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Where Are All My Friends?

Voodoo

Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
Well, the first time I read about what Rinder is doing outside, I was absolutely certain that he is just trying to get into a position of authority and also trying to monetize his previous scientology experience.

But once I saw Aaron claim that Rinder is making less money on the show than he was doing previously, I had to at least scratch the "monetize scientology" charge. I still don't trust him. For all the mud-raking he is doing about abuses in scientology and child sexual abuse and stuff... he's being very quiet about his own role. Did he knew about child abuse and helped to cover it up? If so, then could he please share all the details with the FBI?
He's been in OSA so long and so high that I just can't imagine how could he have not know.

I understand: people have the right to remain silent and not incriminate themselves with their testimony. But if that is the case, he shouldn't be this spotlight guy speaking on behalf of the ex scn community.

The only thing going for him in my book is that Aaron seems to trust him and I consider Aaron an honest and upfront guy (at least as much as you can be inside Cos).



I'm pretty sure I could have dodged the axe If I wanted, my "cult career" was really going good. I had good stats, superiors trusted me. There's a fair chance I could even be General Inspector for Ethics by now, had I not defected.

But to do so, I'd have to keep my mouth shut, fall in line going against my own beliefs. I seriously had enough of all the anti-life bullshit and sure as hell I was not going to be the guy who polices and enforces that madness.

More than that, I would have to put up with all that redundant, bloaded, absurd self-defeating admin tech and I simply had enough of that shitshow.

That's the proper name for the movement: "Shitshowology"
I personally think Mike is doing his amends for all the years he spent serving evil. That is why I trust him.
 

ILove2Lurk

Lisbeth Salander
. . .
I'd venture to think a lot of people just don't like to
"till the same soil" over and over again.

I had a friend reconnect with me after a twenty-year
passage of time and we'd talk on the phone often.
What I didn't care for is that she kept bringing up
this one and that one from the past, this incident
and that incident . . . things I'd carefully forgotten
and didn't want to keep revisiting all the time.

It was a past life of sorts and I didn't want to have
it soiling my idyllic present life with mistakes of my
youth.

After a bit I quit taking her calls. I didn't need it.

That's largely why I stay anonymous. I don't want
ghosts from the past visiting me. I have a good life
now. The past is in the past. Stay there.

Footnote: She also became enamored with another
cult and was marching in the streets. It was Linda
Sarsour's anti-America "The Women's March." Her
becoming so unpatriotic about a country that had
given me so much was going a bit too far for me.
I do not suffer fools well, it seems. :shrug:
 
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Karakorum

supressively reasonable
I personally think Mike is doing his amends for all the years he spent serving evil. That is why I trust him.
I'd like to believe that, but so far he did not give me reason to.

Before one can work for atonement and relinquish evil, he must come clean about what he did. Especially the big coverup actions. So far I'm under the impression Rinder is not telling us anything about his past actions that could possibly get him into any trouble with the law.

That's not acceptable to me. Truth needs to come before atonement.
 

ILove2Lurk

Lisbeth Salander
he's being very quiet about his own role.
He's been in OSA so long and so high that I just can't imagine how could he have not know.
I understand: people have the right to remain silent and not incriminate themselves with their testimony.
Bingo.

I've tried (via some emails) to encourage Mike to open up about a lot more than he has.
He knows a helluva lot more than he's told.

I suspect for him to tell us all, he'd have to:
  • admit to a ton of possibly prosecutable crimes
  • admit to concealing a lot of bad stuff about Hubbard for years that we had every right to know about
  • admit to his collusion or silence about rampant theft from parishioners for things that did not exist or could not happen
  • admit to many instances of inaction or silence
  • admit to many acts that would make him seem rather reprehensible and unlikable to most of us
It's like a very bad catch-22 [a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no
escape because of mutually conflicting conditions].

The ex-SS officer (Hitler's private police force) who wants to come clean after the war and
confess his misdeeds but can't because most would see him as reprehensible or a monster.
There's no easy path -- or any path -- for salvation for him. That's an severe example, but
appropriate.

I appreciate what Mike is doing now but I'm not one to grant him "fast-flow forgiveness." His silence
cost me a ton of money and a divorce I didn't want have happen.

