I left scn in 1982. I had worked for a mission for a year and a half and at an org for six months. I never wrote a KR on anyone nor did anyone write one on me. Maybe it was common in the sea org and at management levels.
There wasn’t much negative publicity about scn back then so there probably weren’t that many people trying to bust people loose from scn. The snitch culture apparently evolved gradually over time and the remaining people adjusted.
In the mid 2000’s, when I was in the SO at AOLA, fellow AOLA’er Peter Shantz (married to CO CLO WUS Vicki Shantz), was doing an ethics handling and as part of his lower conditions, wrote a KR on me for not being on a strict diet and losing weight. As comedian Steve Martin used to say, “Well, excuuuuuuuusseee meeeeee!!!”
Thanks RB,
Keep it up as you still have momentum.
Writing a KR that someone did not write a KR.Now that is stantarter than standerd! Golden age of standardness!
One day the RB rundown will become standard decompression tek for the last unlucky leavers who want to(or have to) reconnect with their families
The thing RB nails in comic after comic are phenomena that are common to most cults: an absence of humor, a blindness to irony, and unintentionally ( darkly )comedic level of seriouness and arrogance…
This comic strip makes me think back to the part where Janis talks in Book 2 about how LRH didn’t like that she was “worker oriented”. Pfffftt. Yeah worker oriented. It was a bad thing to care about the barely paid slaves. What a horrible horrible thing for her to do. (NOT)
For any of you UTRs reading this, think hard about this: If you get in trouble for not getting someone else in trouble because they set you up to see if you would tell on them, what kind of a life is that? Is that religious? is that ethical? Is that saving anyone? Is that kind? Is that any way to treat a fellow human being?
Only if they wanted to be classified as a List One R/S’er and have a Joburg Sec Check run on them. No one, no one could think ill of LRH, just as they are now not allowed to think ill of David Miscavige. If you were to feel LRH or David Miscavige had done something wrong, you would have been Sec Checked within an inch of your life.
First and foremost, it’s not a church. Never has been. It’s a: vicious, evil, family destroying, toxic, militant, totalitarian CULT. And that’s on their good days.
I’m reminded of some lines from a Bob Dylan song–“Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.”
Well, I finally started thinking straight
When I run out of things to investigate
Couldn’t imagine doing anything else
So now I’m sitting home investigating myself!
Hope I don’t find out anything
Oh dear, technical difficulties with the comments again? My favorite take-away from this RB is apparently in the C of S you have to write KR’s about someone else NOT writing a KR about yourself! What a totally narc society.
This post reminds me of a story I used to read my kids when they were little, about the Bee Watcher watching the one who is the Bee Watcher and someone watching the one who watches the bee watching, someone watching her, all the way down the line, a line of people watching the bee watcher for anything to turn them into ethics for. It was a cute Dr Seuss book
Serious questions:
1) Do they really swear so much? (Not that I blame them….)
2) Now does each woman have to write a KR on the other about their counter-intentioned conversation about writing KRs?
Brilliant-as usual.
Does anybody in OSA forward Mike’s daily posts to the Exalted Ecclesiastical Emission?
Does the Punching Pontiff then sanguinely spout powerful postulates to nimbly negate the joyous joking and degrading occurring in this sector of the ever-expanding SP universe?
Hey, Dinky Dave, for all that agro shit you spew, this rigid middle finger is saluting you!
P.S. The dudes in cellblock 47 send their regards. They look forward to adding you to their
” pretty ponies ” harem. Ride him, cowboys!
Hey, Mark! Here’s a hypothetical conversation between me and a Kool-aid drinker:
KOOL-AID DRINKER: I’ve heard about that Mike Rinder website and I hear that you say all sorts of awful things about our beloved COB! Calling him a crook, a con artist, violent! None of that is true! David Miscavige is the most ethical being on the entire planet!
ME: Well, how do you know this is true?
KOOL-AID DRINKER: (smiling)Because he says so! Every event he stands in front of worldwide Scientology and tells us how our great religion is growing at tremendous rates like 47x! It’s so wonderful!
ME: But how do you know that those figures are accurate?
KOOL-AID DRINKER:(sighs) Because he said so! You shoukd really go to our website ‘David Miscavige.org’ and you will see how wonderful a man he really is!
ME: Sort of like Jesus?
KOOL-AID DRINKER: Better than Jesus! Jesus couldn’t hold a candle to our beloved COB!
ME: Again, how do you know that this is true?
KOOL-AID DRINKER:(sighs) What part of ‘Because he said so’ do you not understand?
ME: All of it. By the way, have you ever read a book called Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler?
KOOL-AID DRINKER: No and what’s that got to do with anything?
ME: Honey, if you can’t make the connection, there’s no point in me trying to explain it to you.
