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Introducing myself..

NXDbsc2017

New Member
I've lurked on this board for years now and just wanted to formally say hello! My story is brief...

At aged 17 I was working in a cafe inside a bookstore. We would have our regular customers. One gentlemen whom was always friendly with me one day walked in wearing a Dianetics jean jacket. I had always been interested in Scientology after hearing so many celebrities rave about it. I had actually ordered The fundamentals of thought book online months prior. Anyway, we struck up a conversation about his jacket. I told him how I had read the fundamentals of thought and he spoke for a solid hour about how Scientology saved his life and will save the world. I had lost my dad a few days prior to addiction snd everything he was saying sounded like something I wanted to try. The next day he brought me a copy of dianetics. I found it odd that he didn't just buy it from the bookstore in which we were standing in. he said he would rather support his local church. Said church was only a few blocks away so he invited me for a "seminar". I decided I would rather go to the church alone, so that Saturday I blindly walked into the church alone. The front bookstore was locked with no one in sight. I walked to a back entrance that was open. I walked down a hallway and I must've startled someone because he quickly exited a room and asked what I was doing here. I was uncomfortable since it was just me and him in this big empty building. I explained why I was there and he turned on a video explaining Scientology. I stayed for about an hour after and chatted with him. Turns out he was from England and was sent to this church to help out. He was very passionate and engaging which I liked.

After I left( after being sold a DVD of the fundamentals of thought which I never watched) I almost immediate got a phone call inviting me for some free intro classes, to which I obliged. I found the classes very helpful and was eager to do more. After some sessions I quickly learned I couldn't afford this. I told them I simply couldn't afford it. This is when they started asking me if I had parents that could lend me money and asking how much credit I had available on my credit cards. I was put off by the whole situation. I ended up completely ignoring their phone calls and emails. About a week later I thought I was in the clear since I hadn't heard from them again. I was wrong. One Thursday afternoon the said gentleman whom had brought me the book and the man from the church showed up at my door. I've never been more uncomfortable in my life. I had to threaten to call the cops for them to leave.

I had one last incident in their NYC church. I wandered in to check out the building. I always admired its design and architecture. I of course was solicited by a young memeber. I explained why I was there and he gave me a tour of the building. While in the elevator I told him that I honestly wasnt interested and had already taken some courses. He told me he understood and was happy to have shown me the building. He briefly left me and found me downstairs about ten minutes later. He told me had called the church which I had done some courses at and realized I wasn't "man enough for their organization." That was all I needed to realize this was not something I wanted to be a part of.

Since then I've spent so much time and energy following blogs and you guys and I'm still shocked that this cult is still around. I don't want to share too much since I know they're reading this, but my new career had me recently cross paths with Leah remini. I briefly told her my story and thanked her for having the balls to bring them down. I hope something is done soon because it's scary to think some people aren't lucky enough to run away as fast as I did.

Thanks for reading!
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
The showing up on your doorstep was probably the creepiest thing I observed with this cult. It borders on stalking, hell, it IS stalking. It's also the mark of desperation and psycho behavior. I feel sorry for anyone still involved in this mess. I really don't see how they can attract new people these days.
 

NXDbsc2017

New Member
Thanks for the warm welcome.

One thing I forgot to add was that I had to leave my job because I was uncomfortable around the customer who introduced me to the church. After they showed up at my door I had customer complaints at my job. Several. All with the same theme that I was rude and arrogant and they said I was hitting on them. Even my boss knew something was up because I was as he said his best employee. I never had proof that it was any of them, but I find it hard to believe it wasn't. I look back now that I'm older(this was 7-8 years ago) and I'm seeing just how insane this was.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
Thanks for the warm welcome.

One thing I forgot to add was that I had to leave my job because I was uncomfortable around the customer who introduced me to the church. After they showed up at my door I had customer complaints at my job. Several. All with the same theme that I was rude and arrogant and they said I was hitting on them. Even my boss knew something was up because I was as he said his best employee. I never had proof that it was any of them, but I find it hard to believe it wasn't. I look back now that I'm older(this was 7-8 years ago) and I'm seeing just how insane this was.

There is a good chance you were "fair gamed". When you threatened to call the cops on the pair who went to your house, that would be enough to have you declared a "Suppressive Person".

I'm going to guess that the man you first met may have regarded the bookstore are part of his "dissemination territory". As such, somebody may have decided that it would be better if somebody with a negative view of Scientology wasn't working at that bookstore.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
There is a good chance you were "fair gamed". When you threatened to call the cops on the pair who went to your house, that would be enough to have you declared a "Suppressive Person".

