There’s so much button pressing stuff in this week’s funnies. For starters, do Sea Org people really curse so much amongst themselves? Is the F word their only adjective or adverb? And as for the content, the longer I’m away from the cult, the more unreal this level of control it exerts upon its members appears to me. It seems so beyond the beyond, but then I know that its true, that every aspect of SO’s lives are thoroughly controlled and even their thoughts regularly monitored…what I’m experiencing now is a kind of wonder, an amazement, that I was a member of this cult for 25 years, and as such, a participant, albeit a largely unknowing participant, and supporter of this – how would I characterize it – incredible suppression of human beings.
Aqua – the cussing is endemic among not only SO but (nearly) all lower Org staff that I knew, with the same regularity as smoking has among them as well. We didn’t worry about it though – nothing like a good cuss when you’re trying to get the stats up (or down)!
Yes Aqua the cussing is as Foolproof said. El Con said it was because of a lack of education. Sounds right. Most scamologist (as evidenced by the scientific discussions on this site) completely lack a basic education. Like believing that the body stores EM radiation from the 10 nm to 400 nm band and later releases it back into the environment. Crap like that.
As if anyone is interested in your totally unimportant “facts” that you manage to dredge up from God knows where to try and prove your malicious points. As I said elsewhere this is yet another one of those “Hubbard picked his nose in 1946 therefore Scientology must be banned!”
Dave’s final thought before retiring for the night after reading Mike’s blog. “I should have never let that CICS go to England. What the fuck was I thinking?”
When camaraderie is killed off by vindictiveness in any group it all goes to hell. I hope a day of reckoning fast approaches for the human abuses perpetrated in the horror that makes up the underlying ethos of the Scientology group. Denial of family… to think about that for those who’ve never suffered the indignation of it is difficult – but it is quite real. They denied you your family & for no other reason than they could. It spread like a disease throughout the whole organisation. Your own humanity is sacrificed by orders from above with any staff or long term commitment to Scientology.
Sadness gives way to anger pretty fast when you start to come to terms with it.
I’m so broken up about Leonard Cohen that I’m finding it hard to find room to be broken up about Robert Vaughn. Man, has 2016 sucked vis-a-vis celebrity deaths. And we still have another month and a half.
A bong missed? – NOT likely on our watch. It’s all to do with co-ordination. Like… you gotta have principles to live by. We are a planet apart, your sleepy time is my – “go get ’em Tiger” time and visa versa.
In the 32 years that I was in the SO, at all the orgs that I was in, I don’t think that I am aware of more than 4 or 5 people who ever allowed to have their “annual” two-week leave. People newly in would always give it a go, and, while everyone else, more aware of the “approval” process, might be privately encouraging the newcomer, we were never surprised to see them finally disapproved.
There’s the other typical scenario for people who do get their CSWs approved: you get your Thanksgiving CSW up in February, you’ll get it approved in May, your parents get the tickets a month before the event, and you are told the day before your flight that you can’t go, unless you ______ (fill in the blank with something crazy, like, “make your next two week’s income quotas today”. Most approved CSWs in PAC at least in the service orgs, were later disapproved and the person prevented from leaving.
Getting approved for a leave is the best example of the SO’s “Many are called, but few are chosen” maxim.
Those few who managed to get out of the building and gone were best to never pick up the phone when they were gone as, once you were approved to go, the likelihood is that you’d be called back. Of all the people I know who got to go, I can think of two who got their full two weeks. I remember with one of these people, the CO said, “You regges don’t want me to have to call Craig back do you? Well, you better get your income up now or I will…”
There was something in about 1981, iirc, where the GO people in PAC were often seen in casual clothes and with beach gear on the weekends, and very happy. I asked one what was happening.
I was told that the GO was in an LRH program called “Operation De-Op” and that De-Op meant de-oppression, and it entailed getting to bed on time and a predictable time off every other week that you could count on. That it was going to be piloted in the GO and then streamlined and put in, in the rest of the orgs.
Only in the SO would it be that there would be a pilot program to treat people decently and then have it rejected as the stats did not soar.
Although I imagine it was LRH who created the program, I can also imagine him reviewing GO stats a few weeks later. R: “What happened with the GO stats 4 weeks ago?!? Messenger: “Op De-Op, Sir!” R: “Who implemented Op De-Op?!?!” Messenger, confused: “Er… Er…” R: hErbie Parkhouse!?!?!? Rip his certs and RPF the bastard!!!”. Issue comes out the next day saying that Herbie is an SP for implementing this terrible idea.
Yes the idea has a ring of truth in it. Interestingly and as an aside to your comment, when I was visiting the UK in the 90s, ol’ Herb told me the real reason he was declared and that was because he (as DG Finance WW) had opposed the 10% (?) constant price rises and he kept getting missionaires sent to him to try and convince him otherwise, with finally an apparent tape recording of LRH speaking directly either to him (he was a buddy of LRH’s), or LRH speaking generally about the subject (can’t remember which). He told me that the tape sounded weird and not as if it was from LRH, but which is not to say that it wasn’t. I suppose “they” (which may include LRH – before Mike pounces on me for overly-defending LRH) gave up when Herb wouldn’t budge on this and just declared him. Herb was regarded as somewhat of a martinet by some I recall, but in this stance of his on price rises belies that idea. As the Brits say “he was a good bloke!” (really).
I think ol’ Herb may have been trying to make himself sound good. Perhaps what he said is true, that he did oppose the price increases, as a lot of other people did because they were insane. But there was a lot more to it than that. He ended up on Hubbard’s shit-list along with some other Guardian Office luminaries.
Well, the original price increases of the late 70s were realistic and validly founded as Church services at that time were somewhat if not very under-priced as me and many others on here may well remember (if we are being honest that is). The seeming fact that they got (GI) stats up which then caused their re-introduction in the early 80s did I believe NOT contribute to an overall healthy scene, as they did indeed price many former members out of the range of possible services they could pay for. So the original idea was fine and actually quite fair as the prices WERE very low but its continuance was not. The overall effect on Orgs worldwide of the eventual massive increases was probably quite instrumental in creating someone like Miscavige and the creation of the independent field (along with harsh Ethics), as many people were then denied auditing by being unable to pay for it.
BTW Mike can you introduce an underlining feature for words in the comments, then I would not have to capitalize certain words to stress them, which per Internet manners and rules etc. is doing something that I don’ t really intend (i.e. “shouting”)?
Throughout the madness, the inhumanity, the lack of mercy, compassion, goodness – the lack of humility, the ubiquitous arrogance and soul destroying states of being that is inherent in the well trained Scientologist;
lies the well studied doctrine of hate.
The previous blog post on criticism that Mike posted IS the recipe for this behavior.
Let’s be honest. L Ron Hubbard taught us how to hate. To hate those who think differently.
To hate and seek violence against critics.
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters be damned!
If you do not support “man’s only hope” L Ron Hubbard preached thuggery.
Jesus the Christ, Lord Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, my preceptor Paramahansa Yoganandaji and all liberated sages throughout history preached love thine enemies.
L Ron Hubbard can rightly be called an Anti-Christ, a moniker he gave himself.
This is not a mindless religious sentiment from me.
This is an objective observation, when I compare Ron’s philosophy of violence against critics with the doctrine of saints, sages and all the Great Ones.
It could be said, that Ron’s greatest failure was in recognizing the true power in love.
Instead, his ego for name and fame relegated the doctrine of love to his delusional implanted Marcabian mind control.
Will over love???? The Crowley doctrine? That was Ron’s ego doctrine.
Love over will?? That is the doctrine of Lord Jesus and Lord Buddha.
One leads to infamy.
And one leads to the laurel wreath of civil society; the hero!
For all his vast and encyclopedic writings and taped lectures – carefully collected and curated over many decades – Elron had very, very little to say about love in any of its many forms. And as someone who wished to cast himself as the modern day inheritor of the mantle of the Buddha’s authority and wisdom, he had nothing at all to say about the kind of loving kindness that the Dalai Lama embodies at every possible level and which is at the heart of that great religion.
