My Story and Goodbye

[failmeansfail]

This will be overlong, and probably broken into multiple postings. It will also express my opinions regarding LRH, and they won’t be entirely complimentary, so if that’s not your bag, you’ve been forewarned. I know some will say I shouldn’t forewarn, but as I’ve expressed elsewhere, my days of telling people what they should think or feel – even about Scientology – are over. I’m expressing my opinions here. They are mine. I’m not ashamed of them. But I understand those who will not agree with them, or who will reject them. How could I not? I was one of those people, not so long ago.

I freely admit that not everything on here is strictly ‘true’. I have no interest in grappling with the COS. I’m here to say my piece and then get on with my life. This post, and then I’m gone. So some details are changed in the interests of obfuscation, but there are no lies in the important sense. I am, for example, the case level I state. My path to that level may be slightly different than I lay out below, but the end result remains true. Or if I say I did a mission to an org that took the ‘GI’ to highest ever, it might really have been the ‘PDC’, but the truth will still be that I did a mission. I think you get the concept.

To anyone in OSA who reads this or cares: just let it go. This is my last word on the subject of Scientology, or the personage of LRH. You’ll never hear from me again, so just leave me alone.

Let’s begin: I was born into Scientology. I am not a first generation Scientologist. Various members of my family have been on staff or in the Sea org at various times, and some still are. I grew up in and around the ‘Org’, and I have very good memories of that time. All the kids ran wild, primarily because the staff worked all the time. I believe Day/Foundation existed then, but I have no memory of anything but a single organization. All the staff were young and idealistic and poor. We had no money and food was sometimes scarce, but all I remember is that all the kids had fun (hey, we were kids) and were treated really well by all the adults, whether staff or public. We were ‘granted a lot of beingness’, to use a little Scientologese.

It was an interesting time. I remember seeing a handwritten letter from LRH once, to the ED. That person showed me the letter and said ‘this is from Ron. We write regularly.’ It was five or six pages and I remember the handwriting. In later years I queried a family member who was there about this and had my memory confirmed. LRH was apparently active in those times, and communicated directly with some EDs. It’s of note, now, that that ED has long, long since vanished from Scientology, never to be heard from again. In fact, close to 90% of those young, poor, idealistic people are no longer staff members. Some are public still, but approximately 60% are declared, most for the simple crime of protesting management. Most are old now, living their lives. Some I know of, some I do not. The majority have no contact with Scientology and have no desire to. And that’s so ODD, even now… because these people are all fixed in my memory at a certain age; I see them still as young, bright, beautiful idealists, devoted to changing the world and absolutely certain they were doing the right thing. They gave up college, they worked for no or little pay, and they were happy to do so, because they were helping to make the world a better place. It makes me a little sad to remember all that. I see my family members, and they were younger than I am now (by far). They were so fucking naïve, but they were wonderful, too. They dreamed, you know?

The world’s the world, and money’s money, so the time came when my family had to leave the org. Various upheavals were involved (long before any of the current or even 1980’s fiascos – upheavals in Scientology have been going on forever), but mostly it was just about parenting. I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t downright sick, but I was malnourished. I’d seen a doctor once in my life, and had various minor health problems. There was a purge going on at the org, and so my family took a break from staff and set out to navigate the rocks and shoals of working in the real world while also ‘going up the bridge.’ I entered public school and found a whole new experience. I made friends who were not Scientologists. I watched TV and listened to music. I was still very young, and while I was aware of the demarcation between Scientology staff life and the real world, I was resilient, and just let it flow. Kids are like that.

 

[failmeansfail]

Once things leveled out in life (which took some time) my family decided it was time to really introduce me to Scientology. I went in for a personality test and got ‘ruined’. I signed up and did various courses, resulting in co-auditing my objectives and my grades. I got Dianetics and went ‘Clear.’