I guess Lisbeth Salander is a bit hard line about certain things. :coolwink:
 
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ILove2Lurk

Lisbeth Salander
I'd like to believe that, but so far he did not give me reason to.

Before one can work for atonement and relinquish evil, he must come clean about what he did. Especially the big coverup actions. So far I'm under the impression Rinder is not telling us anything about his past actions that could possibly get him into any trouble with the law.

That's not acceptable to me. Truth needs to come before atonement.
True. Good post! :thumbsup:

In trouble with the law or being personally sued to death by former parishioners
for a myriad of deceits. For that reason, he and many other past executives
just can't and won't spill all the beans. They don't want to risk spending the rest
of their lives in courtrooms possibly. The risk is real. This is a multi-billion dollar
fraud after all.
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
Bingo.
I've tried (via some emails) to encourage Mike to open up about a lot more than he has.
He knows a helluva lot more than he's told.
I suspect for him to tell us all, he'd have to:
  • admit to a ton of possibly prosecutable crimes
And that's the key. If one wants atonement, then one needs to own up to the consequences of one's action. Take responsibility, suffer the consequences.

This is true in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Theravada Buddhism... and even Scientology (if one takes its ethics seriously instead of just using it for the con that the cult is).


I understand if Mike wants to avoid incarceration or other legal punishmen, he's just a man and that's a human thing to do. Not owning up to his actions should mean that he stays out of the spotlight, not play the hero and mentor.

So unless he comes clean, he won't get sympathy or forgiveness from me.
 

Voodoo

Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
I'd like to believe that, but so far he did not give me reason to.

Before one can work for atonement and relinquish evil, he must come clean about what he did. Especially the big coverup actions. So far I'm under the impression Rinder is not telling us anything about his past actions that could possibly get him into any trouble with the law.

That's not acceptable to me. Truth needs to come before atonement.
That's a pretty cold blooded attitude. The man is making amends on a scale that I haven't seen from any former church exec. Marty started out well, but got lost in his own weird world. Others have come out with books, or have appeared in movies or television shows about Scientology. None have made fighting the church a daily crusade - except Mike Rinder.

Who knows. The blog and the tv show may be early steps on his road to redemption. I'm willing to give the man the benefit of doubt.
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
That's a pretty cold blooded attitude. The man is making amends on a scale that I haven't seen from any former church exec.



Marty started out well, but got lost in his own weird world. Others have come out with books, or have appeared in movies or television shows about Scientology. None have made fighting the church a daily crusade - except Mike Rinder.
Better than the rest of them, which isn't saying much. "I am not gonna talk about bad stuff I did, if there are gonna be any consequences" - Nope, I find this head-in-sand altitude unacceptable.

That's probably one of the very few good things about scientology: It forces people to be responsible for their own deeds (it even goes beyond the rational and into to absurd extremes).

Who knows. The blog and the tv show may be early steps on his road to redemption. I'm willing to give the man the benefit of doubt.
If he does, I'll be the first to forgive him. If.

I don't believe I have myself done even 10% of the work needed to start atonement. And I've at least recognized myself as an evil enforcer within the system (though to be fair, I also did many good investigations and punished real offenders). Mike Rinder did far more and knew of far more evil things inside than I have. I'm not seeing any humility from him.
 

Cherub

Back from the Dead
@Karakorum, I like you instantly and forever, lol!
It is hard for me to imagine my writing all the stuff I have the past day, when I "accidentally" re-discovered this site. I mean I have been so far from any inside talking of SCN exes for 10 years and suddenly the proverbial damn (!!) broke and I was transfixed reading for hours and hours through many posts. I believe I see now some very very hidden "resentments" I probably never expressed, even to myself, maybe even for 40 years. Before you responded to something I said, I pretty much talked like I did 10 years ago on these and other boards, but now with more belief in helping. That was what was different I noticed about myself writing. I was caring, not just spouting the usual wholetrack warnings. lol. But in this caring came forth these hidden resentments -- where I'd thought I'd long "cleared" myself of all SCN sentiment. Amazing. I'd felt the same way you do about the M&M brothers, long ago -- but could never express the outrage until now. I am so grateful to have found you; names do not matter as we recognize our true identities regardless :) It's like I can express the horrors I lived with, pretended not to see them, was an author of my own as well -- but no matter how many times the onion got peeled the layers seemed endless, but unexpectedly the Day did come when I could literally see what I couldn't for 32 years: Nothing. Their was no Onion at all. The Dianetics book never contained any instance of a real "Clear." It was all a hoax on a massive scale. Genius. But horrible. In my late 40's I woke up to seeing everyone of my friends, everyone I knew, walking about in a dream of their own making, at least their own acceptance.

