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Why Ex Scientologists flip-flop

dchoiceisalwaysrs

Gold Meritorious Patron
snip..,

The hardest part was that in addition to much of what's in the OP applying to me as well, I REALLY liked many of my compatriots. Most of them were genuinely good people. I still miss some of them.

I think it is laudable to appreciate the human virtues found in the Scientology experience. From the goals for improvement, exercising innate mental abilities to the comrades.
But to carry into the future the bubble of bullshit Hubbard contributed or to misidentify it and thus concatenate it with any hope of benefit would be a very sad reason to flip-flop.
For those in need perhaps cognitive behavior therapy may aid in preventing such recidivistic nostalgia or longings.

PS I have no idea why Emma has written her wonderful post and put it on a natter blog. Or is it going to be renamed the insightful rearviews mirror?
 

Emma

Con te partirò
Administrator
Natterblog is Emma's so I'm pretty sure she is OK with that.

I understand that even though Emma has a new site now, she still has some sentimental feelings for ESMB.

If not, I'm sure she'll [STRIKE] do a KR and sue this squirrel site[/STRIKE] click the report button.

Hehe, I first read your post as saying "Natterblog is so pretty". And I was about to agree with you. Yes! Natterblog is pretty!

ESMB is still my baby. it's just that I gave her up for adoption and she went to a better home.

Ethercat is her adoptive mother. I'm her biological mother.
 

MathScience

Patron
Great blog post, Emma. The part I liked best was the end: Addictions are addictions. It’s probably no more complicated than that.

I would say it's just a tad more complicated than that, but just a tad.


 

Emma

Con te partirò
Administrator
This was a really great essay Emma.

Some people have flip-flopped more than 10 times! As shown in the following result from the Scientology Exit Survey I ran a few years back.

attachment.php


It was this very question that made realize how pervasive the the addiction aspects of Scientology really are.

I remember seeing this graph at the time. Thanks for doing that survey AL.

So going by your numbers, about 1/3 of people flip-flop 2 - 5 times, and nearly 100% flip flop at least once.

WOW.
 

Emma

Con te partirò
Administrator
Great blog post, Emma. The part I liked best was the end: Addictions are addictions. It’s probably no more complicated than that.

I would say it's just a tad more complicated than that, but just a tad.



Yeah my statement was possibly a little over simplified :)
 

ThetanExterior

Gold Meritorious Patron
Reading Emma's blog entry just confirms for me the difference between us all even though we've had shared experiences of scientology.

I got into scientology because I was searching for the meaning of life and I got out after about 15 years when I realised I wasn't going to find what I was looking for.

Since then I've kept looking and discovered that there is a wealth of information out there, including the books Mimsey mentioned earlier.

Now I'm certain I know more about life, death and everything else than I ever did in scientology and I was a class V auditor, case supervisor and OEC trained.

Scientology for me was just a step on my journey, albeit a long and expensive one.
 

HelluvaHoax!

Platinum Meritorious Sponsor with bells on
..

Emma, seriously great essay!

Hard core.

In fact, very hard core at points!

Bleak almost. . .

Actually, um--perhaps even grim!

Ergo, I have decided, after reading it, to return to my religion--Scientology.

At least if I am back in the COS, while I am growing old and on my death bed dying--I can have lots of people standing around me grinning, applauding and flowing power to the huge win of me shedding my impediment!



giphy.gif







* ps: that fuckin' kid in the front row is winning way too much & he's pissing me off! If I come back next lifetime, I am definitely writing a KR on that little SP!
 

Wow, Emma! Wow!

I'd just like to comment on a few points.

First of all, if I had helped as many people in my entire life, deeply helped, as you have through this board, I would consider applying for Sainthood.

I don't think you or anyone else can grasp how many people you have helped through this board.

Your board has been a cathartic medicine for many, many people.

So stick that in your purpose-of-life pipe and light it.

You are truly a good person, Emma, and maybe that's purpose enough.

As for myself I never flipped-flopped but my case was different than most.

I got in for the ideas of Scientology, not for the personal gains.

So when I found a better idea there was no reason to look back.

With that new idea came the understanding that knowledge is not certainty.

Knowledge may or may not make one feel more certain, but they are definitely two different things.

I did find my peace of mind through philosophy mumbo-jumbo (Plato and Kant with a side of Bacon).

After all is said and done, Emma, you may be many people's best friend whether they or you know it or not.

Peace and love to you.

The Anabaptist Jacques


P.S. If your joints are giving you trouble, stay out of those joints.
 
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The_Fixer

Class Clown
..

Emma, seriously great essay!

Hard core.

In fact, very hard core at points!

Bleak almost. . .

Actually, um--perhaps even grim!

Ergo, I have decided, after reading it, to return to my religion--Scientology.

At least if I am back in the COS, while I am growing old and on my death bed dying--I can have lots of people standing around me grinning, applauding and flowing power to the huge win of me shedding my impediment!



giphy.gif







* ps: that fuckin' kid in the front row is winning way too much & he's pissing me off! If I come back next lifetime, I am definitely writing a KR on that little SP!

So..... When did you change your name to LRH?
 