I want to sidetrack for a moment: there are two recent refrains on Marty Rathbun’s blog: one where the statement is made, essentially, that the difference between, say, Marty and someone like myself is that Marty was not ‘born into’ the subject of Scientology. His participation, in other words, was entirely self-determined, whereas mine was not. I reject this whole-heartedly. For sure, having those I trusted most tell me ‘this is where the truth is’ played a BIG part in my involvement. But in my opinion, one of the most important ways that Scientology gets its hooks into someone deeply, is by making them choose to be involved. I may have had a family member bring me into the church, but in the end, I decided to do a course because that OCA test found my ruin. I was unhappy, all by myself, and Scientology had the answers, and I said ‘yes, I want that.’ If I was inclined to blame family (which I’m not) that blame would have to surrender to the observable logic: my family got in without being ‘born’ into the subject. It can happen to anyone.

The second refrain is the idea that those disgruntled with Scientology today have never experienced the ‘true spirit of Scientology’. EG – the spirit LRH meant for Scientology to have, which is variously aligned with or described as ‘spirit of play’ ‘non-authoritarian’ or any of a thousand other phrases, all conveying the same idea: that there was some ‘golden age’ in Scientology. Again, I reject this. Marty and Co, in my opinion, are grasping at straws. I observed the spirit they are referring to. I saw it when I was a child. I also watched as it was purged (I didn’t understand it all at the time, but now I’m able to put the correct significance to those memories) and saw dedicated staff sacrificed on the altar of ‘the real why expansion isn’t happening.’ These were young people, in their early twenties, who had worked for years day in and day out. They really, truly believed. They were shot from guns, long before DM ever came on the scene or even became active in Scientology. I have watched this ‘spirit’ rise a number of times since, and have watched as those who were the best and the brightest invariably became the eventual, reviled ‘whos’.

The true cycle, in my opinion? Create the idea of a Camelot. When the gold paint (which had been laid over lead) begins to peel, name someone responsible. They must be a surprise as a culprit, someone who had, previously, been a member of the inner circle, supposedly beyond reproach. It will turn out that they have been there all along, infecting the core, trying to turn the gold to lead. But the truth of Camelot can’t be beaten by lies. So, just before disaster struck, the infiltrator, the betrayer, will be discovered. How else could it be? This is Camelot, after all, the truth of truths. The infiltrator works in lies, so OF COURSE he will have failed in the end. He’s crucified publically, and while the people watch him writhe, a crew repairs the peeling paint. A new golden age begins. Camelot has been restored.

Rinse, wash, and repeat.

Moving on.

Teen angst and the Sea Org are good bedfellows. I was Clear, but not happy in high school (I know, I know, the contradictions should have been obvious), and a recruiter happened by. I signed up to join the SO, and after much wrangling, got my parent’s approval. They were a little gun-shy because of their previous experience on staff, but this was easily handled – the recruiter, the staff, fellow Scientologists and myself attacked them for being ‘off purpose’ ‘off source’ and not ‘real Scientologists’. They went to ethics, were berated further, did their conditions, and eventually agreed with all this invalidation. They realized that they didn’t know what was best for their child, Scientology did. They signed consent. Not long after, they both rejoined staff themselves, working at the local org. (They were purged again a few years later, and were both declared. I immediately disconnected from them, of course. I was a hardcore, dedicated SO member by then. I kicked them to the curb, and so did all my siblings, who were also in the Sea Org. One of those declared later worked their way back into the church’s good graces and we had a tearful reunion. The one who’d done A-E ‘understood completely’ why we’d disconnected. But I digress.)

 

[failmeansfail]

I did my EPF and found myself on post. I was in my early teens. My first experience was four days without sleep, handling a complete hill 10. My senior at the time screamed at me for every fuckup I made, big or small. Seriously. I’m not making this up to ‘motivate.’ This person would get about three inches from my face and scream. Spit flying, brick-red skin, the works. Calling me a ‘PTS piece of shit’ and various and sundry others. This went on for a few months, until it was ‘decided’ that I wasn’t going to hack it there, and so I was sent elsewhere. I should note that I had no real problem with this treatment. I accepted that it was there to toughen me up, to get me to ‘fly right’. I had been out in the wog world, after all. SOMEONE needed to set me straight.

