Karen, yes that was a scam all right. And I had a friend in Las Vegas and when they went Ideal Org and had to raise money for their building etc, my friend was told if he donated such an so amount of money, that he would have his name on a commemorative brick in the building. All donors who gave for that building over a certain amount would have their name engraved on a brick. Ha! That never happened. It’s been over 19 years and no names on bricks. I wonder if that Las Vegas org is even up and running now.

Thanks. Everyone has a different story about why they got in and got out. I’m glad you can have a laugh about it which is the best possible outcome IMO. Cheers

LOL, and thank you, Richard. No they didn’t get me for The Cross, and yes I get a kick out of sharing my escapes but trust me, in the beginning, and for quite a number of years after getting in, I did NOT escape, and man oh man did I fall hook, line and sinker for their gentle, appealing, “But don’t you want to HELP” ploy! THAT one used to get me, every time! Oh, well, I can laugh today. Because, you know, I DID want to help, and I was susceptible. Now, eventually, I DID wise up to this tactic they’d use on me (culled from my PC folder no doubt). Today, the way I see it, and the way I think everyone who got out should consider this, is that oK, I was conned, I was a fool, but in the end, I can laugh it off, and I’ve moved on, and the shame, the embarrassment, is actually theirs. Because we did want to help, and that of itself is not a bad thing, even though it makes one susceptible to being conned.

Since Hubbtared claimed this exact thing for Scamology then he’s saying he himself is suspect.

MB, I think what Hubbard’s says about the “Beast666” and “antichrist” also reflect things he picked up during his era of association with the occult, and are more or less consistent with a particular esoteric point of view that is logical in its way, along with his claims about Jesus. I would certainly agree that he lied, and more relevant to this particular area cribbed earlier ideas that he did not understand in depth, as if they were his own – but in this case I think what he expressed is actually somewhat consistent, if you understand the underlying concepts and their actual source.

Once again Hubbard was probably recycling late 19th and early 20th century ideas, that would have seemed new to his baby boomer followers in particular:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory

It is Elron.

Skipping quotation marks on everything, the freezone presents itself as delivering scientology technology without the abuses which are attributed to the policy and administrative aspects of the organization. Many people might say they had worthwhile benefits, perhaps up to and including clear.

Saying the entire Catholic Church should be castigated because many priests were pedophiles would not be correct. By the way, have any nuns been accused of molesting young girls?

Just saying and I’m not a freezone-er. I split for good over 40 years ago. 😇

My opinion is that Hubbard lied nearly every time he spoke and frequently changed his lies on the same topic. In fact we have literally thousands and thousands of examples.

Jon Atack has pointed out hundreds of contradictions by Hubbard in his articles. I can’t emphasize this enough. I have written numerous articles on the contradictions myself and listed hundreds as well.

In my opinion a certain type of human predator has a compulsion to lie and they don’t bother to tell the same lies over and over. They alter them quite frequently.

Another example of the various contradictory lies that Hubbard told is the two volumes that Scientologists used the tech and admin dictionary in Scientology for decades.

Both have thousands of terms that have multiple definitions and if you examine these definitions it’s quite obvious the definitions quite routinely are contrary to one another. Hubbard would define a term like clear one way in one reference then another explicitly contradictory way in another and often in other ways in others.

Hubbard made his lies as confusing for the audience as possible to confuse people and ultimately to control them.

It is the only logical explanation in my mind.

He simply told contrary lies routinely for most of his life.

MB, I think Hubbard took the esoteric position that the Jesus who lived and ministered was not The Christ, but just a teacher and perhaps a spiritual and magickal adept, something he likely encountered versions of several places including possibly his brief membership in the Rosicrucians. The idea of Jesus as non-heterosexual is based in the teachings of early Christian sects that became considered heretical, and was circulating anew among the sort of circles Hubbard cribbed a lot of his ideas from, and who unlike the lazy plagiarist and self-proclaimed ‘source’, actually were well read in things like the work of Morton Smith.

Hubbard’s presentations of the idea are very disrespectful towards modern Christianity, either intentionally or as the pathology of an egotistic and malignantly narcissistic personality. One reason the basic position is not familiar to many, is those who put stock or even believe in versions of it, are more considerate about it.

Todd, people have reported being told 20 million members by staff – when they walked into orgs that were pretty much empty. Kirstie Allie has also used the number.

So clearly it floats around in the approved Scientology internal scuttlebutt, even if the PR people have better sense than to try to use it in an an outside world that would recognize it as unbelievable, and probably try to dissect it (just to compare it to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons whose missionaries almost everyone has encountered and whose churches most have drive past, when the CoS is rarely if ever encountered, debunks it). And I think it demonstrates how the remaining membership has become unquestioning about those sorts of claims, even when they contradict what they can observe in their own local orgs.