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HelluvaHoax!

Platinum Meritorious Sponsor with bells on
Scientologists and Indies and EXes, Oh My!

...

Reason #33: Why it's nearly impossible to clear the term Ex-Scientologist.


EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
I used to be in Scientology.

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #2
Me too!

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
It's such a crazy cult!
What was I thinking?! LOL

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #2
I know, totally! LOL
(suddenly sobers)
Hey, isn't that a Mark VII
e-meter case you are carrying?

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
Yeah! It's the special green & white
limited edition with the round helm
you turn as a tone arm.

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #2
Wutttt? I thought you said you
were an EX-Scientologist. . .

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
I am! But I still use the tech.
 

afaceinthecrowd

Gold Meritorious Patron
...

<snip>

Scientology attracts 3 kinds of people.
Truth seekers.
The deluded.
Liars.
When presented with enough truth. . .
The Truth Seekers blow.
The deluded get confused but some recover.
The liars continue lying.
Welcome to ESMB.
[/CENTER]

:thumbsup::yes::clap:

I met some of the finest, most fascinating and downright decent Folks I have ever known while I was in Scn (a few of whom are here on this Board). I also met some of the most whacked out space cadets I have ever encountered and, without doubt, interacted with a number of junior grade and a few 10th degree truly heartless black hat sociopaths.

Of all the Boards out there, this is the ONLY place I would ever Post, Period. I used to, some while back, read some of the other Scn Boards but the quality of the Dialogues, the amount of good, solid information, brilliant wit and the Heart and Soul of this Virtual Community is like none other.

Part of the "esprit de corp", panoply and "Big Tent" of ESMB is, IMHO, loosely analogous to a bunch of Folks that are Vets, some of whom went through War.

In a sense, we all had different experiences, have different “Takes” on what we experienced, our lives were impacted and will always be “flavored” to one degree or another whether or not we did the “GI Hitch” or all the way to “Lifer”.

We don't always agree with, feel warm and fuzzy about or tolerate each other all that well for a while sometimes but, for the most part, we "Grok" each other in ways that no one can that has not "Worn the Uniform", IMO.

Face:)
 

clamicide

Gold Meritorious Patron
@Xenu's Boyfriend....(and for general whatever)

I do get your frustration. It still bugs me, but I remember when I was coming out, and starting to regain my skills at differentiating things and evaluating things from my own view. Believe it or not, some of the stuff that is most annoying and toxic and weird is stuff that really helped me get out. It so echoed the stuff I heard in the cult, that it just stood out as crazy-insane, and just seeing the same tactics used and spouted outside the cult really strengthened my resolve that totally leaving and totally abandoning the entire Scio world was absolutely right. So much of the stuff was per PR policy or just... well, just Scientology. I've waffled, because I want to fight it because it just seems stupid, but then again... most research studies have shown that most people who get into cults are of higher than normal intelligence, so hopefully as they get out, they will also use this as part of exiting like I did.

And as far as comparing to rape, I understand your queasiness, but I've been raped several times, and I'm not offended (although others might be). Honestly, what I experienced in the cult was much worse for me than the worst rape I experienced (and it was stuff that made rape counselors pause)...

I'm glad you are open and asking questions... I'm sure it's quite confusing. I've worked with an amazing cult counselor, and I have done a ton of research into the area. Don't let it get to you. If you want to talk more, pm me.

There is a disconnect in some ways from people that know nothing about cult life, and another disconnect for me for those who came through OK... and I have studied enough to know how different experiences can occur. As someone experiencing PTSD, you must be just blown away... there are just many layers that go along with thought reform.

Keep on posting, but take care of yourself...
 

What's It All About

Patron with Honors
SNIP:
I just think it's shitty that there is so much oil in the water, as people try to get themselves clean from Scientology's mind control and it's my observation that some people deliberately continue Scientology's process of mystification here, for whatever reason...
So yes, free will, yes, freedom of speech, always, but isn't there a question of where that speech takes place and why?
XB

First of all, love you, love your name.

As they say, "If not here, where? And if not now, when?"

For me, as a never-was-and-hope-to-God-I-never-will be cultist (don't want any of them, including certain "major" religions), what scares me most about Lientology is the corruption that is fundamental to Hubbard's terrified (yes, I think he was terrified of his own real and imaginary inadequacies) and adversarial approach to everyone (including scientologists themselves) and the "superior race" attitude that he preyed on in people's egos.