Right?

Well, I certainly thought so at the time. As a side note, I had a friend for a while who was a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marines. I related this aspect of my story to him, and he agreed that his time in boot camp was certainly more abusive. “But keep in mind,” he added, “we were being prepared to go to war! You break them down so they’ll follow orders under fire. What war were you being prepared for?”

‘The war against the trillion-years long downward spiral of this universe’, I thought at the time, but did not say. Still, that was true. That’s how I felt at the time, and how I’d feel in future times when things were going right, or ‘great victories’ were achieved. I’m sure there are plenty of people reading this that know what I’m talking about. There were moments in Scientology, moments either defined by Scientology as penultimate victories against suppression or as expansions previously unprecedented. I remember how I felt at those times, and I can only call that feeling joy. Soul-suffusing, tears-of-happiness joy. I don’t mean literally (one didn’t always weep in these moments, of course) but that’s my way of describing it. That feeling of ‘we’re winning, and that means the world is going to be okay, and I contributed to that.’

So you get screamed at, you abort your child, you cut ties with your family, you divorce on command. So what? You’re saving the world, and that’ll call for sacrifice at times.

Right?

I’m jabbering on about the above because the above is why I was there, and why I stayed. I had absolute, unwavering, unshakeable, 100 hundred percent complete certainty that what I was doing was the only hope man had. Not just here and now on earth, but for all the future there will ever be. I was thirteen, and I knew this through and through. And I liked that certainty. I liked that purpose. As a Scientologist, I was proud of being ‘in the know’ about ‘the truth’. I knew that the rest of mankind was trapped in a maze of the mind, that all the games they were playing, from family to corporations to religion, were simply illusions implanted long ago. It was my duty to help these poor people. To get Scientology to them so they could make it. If this didn’t happen, it would be my failure.

Remember RJ 67? Here’s a fair-use quote from LRH:

“In all the broad universe there is no other hope for Man than ourselves. This is a tremendous responsibility. I have borne it too long alone. You share it with me now.”

Well, I believed those words in the deepest depths of myself. Whenever things would get tough, or times would get tight, I’d remember those words. They never failed to rekindle that fire of purpose. In fact, I remember after the abortion, I listened to RJ 67, and it gave me the strength to carry on. I’d given up my child (and I’d never have another) and that was sad, but it was for the greater good. It was for eternity. In fact, when considered against the backdrop of all that had ever been or could ever be (according to LRH) the abortion was actually a noble act.

Right?

Right?

Yeah, I know.

Moving on.

 

[failmeansfail]

I’m not going to go into detail about all my adventures in the Sea Org. I’ll just breeze through it here. I worked at multiple levels of management, from service org to FSO to Continental management to CMO cont level to FB (not necessarily in that order.) I was never at Int, though I knew where it was (long story).

I probably did something on the order of two hundred missions, most as the IC, and again, for all echelons. I had mission ops from RTC , CMO Int, CMO Cont, FB, and CLO (or FOLO). I have done missions in EUS, WUS, Canada, EU, PAC, FB, and FSO. I have been through nightmare hell-hole missions in FSO where I was screamed at by RTC reps and WDC members. I have sent people to the RPF and to pigs berthing, I have devised and implemented creative ‘too gruesomes’ that publically humiliated other SO members. I don’t ask for forgiveness for these things because I don’t feel I need to. Not because I’m arrogant, but because that’s what being an on-source Sea Org member was all about, particularly if you were a missionaire. That’s the example that was set by LRH and by the majority of the luminary execs I’d meet. Remember the ‘SO members who don’t get a comm-ev a year probably aren’t doing their jobs’ concept? That was the game, and I accepted these penalties when they were leveled at me, too. I slept in pigs berthing. I scrubbed toilets with a toothbrush and was called out in front of an entire base once, where I was berated as incompetent and out ethics. I experienced some unreal too-gruesomes and yes, I too did an entire RPF program.

