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Where Are All My Friends?

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Idiot Bastardson
Hi Voodoo
Truth is, I am totally NOT :) I haven't thought of my extensive past in it for over ten years, However, recently due my age and still my profession of helping people spiritually and psychologically -- I began to wonder how some of my old friends were. As I previously said, several I knew are dead. One of them I got back in touch with -- still IN. but we transcended our differences by just allowing each other to be. We were both amazed. Now we are friends again. Could there be a few others like that? I tried to communicate with a few on FB and got the Hate Canon -- OMG these people still live by Hubbrd's 1950-ish plans to attack Psychiatry and cannot tell the difference between Freud and Jung. I forgive most of them, because they will have to spend the next half dozen lifetimes figuring the same shit out they are stuck in now. And never knowing that Hubbard's biggerst beef with the APA was they turned down his Excaliber book in the early 50s! LOL! The whole deal against 6h4 Psychs are just that. Past life whole track BS!

So I think your answer is that the Interest factor is relative as Time by itself is to Spacetime; sometimes there sometimes not. lol.

Perhaps in the end it is just me, as I cannot dismiss my 32 years without occasionally thinking about it. However, I am secure in the I AM who I am now :)
I spent hours last night reviewing most posts on this board, including my own from 11 years ago. Not a waste of time. Being able to effect even a single person's life is the reward for the many to come.

Thanks for asking!

The Cherub

Please tell me more about this "Hate Canon" of which you speak above.
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
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?

Us? We are not a cult of exes here, we're individuals and you sound like a judgemental scientologist.

Mike Rinder was born into the cult and that means he inherited the madness and was given no choice in it. He wasted the most important years of his life, he is now free for the first time but he is doing his bit to kill the cult and he is doing it very well.

Marty is doing it very differently but he too was treated like shit by many exes and could never hope to please everyone. They would both almost certainly have some kind of PTSD as a result of cult life and it wouldn't help to constantly read some of the things written about themselves on the net.

I think Marty made the sudden decision to just stick it to the lot of us and concentrate on taking care of his family and himself. I very much dislike what he did to Karen but I can understand the need to just flick everything to do with the cult from his life if that is what he has done. His personality is not one of a shrinking violet.

We are all responsible for what happened to us and for anything we did but anyone born into the cult has my complete understanding and the very last thing they need is exes knifing them for things they may have done or not done.
 

JustSheila

Crusader
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?
:no:

I was corrected on this sort of thing some years ago.

You don't speak for others here. Nobody does. Everybody has their own opinions. There is no "we" when you state YOUR opinion.

If this is some sort of rallying speech to get everyone hyped up, it sounds hollow and contrived and falls flat.
 

Cherub

Back from the Dead
Us? We are not a cult of exes here, we're individuals and you sound like a judgemental scientologist.

Mike Rinder was born into the cult and that means he inherited the madness and was given no choice in it. He wasted the most important years of his life, he is now free for the first time but he is doing his bit to kill the cult and he is doing it very well.

Marty is doing it very differently but he too was treated like shit by many exes and could never hope to please everyone. They would both almost certainly have some kind of PTSD as a result of cult life and it wouldn't help to constantly read some of the things written about themselves on the net.

I think Marty made the sudden decision to just stick it to the lot of us and concentrate on taking care of his family and himself. I very much dislike what he did to Karen but I can understand the need to just flick everything to do with the cult from his life if that is what he has done. His personality is not one of a shrinking violet.

We are all responsible for what happened to us and for anything we did but anyone born into the cult has my complete understanding and the very last thing they need is exes knifing them for things they may have done or not done.
Dear Trouble
I know how you feel. But I honestly don't see K and I as dissing him, just saying in our Own personal points of view what we personally feel about Mike's longer road to recovery as it were. That's all. In fact, having our own personal opinions is the VERY thing which separates us from being a cult. Judgemental? Say that to the one who had to go through a costly divorce due to his actions. Just because someone is born Jewish or Episcopalian or whatever doesn't excuse them from crimes they commit or try to hide. I am sure many would feel better about him if he personalized a bit more atonement, humility, is what I was saying as well as @K. I am sure he is doing a "good job" as a sceptic. Personally, I would like him to be more revealing and show some more fucking sincerity about the crimes he himself committed, while IN. Haven't felt it yet. Either has @K. Read my alst post. Is what I said real to you? Just asking.