That is, that we have an instinctive need to feel "special" and that we are easy pickings for the con artists who are willing to manipulate that need to their own ends. Throw in fear of loss and it's a nasty double-bind to feel both seduced and afraid to leave.

But what brings me here is trying to understand the vulnerability that causes sincere, intelligent, well-meaning people to set aside their common sense, self-preserving instincts, loving relationships, financial stability, conscience, respect for the law, and respect for truth and decency for some self-help scheme that delivers the exact opposite of what was promised.

The splintering that is happening in scientology, and which has been going on for longer than I understood before I started paying attention to the cult, seems to be the unfortunate but inevitable complicating behavior to which humans seem to subject the basic truths of our existence. Truths which, presumably, we know intuitively but are awfully good at forgetting in the hullabaloo of physical life.

And then we fall prey to the schmoes who purport to remind us of what we already know. At great and terrible cost, sometimes. If anyone says he'll sell you "The Secret", run, don't walk, in the opposite direction.

Just as there are now hundreds of "Christian" sects, who violently disagree and are willing to kill other "Christians" to prove how right they are and how wrong those other sinful, evil, delusional, dangerous, lying, corrupt (blah, blah) people are, there may one day be many scientology sects that focus on very differing aspects of Hubbie's precious "legacy".

So it's inevitable that there are scientologists who don't want to disavow all of it and those who do.

I saw a TV show recently about moods, like depression and PTSD. They talked to men who were POWs in Vietnam. One was in solitary confinement for eight years, in a bare cell with a single light bulb that burned 24 hours a day. He was also tortured regularly. He and the other POWs created a tapping code for the alphabet and had long conversations that way. Certainly these were conditions that could drive someone insane.

Of course, you could say, but he suffered at the hands of the enemy, so he in no way "asked" for this treatment. He was not betrayed by his own group. So there was no additional anguish from violation of trust.

But the weird thing is that when he and other men like him were asked if they could wipe that experience out of their lives entirely, if they would do so, they said no. The former POWs said the experience helped them later in their lives.

But they actually didn't entirely regret being tortured and isolated for years.

And although this may be another strange way of shedding light on why people don't entirely demonize their cult or other abusive relationships, consider women who give birth without drugs. Intensely painful, to put it mildly, for many (no, not all). But one woman was telling me about how much it hurt and in the next breath said, "I'd do it again".

Some people find ways to redeem pain. Maybe it's these trials-by-fire that really cause you to grow intensively, more so than those of us who "creep in this petty pace from day to day".

Looking at it from the larger (perhaps) picture, maybe there are those of us who don't throw the baby of our valuable experiences out with the bathwater of our painful ones, at least not all of the time.

Perhaps utterly condemning what one has done, or others have done, while satisfying to the impulse to judge, is cutting oneself off from the knowledge that can come from open-hearted self-reflection, painful, humiliating and repellant as that process can be at times.

Maybe it's harder to keep an open mind in allowing life lessons, those of which we are proud as well as those of which we're ashamed, to percolate to the surface because they are not being repressed in an atmosphere of anger-turned-inwards or outwards.

I wasn't a great student of French in high school, but I still remember a surprising amount of it. If I turned against myself because I got some bad grades on tests and only had scathing criticism for my own participation or blamed the teachers for being lousy or my parents for not helping me more (blah, blah, again), I wonder how much I'd remember? Or whether I'd still be open to learning more French.

Learning more scientology may seem lunatic to those who had hard-won escapes, or merely read about them, but scientology is a tool of self-knowledge: flawed, corrupted, contradictory, conceived in error, but still people who've been through it are capable of extracting value from the process. What sort of value only they can say.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and sympathize with your desire that we, regardless of our scientology experience or lack thereof, should take responsibility, without making excuses, for our foolishness, gullibility, and "sins of commission and omission".

If I had my druthers, I suppose I'd want to wipe all record of scientology off the earth. But then there'd be some other cockamamy human nuttiness to contend with.

And we don't want whatever sort of pyrrhic victory that would result from outlawing the human creativity that produces the nuttiness.

That's all the blathering I'm fit for, and more. Got to go feed the cats. Thanks to all those thoughtful and courageous types who swim these murky,
post-scientology waters.
 

MrNobody

Who needs merits?
Well, XB, I think I can see where you're coming from, but the thing is this: Some pro-SCN-posters are just wanting to rescue/secure some ROI - and they've invested a lot over the years: Time, money and in lack of a better word: "Self".