Deconstructing $cn and discrediting its claims can be productively engaged in at just so many levels, but the question: Where’s the love? really cuts to the heart of what’s so evil about $cn at every one of them…there’s no love in it at any level or dynamic that you might wish to examine – no tolerance, no forgiveness, no compassion, no loving kindness in any form that I’ve seen.
RB unmercifully skewers the false and hollow sentiments that $cn promotes, while pointing up the “everyone for themselves,” snitch culture and its constant efforts to alienate its members from their families…if that’s love, $cn style, then deal me out! Everyone who reads RB’s totally subversive cartoons and can identify with his subject matter is on her way out of the cult…even if they don’t know it yet!
Really? I am surprised at an Irish person swallowing the blarney composed above. It is somewhat true that the Church under Miscavige has become a snarling abomination compared to its former state, but the Dalai Lama and every other religion has never produced anything effective to help people love each other and only admonitions to be good boy and girls, amongst the slaughtering and torturing most of them have perpetrated under their “holy” guise. Do other religions have a technology to remove evil purposes, or to handle an upset, or a recent trauma, or a great loss, or a chronic pain, or a way of finding out if the just-told usually superficial confession has got all of it etc. etc. etc. And yet the man who invented all the methods to do such and that actually WORK as testified by hundreds of thousands of people, is lambasted because he, in the warped opinion of the commenter above, states that he is “evil” and has no love! You really shouldn’t believe the blarney that you read.
So true Harpoona. Hubbard’s closest reference to love that I recall is that he related it to affinity. That’s a cold mathematical calculation based on proximity or the willingness to be close or share the same space. Could be used for anything, like finding a dollar and sticking in your pocket to getting your first kiss. Mathematical analysis is a ridiculous assumption where love in concerned. Love separates out the meaning of many things both subjective and objective. Trying to explain it is such cold terms is self defeating for an alleged workable philosophy of life. It all fell in a heap where love is concerned.
Yawn, I don’t understand your negative opinion of the word “affinity”. How could willingness to be close, how could wanting to be near someone or something be characterized as a cold mathematical calculation? Usually the people, animals, life forms or objects we want to be close to are those we like, admire, love, etc. How close we want them is an index of the intensity of these feelings. “Affinity” is just a useful catch-all term for love or liking people, animals, things, etc.
Oh no Aqua! You have me all wrong on any type of negative law or consistency on the use of affinity. It is all what you say it is and more. I just didn’t like nor understand Hubbard’s reference to “love.” It became literal to his management style. To me he left no randomity of being or becoming a life unto yourself or creating with another within his organisation, it all became quite mathematical. Have a good think about where statistical management ended up for Scientology. Abortions and family split ups for the good of management decisions etc… you can’t get much much suppressive than that. The last thing to be scrutinized imo is the telling of another what love is to them, let alone denying it. The Cof$’s behavior in their treatment of lovers and things like enforced abortion, family split ups says it all for me. I will not condone that at all.
It is one thing to have the axioms of life, it is totally another to enforce them on others. Hubbard never really accepted the gravity of his own “discoveries.” No matter how much evidence of their misinterpretation and the heavy handed managerial enforcement was growing around him, it was ignored.
The Cof$ speaks for itself – that is the literal application of Hubbard. Unless you allow something like love and its consequences to exist within its ranks what are you left with? – the Church of Scientology.
I understand what affinity is and also what theta is and where it all fits together, it does not result in authority being dramatized over another.
Yawn: “To me he left no randomity of being or becoming a life unto yourself or creating with another within his organisation, it all became quite mathematical.”
In a sense you are right. But in the basic principles, “randomity of being or becoming . . . ” was actually included, as can be seen from the following:
“There is no thought or statement here that any one of these eight dynamics is more important than the others. While they are categories (divisions) of the broad game of life they are not necessarily equal to each other. It will be found amongst individuals that each person stresses one of the dynamics more than the others, or may stress a combination of dynamics as more important-than other combinations.” (FOT)
But you are right when it comes to “within his organization.” It does seem that he ignored the misinterpretations around him.
Aqua, it isn’t a negative opinion of “affinity”. It is a rejection of substituting affinity for love and the ABSENCE of the consideration of love in an alleged workable philosophy of life.
Wynski, you can practice what you are preaching then and “love” Scientology. You can even have a picture of COB on your wall! How about turning the other cheek and not posting any more malicious comments?
Fool, as I wasn’t preaching anything, simply pointing out what ANOTHER person rejected, I haven’t a clue what you trying to talk about
Maybe you could clarify based on what I said? Or, were you commenting on another person’s posts?
Mike Rindersays
More waste of time
marildisays
Regarding “love,” there is a lot said about the “law of affinity” in DMSMH, which states first that the word “‘affinity’ might be defined as ‘love’ in both its meanings. Deprivation of or absence of affection could be considered as a violation of the law of affinity. Man must be in affinity with man to survive. . . it is the affection with which Mankind holds Mankind.”
Obviously, the church lost sight of this in later years.
Paulette Cooper may have an argument with your assessment of time as it relates to loosing site in later years.
One thing I have learned from real teachers, they live what they write. Their lives are living examples of their teaching. That is a teacher. They teach a virtue, and when you observe them, you see they live it.
Ron was a hypocrite. That is more of an observation. Hypocrite’s, by definition, do not live what they preach.
I give you the brain scrambling dichotomy of:
“If possible, destroy them”
and
“love despite all provocation to do otherwise”
This by definition is hypocrisy. Ron did not live what he preached. He was a very limited teacher.
But the good news is, there are other paths that really teach love, not just quote “about” love in an HCOB or book.
Love doesn’t need a book to quote from to prove that Ron knew about love.
Real love leaves a wake of happy people. Happy free people are the product of love. It transcends “what Ron says” “about” love.
Love is infectious. It spreads and needs no neonsign or reg. Scientology has a deficiency of love.
Good point, Marildi. Love could be defined as the desire to be physically, mentally and emotionally near someone, and vice versa. And its true, being in affinity with others IS survival.
Yes Marildi, as regards these throw-away comments from some people on here one is supposed to simply nod one’s head and say “yes, it’s all terrible”. And as usual when one delves even a few inches or just a scratch or two under their superficial (and actually hateful) surface find that the statements are as hollow as Phobos is supposed to be.
Nobody, including me, is excusing some of the practices of the SO, but to lord them up as being the biggest crimes of the century shows where the originators are coming from. And then to state that Hubbard mentions nothing about love when with a few flicks of the ample pages he wrote, they are easily found, again shows them up for what they are – hollow and hateful commenting. Hubbard is being aligned with Genghis Khan and Mao Tse-Tung, and primarily because some of his managers mistreated Org staff in the usually vain hope of getting their own personal stats up. I was an Exec and never had to resort to this nonsense of mistreating staff and also – lo and behold – got stats up as well by ACTUALLY following what he said to do.
This sort of commenting is about the same level of buffoonery as saying “well, Hubbard picked his nose in 1946, so Scientology is evil!”
“Ron’s philosophy of violence”? What the hell are you on about? This, what you say, is all very well Brian but did the other great sages you mention create a technology that could even handle the simple flying of rudiments to handle upsets? Regraded Beings piece above is more or less the way it is, no denying that. But I see you have selectively taken your religious examples without mentioning the utter inhuman and detestable actions wrought upon civilized society by other religious dudes and movements, and you juxtaposition Scientology with these by making out Scientologists are violent (DM excluded of course – ha!) and compare them with those “nice guys” you have carefully selected. Go and criticize the Inquisition or burning witches at the stake or any of the other religious nut-jobs over the centuries but to craftily cast Scientology and Hubbard in the same light to them is er, exaggerating the idea somewhat is it not? “Ron’s philosophy of violence”? Now, I don’ t recall his use of thumbscrews. Nor crucifixion or having one’s testicles ripped off. I am surprised you didn’t say he was responsible for the Holocaust or was related to Stalin, such is the hyperbole you have already used. We are talking about the absence of Libs, which many people here who weren’t staff would not appreciate anyway and those that were staff well, we put up with it or did our best to wriggle our way out of it. But to accuse this as “a philosophy of violence” is of course you exaggerating the scene, as you usually do in your never-ending quest to (violently) attack Scientology.