The Cherub.
 

Cherub

Back from the Dead
:no:

I was corrected on this sort of thing some years ago.

You don't speak for others here. Nobody does. Everybody has their own opinions. There is no "we" when you state YOUR opinion.

If this is some sort of rallying speech to get everyone hyped up, it sounds hollow and contrived and falls flat.
Fair enough, JustSheila. Thank you.
 

Edwardo

Patron with Honors
I’d read quite a lot of anti-Scientology material, but it had not made much difference—it had helped me separate myself out to some degree, but I still ended up with a closet full of binders of old congress CDs and transcripts.

Marty Rathbun’s website really and finally got me out. He had financial support, I found out later, from Karen.

So thank you, Marty and thank you, Karen.

And now I’m grateful to be able to read Mike’s website every day. It’s great.
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
Dear Trouble
I know how you feel. But I honestly don't see K and I as dissing him, just saying in our Own personal points of view what we personally feel about Mike's longer road to recovery as it were. That's all. In fact, having our own personal opinions is the VERY thing which separates us from being a cult. Judgemental? Say that to the one who had to go through a costly divorce due to his actions. Just because someone is born Jewish or Episcopalian or whatever doesn't excuse them from crimes they commit or try to hide. I am sure many would feel better about him if he personalized a bit more atonement, humility, is what I was saying as well as @K. I am sure he is doing a "good job" as a sceptic. Personally, I would like him to be more revealing and show some more fucking sincerity about the crimes he himself committed, while IN. Haven't felt it yet. Either has @K. Read my alst post. Is what I said real to you? Just asking.

The Cherub.

What is an alst post and where is it?

I have no issue with anyone who was personally abused or harmed in some way judging the person that did the damage. Whether they choose to do it loudly and openly rather than directly with the other person (and perhaps taking the current bigger picture into consideration) is a personal choice they make and is none of my business.

Were you personally harmed by Mike or Marty?
 

ILove2Lurk

Lisbeth Salander
Were you personally harmed by Mike or Marty?
Let me be dispassionate about this and just call it a financial fraud.
A lot of people were walking around the Int Base halls and knew it
was a fraud but somehow twisted inside their heads to not blow the
whistle on the whole deal.

Mike Rinder and a whole bunch of other people -- names revealed in the
video -- knew about Hubbard's lie about upper OT levels but said nothing.
They had a responsibility to say something . . . the only decent thing to do.

Why did Mike know all this story -- which he cavalierly chats and laughs about
in the video -- back in 1988, but doesn't say anything until 2015, almost
30 years later?


Marty Rathbun, head of the RTC in the early 90's, sent out promo on his letterhead
selling the OT9 & 10 package. I don't have a copy handy but I've seen it. Why? He
knows better than to do that.

Then this advertisement runs in 1993

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Well, all this cost me about $32,000 and a divorce along the way. Plus, an additional
$40,000 or so.

I think I have skin in the game and a legitimate beef with some of these guys. They all knew
the facts of the matter but said nothing and let the con run, while they blithely pranced
around the halls for decades.

No one is going to tell me that you can work around upper management for decades and
be oblivious to the truth of things. All things.

Some people have got some explaining to do, but sadly they just won't.

I've written to Marty and Mike both several times with questions I feel they need
to answer up on to past parishioners. Crickets from them.

Tells me all I need to know.

Their silence plus the silence of most all of the original upper management -- including Ray
Mithoff, Senior CS -- has resulted in the theft via a knowing fraud of about $3 billion to the best
of my knowledge. This is no small thing.