I can rarely agree with a pro-SCN-post, but I think I can also kinda see where they are coming from and understand why they would still want to squeeze some return value out of their investments.

Also, without these post(er)s, this forum would quickly devolve into a self-serving circle-jerk and lose it's purpose, IMHO.

My personal opinion is: "Anything Hubbard is bad in one way or another", but if everybody would just agree with me on this statement, this forum would probably bore me to death and I'd be a goner pretty soon.

In other words: These pro-SCN-or parts-thereof post(er)s, although they can be a PITA at times, create the friction that makes this board interesting - to me, that is.

jus' my 0.02 € :)
 

Xenu's Boyfriend

Silver Meritorious Patron
There is a huge variety of people here, from all backgrounds that have experienced hubbard personally and his scientology. What I find fascinating is that after having been in hubbard's mind cult, the members here dissect those experiences bluntly and honestly, as stepping stones to help themselves and others looking for information, answers, help and speak out. I think ESMB is rather unique in it's member dedication to this end. Could that be the phenomena you're putting your finger on?

Yes, FreeBeing, I think you are right. Thank you for pointing this out.
 

BardoThodol

Silver Meritorious Patron
Perhaps the poem by Christina Rossetti can serve as a metaphor here:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Lots of change occurs through communicating. You don't see the change occurring-- except by comparing communication through time. A person may leave the CofS very pro-Scientology, expressing his/her thanks to the church and Hubbard. Then through reading and communicating, that person learns facts and truths which were once denied. The more one learns about LRH, the less attractive his works become.

That person needs a place to come after leaving Scientology. Why not here?

And, just because a conman steals your money doesn't mean you stop enjoying the benefits of money. Or the desire to increase your wealth through investing.

I left the church in '82ish? I had lots of fun. Met lots of very intelligent, interesting people. Felt I learned how to get along better with others, blah, blah, blah. Lots of great experiences connected to Scientology. Lots of wonderful people.

So, do I just deny those experiences? Do I expect others to deny they experienced anything positive in connection with the church? Nah.

Hating Scientology just brought too much bitterness to my life after I left. I just don't bother hating it, nor Hubbard nor much of anything these days.

All those wonderful, intelligent people were attracted to something in Scientology. The idea that you could know--and gain some spiritual freedom from knowing (gnosticism.) The idea that communication was good. That you could examine your life and solve your problems. That you could gain redemption from bad things you'd done. That you could overcome upsets and understand others. That you could rise above the urge to make yourself right when you were obviously wrong. Blah, blah, blah.

Sure, that stuff could have come from elsewhere, but I got it studying what I did.

I've never been raped, but I would hate to think that the trauma would make me hate the intimacy and connection one experiences during sex, make me never want to make love again.

I've been seriously betrayed, but that hasn't made me less trusting. The betrayals simply made me want to understand that person more, understand what they lose in gaining so little.

I pity Hubbard and those who believe their lies make their life better. What's that line from the Bible: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

What did all his efforts really do for Hubbard?

Decrying the lies and criminality is one thing, denying the right to openly communicate is another. We're all adults. We can all reject any idea.

And if each of us is forced to parrot the same idea, how can change occur? How can you broaden your understanding? Or the understanding of others?

How can someone who loves the idea of Hubbard eventually be brought to understanding the man's criminal inclinations?

ESMB is a map with many routes and destinations. Each of us represents a different point on the map--and take trips as we see fit. Some want a broader experience; others a narrow experience.

ESMB is analogous to a buffet. When you go through the line, you can't possibly eat it all. You have to choose. Same here. You pick and choose who you want to read. After a short while, you learn who/what to leave off your plate.

Why fill your plate with what you won't eat?
 

Auditor's Toad

Clear as Mud
Re: Scientologists and Indies and EXes, Oh My!

...

Reason #33: Why it's nearly impossible to clear the term Ex-Scientologist.


EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
I used to be in Scientology.

<snip>


Hey, isn't that a Mark VII
e-meter case you are carrying?

<snip>

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #2
Wutttt? I thought you said you
were an EX-Scientologist. . .

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
I am! But I still use the tech.

Yes. & I find that so frustrating. " I'm an EX scn but I still use the tech ...yap, yap yap".

Sort of reminds me of "pick & choose" Fundamentalist Christians who decry homosexuals as an abonimation unto the Lord....as they munch on lobster !

One good process that has proven out is R2 -45 ( except Rex Fowler didn't EP it properly ) :omg:

So, I agree with the theory that some of that shit works. R2 - 45 works - ( well, Rex didn't do it standardly !). What else ?