And anyway, as well as all that, I read your comment and thought it was a load of namby-pamby theetie weetie crap. Haha! You can get your ruds flown now if I’ve upset you – oh, but you shouldn’t use any of that “violent” creature’s technology to do so! BTW – is your second name “Hyperbole”?
Ron’s Metaphysical Freudian Therapy has a place. It can bring some basic understandings. No doubt. But it is an introduction to our spiritual nature. But that is it. An introduction.
Ron was stuck in his human head and intellect, So goes Scientology. It’s always, or mostly, except for creative processes, dealing with the past. The past is the mind. At some point having a mind becomes a problem.
At some point you do not need Ron’s auditing procedures to think with. In fact, the next level spiritual practice is done without a mind. You don’t suppress it. It can and does dissolve. It’s like waking up from a dream. And when you need to think, to intuit a piece of wisdom, or “blow charge” by using past moments as a self inquiry process; the thetan knows how to think. Really, you do not have to always use a meter and commands to have cognitions.
Scientology is an introduction to soul consciousness. But it is also an introduction to asshole school when Ron’s writings re critics are word cleared and demoed.
Yes, Ron was a violent man. Ask Otto Rues. Ask the kid in the chain locker. Ask the old man who pushed a peanut around Apollo’s wooden deck while his nose bleed while Ron took pictures.
Ask Paulette Cooper about the guy who came to her house with a gun. Ask Sara, his second wife about him pistol whipping her.
Comparing the beginning school of Scientology to the path of the sages and saints cannot be done. They are not of the same magnitude. Scientology breeds minds that consider their knowledge “the best’ “the mostest” “El Promo”.
Wisemen produce men and women of a higher caliber. I’ll let you figure out what that quality is.
It certainly is not what is produced by studying destruction of critics.
Tell me My Two Cents; is Scientology “man’s only hope?”, whereby if Scientology was snuffed from the planet we would be doomed, per LRH?
Foolproof, I’ve been trying to ask you this question for a while now:
Is Scientology the “only route out” “the most workable” the “only hope for mankind, whereby if it’s completely annihilated mankind will “not have another chance?”
Brian: “Wise men produce men and women of a higher caliber. I’ll let you figure out what that quality is. It certainly is not what is produced by studying destruction of critics.”
Does the quality of a higher caliber of men and women include using words to constantly berate another being – in an attempt to “ruin him utterly”? I don’t think wise men would see it that way.
What you are doing is not only a version of “ruin utterly” – it is also a version of “the ends justify the means.” Perhaps you are becoming – in your zealous quest – exactly what you resist.
First of all, “other religions are just as bad” is a standard OSA plant line thrown out on message boards and blogs. Just saying.
Secondly, Ron’s philosophy of violence can be summarized in this: “Process R2-45”. He was serious back in the 60s when he said it should be used against squirrels.
Thirdly and most important, how’s your investigation going on me? Dig up any of the crimes that I obviously have in my background? So what are my crimes, Proof of Fool? WHAT ARE MY CRIMES?!
“Other religions are just as bad?” Again notice the subtle twisting of my idea. Actually I said or implied that other religions were FAR WORSE and Scientology in comparison has engaged in no violence whatsoever unless you count DM punching a few fellows! So this is a standard OSA plant line eh? Seems to me to be simple facts of world history but again you see, he twists it to be an OSA conspiracy when the facts speak for themselves or did the Inquisition and thumbscrews and middle east wars not occur? I have never seen anything on these or other blogs where someone (before I did so above) is excusing or comparing ScientologyÄs “violence” to other religions’ violonces. Notice the way ideas are bent to serve his purpose and he thinks no one notices.
As to your crimes, you tell us SP Nando – you obviously want to confess and it is obviously preying on your mind. Thing is no one is really interested. Will be the usual stuff.
SP Nando really thinks that Hubbard would have condoned murder and thrown everything away that he worked for?! How daft can you get? Well – thinking like that is simply a reflection of his own mind.
As I said Nando, you don”t have to compulsively reply to every comment I make but if you do try not to twist things so that people can see what you are doing. i am sure you can be more cunning next time eh?
He not only condoned murder, he freaking published it in the Auditor, giving out a list of squirrels and telling people to use Process R2-45 on them. And it wasn’t a joke.
And I’m not going to confess my “crimes”. It’s up to you to find them. Remember, all critics have crimes, and you need to find them to destroy me. That’s Ron’s command. As an old GO person, you should know this. So get to work and start destroying me. The first thing is to start calling me a name that resonates in places outside of Great Britain. I think there are all of three Nandos in the US. You need to brush up on your KFC Triangle.
Not correct public then – only the elite may partake. Especially if they are daft enough to be influenced by you. Sorting out the wheat from the chaff… saves a lot of work.
Sea Org members get the full onslaught of scientology conditioning which ultimately results in not just living in a box but not being able to think outside one as well. As time goes by they live in a scientology universe and interpret every experience in scientology terms first linguistically then conceptually.
They regard non-scientology viewpoints as foreign, hostile and inferior. Their mind is a scientology mind and it makes the universe an impersonal scientology universe where it’s all a matter of “dynamics” and “terminals”. It’s all “MEST” “theta” and “cycles of action”. The ‘field of all possibilities’ otherwise known as “reality” is reduced to being a fenced-in landscape of mechanistic lingo.
Comparisons can be made to communism’s destruction of culture through the imposing of a value system based strictly on unadorned utility and “getting things done”. It smothers to death the elegance of aimless, blissfully creative non-conformity.
Today’s comic shows a barter system similar to that of inmates in a prison. The idea they could leave it behind at any time is an idea NOT in the box. It is a crime to think outside of the box. It’s an Orwellian THOUGHT CRIME. How ironic is it that it would take committing a crime to get them OUT of prison?
When I was deep in the cult, I tried applying one of those statements on Hubbard’s chart of attitudes, viz. “the future is endlessly beautiful” but it was a losing cause.
How can your future be endlessly beautiful if someone else is creating it?
I guess I won’t tell the story of how I smuggled a Verizon 3G card into the Big Blue and was Internet surfing away in my bed two bunks above Julian Schwartz, the famous AOLA Ethics Officer. Who likes Green Day, especially “American Idiot”.
Nobody would believe me and besides, I was too wimpy to look at the few old guard anti-Scientology sites that existed in 2005. No pneumonia for me. There is only so much you can do at 768 kbits per second anyway. But I got some techie work done and quite a bit of job searching. (Job searching. In the Sea Org berthing at Big Blue. If there were any such thing as OT telepathy I would have been caught for sure).
That was after I blew, when Chris Guider was trying to “recover” me using the False Purpose Rundown. They even tried to “body route” me to the RPF but I simply refused to move. No amount of TR-9 will move a 250 pound 6′-2 guy who don’t want to go.
It is not true however that you can buy a Sea Org member’s soul with a burger. Some do sneak over to the Wendy’s near the Big Blue and partake. They are not entirely condemned to eat frozen Sysco patties that are so dry that even with an inch of ketchup they still stick in your throat.
But a street taco might do the trick. Maybe we could set up a taco stand in the parking lot and hand out burner phones under the counter with the home page set to Mike Rinder’s Blog.
Subsidized street tacos for penniless Sea Orgyists…now there’s an idea that is sure to get some traction! Remind them of all that they’re missing, but in a positive and delicious way!
We could all chip in to provide them with delicious low-cost tacos and come up with different wrappers for them with simple, but subversive messages like, “Scientology, where’s the love!!?” or “Your free taco paid for by the generous donations of your fellow Sea Orgy staff members’ disconnected family members” or “keep this taco wrapper and collect nine more to earn a free cell phone!” or “call 1-800-Scn-Date to meet desirable single guys and girls!”
Better yet, pretend it’s some sort of reality show gimmick so you can have people running around with cameras and yet they wouldn’t arise any suspicion.
I was not allowed to go to my sister’s wedding or my grandmother’s funeral. My sister remarried twice, so that was not a huge deal. My grandmother, however, I will forever regret.
When you are in the mind control, you are convinced you are doing the greatest good. After you get out, you wonder how you bought into it. The sad thing is that there is no do over.