Wow, this speaks volumes about what ethics in the cherch became. When I was first in I was afraid of going to ethics, but felt helped as I looked at the Code of Honor and decided to be a better person.
I felt like the ethics officer wanted me to be a better version of myself and that’s pretty much why I joined.
Slowly like a frog in a pot of cold water with a flame under it, ethics got meaner, I got yelled at for the first time, which I wrote up and got an apologist excuse for, (but no actual apology),ratting on others became a part of the conversation and worse. By then I really was afraid of ethics.
One of the things that pissed me off the most was going to FLAG. You could have been Mother Teresa, but you’d still get busted for something and have to do Conditions and Amends as you routed in.
I always felt like they were putting me in my place. And I put up with it.
Later in my ethics cycles I didn’t feel helped, I felt made wrong and manipulated to think this or do that.
Boy am I a joyful person now, out of the cherch, living ethically, my way, with wonderful friends, a happily unbroken marriage, not that divorce wasn’t suggested by the Ethics Officer. Because nothing says, Church, like telling one spouse behind a closed door to divorce their spouse. For their own good of course. It beggars the imagination that someone with a straight face and sanctimonious righteousness would ask me to divorce my spouse, who is the most important person, helpmate, best friend and joy in my life.
So you talk about KR’s and you stir stuff up.
Thank you Regraded Being for your thought provoking and cathartic columns. They are for me a required part of the decompression and coming up to the sunlight after the dank, dark reality of cult life.
In the early days ethics was usually helpful. But later, you could buy your way out of ethics with a donation and I even had one ethics officer reg me to give him money to get out of a condition.
For any readers here who might still believe that scientology ” ethics ” is even remotely related to the centuries-long investigation of the subject by philosophers, please go to a library or do an internet search on the subject and get busy reading!
The simplest, most comprehensive reflection of scientology’s ” ethics ” -and the rest of its dreck- that I can think of , is George Orwell’s book 1984.
Scientology’s ethics= amorality and obedience to the will of Hubbard. Scientology’s auditing and assists and study technology are all forms of nonconsensual hypnosis AND indoctrination. The idea that scientology is
” benign and helpful ” in the beginning is false, in my opinion, because dianetics and scientology were conceived with one goal in mind: the enrichment and empowerment of El Con Hubbard. It was never, ever meant to help anyone.
It doesn’t produce the results it promises, and never has. It most certainly works as it was INTENDED to, though!
CNC, good comment. The increased insanity in the world of Scientology was inevitable.
When Hubbard wrote KSW it was the death knell of the cult. He built in the devices that made sure that humanity would disappear from his “church”. Without the freedom to contest and change that, Scientology was doomed. It’s now a diseased and toxic organization that passes on its illnesses and virus’s to its members.
It’s always a joy to hear from ex’s who are living a full life now. RB has contributed to the legacy of escape and deprogramming. Someday I’d like to meet RB, who has brought laughter and chuckles to an otherwise serious subject.
Another great observation by RB. I remember that shite. Ugh. A snitching environment is the most demoralizing atmosphere for anyone and then you’re supposed to feel like you’re in a church, teaching ARC, KRC, with a code of honor?
Write a KR on someone for not writing a KR. A “once good friend of mine” who got the backward-eyeball-rolling Truth Rundown was so scared of going into Ethics again she would write a KR on the stupidest things.
The church of scientology should just cut to the chase and call itself The Church of Fear. Fear of not writing a KR, FEAR of getting a KR, Fear of Disconnection, FEAR of a “Barrier To Study, ” FEAR of saying something wrong, FEAR of doing something wrong, FEAR of THINKING something wrong, FEAR of listening to something wrong, FEAR of seeing something wrong, FEAR of Sec Checking, FEAR of not F/Ning, (geez I got started not this thing and I go go on and on and on).
Sounds scarey Mary. You are so right. Scientoligists are fearful people and try to make others as fearful as themselves. They pretend they are tuff & have all the answers to life (as per Hubbards answers) but really they are hidding – blind obedience.
Wait a minute. Now that I’ve read this, anyone who knows me will have to write a KR or else someone will write a KR about them! Has RB been infiltrated? This is an Op to handle disaffection in the field! O.o
The cult of greed in full STASI mode!
I left scn in 1982. I had worked for a mission for a year and a half and at an org for six months. I never wrote a KR on anyone nor did anyone write one on me. Maybe it was common in the sea org and at management levels.
There wasn’t much negative publicity about scn back then so there probably weren’t that many people trying to bust people loose from scn. The snitch culture apparently evolved gradually over time and the remaining people adjusted.
In the mid 2000’s, when I was in the SO at AOLA, fellow AOLA’er Peter Shantz (married to CO CLO WUS Vicki Shantz), was doing an ethics handling and as part of his lower conditions, wrote a KR on me for not being on a strict diet and losing weight. As comedian Steve Martin used to say, “Well, excuuuuuuuusseee meeeeee!!!”
