Is this actually the way Scientologists speak to each other ?

For instance, “I totally duplicate that . . .”

Dave F.

Aqua, the late 60s were even more fun. The GO/SO was just barely beginning to get their teeth into the major entheta to come. Being on non SO staff was almost joyfun; certainly a lot of fun.

Hi Amazed,

We don’t (didn’t) fall for THIS. We discovered some truth and people like us were very excited about helping people with it. 🙂 No disrespect intended, but you have the advantage of seeing the end of the scary movie and knowing who it was all along. We didn’t know while we were busy helping ourselves and others.

Finding out about this stuff and then believing it after 40 years of being in the movie is a gradual process because we haven’t been on the outside looking in, 40 years later. Had we known it would grow into this, of course we wouldn’t have.

I remember seeing a scary film one time and the killer always lived in the walls. One of the characters had found the secret passageway and she was climbing up the stairs inside the walls. I actually said, out loud, “Don’t go in there! Don’t you know where the killer is?” lol As if she’d been watching the movie the whole time too.

So do have a little mercy on those of us who have been in. We are all intelligent, caring people. We just got sold on something that CHANGED INTO something way more evil as time went on.

Very glad you’re here to help and to understand what we went through. It’s really fascinating for me too. WTF??? 😀

A new and modern e-meter was intended to be solar powered. However, after DM sent nine execs to the RPF for failing to make the sun come out at night, the project was canceled. He is now looking for the guy he once saw in a comic with a light bulb burning above his head, no wires or nuthin’. Applicants please bring money, and light bulb.

Another intended e-meter advance was the lemon-powered version, said to be good for three hours on one extra-large lemon. But DM puckered up, and canceled it.

Then there was the manual crank-powered version, intended for use when barbarism returned and only manual labor was available. DM canceled this, too, after he word-cleared “crank”, and later accidentally discovered ‘manual labor’ was *not* the president of Mexico.

Cleckley was one of the giants who wrote a list of what he thought were characteristics of people who were psychopaths.

However, others have developed his work beyond Cleckley’s original list from forty and fifty years ago. In particular Professor Robert D. Hare of Canada developed his initial Psychopathy Checklist based on Cleckley’s work. Hare then refined and expanded the checklist, which is now known as the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised, or PCL-R for short.

It consists of a 20-item symptom rating scale that allows trained examiners to compare a subject’s degree of psychopathy with the checklist items, which represent a prototypical psychopath. The PCL-R, carried out with the help of the Manual for the PCL-R, has been a useful method of identifying psychopaths, but only in the hands of well-trained people who have access to multiple lengthy client interviews, in-depth personal and family history, family, friend, teacher, and co-worker comments, the case files for any known offenses, and more.

The PCL-R is especially helpful to advise parole boards, who need solid info about the likelihood a person will re-offend if given parole. It has been accepted by many in the field as the best method for determining the presence and extent of psychopathy in a person.

However, recent advances in fMRI brain imaging and extreme software massaging of the images have resulted in significant advances in identifying psychopaths by comparing their brain structures to the brains of known psychopaths. This was a long project led by Hare’s graduate student and eventual PhD awardee, Dr. Kent Kiehl. Today, with access to an advanced fMRI machine, powerful new software, and banks of co-processors to massage the results, researchers can look deep into a person’s brain to locate damaged or underdeveloped brain structures which are now known to be closely associated with psychopathic behavior.

Along with the brain structure advances, there have been advances in identifying at earlier and earlier ages people who are at risk for full adult psychopathy. There have even been promising treatments which so far have turned at-risk teens toward responsible activity, an amazing set of results which could apply to other so-called untreatable issues, if caught and treated early.

Sorry for the long comment, but psychopathy is a complex subject which is fascinating to me.

It is important to remember that neither Dr. Cleckley back decades ago, nor the more recent scientists who followed, ever intended the lists of psychopath traits to be used by amateurs who have never had extensive direct interview contact with the subject, or deep access to subject files. It was never intended as a parlor game for untrained but perhaps well-meaning people to pigeon-hole their bosses, relatives, or even cult leaders into what is essentially a powerful and significant medical and legal diagnosis. Even casually claiming that so-and-so is a psychopath can have consequences for the person claimed to be a psychopath, and consequences for the person making the claim. Since it is a medico-legal term that could have significant legal consequences, I would caution against making any claim of a person’s psychopathy status, especially if that person has tons of lawyers, money, power – and anger.

Makes sense.

Marty

Oldtimer, your post made my day. I can’t wait to read of your coming out and of how you managed to get files out without being caught. Heck, maybe they’ll make a movie out of you. And at least I hope a full episode on Leah’s show. Welcome to the sunlight, Old timer. You have friends here!!!!

I think the fun, lighter, happier experiences depended on where you were in the 70s. During most of that time, I was involved with a mission in Denver and it really was a lot of fun. That all went away after it became an org. I think that for sea org members during that time it was just miserable and dark. It sounds like Hubbard was even more of a nut job than the current dear leader. I’m glad I never met either one of them. And really glad I got out before wasting my whole life on it!