Valerie, I hear you. This is why people protest. This is why we speak out when someone says, “Well, it’s their own choice.” If an organization has created a whole ‘science’ on how to manipulate, persuade and influence people, often to do things against their own nature and interests, how much of a ‘free choice’ is it really? People are not infallible. The saying is: we are only human. It’s true. And if someone has found a way to exploit our weaknesses or vulnerabilities, it’s not right. And so we speak out. As we would, hopefully, against anyone or anything that we see oppressing and harming others.
Adults have to be granted their right to “the pursuit of happiness” as they see fit, except in instances where that pursuit denies or impedes that of others to do the same. But when you hear folks who have never been in $cn, do not have family members who’ve been recruited into the cult and have no real in-depth knowledge of mind control techniques or the variety of different forms they have taken historically, simplistically say that “it’s their own choice,” that’s exactly where the need for education and awareness raising needs to come into play regarding what free choice really is and how it can be messed with.
I just watched “Deprogrammed” on Netflix, which documents the history of the early deprogramming movement, focusing in on Ted Patrick and the Cult Awareness Network that was so completely subverted and ultimately destroyed by $cn. It really highlighted the exact crux of the moral and legal issue: Is it right for families to forcefully intervene to get their adult children out of what they believe are mind control cults? The doc uses archival footage of several of Patrick’s deprogramming subjects and current interviews with him and them to look at both sides of the issue with a very even hand.
The doc didn’t feature any $cn deprogramees, and didn’t spend a lot of time focusing in on the cherch’s secret police activities to subvert and destroy CAN, instead it was more broadly focused on the late 60’s and early 70’s rise of many different cults and how few professional resources were available at the time to help families cope.
It did give me pause to consider the question of intervention as it relates to family members involved in $cn and what to do, or refrain from doing, with respect to their involvement with the cult. It seems to me that if $cn’s central doctrine and tenets of belief were a real factual account of our common history over many lifetimes (as in, Xenu really DID fuck us all up) and an accurate prediction of what’s to come (uh oh, here comes the Marcabians again), then the cherch’s Hitler Youth zeal and required self-sacrifice (unless you’re DM, of course) might justify the kind of militaristic, rigid to-down control, and total sublimation of personal and familial values for group survival concerns, just as if we were in another major war. But if all that is just a delusional space opera fiction that’s completely bogus, then there’s nothing whatsoever that can legitimately justify the crimes and human rights abuses that the cherch has long engaged in and continues to perpetrate on all who come in contact with this killed cult.
Close to a half century on after Elron dreamed up that very imaginative tale, and promised all sort of nifty super powers to OaTys, there’s absolutely no evidence to support his claims and all sorts of science to discredit him. So, it’s one of those very paradoxical situation in which those who are massively deluded about reality are making choices based on their mind controlled delusions which they’d otherwise never even consider making. We may not be justified in forcefully intervening with adult age cult victims, but almost every other measure that I can think of is morally justifiable, given the extent of the harm that the cult has proven, over and over again, that it is capable of inflicting.
Check out the film and tell me what you think there.
Valerie: “When you are in the mind control, you are convinced you are doing the greatest good. After you get out, you wonder how you bought into it. The sad thing is that there is no do over.”
I don’t know if it was mind control or simply us as individuals being overly zealous. The good thing about it is that we will never again fall into the trap of “greatest good” when it is applied in the cultish and zealous way that, in some sense, we agreed to. We now have personal reality on the truth of this principle of greatest good, which is that it is meant to be interpreted and applied across the dynamics – meaning our own dynamics and not the dynamics of anyone else or of any group. This is an invaluable lesson to have learned.
The game played in, around and with Scientology doesn’t really have any rules of conscience. If the results were even a fraction of what they said they could be perhaps it would have been worth it. As it stands by pure time and actual results, Scientology had no more guiding effect in altering the course of human events than a war or natural disaster. The determination and love of the individual plus unity of family and groups is the essence of survival. Scientology, whatever it says, obviously has never resulted in survival of anything if indeed admiration is such a sought after basic of life.
Move on, take what you know is right from what you have learnt and move on.
RB bringing the hurt home. Even for me, a never in, I ache for the sadness in this cartoon. I cannot imagine what exes feel. Breaks my damn heart for all ya’ll.
Well done RB. Never stop the truth, even if reading it hurts.
Thanks RB.
Having been out for a while and never having been in the Sea Org your cartoons help me understand the current “thinking” on family in the bubble.
They must have very strong tolerance for bs! And if they have to become that devious in order to survive, what – really – is keeping them in. They seem to have developed the rigidity of much older people. Pretty sad.
In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs (also known as retrospective costs) are sometimes contrasted with prospective costs, which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is taken. Both retrospective and prospective costs may be either fixed (continuous for as long as the business is in operation and unaffected by output volume) or variable (dependent on volume) costs.[1] However, many economists consider it a mistake to classify sunk costs as “fixed” or “variable.” For example, if a firm sinks $400 million on an enterprise software installation, that cost is “sunk” because it was a one-time expense and cannot be recovered once spent. A “fixed” cost would be monthly payments made as part of a service contract or licensing deal with the company that set up the software. The upfront irretrievable payment for the installation should not be deemed a “fixed” cost, with its cost spread out over time. Sunk costs should be kept separate. The “variable costs” for this project might include data centre power usage, etc.
In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision. Traditional economics proposes that economic actors should not let sunk costs influence their decisions. Doing so would not be rationally assessing a decision exclusively on its own merits. Alternatively, a decision-maker might make rational decisions according to their own incentives, outside of efficiency or profitability. This is considered to be an incentive problem and is distinct from a sunk cost problem.
Evidence from behavioral economics suggests this theory fails to predict real-world behavior. Sunk costs do, in fact, influence actors’ decisions because humans are prone to loss aversion and framing effects. In light of such cognitive quirks, it is unsurprising that people frequently fail to behave in ways that economists deem “rational”.
Sunk costs should not affect the rational decision-maker’s best choice. However, until a decision-maker irreversibly commits resources, the prospective cost is an avoidable future cost and is properly included in any decision-making processes. For example, if one is considering preordering movie tickets, but has not actually purchased them yet, the cost remains avoidable. If the price of the tickets rises to an amount that requires him to pay more than the value he places on them, he should figure the change in prospective cost into the decision-making and re-evaluate his decision.
Classic textbook economics and business accounting theory. It’s something that makes you think though. And ponder the why’s and wherefores… or it would for more people, if they would write it in a more easily understandable manner, lol. Sometime one has to take a sentence or two at a time and say, now, what is the implication of this? Or probably, that’s just me. Oh well.
Dennis, there’s about as much pertinence in your referenced article to this blog post as there is in a Dan Sherman speech in its relation to what’s really going on in Scientology. Did you get confused where you were at as you commenting in several blogs at the same time. Perhaps this post was a relevant remark for a post at http://www.BoredBookKeeper.com?
As has been said on many a bumper sticker, “Eschew Obfuscation”.
“In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision.”
THIS is why one should be wary of pronounced social science “theories”. They tend to be made in a vacuum by people who don’t live with the consequences of testing it. The one I quoted is about insane as it gets.
There’s so much button pressing stuff in this week’s funnies. For starters, do Sea Org people really curse so much amongst themselves? Is the F word their only adjective or adverb? And as for the content, the longer I’m away from the cult, the more unreal this level of control it exerts upon its members appears to me. It seems so beyond the beyond, but then I know that its true, that every aspect of SO’s lives are thoroughly controlled and even their thoughts regularly monitored…what I’m experiencing now is a kind of wonder, an amazement, that I was a member of this cult for 25 years, and as such, a participant, albeit a largely unknowing participant, and supporter of this – how would I characterize it – incredible suppression of human beings.
Aqua – the cussing is endemic among not only SO but (nearly) all lower Org staff that I knew, with the same regularity as smoking has among them as well. We didn’t worry about it though – nothing like a good cuss when you’re trying to get the stats up (or down)!
Yes Aqua the cussing is as Foolproof said. El Con said it was because of a lack of education. Sounds right. Most scamologist (as evidenced by the scientific discussions on this site) completely lack a basic education. Like believing that the body stores EM radiation from the 10 nm to 400 nm band and later releases it back into the environment. Crap like that.