George Layton

Silver Meritorious Patron
Now let's have a look at the stats and compare "Marty's hate-blog" to "Emma's natterblog":

Blog entrys on "Marty's hate-blog" since September 23 (1 month): 2

Blog entrys on "Emma's natterblog" since September 23 (1 month): 8

Conclusion:
If Marty doesn't change his stats radically one can predict that more sooner than later he will sink into insignificance - what a big loss..... :eyeroll:

The Oracle won't click Marty's donate button unless she has had time to post 1000 times for each entry.
 

AnonLover

Patron Meritorious
attachment.php


I remember seeing this graph at the time. Thanks for doing that survey AL.

So going by your numbers, about 1/3 of people flip-flop 2 - 5 times, and nearly 100% flip flop at least once.

WOW.

Not quite... note the question was worded "how many times did you leave" the official church, and not how many time did you flip-flop. This question was intended to be a respectful way to quantify out how effective Scientology recovery methods were. So it shows 61% never flip-flopped with the official church (without factoring in freezone/indie practice) because they only left once. Out of the 39% who did return to the fold of the mother church, nearly half (43%) returned more than once.

However, we can use the same data set to quantify short term freezone/indie practice as a flip-flop:

attachment.php


This shows 23% of respondents flip-flopped from the mother church into the independent field.

But my usual disclaimer applies - this was basically a straw poll where the respondent pool leaned heavily towards exes. It was taken at the peak of the indie movement inspired by the SPTimes Truth Rundown series, when Marty drew an imaginary "us vs them" standard tech line thru the center of the freezone and called it the middle path when really it was just a new bubble inside an old flip-flopping Hubbard-sans-church bubble. And that innermost bubble world was still being very resistant to intermingling with the broader ex-member/critic world. Despite my nagging and pushing and pleading, most indies at the time just ignored this project and I couldn't get it past their info filters to tap into a broader demographic.
 

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I'll be damned. I had a Scientology dream last night. After a couple years of not having them. Wow. Maybe it was the certainty button got pushed? Anyway, I dreamed I had routed on the class 8 course, I was reading bulletins, and watching student auditors get ready to take their PC's in session, chatting amongst each other, going over their crams, and I wondered how exactly I had gotten on course since I am an SP? Then I wondered how in hell I paid for the course, and then I thought of having to listen to the class 8 tapes of Ron's lectures, and i was like no no I can't stand to listen to more lies. It was then I realized I was dreaming.

Sorry to bore you with my dream, I was surprised to have one of those again.

I'll tell you something - the course had a full course room. Their stats are up in the dream world. Maybe that's where COB's expansion stats are coming from - a dream world.

Mimsey
 

phenomanon

Canyon
I'll be damned. I had a Scientology dream last night. After a couple years of not having them. Wow. Maybe it was the certainty button got pushed? Anyway, I dreamed I had routed on the class 8 course, I was reading bulletins, and watching student auditors get ready to take their PC's in session, chatting amongst each other, going over their crams, and I wondered how exactly I had gotten on course since I am an SP? Then I wondered how in hell I paid for the course, and then I thought of having to listen to the class 8 tapes of Ron's lectures, and i was like no no I can't stand to listen to more lies. It was then I realized I was dreaming.

Sorry to bore you with my dream, I was surprised to have one of those again.

I'll tell you something - the course had a full course room. Their stats are up in the dream world. Maybe that's where COB's expansion stats are coming from - a dream world.

Mimsey

LOL. Were we all wearing our green smocks?
 

scooter

Gold Meritorious Patron
Iirc, green smocks were for the OEC/FEBC and/or other admin training and red smocks were for the Tech trainees.:yes:

Or are my memories squirrel?:omg:
 

prosecco

Patron Meritorious
I really love this post, and is one that triggered something or other as I've been thinking about it for a few days (but unable to respond as the memory on my Mac is in over load)

I agree with most of it, about the feeling of certainty. I used to love this about scientology, that somehow running around an office block made a difference to humanity, which of course it doesn't. What did make sense to me was that one could influence events, which of course isn't very controversial. If enough people are trying to do a specific task, then it will probably happen, not based on, 'intention,' or woo woo spirituality, but because of sheer hard work. Look at non scientology fund raisers such as, 'Children in Need,' a UK based annual event which raises funds for children's projects. I remember at one stage a Sea Org member telling me that the person in charge of, 'Children in Need,' must be an OT as they really made things happen. :)

It's funny though, I still believe in past lives, maybe not as an explanation for events such as, 'oh the reason I hate peas was that I was choked on one last life time...'
 

Boomima

Patron with Honors
Emma, that was a really compassionate post.

What it reminded me of was the statistics on how many times it takes someone to leave an abusive partner. Most don't just leave and that's that. There is a process of forgiving, excusing, returning several times before there is a final break (if there is one at all.)

It can be very hard to leave someone you love, despite the abuse.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
Iirc, green smocks were for the OEC/FEBC and/or other admin training and red smocks were for the Tech trainees.:yes:

Or are my memories squirrel?:omg:

That was how it was at ITO in the early 90s when I was there. I vaguely remember reading it was different at Flag earlier.

Paul
 
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