I realize all are entitled to the belief in the " yeck " of scn, but, it is now a teeth grinding to listen to that pure crap.
 
Last edited:

Smilla

Ordinary Human
I don't care what people believe about Scientology, but I do care that *some* - not many, people come here to further it's ends. I don't like it, and I don't have to.


 

MrNobody

Who needs merits?
Re: Scientologists and Indies and EXes, Oh My!

Yes. & I find that so frustrating. " I'm an EX scn but I still use the tech ...yap, yap yap".

<snip>

I just updated my Signature with this: "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

I understand that some people are not (yet) willing to face (hey Face, no pun intended) that experience, but why should that frustrate you or anyone at all?
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Ooooh, I'm probably going to get in trouble for this, but here it goes: :nailbiting:


Someone just posted in one of the threads here:

"I think there's a variety of exes and critics who have different takes on things. We mention our stances, whether those be that the person's now an indie, or that they think it's all crap or that maybe they liked some of it- in interests of candor with our contributors.

That, and freedom of speech and choice is really all there is to that."



My feeling is: not quite. I still wonder what it means to be an ex-Scientologist as defined by this site, and I have yet to get a real answer. When you think about it, maybe there needs to be a new site created for the kind of dialogue this person is talking about in the quote, where these groups (Critics, Scientologists, Ex-Scientologists, Independents) can all come together and argue it out.

I've learned a lot from the posts I've read here, and this site is an incredible resource. And don't get me wrong, I love a good argument. But the way I've been challenged since arriving, I've come to the conclusion, on a certain level, this isn't an ex-Scientology message board at all. It might have started out that way, but it was and continues to be hijacked and derailed by certain people. The pro-Scientology faction makes themselves very felt and they dominate many threads. And I'm not talking about bullshit posts about Tom Cruise - who I couldn't give a fly's anus about. I'm talking about the crucial aspects of breaking down the harm, the grief, the PTSD of Scientology. My feeling is if you really see "two sides" to that, you don't belong here.

(Someone is probably thinking, who the hell does this guy think he is saying this, how long has he been here? But if you're thinking that, you're exactly the person whom I'm talking to.)

What this is, in my humble opinion, is a site on the Subject of Scientology with an emphasis on people who have left the church. Again, that may cheeky for me to say as a newcomer, but maybe it takes a newcomer to say it. Because a true ex-Scientology site would never tolerate consistent pro-Scientology posts, or responses to people who are critical of the church: "Get some freaking facts." "Some of us got major wins..." or "Yes, Lisa McPherson died but medical malpractice happens all the time." I'm not making this up, these are responses/attitudes (paraphrased) I've seen here since I arrived, and I've been like, WTF? Exactly where am I?



I've contributed to the merry go round conversations that go on and on and on where we all find ourselves caught in the matrix, unable to escape. But what I find fascinating is that if you take Scientology out of the equation and you make this instead a forum for survivors of sexual assault and rape (and I don't use this example lightly because for those ex-Scientologists who were in the Sea Org, or RPF'd, the trauma and PTSD may be just as profound), it would be unfathomable as survivors on one part of the site were talking about their personal rape experience, others were saying, "Well, sometimes if you do go out late at night and you're by yourself...", "rape statistics are down lately...." "There are some experiences where people come onto you and still say no..then what do you do?" "See both sides..." etc, etc, etc...

Thank God for posters like Smilla and I Told You I Was Trouble and many others who are kind to everyone but clear and focused about their intention and what is at stake in this battle against the church and there is a battle going on. And people don't need their efforts enervated by exhausting, random, get-you-feet-caught-up-in-the-jump-rope-trip-and-break-your-neck-I'm-not-a-Scientologist-anymore-as-I-defend-the-tech-to-the-death posts.

I'm not trying to personally attack anyone. I just think it's shitty that there is so much oil in the water, as people try to get themselves clean from Scientology's mind control and it's my observation that some people deliberately continue Scientology's process of mystification here, for whatever reason. I experienced it and almost left and I'm not the only one. It reminds me of those pictures of the BP oil spill and the seagulls and wildlife that were covered in grime. This is a very hard place at times to "get clean" when people keep reminding you how "wonderful the tech is" and keep asking you to "see both sides." For the person who haunts the site but doesn't share, who is on the fence about leaving the church and reads the apologies for LRH and his tech, sometimes this presence feels especially sinister.

So yes, free will, yes, freedom of speech, always, but isn't there a question of where that speech takes place and why?