But in Scientology circles we do have "fast-flow forgiveness" and the "engram made me do it"
defense.

1990-jpg.14501


I'll write up all I know one day and I know quite a lot . . . probably 50 or so data points I can
offer up. These guys did bad things after Hubbard was gone and it cost the "marks," like me and
others, a ton of cash and many lost opportunities.

That's my two cents, my personal opinion . . . but I'm a bit cold-blooded at times. :biggrin: Anyone else
is free to forgive and forget, of course, or whatever. And I'm truly fine with all that.

Links some of to my other rants here and here and here, if you're curious and haven't read enough,
or are new to the sordid subject of Scien Int Management financial malfeasance and fraud and the
individuals perhaps involved in "the cabal."
 
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I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
The whole of scientology is basically a financial fraud, we all know that now and I feel the way you do about the person that 'encouraged' me up to OT3 when I was at a low ebb. He should have either left me alone or been honest about what an absolute joke OT3 is because I certainly needed to hang on to my money, I had children to bring up. He was (and apparently still is) a fool but then so was I for buying into it all.

I still think (big picture) that Mike is now doing something very important in the scheme of things but that doesn't mean that I don't feel for you and others like you because I absolutely do, I'm quite sure I would feel the same if he had affected me personally with lies and deceit and I am not impressed with the lack of a reply to your letters.

Having said all of that, it was a cult and cults (especially this one) are filled with madness, cunning sales pitches and cover ups ... none of us truly escaped it until we walked away and decompressed.
 

ILove2Lurk

Lisbeth Salander
I still think (big picture) that Mike is now doing something very important in the scheme of things
A couple of my letters have been a laundry lists of specific things he could reveal
on his TV show. But I'm afraid he doesn't want to touch some of the topics. Too
radioactive to him personally. But they need to be spoken of . . . sorta like as-is-ing
basic-basic once and for all.

And like over on the Trump thread (sorry to bring this up but it's a good analogy),
the whole discussion of Brennan--Clapper--Comey not wanting to talk about certain
things because it would make them look very bad or create unfathomable legal
troubles for each of them, up to and including possibly jail time. Same thing here.
I suspect there's a lot of topics he just won't touch, but that need to be touched. :shrug:
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
Us? We are not a cult of exes here, we're individuals and you sound like a judgemental scientologist.
You say that I can count on your "complete understanding" and that you feel the very last thing I need is "exes knifing me".
Thus it feels ironically judgemental of you to then call me a "judgemental scientologist" in that same post.

Just saying.

Mike Rinder was born into the cult and that means he inherited the madness and was given no choice in it.
Big deal. This is absolutely no excuse whatsoever.

He wasted the most important years of his life, he is now free for the first time but he is doing his bit to kill the cult and he is doing it very well.
Esxactly - he is out now, so he can do whatever he sees fit. So why isn't he speaking out about the child abuse, rape and other high-profile crime in SCN that he was dealing with as head of OSA? Why is he speaking only in general terms or about things others did?

Would it be because he is afraid of getting himself in trouble with the police? Nah, it can't be that... :nooo:

Were you personally harmed by Mike or Marty?
I was harmed by the policies executed by scn and OSA in specific with regards to defectors. In particular my girlfriend. I do not like to talk about some of this stuff from my days in scientology, precisely because I do not want to feel sorry for myself. I'd like to refer to the matter in a detached, objective manner.

Look at it this way:

I was not presonally harmed by OJ Simpson either. Or by Stalin, or Jack the Ripper... One can critical of people because of their actions, regardless if he/she was the target or was it other people.
 
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Karakorum

supressively reasonable
I think I have skin in the game and a legitimate beef with some of these guys. They all knew
the facts of the matter but said nothing and let the con run, while they blithely pranced
around the halls for decades.

No one is going to tell me that you can work around upper management for decades and
be oblivious to the truth of things. All things.

