Michael Silverman was a much beloved figure at AOLA for many years spanning the 70’s, 80’s and into the 90’s.
This is the only photo I could coax out of him, but for those who knew him back then, apart from being follicle challenged, this smiling face looks just the same as I remember it at AO.
Michael reached out to me and asked that I publish his thoughts about his life in the Sea Org and scientology. I am more than happy to do so.
Hello Mike. I have occasionally read bits of postings over the years and feel compelled to post something significant that may help others both ex-scientologists and those still currently
involved. So here goes – a very lengthy story regarding myself and adventures in the cult.
In 1969, while tutoring math in my spare time (while not title searching – an activity involved in the legal aspects of buying and selling property (real estate)), one of my students told me about Scientology. His mother asked me to go and see what it was (she was concerned about his well-being), and so I marched down to Avenue Rd. in Toronto Canada to find out. I then started on the comm course. I met a number of staff and was amazed at the number of intelligent people in one place. 5 or 6 were already Class 8 auditors!
I was also very curious about a possible spiritual side to man. I had already discarded religion as a sham, under any guise, but something intrigued me. I was an accomplished magician already and entertained the staff with tricks which they regarded as OT phenomenon being displayed. I never corrected their viewpoint and deliberately declined to answer any questions. (I do not lie and so by not answering any questions about my magic, I was retaining my honesty). One day, one of the OTs in the org told me that he/she could also do a trick that I had just done. (I had given them the deck to shuffle and then took the deck and found all 4 aces). I begged him/her to show me and after much persuasion, they agreed and right in front of my face that person found all 4 aces – without trickery!! I was amazed and that desire to be able to do things for real projected me down the pathway in the Toronto Org and then to AOLA.
As an aside, and for those of you disillusioned about OT and it’s ramifications as being promised and not delivered by Scn. , spirituality is real, you are real and the only mistake we all made was expecting that Scn would take us to some elevated awareness where we would attain the promised states. The tech of Scn is feeble at best but well codified. Roman Catholicism delivers similar relief through its confession – but no OT. Buddhism has a route but it requires lifetimes and there is no guarantee, but definite rehabilitation of ones basic essence.
An interesting exercise to rehabilitate oneself is to sit alone, quietly, relax for a few minutes, eyes closed, and then recall any negative event in your life and just view it without comment or justification or complaint. Just see what happened. Nothing defensive on your part — just look like an observer and see what actually occurred. Then forgive those who committed that act against you. ‘For real’ forgiveness. Then look at what you did to them and forgive yourself. No justifications or explanations, just see what you did and forgive yourself. That activity, repeated as necessary until you are blown away, will clean you up as good or better than what you have tried or experienced before, and help relieve you enough to let you “pop” out (more of this would be for another time or discussion – but not here).
I noticed things while in Scn right from the start. We all made the mistake of seeing outnesses, I mean really obvious wrong things and overlooking them. We had goals and a little error or misunderstood should not block our route to total freedom. My first (of many dozens) were the 2 HCOBs describing the number of SPs. One said 2 1/2 percent were SPs and the other said 25% of people were PTS and 2 1/2% of them were SPs. These mathematical results are totally different and not a typo (as the HCOB volumes were corrected and recorrected comparing the volumes themselves to the original writings) One or both of those statements cannot be true. And there they sit unchallenged.
In retrospect, original OT8 (a misnomer if ever there was one) promised ‘the ability to be at cause, knowingly and at will, over matter, energy, space, time, life thought and form subjectively and objectively.’
I have not done new OT8 but it would have to be better than the first. I’d love to meet one who has the above ability, and who is fully exterior, perceptions intact (old OT6). Of course they don’t exist. At least not as a result of Scn’s efforts.
I helped boom Toronto org (I was full time staff) and we were on a roll. Renting new spaces to accomodate the influx (a few dozen personality tests daily with the new public and then MANY signups for the comm course and away we went. ) Several months later I was on a plane to the Flagship Apollo (at that time in Casablanca) to do the New OEC/FEBC courses. (I was graduate #111) I did the pilot for hard TRs, did LTMX (experimental) got some auditing and was sent home early as my dad was ‘flapping’ about where I was and that he had not heard from me and was concerned. All got sorted out and shortly thereafter the rest returned from flag and we started an org boom.I handled Tech services and we delivered over 500 WDAH weekly for many months, and everything else was also booming at the time.