XB
Because a true ex-Scientology site would never tolerate consistent pro-Scientology posts, or responses to people who are critical of the church: "Get some freaking facts." "Some of us got major wins..." or "Yes, Lisa McPherson died but medical malpractice happens all the time." I'm not making this up, these are responses/attitudes (paraphrased) I've seen here since I arrived, and I've been like, WTF? Exactly where am I?


I think you need to do a bit more research - it is really hard to confront exactly what happened to Lisa McPherson - but you may want to really dig and dig deep!:coolwink:

Ask David Miscavige what he did to Lisa and what he is withholding? Who keeps missing it???:wink2: The truth will set David Miscavige free - the truth and only the truth!! :yes:

Did you read Janet Reitman's book "Inside Scientology" yet? Think Lisa died of an embolism? Really??? Just went bonkers on her own? Really? Really??? Really?????
 

HelluvaHoax!

Platinum Meritorious Sponsor with bells on
Re: Scientologists and Indies and EXes, Oh My!

Reason #33: Why it's nearly impossible to clear the term Ex-Scientologist.


EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
I used to be in Scientology.

<snip>


Hey, isn't that a Mark VII
e-meter case you are carrying?

<snip>

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #2
Wutttt? I thought you said you
were an EX-Scientologist. . .

EX SCIENTOLOGIST #1
I am! But I still use the tech.




--snipped--

Yes. & I find that so frustrating. " I'm an EX scn but I still use the tech ...yap, yap yap".


But wait, there's more! LOL. (Warning: This post may result in a rant....get out now while you still have a chance! LOL)

After reading your post, I just came up with an answer to something I have been wondering about for a long time. The question about why Hubbard and Scientologists are so manically fixated about clearlng words and their exact meanings. Word clearing "tech" that requires that tens of millions of parishioner hours are wasted, digging thru thousands of dictionary definitions unrelated to what they are studying.

The whole subject of Scientology is neurotic about the PRECISE meaning of every word and Hubbard even wrote punitive "High Crime" ethics policies if anyone failed to "clear a word" or allowed another to not "clear a word".

Somehow all the professionals in the world throughout history managed to learn science, math, physics, engineering, medicine, botany and hundreds of other exacting disciplines WITHOUT Hubbard's word clearing "tech".

SO WHY OH WHY ARE SCIENTOLOGISTS SO NEUROTIC ABOUT WORDS?

I finally get it! It's because slamming people's attention into words is a misdirection by the master con man Hubbard. He is hiding the lies of Scientology in plain sight (the best place) by forcing everyone to focus on the exact words and definitions. This does two things:

1) It convinces the Scientologist that they are scientifically studying a scientific subject.

2) It never dawns on the Scientologist that Hubbard's insistence on "understanding the words precisely until full conceptual understanding" is designed to cause them to let their guard down so that the disinformation can hypnotically flow into their minds with alarming volume. After all (the Scientologist faultily reasons), if Dr. Hubbard is insisting that they microscopically examine his technology down to the molecular and atomic levels (words, definitions and word-definitions within word-definitions!) there must be nothing to hide!

3) Finally (the more obvious, but not obvious to Scientologists), by atomizing ever sentence and idea into words, the Scientologist is given abundant opportunity to "clear" every meaning of every idea that Hubbard expresses. Not, mind you, to "clear" the truth or falsity of it--but to "clear" WHY IT IS TRUE; because Hubbard said it. This falls under the Hubbard study tech rule of getting a student to work out how something is and is not true (alternately) until they can "make it their own". In other words, take an obvious untrue statement and get the student to discover how it is actually true. Insane technology, actually, designed to have a student dial up and discover their own personal cognitive dissonance.​

This may all seem far fetched to some here on ESMB and I have no doubt that a Scientologist or "Indie" Scientologist would understand or appreciate the glaring and brilliant stupidity in Hubbard insisting on Scientologists "clearing" the exact meaning of words as a method of getting them to miss the aerial view of what they are being taught.

EXAMPLE: Student spends hours (or days) on word clearing and word chains, "clearing" their disagreement with the Hubbard sentence: "I nearly got run over by a freight train on Venus the other day." The clever supervisors, word clearers or Qual personnel get the student to find the REAL meanings of each word. An afternoon is spent "clearing" the word "nearly", which the student never misunderstood in the first place. The next day when the student is bent and spinny, they are convinced to do a clay demo of the term "freight train" in order to "clear" their aberration on why they cannot join the rest of the winning students who happily sailed past the "freight train on Venus" anecdote. Then the student is forced to look up the relevant of the word Venus and really try to understand where the word came from before using it in endless sentences. The student begins to torture the words and meanings until they finally come up with a plausible explanation for why Ron is saying insane things like that when they discover something "amazing" in the the origin of the word "Venus".

