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So here's my intro....

mysterious

New Member
Greetings all,

So I joined this board a week or so ago after which I got busy and completly forgot about it until CNN started doing it's "Join Scientology - Get Free Ass Kickings and a Future Ex-Wife" series. So while I'm killing time before I've got to go pick someone up at the airport I figured I'd write this up.

First I'll state that I'm not now, nor ever been a Scientologist personally. My first introduction to the group was the commercial that used to air during afternoon cartoons when I was a kid. You know, volcano, book comes flying out, voiceover: "Dianetics - Science for your mind!" Or something like that. It's funny as it would be 20 years later before I would even "get" what the whole volcano thing was about. Something was always funny to me about that commercial and it's always stuck in my head. In my early teens I read a reprint of that Time magazine article from 1990 (if I remember correctly) and have had a morbid fascination with it since. It only became heightened as my life progressed.

Besides trying to get sucked into a free stress / personality test here and there over the years, I never really crossed paths with scientology. At least that was so, until about 10 years ago. I was living up north in Michigan and dating this girl. I don't remember how exactly she discovered it, I think it was someone she worked with, but she started taking "courses" at a local center the CoS ran. For the sake of full disclosure, I'll just say that I take a pretty abysmal view on anything that falls in the self-help to religion category. It always seems pointless, or hokey or dangerous or dangerously hokey (which I admit, is my view of Scientology). I'll admit that in my initial reaction the words: "are you f***ing serious?" emitted forth from my mouth when she told me where she was that day, but she was adamant that this was serious stuff and was helpful, so I backed off.

Over the next year and a half things just got bad between us. At first she seemed to be fine with my lack of interest in what she was doing. Truth be told, I loved her and I didn't want to mock her or what she was doing so I simply tried to avoid the issue entirely. Problems arose when it seemed to take over everything in her life. Prior to scientology we shared various hobbies and interests, yet they all seemed to disappear because she was busy with scientology. She stopped socializing with our mutual friends as she had new scientology friends to interact with. It was just weird, for example one of her _new_ friends found her a job that was somehow better, even though it was the same thing she was doing before for less pay. I asked, so what's better about it (better hours?, better environment? etc) she never cold give me an answer, "it was just better."

As time went on we had zero to talk about as we shared nothing in our lives together. Eventually that let to constant fighting over stupid things with bizarre accusations thrown at me that seemed to come from nowhere. One day she left a binder next to the computer. I was writing an email to somewhere where I was quoting from a book, so I turned the binder sideways and used to prop the book up while I typed. When she came home she tossed the book aside and picked up the binder and accused me of snooping through her personal stuff and then went and locked herself in the bedroom to talk on the phone for an hour. Things just got weirder from there, I would come home and she would be sitting on the couch with her new friends and the would all get quiet when I walked into the house, then say bye and leave. Honestly, I am the least paranoid person you'll ever meet, but all of a sudden I'm like "are they talking about me?" and I start to feel uneasy and suspicious all the time.

By the time I finally left the relationship I was working the graveyard shift just to avoid her, we could barely be called roommates at that point.

I guess I've just always wondered what it is about scientology that seemed to suck her into it so easily? She seemed so normal when I met her! ;) So I've spent the last several years reading a hell of a lot about scientology, even reading most of the documents straight from the horses mouth that have popped up online over the years and I still just don't get what the attraction is. So I'm here to learn more, especially from past members that share their own experiences and even from the occasional current member that shares why they're members.

Anyways, that's where I'm coming from....
 
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Mystic

Crusader
Hi Mysterious, welcome to ESMB. Great story. Hope to hear more from you.

I was in the frig'n cult off and on over a 35-year period.

 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
Welcome mysterious,

Yes, that is what tends to happen to a relationship where one is 'in' and the other is 'out' ... FWIW I think you got the best end of the arrangement even though it may not have felt that way at the time.


:welcome2::welcome2::welcome2:
 

mysterious

New Member
@Mystic: 35 years, that's impressive. Is it all strange to compare the overall public views of Scientology today compared to back when you first got involved? I'd imagine there were far less people who even knew what Scientology was back then?

@trouble: I hear you there. Compared to some other stories I've read I actually got off fairly easy. We weren't yet married, had children, etc, so I was at least able to just make a clean break of it all.
 

Smilla

Ordinary Human
Welcome :) One the basic actions in Scientology is to find someone's weakness and exploit it as much as possible. It sounds very much like that's what happened here. It's a very wicked thing to do.
 

AngeloV

Gold Meritorious Patron
Welcome to the board!

What got me in? A good friend that I trusted and had a lot of fun with was in so I thought I'd try the communication course to see what is was about.

What kept me in? Lovebombing....search the board for that phrase for a definition.

...and I was 19 years old at the time with not a whole lot of life experience to understand cult thinking and the difference between science and pseudo science.
 

Lurker5

Gold Meritorious Patron
Hi

Welcome Mysterious,

Wow, your experience is right by the book, so to speak. Scn is hideous, and the pebble in the pond ripples out, washing over anyone near, seperating and breaking up relationships, unless everyone goes along for the ride.

I guess you'd have to have been there to get how a person gets sucked in. It is brainwashing, and quite an evil genius brainwashing, at that.

Sorry you lost your girl, but you are one of the lucky ones. Hang around and read. You will hear stories that will make your hair stand on end, bring tears to your eyes, and break your heart.

This is why . . .
 