Sadly, my enthusiasm made me overlook obviously wrong things. A former public got upset and was declared and then constantly harassed. I knew her and liked her. But I took the Church’s stance and mentally vilified her. This occurred a number of times with various people. I ignored the obvious. “they must have pulled it in.” I witnessed unethical registration and was around for the original postulate check era. Not a participant, but knew it was wrong. Fast forward a bit (end of 1973) and I’m on my way to AOLA to become a tours reg. I knew nothing about regging and generated almost $1.00 first week – I was on tour in New York, and you know how tight they can be with their money!! I actually regged less then 100 cents on my first week. It doubled the second week and again on the third. I was on a roll. After 3 weeks. I had generated almost $5 for Scientology’s coffers. Once I got the hang of it, why the rest is history. I toured North America and even got into the missions which were practically impenetrable. With a lot of help from Carol Craig (Woodruff) this was possible and we started getting mission public. I went to them all, a goodwill messenger and often regged for them not for AOLA. The game changed again and I was made the Chief Reg AOLA . I regged so much money that I was given the status of Kha Khan – an LRH P/L that forgave me anything 10 times. Soon after, a few other regges around the world were given the same certificate and and a new PL came out saying only LRH or ED Int could award such an honor. This was not retroactive as my cert remained intact. Some time later, while at a mission in Northern Calif. I was asked a question about the SO1 line (Letters directly written to Ron Hubbard) I had found out much while on the ship and it didn’t take a genius to recognize a hand stamped signature and little initials added to some signatures. So, I gave a reasonable explanation of the line and left out the magic ability to read, dictate and sign 30,000 SO1 letters in a week, but acknowledged that LRH saw all the letters, read those that were not simple ‘thank yous’, sometimes even added a handwritten addition and off the letters went. I was recalled from tour, put into treason etc and was then forgiven because of my Kha Khan status and got on with my life. (Years later I was comm-eved for god knows what and the comm-ev cancelled my Kha Khan status! A remarkable event considering I would have had to committed quite a few real bad deeds to lose all my lives. That was never an issue but the status was cancelled.
Sometime around this time, I, along with a small army of others was RPFd. A few weeks later I was reprieved to help on a book release.
By the way, there are many rumors and stories about me. Let’s say some are true and some are not. I did reg many 10s of millions of dollars. I never took a dime (stealing). I was not the initiator of credit card scam and misuse. I was on the RPF when that started and had never even seen a credit card up to that time. It soon became an urban legend that Joe Bueno and I were the ringleaders. They even had an amnesty for all the PAC regges if they wrote down all their O/Ws regarding credit card misuse. I asked and received permission to leave that event AS I HAD NEVER USED A CARD AND THEY KNEW IT.
As another aside, we all witnessed actual wrongdoings that should NEVER have happened and looked the other way. Such was the environment loaded with pressure, threats and whatever. Ironically, it wouldn’t have helped. No one actually cared. The ONLY thing that really mattered was $$$$$$. Everything else was local, internal, and often handled with conditions and back to work (head down—shame shame). If I had a wart–there was whatever I needed to facilitate my health. Absolutely anything. I was the money machine. My best week was $437,000 for AOLA (not including monies for ASHO and FLAG).
Once there was a girl (new AOLA staff ) working in the bookstore. I used to go through the un-filed invoices to see who sent in money as a potential reg cycle. To my amazement, I found invoices written for library donations from some of my prospects who had finished at AOLA except for the OT8 that they had paid for and not yet used, or they had money from years earlier and not used. I called a few concerned that they were unmocking their services. Some were address and phone unknown, while others knew nothing about it and still others were told that they could not get their OT8 as sold so they spent the money on book donations. The new bookstore girl was just writing invoices without asking anybody or even speaking to the public and then collecting HUGE commissions on the thousands of dollars of book sale weekly. I reported her, she blew and absolutely nothing was done about it. The public who had lost services from false info I contacted and gave them the opportunity to replace their old $ with new money and retain their old services.
Somewhere, along the way, I was regularly attacked for supposed financial irregularities (like if the income was not always going up). I won’t tell about them all but needless to say they were sheer madness. At least 5 times, I had to throw a commodore’s messenger out of my space (often me cursing) to get rid of the crap being thrown at me. ALWAYS just nonsense. The “financial irreg” I was accused of –the biggy– was giving away services! Hah!. I was the one who fought with FLAG and Management to deliver what was promised regarding original OT8 . Many times the prices of services delivered at AOLA were a fraction of the then current rates. That of course is simply because the person paid for them many years earlier when they cost very little (like OT1 was $75 and later was $1000) Prior to price increases, if you came for service and needed a 12 1/2 hour intensive but didn’t have the money available, you would just use money off your account and replace it later and continue. When the increases had been going a while, suddenly “if your account is not designated what every cent is for , it is just money and buys nothing except at current rates”. This is screamingly unethical and I refused to do it. I wrote it all up to everyone who needed to know, got back that old OT8 would be honored at FLAG at the original paid rate and got no further comments about my using the public’s old money to secure whatever it could have at the time of payment. Then when I was declared and thrown out, this money matter was resurrected as proof of my financial irregularities for 14 years!!! I would do it again without blinking an eyelash. I gained nothing from it. The public now had value for the money that they had paid in advance. I was attacked and accused of owning a car dealership, as well as New york George’s restaurant and many others. Enough said.