Venus -O.E., from L. Venus (pl. veneres), in ancient Roman mythology, the goddess of beauty and love, especially sensual love, from venus "love, sexual desire, loveliness, beauty, charm," from PIE root *wen- "to strive after, wish, desire, be satisfied" (cf. Skt. vanas- "desire," vanati "desires, loves, wins;" Avestan vanaiti "he wishes, is victorious;" O.E. wynn "joy," wunian "to dwell," wenian "to accustom, train, wean," wyscan "to wish"). Applied by the Romans to Greek Aphrodite, Egyptian Hathor, etc. Meaning "second planet from the sun" is attested from late 13c. (Old English had morgensteorra and æfensteorra).

Aha! Venus....Train. OMG, I thought Ron was talking about a real train!!! (Their misunderstood must be due to using the incorrect definition of the word "Train". LOLOL. This is how Scientology makes people really crazy by the way).

For anyone still reading this, let me get back to the main point. SCIENTOLOGISTS DO NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE MEANING OF WORDS DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY ARE SLAVISHLY BOUND TO THE HOLY TASK OF RUTHLESSLY CLEARING THEM ON THEMSELVES AND OTHERS.

That is why a Scientologist can say (without blinking): I am an ex Scientologist while they are still a Scientologist using Ron's tech to total freedom.

WORDS HAVE NO MEANING IN SCIENTOLOGY OR TO REAL SCIENTOLOGISTS.

That's why 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, the most advanced Scientologists in the world LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE to the media, courtrooms and their own parishioners.

Scientology is the "science" of removing all meanings from all words and having them mean whatever they need to mean.

There is nothing even slightly wrong in a Scientologist's mind about lying (we don't use "disconnection", "fair game was canceled", we are producing "OTs" ever day!, "there are ten million Scientologists!", "Ron never took a penny from Scientology!", "Ron postulated that his body died so he could do advanced OT research in outer space", etc. etc. etc.) and the reason it is easy to lie is that words have no meaning and cult members are painstakingly indoctrinated into abandoning common sense and, instead, peering thru atomic microscopes at words so that they no longer resemble what they originally were intended to mean.

Here you go, let's read today's newspaper.....and really get down to the words at a microscopic level. Then we'll really get the "essence" and core meaning the way Ron intended. LOL

images


Wonderful! I want to examine Ron's words more closely....

ipad_26x.jpg


Wow, that's good, but I need to really get closer to Ron's words, can you magnify it a big more for me?


news_400x.jpg


Hey, can we magnify that newspaper a bit more, I really want to get what Ron is saying !

paper_microscope.png


Wow, now I am really getting the meaning of Ron's words in the fullest sense. I can see now the actual woof-and-warp of the conceptual basic. I get it now.
 

Smilla

Ordinary Human
I am not a Scientologist, but I do stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone fighting for their right to brainwash people. I also defend people's right to be brainwashed. If you can't see the fairness in that, that's your problem. Period.




 
It's a healthy scrum. :biggrin: I think it functions best this way, in educating and enlightening people about the Cult of Scientology! :thumbsup:

See: http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/scrum

It takes some people a long, long time to give up their Scientological thinking and their self-justification for staying in/supporting/working for such a destructive Cult.

It takes them a while to wake up and realize that it IS a destructive Cult.

What you are seeing are the people who are all along that continuum, talking and contending with one another... some can't handle it and leave, and some get what they need to say out of their system and just get on with real life and mostly leave. But meanwhile, back at the ESMB Ranch, there is a whole lot of healing, waking up, shaking up and learning and advocacy going on! :thumbsup: And a relatively safe place for a reality check and attitude adjustment for those newly out of the Cult. :yes:

It's all good, as far as I'm concerned. The more those who are just waking up have to grapple and contend with those who are relentless Critics of the Cult of COS, the better. :thumbsup:
 

Xenu's Boyfriend

Silver Meritorious Patron
(In an intergalactic therapist’s office, many galaxies away…..)


Therapist: So, let’s talk about this thread you posted on the Ex- Scientologist Message Board. A lot of people have responded.

Xenu’s Boyfriend: Yes.