But I never hit anyone, embezzled funds, demanded someone get divorced, and I never asked anyone to get an abortion. On the hitting and embezzling, I would never have done those things. On the other two (divorce, abortion) I’m guessing I was just lucky. Looking at my mind-set then, I imagine if I’d been put in the right position that I probably would have counseled divorce or abortion at least once. Sad and horrible, but true, if I’m honest.

But for anyone I RPF’ed or ‘nuked’ or ‘face-ripped’, etc - while I despise that behavior now and would never repeat it, don’t expect me to make a list and come looking to apologize. We were all in the same shit-boat together, and I ate my fair share.

Being Clear already, and meter-trained, I managed to wrangle my way onto the OT levels. Getting though them was nuts (I remember going on mission mid OT 2, once), but I got through them. I ‘turned on’ an L1 R/S during some sec checking after OT 3 (Returning Missionaire sec check, I believe) and was sent to the RPF. Because of this, though I was never a Class 8 or NOTs auditor, I got to see a lot of that tech. I listened to the majority of the Class 8 tapes and both audited and C/Sed OT 3 repair as well as (obviously) OT 3 style FPRD. I co-audited OT 4 and NOTs and also C/Sed both many times, including numerous repairs. RDD or not, I had CS programs approved by Snr C/S Int office and RTC on many, many occasions. I co-audited FPRD on all 8 dynamics as well as numerous tailored lists. I audited someone through the grades, delivered and C/Sed the TRD, Int by Dynamics, etc, etc, etc. I say all of this not to brag, but to show that I wasn’t ignorant of the body of tech as a whole. I know they call it RDD, but to dismiss the reality of it would be a mistake. Via cramming and RDD checksheets, for example, I listened to no less than 30 SHSBC tapes (and more after). As a part of my ‘true data study’ post-FDSing, I was assigned to listen to all of the ESTO tapes, and was so intrigued by this that I went ahead and listened to the FEBC tapes. There were months of downtime waiting for approval to graduate the RPF, and I filled that time in a dedicated fashion, completing three OEC volume checksheets, and listening to more tech and admin tapes.

I completed KTL and LOC and, in one of my most inventive wranglings (which involved family money on account and other factors) got an ‘L’. Before I was declared and got the boot, I had managed to get onto Solo NOTs. The secret to all this was actually pretty simple: do a lot of missions, meet a lot of tech terminals in the advanced orgs and FSO as a result, and treat them fairly (from Scn/SO standards, I mean). You’d be amazed at how willing some Snr C/Ses are to slip your folder in, once you know them. I also adopted the view (from observation) that no one else was going to get me up the bridge.

 

[failmeansfail]

What else? One of the things about being a missionaire is that it puts you in touch with echelons, people and information that you wouldn’t necessarily normally have contact with. I knew who the WDC members were when that was still ‘secret’. I got to meet all kinds of people, past and present. I’ve either met or directly worked with all of LRH’s kids, with the exception of Quentin. I remember sitting in a chair while Vicky Aznaran’s big black dog stared at me, his ears back, a low growl rumbling in his throat. Vicky was amused. I remember Spike’s cowboy boots, and how the CMO Int action guys went through a period where they all wore black leather jackets and sunglasses. I remember the LRH death event, and the Portland crusade, and ‘We Stand Tall’, which seems so silly now, but which filled me with such pride at the time. I remember SO staff berthing at Canada, which at one time was the dregs of the dregs. I knew, worked with or met so many people, good, bad and indifferent. Heber, Guillame, CO CMO Int, various WDC members over the years, Jesse Prince, the Gamboas, Mike Rinder, etc, etc, etc.

I lost my virginity in the marriage bed. I lost a child to the FO Sea Org and Children. The marriage did not survive. I remember being sent on mission to PAC once from the FB, and meeting Bill Brugger when he was CO ASHOF. He did target shooting with a hand-held BB gun in his office, it was rumored, though I never personally witnessed it. I did, however, watch him stab a pile of PC folders with a pocket knife! I remember when he married Janadair, and how surprised I was at that match. I’d met Janadair twice, and had come away both times thinking she was a little tight in the anal-sphincter area – hardly the kind of person I’d expected to end up with the Bill Brugger I’d met. Then I saw the girlish smile on her face once when they were together, and understood completely.

