Hi N Graham, thank you for your post. It made the 1st of May delightful.That is the difficulty to kneel before Ron & by default David Miscavige.I have read here where some feel they can use the Tech independently of the horror that may have happened to them while in.I truly understand that because for years after I left the SO I had a stash of keepsakes fron my 4 yrs.I held onto to it all because I really wanted to believe that I could co exist with the viewpoint that someday I could somehow make it all go right & still use the Tech etc.But my spirit knew that could not be so. After what I endured for the last yr & 6 months in the SO, when I really looked @ all of it I knew I had been shown dark side of Ron’s Policies & that is what I cut from my being.Each of us has our own way of handling the cos & our experiences.I can only speak for my self.Thank you Mike for leading the way.Take Care.Ann B Watson.

Hi ealadha, Thank you for giving me a laugh this AM.Got to love those ” OT ” levels !! Take Care Ann B Watson.

Stockholm? Absolutely. Overall value of the course? detrimental! The abduction, the manipulation not to mention the intimidation can not be present in a religion or tool as you say, that purports it self as being helpful of self enlightful. It’s like being a little pregnant. You are or your not. It is or it isn’t. Not being black and white at all. I’ll be the first to admit, I can not empathize. But when so many ex members are reporting the same degregating tales of their denigrations at the hands of the church it must be investigated. My God the’Hole’ alone. How does a person come to feel he deserves to be treated like a animal. Me too… Looking forward to seeing DM in DOC Orange

Hope your right. Of the celebs, Leah, Jenna Tom, John,Kirstie. Are any of them OT’s? I ask because my thinking is, with all the Scientology crap that has surfaced about the ludicrousy of attaining higher or climbing the never ending bridge as attested by Miscavige OT 9&10 rollout, that these high profile will not only finally leave that they could be very instrumental in the much needed decline of Scientology. Of course then again maybe I underestimate Hubbard’s intimidation methods.

Hi Liz – I know that it may seem incomprehensible that anyone wouldn’t see that “disconnection alone” is enough to leave.

I don’t feel that it’s a “bleeding heart” who has empathy for the people who can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. It’s one of those things where you had to be there. Like the frog boiling slowly, you don’t know that your goose is cooked until you’re served up on a platter.

I was in over 35 years. Disconnection isn’t what it used to be. Early on, it was only for people who were really, honestly, hostile to the person and you only had to disconnect after trying to handle the person with communication and seeing where you possibly antagonized the person. And, when someone was considered for being declared suppresive, it took a LOT to have that label put on goldenrod. We all knew how serious it was and did everything possible NOT to declare the person. They were given every chance.

But now, swat at a fly wrong and, “Whoosh!” down the chute you go. Now the person is declared for internally political reasons. Terrible.

Also, what you see going on with Scientologists and staying with Scientology is the Stockholm Syndrome, IMHO.

Just like a boyfriend/girlfriend who seem to be the perfect, most wonderful match in the beginning, Scientology actually has benefits and useful tools to improve the quality of life. Say what you will about Hubbard, because he actually did some very wrong things, but he also cared about the human condition and was, especially early on, trying to assist others with his research.

So there we are, around good people who all want to help others, using these new tools that are helpful to us and others. GREAT!

But then the abuse starts. We didn’t get the brunt of that in the 70’s. The only thing we were asked for is money to do our next course or auditing, which is what we wanted.

Other people, outside, were being abused but we were mushrooms, being kept in the dark on those counts.

Then, the mission holders were taken out in 1982 and a boatload of people left. I knew many of those people at that time but I didn’t see that it was irreperable internally, so I stayed.

Then Miscavige was in, more and more and then Hubbard died. A lot of us older folks still believed it was the same old, “do right” Scientology as the decades moved on. Then we started getting regged and regged for the IAS, sold books we didn’t need. We were told that all that training we did until “The great and powerful Miscavige” brought us the “Golden Age of Tech” was all worthless (???) and that we were the “bllind leading the blind”. WHAT??

We remembered the original purpose of helping and being helped and kept on with this abusive boyfriend called the Church, hoping that it would stop being abusive and nuts. Tom Cruise was the most valuable Scientologist? What about the veteran Sea Org people who were auditing people everyday while eating beans and rice through all of the 80s and 90s and working 20 hours a day? Pffft. And I cringed at that Tom Cruise video and prayed that the press never get ahold of it. I knew that what did happen, would happen. Oy vey.

For me, when I found out that Miscavige had taken out all of the people who a person could report to, to fix things that were wrong internally AND I read Debbie Cook’s letter, all of the red flags I’d been looking at for 30 of those years all came to focus and I realized that there is no way at all that the church can be fixed from the inside out.

So you see, its not a black and white situation. Hubbard is not “totally evil” as he’s been demonized. As you say though, he’s dead now. Why waste the energy on what he did or didn’t do? Many great people have been crazy, Van Gogh’s ear, King Henry the VIII’s affairs and killing his wives, Newton’s tirades, Tesla’s strange habits and lack of a relationship all his life. Let it go.

But Miscavige has CHOSEN to be, IMO, a worse kind of evil than Ron ever imagined. Ron had, as at least part of his intention, to protect the group. Miscavige is all in for himself only. For God’s sake, having his own father followed and telling them to let him die? Allowing Scott Campbell to nearly die and his people encouraging him to jump off the roof? Pure evil.

Beating people up just because he’s in a position where they can’t fight back? Sadistically sociopathic.

Scientology itself has merit and some very useful tools. Miscavige, on the other hand, is just a tool. And a suppressive one, at that.

Is he a product of his Scientological upbringing? Hell no. He was slugging people in session at age 12. He’s using corporate Scientology as a weapon to protect, feed and intoxicate his little self. Much like that crazy villian in The Incredibles. The suit needs to come off and it needs to be replaced by a bright orange one…size extra small.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” … from Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

Honestly, the more I learn about SciTi from these posts, the more I think Lewis Carroll was a prophet.