As if anyone is interested in your totally unimportant “facts” that you manage to dredge up from God knows where to try and prove your malicious points. As I said elsewhere this is yet another one of those “Hubbard picked his nose in 1946 therefore Scientology must be banned!”
Dave’s final thought before retiring for the night after reading Mike’s blog. “I should have never let that CICS go to England. What the fuck was I thinking?”
Dave: “Oh, yeah! I hammered at the time!”
When you substitute the impersonal pronoun for David Miscavige, the name of Mike’s blog takes on a whole new meaning. ?
Laughter! Good one.
When camaraderie is killed off by vindictiveness in any group it all goes to hell. I hope a day of reckoning fast approaches for the human abuses perpetrated in the horror that makes up the underlying ethos of the Scientology group. Denial of family… to think about that for those who’ve never suffered the indignation of it is difficult – but it is quite real. They denied you your family & for no other reason than they could. It spread like a disease throughout the whole organisation. Your own humanity is sacrificed by orders from above with any staff or long term commitment to Scientology.
Sadness gives way to anger pretty fast when you start to come to terms with it.
Waiting… RIP, Leonard Cohen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-etRm4cN8
Ditto – a great musician.
I’m so broken up about Leonard Cohen that I’m finding it hard to find room to be broken up about Robert Vaughn. Man, has 2016 sucked vis-a-vis celebrity deaths. And we still have another month and a half.
Yeah I hear you, a few sporting greats have bowed out too. What’s with this getting old shit?
Scientology truly is a “science” of getting people to hurt one another through manipulation and deceipt.
This “doing it for the 8 dynamic” card has been played by man since the beginning of time.
Religions (evil ones) do it and politician’s do it.
We are now seeing it in our US Government – the people protesting over rumors and mere propaganda.
Very sad state of affairs – this thing that man does to man…for greed and power.
“get your fucking mis-emotion out of my space”
OMG – spit coffee on the screen….then took a bong hit.
LOL
AWESOME one today RB !
Coffee & a bong hit! You’re speaking my language!
What… what’s happening Dude? Did I miss something… I’ll get the crisps…
My bad!!!! I would never, ever forget you! I hate to admit it, but, you’re funnier than me! But I’ll keep trying…
A bong missed? – NOT likely on our watch. It’s all to do with co-ordination. Like… you gotta have principles to live by. We are a planet apart, your sleepy time is my – “go get ’em Tiger” time and visa versa.
In the 32 years that I was in the SO, at all the orgs that I was in, I don’t think that I am aware of more than 4 or 5 people who ever allowed to have their “annual” two-week leave. People newly in would always give it a go, and, while everyone else, more aware of the “approval” process, might be privately encouraging the newcomer, we were never surprised to see them finally disapproved.
There’s the other typical scenario for people who do get their CSWs approved: you get your Thanksgiving CSW up in February, you’ll get it approved in May, your parents get the tickets a month before the event, and you are told the day before your flight that you can’t go, unless you ______ (fill in the blank with something crazy, like, “make your next two week’s income quotas today”. Most approved CSWs in PAC at least in the service orgs, were later disapproved and the person prevented from leaving.
Getting approved for a leave is the best example of the SO’s “Many are called, but few are chosen” maxim.
Those few who managed to get out of the building and gone were best to never pick up the phone when they were gone as, once you were approved to go, the likelihood is that you’d be called back. Of all the people I know who got to go, I can think of two who got their full two weeks. I remember with one of these people, the CO said, “You regges don’t want me to have to call Craig back do you? Well, you better get your income up now or I will…”
There was something in about 1981, iirc, where the GO people in PAC were often seen in casual clothes and with beach gear on the weekends, and very happy. I asked one what was happening.
I was told that the GO was in an LRH program called “Operation De-Op” and that De-Op meant de-oppression, and it entailed getting to bed on time and a predictable time off every other week that you could count on. That it was going to be piloted in the GO and then streamlined and put in, in the rest of the orgs.
Only in the SO would it be that there would be a pilot program to treat people decently and then have it rejected as the stats did not soar.
Although I imagine it was LRH who created the program, I can also imagine him reviewing GO stats a few weeks later. R: “What happened with the GO stats 4 weeks ago?!? Messenger: “Op De-Op, Sir!” R: “Who implemented Op De-Op?!?!” Messenger, confused: “Er… Er…” R: hErbie Parkhouse!?!?!? Rip his certs and RPF the bastard!!!”. Issue comes out the next day saying that Herbie is an SP for implementing this terrible idea.
Yes the idea has a ring of truth in it. Interestingly and as an aside to your comment, when I was visiting the UK in the 90s, ol’ Herb told me the real reason he was declared and that was because he (as DG Finance WW) had opposed the 10% (?) constant price rises and he kept getting missionaires sent to him to try and convince him otherwise, with finally an apparent tape recording of LRH speaking directly either to him (he was a buddy of LRH’s), or LRH speaking generally about the subject (can’t remember which). He told me that the tape sounded weird and not as if it was from LRH, but which is not to say that it wasn’t. I suppose “they” (which may include LRH – before Mike pounces on me for overly-defending LRH) gave up when Herb wouldn’t budge on this and just declared him. Herb was regarded as somewhat of a martinet by some I recall, but in this stance of his on price rises belies that idea. As the Brits say “he was a good bloke!” (really).
I think ol’ Herb may have been trying to make himself sound good. Perhaps what he said is true, that he did oppose the price increases, as a lot of other people did because they were insane. But there was a lot more to it than that. He ended up on Hubbard’s shit-list along with some other Guardian Office luminaries.
Well, the original price increases of the late 70s were realistic and validly founded as Church services at that time were somewhat if not very under-priced as me and many others on here may well remember (if we are being honest that is). The seeming fact that they got (GI) stats up which then caused their re-introduction in the early 80s did I believe NOT contribute to an overall healthy scene, as they did indeed price many former members out of the range of possible services they could pay for. So the original idea was fine and actually quite fair as the prices WERE very low but its continuance was not. The overall effect on Orgs worldwide of the eventual massive increases was probably quite instrumental in creating someone like Miscavige and the creation of the independent field (along with harsh Ethics), as many people were then denied auditing by being unable to pay for it.
BTW Mike can you introduce an underlining feature for words in the comments, then I would not have to capitalize certain words to stress them, which per Internet manners and rules etc. is doing something that I don’ t really intend (i.e. “shouting”)?
Throughout the madness, the inhumanity, the lack of mercy, compassion, goodness – the lack of humility, the ubiquitous arrogance and soul destroying states of being that is inherent in the well trained Scientologist;
lies the well studied doctrine of hate.
The previous blog post on criticism that Mike posted IS the recipe for this behavior.
Let’s be honest. L Ron Hubbard taught us how to hate. To hate those who think differently.
To hate and seek violence against critics.
Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters be damned!
If you do not support “man’s only hope” L Ron Hubbard preached thuggery.
Jesus the Christ, Lord Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, my preceptor Paramahansa Yoganandaji and all liberated sages throughout history preached love thine enemies.
L Ron Hubbard can rightly be called an Anti-Christ, a moniker he gave himself.
This is not a mindless religious sentiment from me.
This is an objective observation, when I compare Ron’s philosophy of violence against critics with the doctrine of saints, sages and all the Great Ones.
It could be said, that Ron’s greatest failure was in recognizing the true power in love.
Instead, his ego for name and fame relegated the doctrine of love to his delusional implanted Marcabian mind control.
Will over love???? The Crowley doctrine? That was Ron’s ego doctrine.
Love over will?? That is the doctrine of Lord Jesus and Lord Buddha.
One leads to infamy.
And one leads to the laurel wreath of civil society; the hero!
This is true.
Levels of HATENESS never experienced before….is what I got from Scientology!
I hate that. 😛
For all his vast and encyclopedic writings and taped lectures – carefully collected and curated over many decades – Elron had very, very little to say about love in any of its many forms. And as someone who wished to cast himself as the modern day inheritor of the mantle of the Buddha’s authority and wisdom, he had nothing at all to say about the kind of loving kindness that the Dalai Lama embodies at every possible level and which is at the heart of that great religion.