I did almost all my drinking before I was twenty-one, all at Sea Org day celebrations. I remember how someone always seemed to go to the RPF for out 2D after each SO day. I remember bedbugs and asbestos in PAC and I remember the reign of terror at the FSO during the ‘Command Channels evolution’.

One day (as seems to happen) – I screwed up and got declared. To be clear – what I was declared for mattered only from a Scientological perspective. No one in the real world would have cared. But it happened.

It’s hard for me to adequately express the heartbreak I experienced when I was declared. I had failed the SO, which meant I had failed Scientology. Most important, and worst of all, I had failed Ron. The world needed Scientology to have any hope at all of even making it, and I had FAILED! I was devastated and bereft. I knew it was my fault, absolutely and without a doubt. I was the SP. I hated myself, and I spent a long time operating on the certainty that some basic, deplorable deficiency was the cause. There was some case aspect I had missed because my basic dishonesty prevented me from confronting it in myself, and that was why I was alone in a shitty apartment, crying like someone who’d just buried their family. I was too weak and filthy and worthless to overcome my own evil purposes, and because of that, I’d betrayed the one group offering any hope to man.

I was also completely alone. All the friends I’d grown up with, the members of the opposite sex I’d dated or loved, the fellow staff I’d ‘been through hell with’, even the members of my own family, were cut off from me. And I agreed that they should be, because I was an SP, after all. I remember resolving to do whatever it took to get back into good standing.

Thing is, I had no really marketable skills. I had no college diploma. And I’d been shuttled off with 500 bucks. Without going into details, let’s just say that years went by. Hard years, mostly. Years where I struggled to make ends meet and lived in fear sometimes, fear that I wouldn’t make enough money to eat or pay the rent. I had to teach myself how to use a checking account, how to drive, what a credit score was. I knew nothing of current events, political or popular. I tried to make friends, but found I had nothing in common with them because they weren’t Scientologists.

Funny thing about time. It just keeps on rolling. And as it rolls, you change. Sometimes that change is for the better, sometimes it’s for the worse, but the change comes. As the years went by, I started to notice something: I wasn’t all that unhappy. I was making ends meet. I’d met some people and had actually known them for a few years. I went to movies when I wanted, and I watched TV and listened to music and read books. I met members of the opposite sex and had relationships, good and bad. More years passed. I fell in love again. My business grew. Finally, the day came when I woke up and realized I was actually happy. Not just ‘not unhappy’. I liked my life. I was happy with myself, and with my mate. I trusted my own viewpoint. I still felt like someone ten or fifteen years younger in terms of life experience, but I’d found my ‘wog legs’. (lol). And here’s the key: Scientology had played no part in any of it.

 

[failmeansfail]

I started looking at the whole of my experience then, really looking at it dispassionately. I went through stages in that ‘looking’, as everyone does. At first I was certain this was all about DM. Yep, his fault, no doubt about it. He screwed everything up and messed up Scientology for the rest of us. But as time went on, and I dug more, and read more, and made myself apply basic logic, that view broadened.

One day, I realized it was all bullshit. Now, I’m going to say from the start that this was just my own realization. I’m done telling people what to think or believe about Scientology or LRH. I’m just telling everyone what I came to think, in as abbreviated a form as possible, without intimating that they should believe the same thing, or come to the same conclusion.

Do your own research, come to your own conclusions. Suffice to say that after a lot of research I came to realize that there were only two ways one could resolve all of the contradictions and lies about LRH and Scientology: A. Come to the conclusion that LRH was a super-special individual who quite suddenly arrived at all of the answers and B. There is a long term, planet wide conspiracy that recognized LRH and Scientology as a threat.

