JustSheila
Crusader
There was a person in my life I knew well who passed away a few years ago while on OT7.
I'd rather not go into details, as he (I'll call him 'Buck') was an active, practicing Scientologist and in good standing with COS right up until death.
Over the Christmas break I found out one of the last things he said with regret to a loved one (who is not a scn) was that he hadn't been dealing with reality.
I'm still reeling from this. Buck missed out on life, on time with his family, his loved ones, his parents and child. What an awful, painful thing to realize too late, when his life was ending, that Scientology had led him to be lost in the world of imagination and that it wasn't real, after all. All his sacrifices for the hope of saving himself for an eternity was just an exercise in imagination, a way of avoiding dealing with reality.
Though I'm glad Buck was able to see some of his old friends (even though they were declared SP, in his last few weeks, he didn't care about that) and some others he loved, there were others he didn't see or speak with for years and who passed away while he was in that imaginary land of the mind of Scientology and had no concept that life itself was passing him by. There he was, in his private world, going deeper and deeper into it until he was stuck in it. And then it was too late - his life was over.
It makes me think of Conrad Aiken's short story, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdXmrysAzN4
I'd rather not go into details, as he (I'll call him 'Buck') was an active, practicing Scientologist and in good standing with COS right up until death.
Over the Christmas break I found out one of the last things he said with regret to a loved one (who is not a scn) was that he hadn't been dealing with reality.
I'm still reeling from this. Buck missed out on life, on time with his family, his loved ones, his parents and child. What an awful, painful thing to realize too late, when his life was ending, that Scientology had led him to be lost in the world of imagination and that it wasn't real, after all. All his sacrifices for the hope of saving himself for an eternity was just an exercise in imagination, a way of avoiding dealing with reality.
Though I'm glad Buck was able to see some of his old friends (even though they were declared SP, in his last few weeks, he didn't care about that) and some others he loved, there were others he didn't see or speak with for years and who passed away while he was in that imaginary land of the mind of Scientology and had no concept that life itself was passing him by. There he was, in his private world, going deeper and deeper into it until he was stuck in it. And then it was too late - his life was over.
It makes me think of Conrad Aiken's short story, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Snow,_Secret_SnowPlot
The story tells of a boy named Paul Hasleman, who finds it increasingly difficult to pay attention to his classwork, and grows more distant from his family. He is, instead, becoming more and more entranced by daydreaming about snow. This began when he was lying in bed one morning, awaiting the approach of the postman. Unable to hear the expected footfalls, the boy imagines that they have been muffled by newly fallen snow, and is surprised when he looks out the window and discovers that there is no snow on the ground.
Paul's increasing distance and indifference to the world around him alarms his parents. He has to struggle to get dressed and converse with others, because of the allure of his daydream about snow. They eventually call in a physician, who makes a house call to examine Paul. After revealing that he likes to think about snow, Paul tears himself away from the meeting with the physician and retires to his room. When his mother pursues him, he tells her "Go away... I hate you!", and is lost in the dreamworld of the snow.[SUP][1]
[/SUP]Interpretations
The story tells of a normal boy's descent into a dream world of snow that he finds preferable to the "dirty", mundane world.[SUP][2][/SUP] The story can also be thought of as a Symbolist rejection of reality.[SUP][3][/SUP] The progressive withdrawal from reality and social relationships, as well as preoccupation with idiosyncratically meaningful ideas could be interpreted as characteristic of schizophrenia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdXmrysAzN4
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