Deconstructing $cn and discrediting its claims can be productively engaged in at just so many levels, but the question: Where’s the love? really cuts to the heart of what’s so evil about $cn at every one of them…there’s no love in it at any level or dynamic that you might wish to examine – no tolerance, no forgiveness, no compassion, no loving kindness in any form that I’ve seen.
RB unmercifully skewers the false and hollow sentiments that $cn promotes, while pointing up the “everyone for themselves,” snitch culture and its constant efforts to alienate its members from their families…if that’s love, $cn style, then deal me out! Everyone who reads RB’s totally subversive cartoons and can identify with his subject matter is on her way out of the cult…even if they don’t know it yet!
This is one of the best Scientology-related comments I’ve ever read.
Really? I am surprised at an Irish person swallowing the blarney composed above. It is somewhat true that the Church under Miscavige has become a snarling abomination compared to its former state, but the Dalai Lama and every other religion has never produced anything effective to help people love each other and only admonitions to be good boy and girls, amongst the slaughtering and torturing most of them have perpetrated under their “holy” guise. Do other religions have a technology to remove evil purposes, or to handle an upset, or a recent trauma, or a great loss, or a chronic pain, or a way of finding out if the just-told usually superficial confession has got all of it etc. etc. etc. And yet the man who invented all the methods to do such and that actually WORK as testified by hundreds of thousands of people, is lambasted because he, in the warped opinion of the commenter above, states that he is “evil” and has no love! You really shouldn’t believe the blarney that you read.
So true Harpoona. Hubbard’s closest reference to love that I recall is that he related it to affinity. That’s a cold mathematical calculation based on proximity or the willingness to be close or share the same space. Could be used for anything, like finding a dollar and sticking in your pocket to getting your first kiss. Mathematical analysis is a ridiculous assumption where love in concerned. Love separates out the meaning of many things both subjective and objective. Trying to explain it is such cold terms is self defeating for an alleged workable philosophy of life. It all fell in a heap where love is concerned.
Yawn, I don’t understand your negative opinion of the word “affinity”. How could willingness to be close, how could wanting to be near someone or something be characterized as a cold mathematical calculation? Usually the people, animals, life forms or objects we want to be close to are those we like, admire, love, etc. How close we want them is an index of the intensity of these feelings. “Affinity” is just a useful catch-all term for love or liking people, animals, things, etc.
Oh no Aqua! You have me all wrong on any type of negative law or consistency on the use of affinity. It is all what you say it is and more. I just didn’t like nor understand Hubbard’s reference to “love.” It became literal to his management style. To me he left no randomity of being or becoming a life unto yourself or creating with another within his organisation, it all became quite mathematical. Have a good think about where statistical management ended up for Scientology. Abortions and family split ups for the good of management decisions etc… you can’t get much much suppressive than that. The last thing to be scrutinized imo is the telling of another what love is to them, let alone denying it. The Cof$’s behavior in their treatment of lovers and things like enforced abortion, family split ups says it all for me. I will not condone that at all.
It is one thing to have the axioms of life, it is totally another to enforce them on others. Hubbard never really accepted the gravity of his own “discoveries.” No matter how much evidence of their misinterpretation and the heavy handed managerial enforcement was growing around him, it was ignored.
The Cof$ speaks for itself – that is the literal application of Hubbard. Unless you allow something like love and its consequences to exist within its ranks what are you left with? – the Church of Scientology.
I understand what affinity is and also what theta is and where it all fits together, it does not result in authority being dramatized over another.
Yawn: “To me he left no randomity of being or becoming a life unto yourself or creating with another within his organisation, it all became quite mathematical.”
In a sense you are right. But in the basic principles, “randomity of being or becoming . . . ” was actually included, as can be seen from the following:
“There is no thought or statement here that any one of these eight dynamics is more important than the others. While they are categories (divisions) of the broad game of life they are not necessarily equal to each other. It will be found amongst individuals that each person stresses one of the dynamics more than the others, or may stress a combination of dynamics as more important-than other combinations.” (FOT)
But you are right when it comes to “within his organization.” It does seem that he ignored the misinterpretations around him.
Aqua, it isn’t a negative opinion of “affinity”. It is a rejection of substituting affinity for love and the ABSENCE of the consideration of love in an alleged workable philosophy of life.
Rocks and apple pie.
Wynski, you can practice what you are preaching then and “love” Scientology. You can even have a picture of COB on your wall! How about turning the other cheek and not posting any more malicious comments?
Fool, as I wasn’t preaching anything, simply pointing out what ANOTHER person rejected, I haven’t a clue what you trying to talk about
Maybe you could clarify based on what I said? Or, were you commenting on another person’s posts?
More waste of time
Regarding “love,” there is a lot said about the “law of affinity” in DMSMH, which states first that the word “‘affinity’ might be defined as ‘love’ in both its meanings. Deprivation of or absence of affection could be considered as a violation of the law of affinity. Man must be in affinity with man to survive. . . it is the affection with which Mankind holds Mankind.”
Obviously, the church lost sight of this in later years.
Paulette Cooper may have an argument with your assessment of time as it relates to loosing site in later years.
One thing I have learned from real teachers, they live what they write. Their lives are living examples of their teaching. That is a teacher. They teach a virtue, and when you observe them, you see they live it.
Ron was a hypocrite. That is more of an observation. Hypocrite’s, by definition, do not live what they preach.
I give you the brain scrambling dichotomy of:
“If possible, destroy them”
and
“love despite all provocation to do otherwise”
This by definition is hypocrisy. Ron did not live what he preached. He was a very limited teacher.
But the good news is, there are other paths that really teach love, not just quote “about” love in an HCOB or book.
Love doesn’t need a book to quote from to prove that Ron knew about love.
Real love leaves a wake of happy people. Happy free people are the product of love. It transcends “what Ron says” “about” love.
Love is infectious. It spreads and needs no neonsign or reg. Scientology has a deficiency of love.
Good point, Marildi. Love could be defined as the desire to be physically, mentally and emotionally near someone, and vice versa. And its true, being in affinity with others IS survival.
Yes Marildi, as regards these throw-away comments from some people on here one is supposed to simply nod one’s head and say “yes, it’s all terrible”. And as usual when one delves even a few inches or just a scratch or two under their superficial (and actually hateful) surface find that the statements are as hollow as Phobos is supposed to be.
Nobody, including me, is excusing some of the practices of the SO, but to lord them up as being the biggest crimes of the century shows where the originators are coming from. And then to state that Hubbard mentions nothing about love when with a few flicks of the ample pages he wrote, they are easily found, again shows them up for what they are – hollow and hateful commenting. Hubbard is being aligned with Genghis Khan and Mao Tse-Tung, and primarily because some of his managers mistreated Org staff in the usually vain hope of getting their own personal stats up. I was an Exec and never had to resort to this nonsense of mistreating staff and also – lo and behold – got stats up as well by ACTUALLY following what he said to do.
This sort of commenting is about the same level of buffoonery as saying “well, Hubbard picked his nose in 1946, so Scientology is evil!”
“Ron’s philosophy of violence”? What the hell are you on about? This, what you say, is all very well Brian but did the other great sages you mention create a technology that could even handle the simple flying of rudiments to handle upsets? Regraded Beings piece above is more or less the way it is, no denying that. But I see you have selectively taken your religious examples without mentioning the utter inhuman and detestable actions wrought upon civilized society by other religious dudes and movements, and you juxtaposition Scientology with these by making out Scientologists are violent (DM excluded of course – ha!) and compare them with those “nice guys” you have carefully selected. Go and criticize the Inquisition or burning witches at the stake or any of the other religious nut-jobs over the centuries but to craftily cast Scientology and Hubbard in the same light to them is er, exaggerating the idea somewhat is it not? “Ron’s philosophy of violence”? Now, I don’ t recall his use of thumbscrews. Nor crucifixion or having one’s testicles ripped off. I am surprised you didn’t say he was responsible for the Holocaust or was related to Stalin, such is the hyperbole you have already used. We are talking about the absence of Libs, which many people here who weren’t staff would not appreciate anyway and those that were staff well, we put up with it or did our best to wriggle our way out of it. But to accuse this as “a philosophy of violence” is of course you exaggerating the scene, as you usually do in your never-ending quest to (violently) attack Scientology.