I'm going to guess that the man you first met may have regarded the bookstore are part of his "dissemination territory". As such, somebody may have decided that it would be better if somebody with a negative view of Scientology wasn't working at that bookstore.

I think you got this right. The bookstore could hold some special interest for the local group which would cause them to go to someone's home if they felt threatened. They might have even been under an SP Locating Mission/Project at the time and the missionnaire desperately in need of a stat perceived this person as a target. Who knows?

Of interest is the diligence with which the NY staffer conducted an SP verification in real time. A little window into the state of paranoia within the organization.

As for saying that "They were not man enough...", something like that could also be a dissemination Reach and Withdraw tactic, ie. "Maybe Scientology isn't for you..."

Always too smart by half with these people.
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
That "not man enough" comment reminds me of my first time in an Advanced Org when I was a newbie.

Two Sea Org guys came up to me and asked who I was then one asked if I was in the Sea Org. When I said "no" he said: "But you want to be don't you?".

When I said "no" one of them said "another fucking reject" and they stormed off.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
That "not man enough" comment reminds me of my first time in an Advanced Org when I was a newbie.

Two Sea Org guys came up to me and asked who I was then one asked if I was in the Sea Org. When I said "no" he said: "But you want to be don't you?".

When I said "no" one of them said "another fucking reject" and they stormed off.

Just curious, was this after LRH died and DM had cloned his persona down lines?
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
No, LRH was still around but in hiding. Most people hadn't heard of DM at that time.

While most people hadn't heard of him, DM's presence was being felt. His attitudes were being imposed down the lines. I think the neo-Nazi "Int Finance Police" missions and crackdowns on Scientologist businesses around the early 80's were from DM's efforts to discover and eliminate potential sources of dissent.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
While most people hadn't heard of him, DM's presence was being felt. His attitudes were being imposed down the lines. I think the neo-Nazi "Int Finance Police" missions and crackdowns on Scientologist businesses around the early 80's were from DM's efforts to discover and eliminate potential sources of dissent.

This is correct. He was already exerting a lot of influence behind the scenes in 1977 so whatever he did was with full knowledge and support of LRH. But I associated the bigoted attitude from SO against namby pamby public Scientologists and lower level orgs and missions staff with Flag personnel more than PAC.
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
While most people hadn't heard of him, DM's presence was being felt. His attitudes were being imposed down the lines. I think the neo-Nazi "Int Finance Police" missions and crackdowns on Scientologist businesses around the early 80's were from DM's efforts to discover and eliminate potential sources of dissent.

I think his influence was also felt in the WISE network, when they really started cracking down on businesses and enforcing WISE contracts with exorbitant fees pushing some to brink of bankruptcy . This may have been at the direction of Hubs, but likely Miscavige enforcement. I worked at a WISE business and saw the brutality up close. It was just like the INT Finance Police (Gestapo) tactics with Missions.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
I think his influence was also felt in the WISE network, when they really started cracking down on businesses and enforcing WISE contracts with exorbitant fees pushing some to brink of bankruptcy . This may have been at the direction of Hubs, but likely Miscavige enforcement. I worked at a WISE business and saw the brutality up close. It was just like the INT Finance Police (Gestapo) tactics with Missions.

Back around 1983-84, I was thinking of doing a WISE consulting business with another Scn. We took a look at the WISE contract, and we decided "I'm not signing that thing".

If you looked closely at the terms, WISE was authorized to send a mission into your business at whatever point they felt like, and you would have to pay their huge daily fee. In effect, if you had any income, they could arrive and vacuum it all up on a whim.

By that point, as an ex-SO'er, I was looking at Scn paperwork with the viewpoint of "OK, if they decide that they now hate me, just how badly can they screw me under this agreement?", and my answer to that question was "Plenty!"
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
Back around 1983-84, I was thinking of doing a WISE consulting business with another Scn. We took a look at the WISE contract, and we decided "I'm not signing that thing".

If you looked closely at the terms, WISE was authorized to send a mission into your business at whatever point they felt like, and you would have to pay their huge daily fee. In effect, if you had any income, they could arrive and vacuum it all up on a whim.

By that point, as an ex-SO'er, I was looking at Scn paperwork with the viewpoint of "OK, if they decide that they now hate me, just how badly can they screw me under this agreement?", and my answer to that question was "Plenty!"

WISE was like a giant Hoover vacuum, sucking up all the profit and more, from struggling Scn-owner businesses. I saw quite a few go under. The business I worked at, they took something outrageous, like 17% of the dough, and I don't think that was the net! This was in CW, so there were also Flag vultures swooping in before 2:00 on Thurs to suck dry anything left. It got ridiculous. This was mid-Eighties, into 90's. Then, to add insult to injury, they Comm-Evd the owner several times. He was paying for abuse! It was sick.
 

phenomanon

Canyon
Back around 1983-84, I was thinking of doing a WISE consulting business with another Scn. We took a look at the WISE contract, and we decided "I'm not signing that thing".