Therapist: How are you feeling?

XB: Okay, I guess. I mean, I’m glad I posted it. It seems to have created a good conversation/discussion. And that’s always good.

Therapist: What else?

XB: Well, I posted it right as the founder announced she is taking a leave from the site. I feel a bit like a dick, I didn’t mean to criticize her work, I was trying to protect it actually, I mean, protect what I thought it stood for. I feel guilty about that.

Therapist: You feel guilty about everything. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Go on.

XB: One thing I noticed about the group and the people who responded to what I wrote. There’s a real tolerance for the people who aren’t necessarily “on message”, who disagree, or say something that seems to be pro-Scientology, from their own experience. It’s like in a family – they may be the obnoxious uncle telling stupid jokes, or the drunk aunt, or Grandpa who comes out of his room without remembering his pajama bottoms, but everyone is welcome. The disagreements have led to breakthroughs for some, and it even seems to give the site flavor. There’s a surprising lack of judgment. Even towards me.

Therapist: How does that make you feel?

XB: It’s wonderful, I guess. But I don’t do too well with families. Mine was fucked up in a certain way, I guess I feel like I have to control everything. I want everyone to do what I want them to do. It doesn’t work that way. I think I have legitimate criticisms, but that’s not the point. The point is that I want people to act a certain way for me to feel safe. I never feel safe. But what I’m learning is that the disagreements that take place may be helpful, even if they are crazy. We need everyone. I hate people who think in black and white, and I don’t want to see the site go in that direction. I just feel, I guess because of my own family, that I have to take control or everything is going to fall apart. I mean, ESMB may be a dysfunctional family, but I think they are a family, and I feel there is love there.

Therapist: (nodding) Good work.

XB: And there was one other thing. I thought about myself. I really learned something from this experience. It’s like there are parts of myself I don’t except, that I expect to be perfect, consistent, and sometimes they just aren’t. I want everything to move in the same direction. So I wouldn’t allow those differences in myself. If there is some part I don’t like, I feel the need to change or control it too, and I can’t move until I’m perfect. But maybe this has taught me that some things may not be intregrated and may take more time. Meanwhile, while I'm working on that, I can still enjoy my life, I can still move on. I just don’t know how to do that sometimes.

Therapist: Maybe it means accepting the parts of you that you may not like all the time. The critical parts, the parts that seem to challenge you the most.

XB: You mean, accepting my inner 'Mark A. Baker'?

Therapist: That’s right. Or even the part of you that seems at times in chaos, but wants to communicate anyway, regardless of whether anything makes sense.

XB: (gulping back tears, whispering) Embrace my inner Commander Birdsong?

Therapist: exactly.

XB: So I guess I don’t have to come in and control the site or decide who should be saying what or how people should express themselves. That’s not my role. I feel I should apologize. Not for standing up for my beliefs, but for telling people what to think.

Therapist: I’m sure they know how you feel. (She hands XB a tissue.)

XB: But, hey! I’m still gonna get in that ass if I feel I disagree with something or someone tries to intimidate me. That’s not going to change.

Therapist: (confused) Get in that ass?

XB: Oh sorry. It’s Earth slang. We just got back from vacation there. It means, express my opinion. Not let anyone off the hook if I feel something's wrong.

Therapist: No one’s telling you not to. You should express your opinion. Just give others room to express theirs.

XB: (Blowing his nose) Thank you so much, Cathy. Now just one more thing. Xenu’s parents are coming to visit us at Christmas, and he’s drinking again. Last night we were in bed and I told him, if he doesn't start going to meetings….remember what happened at Thanksgiving? I'm still picking pieces of turkey out of the radiator.

Therapist: (Looking at watch) XB, I’m afraid that all the time we have…..
 
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Smilla

Ordinary Human
I was sent to a Child Psychiatrist, but he was only eight and just to play with his toy cars.
 

Xenu's Boyfriend

Silver Meritorious Patron
SNIP:


First of all, love you, love your name.

As they say, "If not here, where? And if not now, when?"

For me, as a never-was-and-hope-to-God-I-never-will be cultist (don't want any of them, including certain "major" religions), what scares me most about Lientology is the corruption that is fundamental to Hubbard's terrified (yes, I think he was terrified of his own real and imaginary inadequacies) and adversarial approach to everyone (including scientologists themselves) and the "superior race" attitude that he preyed on in people's egos.