Some people have got some explaining to do, but sadly they just won't.

I've written to Marty and Mike both several times with questions I feel they need
to answer up on to past parishioners. Crickets from them.

Tells me all I need to know.

Yep, entirely agreed.

Though I'm more interested in them discussing criminally prosecutable stuff rather than saying they are sorry for being a part of the con and lying to people.
 

ILove2Lurk

Lisbeth Salander
Though I'm more interested in them discussing criminally prosecutable stuff . . . .
Rinder could possibly get some form of an "immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony"
agreement from the Federal government so he can speak freely and tell all. But the problem
is that the Fed government is is too corrupt itself, disinterested in further tussles with the COS,
or preoccupied with other things, that this will probably never happen. So be it.

It's my contention that unless some of the instigators of the financial fraud go to jail for a long
time, this ongoing bilking of innocent people just won't end. Ever or for a long, long time.

The fraud went from a fraud by one (Hubbard) to a fraud by many (DM and his small cabal)
right after Hubbard died. Mike was in a position to see how all this went down, all the legal
maneuverings that took place, and who were the authors of all the fantastical stories to keep
the followers in line and paying. Mike probably saw and heard enough to "rat" them all out.

That said, the COS takes care of its own. :coolwink: Most of these guilt parties are already in jail for the
rest of their lives in "The Hole." Either that or free and receiving multi-million settlements or
six-figure yearly salaries to keep quiet, while the innocent dupes struggle with large monthly
credit card debts and impoverished retirements. (I know a few and it's sad to see.)

My only question is: Why did Rinder (and Marty and others) wait 30 years to tell what they
clearly remembered and knew all that time?


Please explain that for me. It would help me sleep better at night. :coolwink:
 
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I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
Posted by ITYIWT.

We are all responsible for what happened to us and for anything we did but anyone born into the cult has my complete understanding and the very last thing they need is exes knifing them for things they may have done or not done.


Reply by Karakorum.

You say that I can count on your "complete understanding" and that you feel the very last thing I need is "exes knifing me".
Thus it feels ironically judgemental of you to then call me a "judgemental scientologist" in that same post.

Just saying.


What I said (above) had nothing to do with you, I was referring to generational exes in general and Mike Rinder specifically. When I said that you sound like a judgemental scientologist I meant you specifically.

At this point the big picture is more important to me than your opinions and judgement, you feel differently and have every right to.

If you have any factual information (about actual crimes, cover-ups or any other illegal activity) you can now report it to the Police and I sincerely hope that you do so ... some people would say you have an obligation to report it.
 
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Karakorum

supressively reasonable
What I said (above) had nothing to do with you, I was referring to generational exes in general and Mike Rinder specifically.
How does that not refer to me? :questions: You said: "anyone born into the cult has my complete understanding". I was born into the cult. My sister was inside from the day she was born to the day she died, my mom is still there.

I'm not trying to make this into a "who was there the longest" contest, just stating the facts: Rinder's parents joined the cult when he was 5 or 6. When I was born, my mom was already a member with previous staff experience, my grandfather was likewise a member.


If you have any factual information (about actual crimes, cover-ups or any other illegal activity) you can now report it to the Police and I sincerely hope that you do so ... some people would say you have an obligation to report it.
I have not encountered a case of rape or child abuse in any of the investigations I had, nor did anything like this come up during auditing or sec-checks I performed.

I did encounter two cases of a superior using his position to demand sex activities from adult subordinates (promising to fix them up with better posts and other benefits in return). In both cases, I managed to get audio evidence which was then used to complete the investigations. Both cases resulted in the offenders being kicked out of the church. One was declared at once, I think they were both declared by the time I left.

Back then I was happy with the result, saw expulsion as a sufficiently severe punishment and was glad they won't be a threat to any staff members anymore. I felt that balance was restored.

Do I now wish scn would handle these cases in a more public manner? Sure.