The mindfuck was Hubbard had actually fulfilled a bet he made with Harlan Ellison in the 1950s (?) -- that of forming his own religion and using it to make himself untold millions. And WE fucking believed him, protected him, fought for him..... Everything Hubbard did was intentionally calculated to continue the Hoax -- why he was so pissed off at Quentin when he heard of his own son's "death" because it could upset his plans. Whoops, and it didn't help Q was gay.... But that strays from the point -- which is we ALL fucking believed him. LOL.

Until we didn't --- or were dead.

The Cherub
 

Dotey OT

Cyclops Duck of the North - BEWARE
I'm going to go on record and say this:

I find myself after an almost 30 year dance with the devil called L. Ron Hubbard. I wouldn't have though when I was an innocent little kid that would happen. It did.

I now find myself not wanting anyone else to suffer that same dance.

One of the most vocal people on my new side is Mike Rinder.

I know I'm guilty, as a former public kool-aid drinker, and former staff kool-aid drinker of furthering this dance in a variety of ways. I try to look at this every once in a while. I had a good laugh (and cry) the other day, when I remembered an old friend now long gone had been on the internet and searching the "entheta" and her jaw dropped. She said that I needed to look at it. I found this out and wrote her up and had her sent to ethics. She died a scientologist.

I would have liked this odyssey to end years ago, before it started, but it didn't.

One of the smartest guys (I thought) that I had ever met got me in. Ha. Ha.

Mike has stuff he's not saying, no doubt. Join the foxhole and beat the other side, please. When we've won, let's talk about it.

Let's not confuse this.
 

Voodoo

Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
I don't believe I have myself done even 10% of the work needed to start atonement. And I've at least recognized myself as an evil enforcer within the system (though to be fair, I also did many good investigations and punished real offenders). Mike Rinder did far more and knew of far more evil things inside than I have. I'm not seeing any humility from him.
I've seen Mike publicly apologize for all the dirty rotten things he did while in OSA. He didn't go into detail about his deeds, but he did ask for forgiveness from those he harmed.

I've got nothing else. If you insist upon condemning the man because he's not getting through his atonement cycle fast enough for your liking, go right ahead. I won't be joining you.
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
I've seen Mike publicly apologize for all the dirty rotten things he did while in OSA. He didn't go into detail about his deeds, but he did ask for forgiveness from those he harmed.
Yeah, but that is again: "I am not gonna talk about bad stuff I did, if there are gonna be any consequences". I don't buy into that crap. You walk the walk, or not. If Rinder helped to cover up pedophilia or rape, he should now be upfront about it and go to the police or FBI, even if this means he will do time. That'd be real to me.

Saying sorry with no consequences is not humility.

I've got nothing else. If you insist upon condemning the man because he's not getting through his atonement cycle fast enough for your liking, go right ahead. I won't be joining you.
Its not about the speed, its about avoiding the legal consequences. But yeah, I believe we both made our views clear and are now starting to repeat ourselves.

No hard feelings though - I respect your view on Rinder, even if I do not share it. You are a smart guy and I do agree with your final conclusion: Once Rinder comes clean, everyone should forgive and accept him.
 
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Karakorum

supressively reasonable
Mike has stuff he's not saying, no doubt. Join the foxhole and beat the other side, please. When we've won, let's talk about it.
I don't want to share a foxhole with a guy who might have covered up child abuse and rape. We can't even be sure what he was covering up, because he ain't talking. How can you trust a guy who isn't honest with us? If he isn't being honest, how do we know he won't push people under the bus (something I heard he did to peers when he was inside) or stab us in the back?

Remember what Marty did?
 