That is, that we have an instinctive need to feel "special" and that we are easy pickings for the con artists who are willing to manipulate that need to their own ends. Throw in fear of loss and it's a nasty double-bind to feel both seduced and afraid to leave.

But what brings me here is trying to understand the vulnerability that causes sincere, intelligent, well-meaning people to set aside their common sense, self-preserving instincts, loving relationships, financial stability, conscience, respect for the law, and respect for truth and decency for some self-help scheme that delivers the exact opposite of what was promised.

The splintering that is happening in scientology, and which has been going on for longer than I understood before I started paying attention to the cult, seems to be the unfortunate but inevitable complicating behavior to which humans seem to subject the basic truths of our existence. Truths which, presumably, we know intuitively but are awfully good at forgetting in the hullabaloo of physical life.

And then we fall prey to the schmoes who purport to remind us of what we already know. At great and terrible cost, sometimes. If anyone says he'll sell you "The Secret", run, don't walk, in the opposite direction.

Just as there are now hundreds of "Christian" sects, who violently disagree and are willing to kill other "Christians" to prove how right they are and how wrong those other sinful, evil, delusional, dangerous, lying, corrupt (blah, blah) people are, there may one day be many scientology sects that focus on very differing aspects of Hubbie's precious "legacy".

So it's inevitable that there are scientologists who don't want to disavow all of it and those who do.

I saw a TV show recently about moods, like depression and PTSD. They talked to men who were POWs in Vietnam. One was in solitary confinement for eight years, in a bare cell with a single light bulb that burned 24 hours a day. He was also tortured regularly. He and the other POWs created a tapping code for the alphabet and had long conversations that way. Certainly these were conditions that could drive someone insane.

Of course, you could say, but he suffered at the hands of the enemy, so he in no way "asked" for this treatment. He was not betrayed by his own group. So there was no additional anguish from violation of trust.

But the weird thing is that when he and other men like him were asked if they could wipe that experience out of their lives entirely, if they would do so, they said no. The former POWs said the experience helped them later in their lives.

But they actually didn't entirely regret being tortured and isolated for years.

And although this may be another strange way of shedding light on why people don't entirely demonize their cult or other abusive relationships, consider women who give birth without drugs. Intensely painful, to put it mildly, for many (no, not all). But one woman was telling me about how much it hurt and in the next breath said, "I'd do it again".

Some people find ways to redeem pain. Maybe it's these trials-by-fire that really cause you to grow intensively, more so than those of us who "creep in this petty pace from day to day".

Looking at it from the larger (perhaps) picture, maybe there are those of us who don't throw the baby of our valuable experiences out with the bathwater of our painful ones, at least not all of the time.

Perhaps utterly condemning what one has done, or others have done, while satisfying to the impulse to judge, is cutting oneself off from the knowledge that can come from open-hearted self-reflection, painful, humiliating and repellant as that process can be at times.

Maybe it's harder to keep an open mind in allowing life lessons, those of which we are proud as well as those of which we're ashamed, to percolate to the surface because they are not being repressed in an atmosphere of anger-turned-inwards or outwards.

I wasn't a great student of French in high school, but I still remember a surprising amount of it. If I turned against myself because I got some bad grades on tests and only had scathing criticism for my own participation or blamed the teachers for being lousy or my parents for not helping me more (blah, blah, again), I wonder how much I'd remember? Or whether I'd still be open to learning more French.

Learning more scientology may seem lunatic to those who had hard-won escapes, or merely read about them, but scientology is a tool of self-knowledge: flawed, corrupted, contradictory, conceived in error, but still people who've been through it are capable of extracting value from the process. What sort of value only they can say.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and sympathize with your desire that we, regardless of our scientology experience or lack thereof, should take responsibility, without making excuses, for our foolishness, gullibility, and "sins of commission and omission".

If I had my druthers, I suppose I'd want to wipe all record of scientology off the earth. But then there'd be some other cockamamy human nuttiness to contend with.

And we don't want whatever sort of pyrrhic victory that would result from outlawing the human creativity that produces the nuttiness.

That's all the blathering I'm fit for, and more. Got to go feed the cats. Thanks to all those thoughtful and courageous types who swim these murky,
post-scientology waters.

Thank you, WIAB, this is a beautiful post, with a lot of understanding and wisdom. Some things you wrote here are helpful to my own PTSD. And I agree with your conclusion. There is a richness that comes from going through hell and coming back and being able to "live to tell." Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtful comments. Great to discuss this with you, and everyone who has posted here - I didn't comment after every single one, but I love that we've talking about this.
 
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