And anyway, as well as all that, I read your comment and thought it was a load of namby-pamby theetie weetie crap. Haha! You can get your ruds flown now if I’ve upset you – oh, but you shouldn’t use any of that “violent” creature’s technology to do so! BTW – is your second name “Hyperbole”?
Ron’s Metaphysical Freudian Therapy has a place. It can bring some basic understandings. No doubt. But it is an introduction to our spiritual nature. But that is it. An introduction.
Ron was stuck in his human head and intellect, So goes Scientology. It’s always, or mostly, except for creative processes, dealing with the past. The past is the mind. At some point having a mind becomes a problem.
At some point you do not need Ron’s auditing procedures to think with. In fact, the next level spiritual practice is done without a mind. You don’t suppress it. It can and does dissolve. It’s like waking up from a dream. And when you need to think, to intuit a piece of wisdom, or “blow charge” by using past moments as a self inquiry process; the thetan knows how to think. Really, you do not have to always use a meter and commands to have cognitions.
Scientology is an introduction to soul consciousness. But it is also an introduction to asshole school when Ron’s writings re critics are word cleared and demoed.
Yes, Ron was a violent man. Ask Otto Rues. Ask the kid in the chain locker. Ask the old man who pushed a peanut around Apollo’s wooden deck while his nose bleed while Ron took pictures.
Ask Paulette Cooper about the guy who came to her house with a gun. Ask Sara, his second wife about him pistol whipping her.
Comparing the beginning school of Scientology to the path of the sages and saints cannot be done. They are not of the same magnitude. Scientology breeds minds that consider their knowledge “the best’ “the mostest” “El Promo”.
Wisemen produce men and women of a higher caliber. I’ll let you figure out what that quality is.
It certainly is not what is produced by studying destruction of critics.
Tell me My Two Cents; is Scientology “man’s only hope?”, whereby if Scientology was snuffed from the planet we would be doomed, per LRH?
I mean,”Tell me Foolproof.” Or My Two Cents can chime in, I’ve wanted to ask you guys that question.
Getting confused are we now Brian? Seeing “enemies” everywhere?Try doing the Confusion Formula – but now how Terra interpreted it.
Foolproof, I’ve been trying to ask you this question for a while now:
Is Scientology the “only route out” “the most workable” the “only hope for mankind, whereby if it’s completely annihilated mankind will “not have another chance?”
Brian: “Wise men produce men and women of a higher caliber. I’ll let you figure out what that quality is. It certainly is not what is produced by studying destruction of critics.”
Does the quality of a higher caliber of men and women include using words to constantly berate another being – in an attempt to “ruin him utterly”? I don’t think wise men would see it that way.
What you are doing is not only a version of “ruin utterly” – it is also a version of “the ends justify the means.” Perhaps you are becoming – in your zealous quest – exactly what you resist.
First of all, “other religions are just as bad” is a standard OSA plant line thrown out on message boards and blogs. Just saying.
Secondly, Ron’s philosophy of violence can be summarized in this: “Process R2-45”. He was serious back in the 60s when he said it should be used against squirrels.
Thirdly and most important, how’s your investigation going on me? Dig up any of the crimes that I obviously have in my background? So what are my crimes, Proof of Fool? WHAT ARE MY CRIMES?!
“Other religions are just as bad?” Again notice the subtle twisting of my idea. Actually I said or implied that other religions were FAR WORSE and Scientology in comparison has engaged in no violence whatsoever unless you count DM punching a few fellows! So this is a standard OSA plant line eh? Seems to me to be simple facts of world history but again you see, he twists it to be an OSA conspiracy when the facts speak for themselves or did the Inquisition and thumbscrews and middle east wars not occur? I have never seen anything on these or other blogs where someone (before I did so above) is excusing or comparing ScientologyÄs “violence” to other religions’ violonces. Notice the way ideas are bent to serve his purpose and he thinks no one notices.
As to your crimes, you tell us SP Nando – you obviously want to confess and it is obviously preying on your mind. Thing is no one is really interested. Will be the usual stuff.
SP Nando really thinks that Hubbard would have condoned murder and thrown everything away that he worked for?! How daft can you get? Well – thinking like that is simply a reflection of his own mind.
As I said Nando, you don”t have to compulsively reply to every comment I make but if you do try not to twist things so that people can see what you are doing. i am sure you can be more cunning next time eh?
He not only condoned murder, he freaking published it in the Auditor, giving out a list of squirrels and telling people to use Process R2-45 on them. And it wasn’t a joke.
And I’m not going to confess my “crimes”. It’s up to you to find them. Remember, all critics have crimes, and you need to find them to destroy me. That’s Ron’s command. As an old GO person, you should know this. So get to work and start destroying me. The first thing is to start calling me a name that resonates in places outside of Great Britain. I think there are all of three Nandos in the US. You need to brush up on your KFC Triangle.
Waste of time
Go Fool!
“When Foolproof posts a potential scamologists runs away screaming”
Not correct public then – only the elite may partake. Especially if they are daft enough to be influenced by you. Sorting out the wheat from the chaff… saves a lot of work.
Sea Org members get the full onslaught of scientology conditioning which ultimately results in not just living in a box but not being able to think outside one as well. As time goes by they live in a scientology universe and interpret every experience in scientology terms first linguistically then conceptually.
They regard non-scientology viewpoints as foreign, hostile and inferior. Their mind is a scientology mind and it makes the universe an impersonal scientology universe where it’s all a matter of “dynamics” and “terminals”. It’s all “MEST” “theta” and “cycles of action”. The ‘field of all possibilities’ otherwise known as “reality” is reduced to being a fenced-in landscape of mechanistic lingo.
Comparisons can be made to communism’s destruction of culture through the imposing of a value system based strictly on unadorned utility and “getting things done”. It smothers to death the elegance of aimless, blissfully creative non-conformity.
Today’s comic shows a barter system similar to that of inmates in a prison. The idea they could leave it behind at any time is an idea NOT in the box. It is a crime to think outside of the box. It’s an Orwellian THOUGHT CRIME. How ironic is it that it would take committing a crime to get them OUT of prison?
Dark Avenger so the three men need numbing minutes it took to read your post are a sunk cost? I can never get those minutes back?
If you don’t move your lips when reading the excerpt, it takes a lot less than three minutes.
Anything else you need help with?
Gary, you can go back in time and recover those minutes. I mean, you are OT15, right?
When I was deep in the cult, I tried applying one of those statements on Hubbard’s chart of attitudes, viz. “the future is endlessly beautiful” but it was a losing cause.
How can your future be endlessly beautiful if someone else is creating it?
“Deep in the cult.” Mephisto, that sounds pretty scary!
The Sea Org: the baffled kings composing Hallelujah.
Very close to the bone, RB.
I guess I won’t tell the story of how I smuggled a Verizon 3G card into the Big Blue and was Internet surfing away in my bed two bunks above Julian Schwartz, the famous AOLA Ethics Officer. Who likes Green Day, especially “American Idiot”.
Nobody would believe me and besides, I was too wimpy to look at the few old guard anti-Scientology sites that existed in 2005. No pneumonia for me. There is only so much you can do at 768 kbits per second anyway. But I got some techie work done and quite a bit of job searching. (Job searching. In the Sea Org berthing at Big Blue. If there were any such thing as OT telepathy I would have been caught for sure).
That was after I blew, when Chris Guider was trying to “recover” me using the False Purpose Rundown. They even tried to “body route” me to the RPF but I simply refused to move. No amount of TR-9 will move a 250 pound 6′-2 guy who don’t want to go.
It is not true however that you can buy a Sea Org member’s soul with a burger. Some do sneak over to the Wendy’s near the Big Blue and partake. They are not entirely condemned to eat frozen Sysco patties that are so dry that even with an inch of ketchup they still stick in your throat.
But a street taco might do the trick. Maybe we could set up a taco stand in the parking lot and hand out burner phones under the counter with the home page set to Mike Rinder’s Blog.
Subsidized street tacos for penniless Sea Orgyists…now there’s an idea that is sure to get some traction! Remind them of all that they’re missing, but in a positive and delicious way!