If you looked closely at the terms, WISE was authorized to send a mission into your business at whatever point they felt like, and you would have to pay their huge daily fee. In effect, if you had any income, they could arrive and vacuum it all up on a whim.

By that point, as an ex-SO'er, I was looking at Scn paperwork with the viewpoint of "OK, if they decide that they now hate me, just how badly can they screw me under this agreement?", and my answer to that question was "Plenty!"


The IHELP contract that you had to sign if you wanted to be a Field Auditor was the same. It was untenable.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
WISE was like a giant Hoover vacuum, sucking up all the profit and more, from struggling Scn-owner businesses. I saw quite a few go under. The business I worked at, they took something outrageous, like 17% of the dough, and I don't think that was the net! This was in CW, so there were also Flag vultures swooping in before 2:00 on Thurs to suck dry anything left. It got ridiculous. This was mid-Eighties, into 90's. Then, to add insult to injury, they Comm-Evd the owner several times. He was paying for abuse! It was sick.

It was the same all over, apparently. Especially if you were located anywhere near any Sea Org organization. Here's something I posted on another thread about a similar incident in New York

Yes, that's the point where it really got ugly for a lot of people. Before that point, the ugliness was mainly seen by (and inflicted upon) a relatively small number of people: the people on the Ship, those in the inner levels, whoever had personally pissed off LRH, etc.

At the time of the Mission Holders Conference and David Mayo's departure, the scene got increasingly ugly for public and regular org staff. They got increasingly paranoid about "disaffection", and desperate to nip it in the bud. This was around the period of 1982-83. The Int Finance Police was in full swing. You had Sea Org members making raids of private businesses owned by Scientologists.

I heard about one in particular from somebody who was working there at the time. North Star Novelties, in New York City, was owned by three partners, Robert Planakis, BJ Davis, and Larry MacDonald. I forget the details, but a bunch of Sea Org people from the FOLO showed up and did a gang-bang sec-check of the staff. The SO people were upset that not enough revenue was going to the Org from the business and its employees.

Then there was the whole Don Larson/"Int Finance Police" incident, as RogerB detailed in his thread on the subject.

A lot of people said "this is nuts" and left about that time.

The attitude was that all the revenue really belonged to Scientology, and if the owners and employees were not flowing what the SO regarded as sufficient money towards the org (whether service purchases or donations), then the company was out ethics, and it was time to sec-check the bunch of them.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
The IHELP contract that you had to sign if you wanted to be a Field Auditor was the same. It was untenable.

That was the whole idea -- to make it untenable to be a field auditor, and make all field auditors audit in the org. Maybe they would even get a little pay.:eyeroll:
 

RogerB

Crusader
Ya. . . one of the stupidest, shoot yourself in the foot gambits of the cult was its demand that ANYONE and/or ANY CORPORATION using Scn "tech" or management principles had to pay the Cof$ 10% of gross income . . . to which I replied to WISE and the money grabbers up the line: "In other words, if I go into New York Life Insurance Company and sell them my sales training course containing and based on TRs and my old Intro PE course lectures (as I had done in London in '68) you'll want NY Life to pay you 10% of their revenues??? and ditto any client in corporate America I put the tech into????"

Ummm, you can guess what the robotic answer was :yes:

And now you know one of the key reason the cult never expanded from its peak in around the middle 1970's.
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
Ya. . . one of the stupidest, shoot yourself in the foot gambits of the cult was its demand that ANYONE and/or ANY CORPORATION using Scn "tech" or management principles had to pay the Cof$ 10% of gross income . . . to which I replied to WISE and the money grabbers up the line: "In other words, if I go into New York Life Insurance Company and sell them my sales training course containing and based on TRs and my old Intro PE course lectures (as I had done in London in '68) you'll want NY Life to pay you 10% of their revenues??? and ditto any client in corporate America I put the tech into????"

Ummm, you can guess what the robotic answer was :yes:

And now you know one of the key reason the cult never expanded from its peak in around the middle 1970's.

I remember back in the 80's while working for that WISE consulting company, there were endless discussions about whether procedures the owner had created on his own were actually Hubbard procedures which he squirreled. Which then meant he had to replace his own procedures that actually worked with the "real" Hubs Tek, and then get to pay more % to WISE for the privilege, while also doing lower conditions due to the squirreling! Yeah, it got that insane.
 
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