier the second time through because I came in on a Sunday afternoon, after I'd actually had some real sleep, I'd gone back to sleep after my paper routes and I was well rested and so was my brother, so we had no problem passing our 2 hour confront. I kind of saw my brother's face morphing and changing in front of me a few times, but I didn't say anything to the supe, as long as I didn't move or fidget or wink too much... I'd pass. It didn't seem to matter what was going on in my own head at the time.

That's something I didn't really understand about TR 0, it seemed to make me kind of detached, where I could get my body and face to seem very calm, but inside there could be a windstorm. I don't know if this was necessarily a good thing for me back then, when maybe I should have been getting in touch with how I felt and learning how to articulate and express myself. On TR1 I learned how to parrot out lines from Alice and Wonderland, but I would have rather learned how to formulate my own observations and opinions and express and articulate those. The public speaking classes I'm taking in college right now are more what I really needed back then. The TRs were kind of a bad band-aid that got stuck on the wound and had to be painfully removed after the wound was infected by the band aid itself. (for those of you who appreciate graphic gore, the origin of this band aid analogy is from when I injured myself in a skateboarding accident (age 11). I scratched up my knee very badly, I got a bandage and used it. It was gauze. The bandage was good at first, it stopped the bleeding and kept dirt out. My knee heeled over and through the gauze pad. Every string of the gauze got stuck inside the new tissue of my knee. My step father had to get tweezers and pull each string of the gauze out of my knee because, after a couple of days, my wound was festering, the strings of the gauze pad were causing a bad reaction/infection. I learned that sometimes one must undergo some pain to solve a problem (I think I screamed for every gauze string pulled out of my knee) and I learned that sometimes a band aid or a quick fix can make the problem worse in the long run if it's not done properly). Wisdom from the school of hard knocks.

I was dissappointed that I never learned how to really levitate ashtrays. I was still told that I "could with real tone 40" but I passed my Tone 40 anyway...

I tried to talk my twin sister Corinne into doing these TRs with us and she refused. She thought the whole things was "stupid". She was far more active in after school activities than I was, she was first flute in the band in high school (and was in Junior High too) Our high school, Wilcox, was probably one of the best high schools in California, we had a full blown orchestra, a huge drama club that put on musicals like Oklahoma as well as dramatic plays. I think my sister was in charge of five other flute players.
She had to practise for many hours. I couldn't learn an instrument. I was partially tone deaf. The last three notes on the scale and the first high notes all sounded exactly the same to me. It made me mad that I couldn't tell the difference between F and G and my sister could. For the longest time, I thought it was just a stupid game, the notes were really the same, but others pretended they weren't...

During my first year of high school, aside from struggling through my comm course, I also managed to save up enough money to buy hang gliding lessons, which I of course, went and spent on a motorcycle instead I bought a twin cyclinder, 4 stroke Honda 125 street bike. I think it was a 1964. My sister and I would fight sometimes when I would be in the back yard trying to tune my motorcycle engine and she would be in our room (adjacent to the backyard door) trying to practise for an important school concert. Some of the fights we got into were so stupid

I tried to use Tone 40 on her to get her to be the one to turn the light out in our room at night, but it never worked, she'd just roll over and go to sleep with the light on and I had to get out of my bed and turn out the light myself.

I convinced my best friend RB to sign up for the comm course and she did. I was excited. I invited her to my graduation on Friday night. I stood up in front of a bunch of people and said that I thought the comm course helped me to communicate better. Then my little brother stood up and he got scared in front of all the people . He looked like a dear in headlights and then he started to cry and some people in the front row clapped, then one of the Steven's Creek staff went up and got him off the stage. Whoops.

So RB was on course for a little while and then she bailed out after she got onto the bullbaiting. I don't know what the heck was going on in that courseroom that day, but she had these two guys gang up on her, like group bullbaiting. That had never happened to me. And these guys were really hitting on the sex stuff. My friend Rene was a Catholic girl. She had to go to confessions every Friday, having strange men bullbait her about her boobs and sex stuff actually made her start crying and run out of the courseroom. She came back and asked for a refund. Good for her I was happy that she was sticking up for herself, but sad that she couldn't join with me in my new hobby as a Scientologist. She spent hours with different people, the Steven's Creek staff didn't want to give her a refund right away. She was a little older than me, but not much. She was 15, and she was on her own, her parents didn't come with her. Her Mom and Dad just told her to "get a refund" and that was it. I remember walking into the Div 6 courseroom that day. I think it was Saturday afternoon. I saw my friend RB crying in front of Larryanne McIntyre and pleading with her saying, "I just need to get a refund.. sniff sniff, cry cry, please, I don't want to talk about it anymore." I started to walk over to them because I didn't like seeing my best friend crying and Larryanne looked over her shoulder at me and then stood up and told me to leave the room, that she had it under control. I just stood there, I didn't leave the room. I didn't know what to do, but I didn't feel right leaving the room. I sat down in a chair behind Larryanne so I could listen in. She wanted RB to sign something that said she couldn't ever get Scientology services again, RB got upset and said that her Dad said that she shouldn't be signing anything because she's a minor and that she wanted her refund without having to sign anything. So Larryanne finally gave up and gave her her refund. My friend was very upset She never came back. She never complained about me staying involved, but we kind of drifted apart a little after that.

For the next school year, I just went to school, my sophomore year was more difficult and I had more extra things I was doing, so I didn't go to the mission at all for a while. In fact, I don't recall even getting phone calls. I sometimes wonder if I was so much trouble in the courseroom, that they were glad that I didn't come back? Either that or too busy. There was no "resign line" back then that I remember. I didn't get high pressured to sign up for anything after the comm course. As far as I was concerned, I was DONE.

But then... something happened with my little brother , he came home crying. He'd been at the Steven's Creek Mission and he was really upset. I'd never seen him so upset. I asked him what was up? And he told me that his Personality Test was "below the center line" and it made him unqualified for staff at the Steven's Creek Mission. He had gotten roped into helping out with grading Personality Tests, he'd made friends with the guys in the OCA department (guy with blond/brown hair I can't remember, Sarkis and Randy Merrill) and he was having fun. My little brother hated school, he was getting picked on, getting C grades, but working at the Mission was FUN for him and he wanted to join staff. I figured that my brother just didn't understand the questions on the OCA, so I went through every single question with him and I had him refill the thing out. It was a better result and he went on staff in Div 6. I got invited to more meeting and stuff after that.

I was impressed with Clay Primrose as a public speaker and his stories. He made me laugh, I could almost understand some of the Scientology stuff when he explained it. He was really cute too. Then I met Kingsley and I thought he looked kind of like a loser, but when he talked, he was an impressive speaker too. I guess I liked that about him, he wasn't a hot shot in appearance, but he could be one anyway. The crowd seemed to love him. The Div 6 courseroom would be full of people, maybe a hundred or more. Standing room only and they'd clap for like 10 minutes straight. The place was pretty electric. I could see why my little brother liked it better than school.

I got recruited to help in the Scientology Axilliary Services (or SAS) run by Bev Wimbush... more later! That's all for my part three...

I welcome ANY feedback on my stories . Good or bad. I can take it

Maureen

Lol..... I was there but don’t remember you. My wife was probably in your class. Phil & Larryanne were at my wedding. Jim Leak was my best man.

 

[MWH]

OK, this is the end of Part 5 folks! Only 18 years now of Sea Organization to write about!

Hope this is all as entertaining for you to read as it is for me to write.

Wow Twin A this really is a kick!

Superb writing,very entertaining.Love it.
Tamasin

Sarkis was from Lebanon. My wife & I lived with him after we moved out from Carl & Terry Myers house.