I had accepted these two ideas since I was very young. One day the ideas collapsed. It was quite sudden. I remember feeling as if I’d just been turned inside out. I suddenly felt as though I were outside the Truman show, looking in. The Apollo was no longer a semi-sacred ship where the only hope for Scientology (the Sea Org) was trained and put together. It was no longer the vessel where the wall of fire, the true reason for the decline of this sector of the galaxy, was cracked. It was just… a ship. And there was this old guy named L Ron Hubbard who was licensed to captain ships and he took all these people out on this ship and told them to wear uniforms. And later the people went on land and later I was there. And we all wore uniforms and campaign ribbons and buried daggers in the doors of downstat HCOs, and went to sleep worried about the expansion of Scientology and woke up worried about the same. We attacked each day with focused dedication, running down hallways managing organizations and firing missions and weeping at ‘the War is over’, and bursting with pride at the outcome of the Portland crusade. We were absolutely convinced that we were at the hub of the world, the center of the secret of life itself, and knew that we mattered more than anything else ever could.

But try this sometime. If you’re in LA, go to the PAC base. Feel the group agreement of all that Scientology. Now walk five or six blocks away and take a look around. What do you see? Right. No Scientology. Not ‘Scientology is good’ or ‘Scientology is bad’ or even ‘Scientology is controversial.’ NO SCIENTOLOGY. People who don’t care one way or the other and never will. People who will live and die unaffected by the subject, who probably won’t ever think about it except to read the word in a news story. It’s kind of like a scene from a great movie – The Last Emperor – about China’s last emperor. He leaves the walls of the Forbidden City one day and finds that not only is there a whole, buzzing world out there, but it mostly never even thinks about him.

That’s the truth of it, to me. I remember being in CW when the IAS first started making its rounds and all the ‘it came this close’ horror stories they’d tell to get money from people. To hear them talk, you’d think the world really was aware of and focused on Scientology, and in particular that the global conspiracy was after Scientology like nothing else. What I saw, that day the world turned inside out, was that the vast majority of the world is far, far too busy to care. I remember a briefing once for a mission where – I shit you not – the Action Chief leaned forward in the final briefing with a grim stare and said (essentially): ‘this isn’t a small mission. It looks like it, but it’s not. It’s part of an overall strategy that will probably make the difference in pushing things over the top.’ And I remember – I shit you not – the thrill of purpose that went through me. I went to pack and get ready for my plane flight, ready to do my vital part. I remember sitting at the airport, watching all the people, feeling sorry for them because they didn’t know the truth. I completely missed the real truth: I was just a punk kid with delusions of grandeur. Having an SO uniform in my suitcase didn’t make it otherwise.

All the telexes (later Mercs) and missions and stat analysis and danger handlings and evals – it was all directed inward, not outward. It was a gigantic, unending circle jerk that the majority of the world neither knew nor cared about.

 

[failmeansfail]

I cried a lot that day. A lot. I cried for my dead baby and my obliterated family. I cried for the friends I’d lost, and the years I’d lost. I wept for my parents, who had misled me with the very best of intentions. I wept for all the nights I couldn’t sleep because I was so worried about something happening on post, for the people I’d yelled at for no reason at all. I wept at the realization that I’d spent years on the RPF, dressed in black, wearing a rag around my arm, separated from my spouse, silent unless spoken to, degrading myself for an illusion I thought was the truth.

Most of all, I wept at an understanding that overwhelmed me: the first half of my life no longer existed. All that I had done, been, everything I’d worked on for years, 7 days a week, from 8am to 12am (when lucky) counted for absolutely nothing anymore. I’m not talking about the ‘truths’ of Scientology. I’m talking about people. Money. Friends. Family. Education. Working relationships. You’re supposed to start with X amount in this life and build from that base. All that I began with, minus myself, stayed with the Church.

A few days later I packed away every book and every tape and put them in boxes that are now gathering dust. And now I’m writing this, after which, I’ll be gone.