Xenu Xenu Xenu

Patron Meritorious
Friends?

I can't see contacting anyone from my old cult days. I didn't like a lot of them when I was a cultie. There were a few who I thought were alright but the only thing we had in common was Scientology. What the hell would we talk about? It would just be too weird.

I think I might have a better chance getting along with someone who was in another cult, not that I would be interested in that either.

I had friends before I got into the cult but as we all know, cults don't like that shit.
 

Cherub

Back from the Dead
I don't believe I have myself done even 10% of the work needed to start atonement. And I've at least recognized myself as an evil enforcer within the system (though to be fair, I also did many good investigations and punished real offenders). Mike Rinder did far more and knew of far more evil things inside than I have. I'm not seeing any humility from him.
I completely agree with @Karakorum -- though to me it sound he has done far more atonement than he says. It is usually those who say they have a hard time being humble, but who say it with more humility than most. Personally I do not see Rinder having even arrived at the barest concept of atonement. IMO If he was really open to seeing how he fucked so many many people, he'd find a way to say exactly what @Lisbeth S asks. So I doubt it. It's just a real coverup. PR. etc. BTW has anyone ever found out why he "Left"? Perhaps his plot to get rid of DM and take over himself was uncovered? LOL. I'm not saying that's what happened. LOL. I still feel though he's not being truthful & is hiding in plain sight, with Button-down Mode Operations in full swing.

The Cherub
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
How big of you.

I'm done.
I meant to write: "I believe we both made our views clear"

That was a typo that I now fixed (as you might notice, I make many typos and then correct them via edits). I'm sincerely sorry for the mess with that typo, yeah it made it much more hostile than I intended. :sorry:

BTW has anyone ever found out why he "Left"? Perhaps his plot to get rid of DM and take over himself was uncovered? LOL. I'm not saying that's what happened. LOL. I still feel though he's not being truthful & is hiding in plain sight, with Button-down Mode Operations in full swing.

The Cherub
According to Rinder himself, he left because DM kept him in the hole and would actually beat him up. From some testimonies I read, prisoners in the hole would also beat one another up or bully those that they felt had not "confessed enough". It was a crazy, claustrophobic place by all accounts.

I have no problems with Rinder leaving then and there. That was a sane thing to do and I fully support him in that, he went through some bad things. This is not the part of his story I take issues with.
 
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Voodoo

Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
I meant to write: "I believe we both made our views clear"

That was a typo that I now fixed (as you might notice, I make many typos and then correct them via edits). I'm sincerely sorry for the mess with that typo, yeah it made it much more hostile than I intended. :sorry:


According to Rinder himself, he left because DM kept him in the hole and would actually beat him up. From some testimonies I read, prisoners in the hole would also beat one another up or bully those that they felt had not "confessed enough". It was a crazy, claustrophobic place by all accounts.

I have no problems with Rinder leaving then and there. That was a sane thing to do and I fully support him in that, he went through some bad things. This is not the part of his story I take issues with.
Thanks for that.
 

Cherub

Back from the Dead
According to Rinder himself, he left because DM kept him in the hole and would actually beat him up. From some testimonies I read, prisoners in the hole would also beat one another up or bully those that they felt had not "confessed enough". It was a crazy, claustrophobic place by all accounts.

I have no problems with Rinder leaving then and there. That was a sane thing to do and I fully support him in that, he went through some bad things. This is not the part of his story I take issues with.
OK I will concede you are most likely correct about the Hole. After all, this is what Total Freedom is all about.... OkOk. I will say I really do not know, and it is a scary enough situation to be in Button-down Mode. Which, btw, if Mike Rinder isn't, then that will tell you he's either totally stupid or hasn't switched sides. lol. [ For those who are not familiar with the term, Button-down Mode means, "if something happens me, my finger goes off the button." Meaning that if one get hurt or dies "accidentally," the cache of data which blackmails the true crimes of the other side, gets published." ]

Talking to you all, I realize those years I spent are just another part of my current lifetime, and just as much a part of me as everything I have done since leaving. I feel so much more freer about me life. My atonement may take the rest of my life, but I now see the connectivity of all things, rather than "Us against Them" mode of living. I wish this to you all.

The Cherub
 
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