Arthur Dent

Silver Meritorious Patron
Welcome here mysterious! :welcome2:

Interesting perspective in your story. It's interesting how scn. touches and harms lives even on the peripheral. Undoubtedly they were trying to find "other" sources of influence in your girl friend's life, other than scn. and convince her they were evil or impinging on her newly inflated "self" determinism. Unfortunately this would include you. It is sad but it is what they do. You were a mere wog to be cut off from her for her own good. You were clearly not enlightened and apparently nothing could be done about you! (thank goodness!!!)

There is also an elitist aspect to it, which is tied up with the language of scn. Once you're in you know you are now "different" and therefore better than "them" ---- those poor, unfortunate, "wogs"....like yourself! They dig into a new person until they find that "ruin"--- that "thing" the person finds most upsetting about themselves and they keep pushing that button until the person agrees that scn. can help them with that and they get that person's feet firmly entrenched. It's the old good cop-bad cop thing but they are extremely clever about it. As a boyfriend you would likely never dig that deep into a girl's past or press her for her darkest moments. But Scn. invades that barrier early on and uses it to get the person in. Once "in".....well, we all then perpetrate the same thing on others....until we somehow come out the other end of this most fallible set up of an organization. You will read many stories here.....

I got in nearly four decades ago. This was routine. Scn. was not a household word. Not much information was available about it and once you were in, especially if you were on their staff (very common) you were sheltered or even prohibited from reading anti-scn. articles or watching the odd tv expose. You don't realize how your freedom of speech is being denied or how you are being taught to deny it to others. :duh:

Stories of the insanity in the hierarchy were well known to some but not known to many all along. It would depend on where you worked....close to the top or in a satellite location. In either case there was a lot of camaraderie and many good times seemed to outweigh the bad. The scales tipped for the worse but we each kept on going until we had some personal story that made us see the light for real. Only then is it easier to leave.

You surely did get the best end of the bargain! You got out fast, and cheap!
:thumbsup: I'm sorry you lost a girl you loved. I hope you are finding happiness for yourself again in life! :yes:
 

Mest Lover

Not Sea Org Qualified
:welcome:
Hobbies and other interests are the first things they take away from you.... You can't have any other fish to fry if you are expected to make it go right and clear the planet can you.

then they have you hooked and reduce your social networks to only those in SCN because anyone else just doesn't get it and aren't worth being around.

Enjoy ESMB! Its for those who have woken up, not fallen asleep yet, and I feel mostly for the eyes that will not see but someday will open.
 

Ho Tai

Patron Meritorious
Friends on the couch

Welcome, Mysterious. Yours is a success story.

Your comment on the friends on the couch brought back memories. I've had such friends on my couch too. Friends who were reg's (the people who work you to get your money) from the IAS. Friends from my local org trying to convince me that I should donate toward a $10 million building when we could barely keep the one we had open. Friends from the local org trying to get me to pay for some future service I wasn't even eligible to take until I finished the one I was on (these friends usually came by Wednesday night). Friends from advanced orgs trying to get money for OT levels (or transfer money from some other advanced org to theirs because their org was better).

And of course the friends who first visited me and got me interested in Scientology in the first place. Actually they still are friends (or rather would be, except they can't talk to me any more because of an instantaneous, magical transformation that turned me from upstanding Scientologist to an untouchable. Don't see them on my couch any more.)

Yep, lots of friends on my couch. :no:
 

Wisened One

Crusader
Welcome, Mysterious. Yours is a success story.

Your comment on the friends on the couch brought back memories. I've had such friends on my couch too. Friends who were reg's (the people who work you to get your money) from the IAS. Friends from my local org trying to convince me that I should donate toward a $10 million building when we could barely keep the one we had open. Friends from the local org trying to get me to pay for some future service I wasn't even eligible to take until I finished the one I was on (these friends usually came by Wednesday night). Friends from advanced orgs trying to get money for OT levels (or transfer money from some other advanced org to theirs because their org was better).

And of course the friends who first visited me and got me interested in Scientology in the first place. Actually they still are friends (or rather would be, except they can't talk to me any more because of an instantaneous, magical transformation that turned me from upstanding Scientologist to an untouchable. Don't see them on my couch any more.)

Yep, lots of friends on my couch. :no:

:goodposting: Ho Tai! :thumbsup:


And :welcome: to ya, Mysterious!
 

mysterious

New Member
Welcome, Mysterious.

Is your ex-girlfriend still in or do you even know?

Hello Kathy,

I was talking to her cousin a few months ago and apparently she's even more involved than ever before. Form what he described it sounds like she's an auditor and spends quite a bit of time trying to recruit new members.

Hello Ho Tai,

You comment on your "friends on the couch" may be a missing piece of the puzzle for me. The whole creepy everyone gets quiet and excuses themselves when I enter the room experience makes a lot of sense when I consider that they were working her for more money. Actually this makes complete sense. She was supposed to receive some money in an inheritance when she turned 25 related to her father dying when she was a kid and she was 23/24 when all this was going down. As a matter of fact I ditched out of there two months before her birthday when things had gotten insufferable. You'd think this would of occurred to be sooner, but I just only now realized the timing of the whole situation.
 

Telepathetic

Gold Meritorious Patron
Welcome Mysterious:thumbsup:

I'm still trying to figure out myself what it was that made me stay in for so long. That's why I'm here.

Enjoy the show!

TP
 
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