At this point the big picture is more important to me than your opinions and judgement, you feel differently and have every right to.
Of course you have and I fully respect that. And that's evidence of greater freedom that we have outside. We can freely disagree about issues such as these.
 
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I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
How does that not refer to me? :questions: You said: "anyone born into the cult has my complete understanding". I was born into the cult. My sister was inside from the day she was born to the day she died, my mom is still there.

I'm not trying to make this into a "who was there the longest" contest, just stating the facts: Rinder's parents joined the cult when he was 5 or 6. When I was born, my mom was already a member with previous staff experience, my grandfather was likewise a member.

I didn't realise you were born into the cult ... now that I do know I may have to make you the exception to my "complete understanding" thingy.

:wink:

At the moment I still support Mike Rinder in what he is doing and how he is doing it but I do feel for anyone who was affected negatively by him or by scientology in general, I'd be inhuman if I didn't ... it just so happens though that he has been affected severely himself by the cult and that complicates things for some of us when black and white thinking is being used because grey areas do exist whether you agree or not.
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
I didn't realise you were born into the cult ... now that I do know I may have to make you the exception to my "complete understanding" thingy.

:wink:
I am looking forward to being your special snowflake exception. :foryou:

At the moment I still support Mike Rinder in what he is doing and how he is doing it but I do feel for anyone who was affected negatively by him or by scientology in general, I'd be inhuman if I didn't ... it just so happens though that he has been affected severely himself by the cult and that complicates things for some of us when black and white thinking is being used because grey areas do exist whether you agree or not.
I am entirely sympathetic to him for having gone through the int base madness, abuses in the hole and then being separated from his family. I am entirely supportive of his decision to leave and make a life outside. This is one issue.

I am quite critical of him when it comes to his conduct within OSA as well as his current unwilligness to divulge anything that could have negative consequences for himself. With this in mind, I don't feel like issuing forgiveness and I do not think he should be the co-host of Leah's program. This is the second issue.

I see both issues as separate and one does not influence the other when it comes to my views.
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
I am looking forward to being your special snowflake exception. :foryou:


I am entirely sympathetic to him for having gone through the int base madness, abuses in the hole and then being separated from his family. I am entirely supportive of his decision to leave and make a life outside. This is one issue.

I am quite critical of him when it comes to his conduct within OSA as well as his current unwilligness to divulge anything that could have negative consequences for himself. With this in mind, I don't feel like issuing forgiveness and I do not think he should be the co-host of Leah's program. This is the second issue.

I see both issues as separate and one does not influence the other when it comes to my views.

I expect Leah would have him replaced immediately if she knew how you felt, perhaps you should contact her.

:tiptoe:
 

Karakorum

supressively reasonable
I expect Leah would have him replaced immediately if she knew how you felt, perhaps you should contact her.

:tiptoe:
I'll take a shot at treating the suggestion seriosly:

1. This goes down to the "enemy of your enemy" paradox.
If I were to start some sort of petition by ex-scn members, then it would be seen as an attack on the show itself, hence in a weird way "helping CoS". People critical of Rinder could be accused of being scn plants and actual OSA plants would probably try to use this mess to split the community.

2. Secondly, I would need to openly disclose my identity and I'm not willing to do so currently (though after so many posts, I imagine some people already have a good idea who I am).

3. I am hardly the best person for the job because of my history and the posts I had inside scn. I don't think any initiative within the ex-scn community benefits from having ex-OSA, ex-ethics or ex-Int management people at the helm.
Which is exactly one of the reasons I do not think its a good idea to have Rinder as a co-host.


Conclusion: The best thing to do is not to write petitions or write letters etc. The best thing is to use our freedom of speech and openly discuss these matters within the community.

If we accept that people will have different opinions and are open to the perspectives of others, OSA won't be able to split the community. At the same time, if the topic is being widely discussed this might encourage Mike to be more transparent.
 
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