When I watched from across the street a beer bus arrived and sat in front of the Denver Org for about 1/2 hour. That bus was FULL of people drinking beer. It was hilarious!

In all seriousness – there are more comings and goings from a Christian church on a Tuesday afternoon than I ever saw from that place. If it’s an ideal org they’re in trouble.

WhatWall- I was curious because I was made aware that many ex-CoS members still practice as independents. Yes, thanks to the many books, documentaries, articles, and tv programs addressing people’s horror stories about their experiences with the CoS, I can’t imagine that anyone would want to have anything to do with the CoS, unless they’ve been living under a rock lately and haven’t heard or seen any of the media reports about the CoS’s abuses.

Lisa, Leah Remini was immersed in Scn practically from the age of a baby (I knew her from when she was a young teen). I don’t know that Mike R. was in from that young of an age. So, drawing parallels like that, may not be accurate…

MOST people who leave the church eventually realize that Hubbard was running a criminal scam and had no real answers. Other than well worn ones he regurgitated from historic sources. Some of us who had gotten in way back STILL cannot confront that they were conned and scramble to blame others for Hubbard’s criminality. Some even manufacturing a mysterious “Mr. X” who changed his “tech” (prior to David Miscavige) to make it evil.

Lisa,
I don’t know how Mr. Rinder feels about the subject of Scientology (as differentiated from the church), but I did learn things from the subject that I use to this day. Mr. Hubbard was able to distill knowledge from various philosophies & religions into easily grasped principles. Some of those principles are still useful to me. It’s Hubbard’s motivations that now puzzle me.

I would not recommend that anyone become involved with the Church of Scientology today due to its unethical and damaging practices, such as disconnection, rapacious sales tactics, misuse of parishioner donations, fair game and human trafficking. Some have argued that these practices were not as flagrant or common 30 years ago (when I became a Scientologist), but they existed even then.

Even though I haven’t discarded some of the principles I learned in Scientology, I am now going through a period of inspecting each of them to verify that they don’t contain any ideas that eventually lead to the cruelty and destruction that I witnessed in the Church of Scientology.

Lisa –

Mike Rinder posts as Mike Rinder. I am Nickname, out for much longer than most here (I’m not really a part of the vocal majority). Newcomer is not me, nor is WhatWall. I am not the CIA and I am not OSA.

The tech began to be very substantially altered (changed) in the late 1970’s. Some say LRH knew of this, some say he did not. Many who post here were active member of the Co$ during the decades from 1980 to the present, and like many others (but not all) who exited the Co$ after the year 2000, have expressed substantial disappointments with the services / training / teaching / exposure / treatment / “ethics handlings” they received while in the Co$.

A long paper could be written about this, but Scn deals with understanding (ARC triangle, affinity-reality-communication). Understanding grows and when used and experienced for oneself, becomes what we call knowledge. KRC – knowledge-responsibility-control is the upper triangle of Scn. The issue of responsibility in an active and positive sense is a huge issue in societies. And it is a huge issue in Scn. Many apparently think that LRH or anyone else(!) will take responsibility for them. He joked about this saying (not an exact quote): ~~The only horror of it is that you can never be anyone else.~~ There are indeed many shades of greys to responsibility, many levels of responsibility, many delegations of the same, but the bottom line is that one’s life is one’s own, on one’s self-determinism. Those “at the top” were not always born there, and some think Winston Churchill for example could be beastly (and he and MacArthur and Roosevelt all smoked – how horrible).

A long-time original Scientologist in Switzerland did a studied review of all officially issued materials of the church of Scn and offered his opinion that “I would trust materials written BEFORE 1976.”

At a party long ago, I asked a Co$ member about changes in the tech. She took a deep breath and said one simple thing: “Just read the books.” I read Aristotle (currently) and I read some behavioral psychology and I read art history and I read newspapers and I read scientology. I don’t read Stephen King, but I do read Nabokov. I take responsibility, or try to, for what I make of all of them. I wish everyone did, and I’m 100% sure LRH wished the same.

Newcomer, a large chuck of politicians are sociopaths. A HUGE % of them end up “winning”. You just have to look around a bit more in depth than you have. You are stuck on El Con’s data vis-a-vis this subject (which is wrong, what a shock). Ted Kennedy (I knew him personally) was a sociopath (man slaughter, child prostitutes, etc.). He lived great until dying in old age. I could go on for HOURS.

WhatWall, that’s sounds accurate as to an average. I went from:

Tech Belief: Good and works.
to: Why are all these “clears & OTs” FAR less sane than the average “wog”.
to: Tech Belief: It’s a mind f#ck and a trap!

Two different people. But u seem to have misread Newcomer or taken something he said tongue in cheek literally.