Thanks RB,
Keep it up as you still have momentum.
Writing a KR that someone did not write a KR.Now that is stantarter than standerd! Golden age of standardness!
One day the RB rundown will become standard decompression tek for the last unlucky leavers who want to(or have to) reconnect with their families
The thing RB nails in comic after comic are phenomena that are common to most cults: an absence of humor, a blindness to irony, and unintentionally ( darkly )comedic level of seriouness and arrogance…
And some random Scientoloduesche’s ballz…..resting comfortably on Miscarriages chin.
This comic strip makes me think back to the part where Janis talks in Book 2 about how LRH didn’t like that she was “worker oriented”. Pfffftt. Yeah worker oriented. It was a bad thing to care about the barely paid slaves. What a horrible horrible thing for her to do. (NOT)
For any of you UTRs reading this, think hard about this: If you get in trouble for not getting someone else in trouble because they set you up to see if you would tell on them, what kind of a life is that? Is that religious? is that ethical? Is that saving anyone? Is that kind? Is that any way to treat a fellow human being?
I wonder if anyone wrote a KR or chit on LRH?
Only if they wanted to be classified as a List One R/S’er and have a Joburg Sec Check run on them. No one, no one could think ill of LRH, just as they are now not allowed to think ill of David Miscavige. If you were to feel LRH or David Miscavige had done something wrong, you would have been Sec Checked within an inch of your life.
And right there is what makes the Church of Scientology a cult.
I look forward to RB every week. Thanks!
That final comment in the last panel is outstanding… yes, those who blew care more about the welfare of the sea org members than the “church” itself.
Some of the biggest victims of this evil organization are it’s own current members, especially the those enslaved in the sea org slavery racket.
Sea org virtual slavery.
Punishment camps.
Knowledge reports.
Ruination of ex-members.
How is this “thing” a church again?
First and foremost, it’s not a church. Never has been. It’s a: vicious, evil, family destroying, toxic, militant, totalitarian CULT. And that’s on their good days.
Thanks OSD. For a minute I thought you were forgetting that there’s also a negative side.
Do you ever wonder is someone is reading a comic about your life? One where the crayon adds 20 pounds and we swear and smoke like chimneys?
I’m reminded of some lines from a Bob Dylan song–“Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.”
Well, I finally started thinking straight
When I run out of things to investigate
Couldn’t imagine doing anything else
So now I’m sitting home investigating myself!
Hope I don’t find out anything
Nice one Chris.
This is also a comment test. Before the recent comment calamity I had a couple of comments not get through.
Oh dear, technical difficulties with the comments again? My favorite take-away from this RB is apparently in the C of S you have to write KR’s about someone else NOT writing a KR about yourself! What a totally narc society.
This post reminds me of a story I used to read my kids when they were little, about the Bee Watcher watching the one who is the Bee Watcher and someone watching the one who watches the bee watching, someone watching her, all the way down the line, a line of people watching the bee watcher for anything to turn them into ethics for. It was a cute Dr Seuss book
Paranoia will destroy ya.
Paranoia destroia is why $cientolgy needs more than a pair-a-loia’s.
Serious questions:
1) Do they really swear so much? (Not that I blame them….)
2) Now does each woman have to write a KR on the other about their counter-intentioned conversation about writing KRs?
Yes…and yes.
Thereby saving this sector of the universe…
Brilliant-as usual.
Does anybody in OSA forward Mike’s daily posts to the Exalted Ecclesiastical Emission?
Does the Punching Pontiff then sanguinely spout powerful postulates to nimbly negate the joyous joking and degrading occurring in this sector of the ever-expanding SP universe?
Hey, Dinky Dave, for all that agro shit you spew, this rigid middle finger is saluting you!
P.S. The dudes in cellblock 47 send their regards. They look forward to adding you to their
” pretty ponies ” harem. Ride him, cowboys!
Mark I always look forward to your comments. You make me laugh!
Hey, Mark! Here’s a hypothetical conversation between me and a Kool-aid drinker:
KOOL-AID DRINKER: I’ve heard about that Mike Rinder website and I hear that you say all sorts of awful things about our beloved COB! Calling him a crook, a con artist, violent! None of that is true! David Miscavige is the most ethical being on the entire planet!
ME: Well, how do you know this is true?
KOOL-AID DRINKER: (smiling)Because he says so! Every event he stands in front of worldwide Scientology and tells us how our great religion is growing at tremendous rates like 47x! It’s so wonderful!
ME: But how do you know that those figures are accurate?
KOOL-AID DRINKER:(sighs) Because he said so! You shoukd really go to our website ‘David Miscavige.org’ and you will see how wonderful a man he really is!
ME: Sort of like Jesus?
KOOL-AID DRINKER: Better than Jesus! Jesus couldn’t hold a candle to our beloved COB!
