Thank you, Aquamarine! Superbly stated, Aquamarine.

I might even say: VWD, Aquamarine!

Among its other superlatives, California is also the most populous state (1 out of 8 live here) and the biggest agricultural state, this year and every year.

We missed you too, OSD. Glad you’re back!

And BL, my edit button is gone too.

Mike, waaaaaahhhh 🙂

ps: Thank you for reading this long this, anyone who has. It was cathartic for me to write it.

In case my lengthy post didn’t make it plain, here it is:

I was a love bomb addict.

I fell for the bullshit – hook, line and sinker. I was sceptical in the beginning so it took a few years but they finally convinced me of how marvelous I was 🙂 and then I was hooked 🙂

With praise, they trained me to do what they wanted.

This is the way you train dogs, by the way – with praise. It takes longer but its quite effective. It takes patience, skill and and time to train a dog this way but once the training takes, that dog will live for you and your praise.

Whether were really good at it – or, they weren’t good at it at all and I was just stupid – I fell for it, and became a love bomb addict.

I wanted what they were pushing 🙂

Now i can honestly laugh at what a complete idiot I was.

Don Juan, Cassanova, move over! Scientology can teach you guys a thing or two 🙂

Sylvia,

My opinion is its because they are wealthy “NOBODIES” who’ve become ADDICTED to Scientology’s LOVE BOMBING. The cult does this extremely well. They know how to make little rich nobody REALLY believe that he or she is not only a “somebody” but somebody who is “creating” HUGE effects for the better on his or her ENVIRONMENT and the WORLD via what he or she is “doing” in Scientology.

When I was in, my org loved bombed ME, and I was NOT rich – comfortable, not poor, certainly, but in no way could I have been considered wealthy. No matter not wealthy nobody me I got the full treatment ANYWAY. (Maybe they were using me for practice, LOL)

Not wealthy nobody me was continually, in glowing terms, informed as to how IMPORTANT I was, how VITAL my contributions were, how helpful I was, how kind, etc. etc.

Oh, and also how beautiful, intelligent, capable, ethical, alert, perceptive, well dressed… you get the idea. If i cut my hair or changed my hairdo, they notice it.

And they were never OBVIOUS about any of this either!

I believed them, after a while. Yes, I really thought, after a while, that they liked me and admired me!!!!!!!!!!! (Sorry for the exclam tech but this is embarrassing.)
After a while, I became rather impressed with myself.

In my org, I was SOMEBODY.

That WAS the message, and I got it.

Sometimes I’d look forward to going into the org just because there was ALWAYS this outflow of APPROVAL coming from the staff.

No OBVIOUS flattery, ever. I would have been suspicious of that.

No, they knew what to say, how to say it, and WHEN to say it. (Courtesy of my PC folder, possibly? 🙂 )

Now, if they did this with ME – me who was not rich, not famous, me, your basic, middle class nobody – if they did this with ME I’m assuming that per policy they’re doing it for every other still in nobody who has 2 nickels to rub together.

And if they were that good at love bombing US, can you just IMAGINE how they’re pouring it on for the Whales and Celebs?

Disclosure: I don’t live in California. I just admire California, the spirit of the place, as a state, as a people.

Kat, Scientology is “obsessed” with California because it is an extremely rich, extremely progressive, extremely tolerant state full of extremely wealthy people who earned vast amounts of money taking chances that no one else would take.

California has always been open to new ideas, to all kinds of woo. Nothing is too “out there” to not at least be given a CHANCE. Probably many of these ideas and concepts don’t catch on but a good number of them DO, and when they do, the rest of the country, and the world, follows and is changed, for the better.

Examples of things that started in California and took at least a decade later in New York, and then another decade to catch on in the Midwest and the South, upon request.

Unless or until whatever Californian try out catches on, they get mocked for being airheads.

Californians also get mocked and disparaged for being tolerant and supportive of the poor, the homeless, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled, the elderly, immigrants legal or non-legal, any combination of the above.

California is also extremely tolerant of far-out religious and spiritual beliefs.

Probably their only intolerance is of intolerant people.

Meanwhile, as they are the butt of jokes, good natured and otherwise by just about everyone and in particular Conservatives in red states who for some reason despise them, meanwhile the state of California laughs its way all the way to the bank and pays the federal taxes upon which those red states are in no small way dependent.

The cult is safest in California. As a state, they’ll fight discrimination of ALL kinds. And, it cannot be overstated, there is a large concentration of very rich people living there.

Money + safety makes California the cult’s ideal location. Way more than Florida which is much poorer and full of elderly wog conservatives who would never tolerate the cult the way California does.

Good one, Eh=Eh! Really good.

“We are so close…SO close…”. These people, OMG.

Door # 1: They’re lying thru their teeth.
Door #2: They are, for real, completely, utterly clueless.

I tend to go with door # 1 because unless they inherited all their money and never really had to work I find it next to impossible to conceive of anyone in their socio-economic group[ being THAT stupid.

You have to look at the BOOKS of California. You have been duped. California has about ONE TRILLION DOLLARS IN UNFUNDED DEBT.

That debt is GROWING EVERY SINGLE DAY. NOT staying the same. NOT shrinking.

I don’t have time nor inclination to teach basic math, accounting & econ here. You should attend a good college for that PeacceMaker

Wynski, California is consistently listed as having one of the best economies in the country – I checked, and even Fox News references that. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

California does have an unusual character, and has long been particularly fertile ground for everything from fundamentalist Christian groups to various esoteric pseudo-philosophies like Scientology. I don’t see that they’re necessarily headed towards their doom, though.

Is there anything concrete you can cite as evidence for your assertion?