I’m tired of Scientology, in every incarnation, in all its forms. I’m tired of reading about it, posting about it, thinking about it. I’m tired of making it matter in any way. It’s not that I don’t hope I’ll get to see my family one day. I do. But that’s up to them. I know where they are, because that’s where I was, and there’s nothing I’m going to say that’ll shake their certainty. They have to wake up one day and realize, as I did, that they sold their own blood down the river so they could hold some cans and think about things. If that day comes, I’ll be waiting there for them, and forgiveness won’t be necessary.

As for me, I’m disconnecting from the subject, including as an ex. I’m itching to take a new look at the world out there. I feel curious again, which is a big change from thinking I know everything. The world and the people in it have things to teach me, and I’m looking forward to the experience.

The only piece of advice I’ll offer is this: Scientology is predicated on a single concept – the idea that there’s something wrong with you that you can’t know without Scientology’s help. In my opinion, this is an absolute falsehood. You can know anything you want about yourself, all by yourself. And there is no great, hidden secret. There’s only life.

I wish everyone well, in or out of the church. I hope, one day, that the problems of Scientology are just a memory. But whether they are or they aren’t, I’m getting on with my life.

I’m hopeful. Who knows? Maybe I’ll fuck it up. But if I do, it’ll be me fucking it up and no one else, and I like that idea a lot.

Goodbye.

 

[SomeGuy]

As for me, I’m disconnecting from the subject, including as an ex. I’m itching to take a new look at the world out there. I feel curious again, which is a big change from thinking I know everything. The world and the people in it have things to teach me, and I’m looking forward to the experience.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey!

 

[Pliny Younger]

That was a lot to say and well said.

Peace.

 

[scooter]

Bon voyage - that was one hell of an exit speech.

But please drop in occasionally and tell us how the trip is going.

 

[HappyGirl]

, hello, good bye and I wish you all the best, failmeansfail. I resonated with your entire story.

I remember sitting in a chair while Vicky Aznaran’s big black dog stared at me, his ears back, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

Vicky had a dog?!?!? Did her dog wear a uniform and did she make everyone salute her dog?

 

[Free to shine]

Fantastic writing mate. I so know what you are saying and followed similar trails of awareness, being 2nd generation.

I wish you well on your journey and would only add that such insight can benefit others too, so you are always welcome to write more if the inclination ever strikes.

 

[byte301]

I miss you already.

I hope you get everything you want out of life. You've earned it.

 

[Kutta]

It was a gigantic, unending circle jerk that the majority of the world neither knew nor cared about.

This is so true. I applaud your analysis of the cult. I wish you a happy, exciting life, with many experiences to satisfy your curiosity or peak it further. Go well.

 

[Dulloldfart]

Most of all, I wept at an understanding that overwhelmed me: the first half of my life no longer existed. All that I had done, been, everything I’d worked on for years, 7 days a week, from 8am to 12am (when lucky) counted for absolutely nothing anymore. I’m not talking about the ‘truths’ of Scientology. I’m talking about people. Money. Friends. Family. Education. Working relationships. You’re supposed to start with X amount in this life and build from that base. All that I began with, minus myself, stayed with the Church.

One of Dr. Michael Newton's (the Life-Between-Lives guy) favourite questions in such situations is, "What do you understand now that you wouldn't understand if you hadn't experienced _____?"

I think it is a very powerful question.

Paul

 

[GreyWolf]

Thank you for your honesty and courage. Please come back now and then to let us know how fou are doing.

 

[EP - Ethics Particle]

After reading this thread...

I wish I could give and get a hug, my girl. Best to you and yours, EP

 

[Enthetan]

I wish you well. Have a good life.

 

[Iknowtoomuch]

I'm glad i read that.

have fun on your trip.

I can put a timeline together and see you were in for a very long time.

 

[dontscamme]

Quite a powerful and moving story you have lived and written, failmeansfail.

It's sad that we never got to spend much time with you, but I am thankful that you were here and leave some words of wisdom behind as you go on to other things.

May the wind be at your back as you sail forward on the seas of life.