ME: Again, how do you know that this is true?
KOOL-AID DRINKER:(sighs) What part of ‘Because he said so’ do you not understand?
ME: All of it. By the way, have you ever read a book called Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler?
KOOL-AID DRINKER: No and what’s that got to do with anything?
ME: Honey, if you can’t make the connection, there’s no point in me trying to explain it to you.
Ouch! That one stings the thinking gear RB.
Wow, this speaks volumes about what ethics in the cherch became. When I was first in I was afraid of going to ethics, but felt helped as I looked at the Code of Honor and decided to be a better person.
I felt like the ethics officer wanted me to be a better version of myself and that’s pretty much why I joined.
Slowly like a frog in a pot of cold water with a flame under it, ethics got meaner, I got yelled at for the first time, which I wrote up and got an apologist excuse for, (but no actual apology),ratting on others became a part of the conversation and worse. By then I really was afraid of ethics.
One of the things that pissed me off the most was going to FLAG. You could have been Mother Teresa, but you’d still get busted for something and have to do Conditions and Amends as you routed in.
I always felt like they were putting me in my place. And I put up with it.
Later in my ethics cycles I didn’t feel helped, I felt made wrong and manipulated to think this or do that.
Boy am I a joyful person now, out of the cherch, living ethically, my way, with wonderful friends, a happily unbroken marriage, not that divorce wasn’t suggested by the Ethics Officer. Because nothing says, Church, like telling one spouse behind a closed door to divorce their spouse. For their own good of course. It beggars the imagination that someone with a straight face and sanctimonious righteousness would ask me to divorce my spouse, who is the most important person, helpmate, best friend and joy in my life.
So you talk about KR’s and you stir stuff up.
Thank you Regraded Being for your thought provoking and cathartic columns. They are for me a required part of the decompression and coming up to the sunlight after the dank, dark reality of cult life.
In the early days ethics was usually helpful. But later, you could buy your way out of ethics with a donation and I even had one ethics officer reg me to give him money to get out of a condition.
For any readers here who might still believe that scientology ” ethics ” is even remotely related to the centuries-long investigation of the subject by philosophers, please go to a library or do an internet search on the subject and get busy reading!
The simplest, most comprehensive reflection of scientology’s ” ethics ” -and the rest of its dreck- that I can think of , is George Orwell’s book 1984.
Scientology’s ethics= amorality and obedience to the will of Hubbard. Scientology’s auditing and assists and study technology are all forms of nonconsensual hypnosis AND indoctrination. The idea that scientology is
” benign and helpful ” in the beginning is false, in my opinion, because dianetics and scientology were conceived with one goal in mind: the enrichment and empowerment of El Con Hubbard. It was never, ever meant to help anyone.
It doesn’t produce the results it promises, and never has. It most certainly works as it was INTENDED to, though!
CNC, good comment. The increased insanity in the world of Scientology was inevitable.
When Hubbard wrote KSW it was the death knell of the cult. He built in the devices that made sure that humanity would disappear from his “church”. Without the freedom to contest and change that, Scientology was doomed. It’s now a diseased and toxic organization that passes on its illnesses and virus’s to its members.
It’s always a joy to hear from ex’s who are living a full life now. RB has contributed to the legacy of escape and deprogramming. Someday I’d like to meet RB, who has brought laughter and chuckles to an otherwise serious subject.
Another great observation by RB. I remember that shite. Ugh. A snitching environment is the most demoralizing atmosphere for anyone and then you’re supposed to feel like you’re in a church, teaching ARC, KRC, with a code of honor?
Write a KR on someone for not writing a KR. A “once good friend of mine” who got the backward-eyeball-rolling Truth Rundown was so scared of going into Ethics again she would write a KR on the stupidest things.
The church of scientology should just cut to the chase and call itself The Church of Fear. Fear of not writing a KR, FEAR of getting a KR, Fear of Disconnection, FEAR of a “Barrier To Study, ” FEAR of saying something wrong, FEAR of doing something wrong, FEAR of THINKING something wrong, FEAR of listening to something wrong, FEAR of seeing something wrong, FEAR of Sec Checking, FEAR of not F/Ning, (geez I got started not this thing and I go go on and on and on).
John Sweeney got it right…
Yes! Great book. And concrete angel is the best name ever for big blue.
Sounds scarey Mary. You are so right. Scientoligists are fearful people and try to make others as fearful as themselves. They pretend they are tuff & have all the answers to life (as per Hubbards answers) but really they are hidding – blind obedience.
Wait a minute. Now that I’ve read this, anyone who knows me will have to write a KR or else someone will write a KR about them! Has RB been infiltrated? This is an Op to handle disaffection in the field! O.o
Maybe KR farms in India might be worth creating. You can have economy, business or elite, cheaper by the dozen too.