We could all chip in to provide them with delicious low-cost tacos and come up with different wrappers for them with simple, but subversive messages like, “Scientology, where’s the love!!?” or “Your free taco paid for by the generous donations of your fellow Sea Orgy staff members’ disconnected family members” or “keep this taco wrapper and collect nine more to earn a free cell phone!” or “call 1-800-Scn-Date to meet desirable single guys and girls!”
Better yet, pretend it’s some sort of reality show gimmick so you can have people running around with cameras and yet they wouldn’t arise any suspicion.
Was I reading the latest entry of RB, or was it a preview of a graphic novel version of “Stalag 17”?
$cientology is stalag 17, but without the comedy relief.
It just goes to show, never let the clampire know you have a life that doesn’t revolve around them.
I see nothing! I hear nothing!
Perhaps Carter blew it all up! Now, Corporal Louis LeBeau, there’s a guy who knew the meaning of life.
I was not allowed to go to my sister’s wedding or my grandmother’s funeral. My sister remarried twice, so that was not a huge deal. My grandmother, however, I will forever regret.
When you are in the mind control, you are convinced you are doing the greatest good. After you get out, you wonder how you bought into it. The sad thing is that there is no do over.
Valerie, I hear you. This is why people protest. This is why we speak out when someone says, “Well, it’s their own choice.” If an organization has created a whole ‘science’ on how to manipulate, persuade and influence people, often to do things against their own nature and interests, how much of a ‘free choice’ is it really? People are not infallible. The saying is: we are only human. It’s true. And if someone has found a way to exploit our weaknesses or vulnerabilities, it’s not right. And so we speak out. As we would, hopefully, against anyone or anything that we see oppressing and harming others.
Adults have to be granted their right to “the pursuit of happiness” as they see fit, except in instances where that pursuit denies or impedes that of others to do the same. But when you hear folks who have never been in $cn, do not have family members who’ve been recruited into the cult and have no real in-depth knowledge of mind control techniques or the variety of different forms they have taken historically, simplistically say that “it’s their own choice,” that’s exactly where the need for education and awareness raising needs to come into play regarding what free choice really is and how it can be messed with.
I just watched “Deprogrammed” on Netflix, which documents the history of the early deprogramming movement, focusing in on Ted Patrick and the Cult Awareness Network that was so completely subverted and ultimately destroyed by $cn. It really highlighted the exact crux of the moral and legal issue: Is it right for families to forcefully intervene to get their adult children out of what they believe are mind control cults? The doc uses archival footage of several of Patrick’s deprogramming subjects and current interviews with him and them to look at both sides of the issue with a very even hand.
The doc didn’t feature any $cn deprogramees, and didn’t spend a lot of time focusing in on the cherch’s secret police activities to subvert and destroy CAN, instead it was more broadly focused on the late 60’s and early 70’s rise of many different cults and how few professional resources were available at the time to help families cope.
It did give me pause to consider the question of intervention as it relates to family members involved in $cn and what to do, or refrain from doing, with respect to their involvement with the cult. It seems to me that if $cn’s central doctrine and tenets of belief were a real factual account of our common history over many lifetimes (as in, Xenu really DID fuck us all up) and an accurate prediction of what’s to come (uh oh, here comes the Marcabians again), then the cherch’s Hitler Youth zeal and required self-sacrifice (unless you’re DM, of course) might justify the kind of militaristic, rigid to-down control, and total sublimation of personal and familial values for group survival concerns, just as if we were in another major war. But if all that is just a delusional space opera fiction that’s completely bogus, then there’s nothing whatsoever that can legitimately justify the crimes and human rights abuses that the cherch has long engaged in and continues to perpetrate on all who come in contact with this killed cult.
Close to a half century on after Elron dreamed up that very imaginative tale, and promised all sort of nifty super powers to OaTys, there’s absolutely no evidence to support his claims and all sorts of science to discredit him. So, it’s one of those very paradoxical situation in which those who are massively deluded about reality are making choices based on their mind controlled delusions which they’d otherwise never even consider making. We may not be justified in forcefully intervening with adult age cult victims, but almost every other measure that I can think of is morally justifiable, given the extent of the harm that the cult has proven, over and over again, that it is capable of inflicting.
Check out the film and tell me what you think there.
Valerie: “When you are in the mind control, you are convinced you are doing the greatest good. After you get out, you wonder how you bought into it. The sad thing is that there is no do over.”
I don’t know if it was mind control or simply us as individuals being overly zealous. The good thing about it is that we will never again fall into the trap of “greatest good” when it is applied in the cultish and zealous way that, in some sense, we agreed to. We now have personal reality on the truth of this principle of greatest good, which is that it is meant to be interpreted and applied across the dynamics – meaning our own dynamics and not the dynamics of anyone else or of any group. This is an invaluable lesson to have learned.
The game played in, around and with Scientology doesn’t really have any rules of conscience. If the results were even a fraction of what they said they could be perhaps it would have been worth it. As it stands by pure time and actual results, Scientology had no more guiding effect in altering the course of human events than a war or natural disaster. The determination and love of the individual plus unity of family and groups is the essence of survival. Scientology, whatever it says, obviously has never resulted in survival of anything if indeed admiration is such a sought after basic of life.
Move on, take what you know is right from what you have learnt and move on.
Scientology is like a good bowel movement; such a nice relief when it’s over.
That’s quite the analogy there Mephisto. Is that where the term, ‘the job is not over till the paper work’s done,’ comes from?
Shit yeah!
I well remember (decades ago) when the default was disapproval of LOA’s/vacations. I just ignored the disapproved replies.
This made me so very sad. One person blackmail another, and the vultures steal the moment of happiness from their slave.
Would you expect anything less?
Nope, not at all. It just made me sad.
Me too…
RB bringing the hurt home. Even for me, a never in, I ache for the sadness in this cartoon. I cannot imagine what exes feel. Breaks my damn heart for all ya’ll.
Well done RB. Never stop the truth, even if reading it hurts.
RB keeps us grounded…
Thanks RB.
Having been out for a while and never having been in the Sea Org your cartoons help me understand the current “thinking” on family in the bubble.
It’s very simple: Family bad. Cult good.
He could have just gotten on the plane with his parents…and he’d have been FREE. I truly no longer understand the why of self delusion.
Then the calls would start. Then the letters would start. Then the regges would start. Then the PIs would start.
But, you can always barricade yourself inside your home for months at a time…
I don’t know. After an intense reg cycle they might not have had enough money left to buy him a ticket.
That’s the #1 question, Les.
They must have very strong tolerance for bs! And if they have to become that devious in order to survive, what – really – is keeping them in. They seem to have developed the rigidity of much older people. Pretty sad.
Why don’t they just walk away?
My Eternity for a Hamburger.
At least go for a bacon cheeseburger!
My eternity for a great bottle of wine & some killer cannabis…
Don’t forget chocolate!
How ’bout a cheesburger in paradise?
https://youtu.be/jBsPZV14I-k?t=5s
You can only post that if you’re a true parrot head! My wife and I just saw the last Buffet show at Verizon Center here in Orange County, CA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs
Classic textbook economics and business accounting theory. It’s something that makes you think though. And ponder the why’s and wherefores… or it would for more people, if they would write it in a more easily understandable manner, lol. Sometime one has to take a sentence or two at a time and say, now, what is the implication of this? Or probably, that’s just me. Oh well.
Dennis, there’s about as much pertinence in your referenced article to this blog post as there is in a Dan Sherman speech in its relation to what’s really going on in Scientology. Did you get confused where you were at as you commenting in several blogs at the same time. Perhaps this post was a relevant remark for a post at http://www.BoredBookKeeper.com?
As has been said on many a bumper sticker, “Eschew Obfuscation”.
I’m not Dennis. Ask Mike if you don’t believe me.
Well why not take the rest of the day off anyway DA?
Take the rest of the day off!!! Are you out of your mind!!!
Wouldn’t that make him ethics bait?
“In traditional microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to an investment decision.”
THIS is why one should be wary of pronounced social science “theories”. They tend to be made in a vacuum by people who don’t live with the consequences of testing it. The one I quoted is about insane as it gets.