Since being out of the SO, an old timer, who was directly involved in getting me declared, let me know that they wanted a head on a pike and if “Silverman was not safe then anyone not toeing the line was next and could be — no one was irreplaceable or safe”. This could only have been a Miscavage idea since I was the money maker for the org — so much so that after I completed the RPF’s RPF and then the RPF, and was returned to the org as Advance Course Admin (the OT materials were in the worse shape imaginable and without ANY SECURITY — easily denied but totally true nevertheless), ED Int walked in the door, asked where I was and 10 minutes later I was back regging. “He was a good guy!” Money $$$$$$$$$$. That is the name of the game.
While on the FLAGSHIP, a paper I was given for clay table labels, was the backside of the prior (just completed) week’s FP. There were mathematical errors and even though the FP sheets ‘balanced’, they were fudged. I brought this to the purser’s attention. ‘NOT TOO WORRY–END OF DISCUSSION’.
At AOLA in the late 80s, I found a staff member resubmitting for service completion awards, invoices for 2nd and third payments for the same service. The money going back (with the public’s permission) onto account and raising the regges stats. I reported this. Nothing done!!! I wonder what a financial irregularity really is!!??
THE PERSONAL ATTACKS WERE FATIGUING. My trip to the RPF’s RPF was written on a provisional SP declare (whatever that is) and I went and did the RPF etc and graduated, getting my twin up the whole grade chart through enough OT5 to graduate. When I was subsequently Comm Eved late 1991, early 1992(?), I had a real Kangaroo Court. I was there for 1 meeting and 5 months later they found me guilty without me seeing any witnesses, being able to challenge or prove any KRs as false etc. I brought this up the the IJC who issued a goldenrod on the fact that one meeting of my comm-ev had only 3 members but the 4th was present for all subsequent meetings and she also listened to the recording of the 1st session to be brought up to speed. Sounds credible?? NO!!??
The only problem is that there had been an amnesty the prior fall and as I was off post recuperating from a severe back problem (I was never once questioned about this even though I was off post for months before being thrown out). Gary Jacobs, then MAA AOLA had come to me with the amnesty and convinced me to take it — “it can only help.” Good as gold I thought . For those of you who are uninformed about amnesty policy, if you “take the amnesty” (accept it) you are forgiven for all bad deeds known or unknown. That translated means forgiven for anything prior to the date the amnesty was accepted by yourself. There are no further provisos or comments that need to be made. Accepted and forgiven–forever. DONE! As I had not been on post or connected to the org for a month or so prior to the amnesty and not again connected in any way from then until my being thrown out, there could have been no KR’s to support my declare as all evidence written about me would have been about things prior to the amnesty which I had taken, and was already forgiven for. Get it? Temporary Freedom from persecution due to absolute forgiveness.
From the Comm Ev and higher ups, the intention to scapegoat me requires absolute guilt to allay any fears of injustice, and so to accomplish this already planned event (me being expelled) it was necessary to omit, ignore or change anything that would have had me escape the hangman’s noose. The above is true, and for any who doubt it, check out the fall 1991 amnesty, it exists. Every SO member always took these amnesties to shake off the accumulated shit and to get back to work. And so I took it and even if I was really guilty of everything I was accused of and even more, I was forgiven by LRH policy. And yet, here I sit, expelled. Perversion of justice at its best, impossible to deny. That gives you the mindset of those running the show. It’s not about freedom and a return to OT,, it’s about control, money, power and every other dastardly motivation. It takes some confront to absorb this and make sense out of it. One can always justify anything. But, your justification is based on an unmovable belief in something, regardless of fact. If you believe in LRH tech, then the above amnesty violation, which can be proven to be true, breaks the mold and shatters the illusion. I’m not telling this to be right. My tenure and subsequent leaving took its toll on me. It took years to shake off the guilt, fear and much more, until I came to my senses. Those claims you “know” are exaggerations or just outright lies…..you were right. Those stats ARE false. The numbers ridiculous!
Expansion is non existent, the orgs empty for the most part. Hubbard personal claims are false. You can never find out while in the church cause you will be “connected to an SP” and “buying into enemy lines” and away you go. But there is truth. As painful as it is to realize one has been duped, sucked in, or whatever is the right wording — it takes an almost superhuman effort to come to grips with this. It’s really almost unconfrontable and yet “the truth shall set you free.”
Look what’s going on and step back and observe the obvious. Something is really amiss and you either put your head back in the sand, or you hold your breath, take a peek, and hope you don’t have to go and find Silverman and wring his neck.
For years, ASHO D & F had literally millions of bad address letters stacked floor to ceiling untouched, unopened and unhandled (some with cash in them ), with each weeks mailings going out to the same bad addresses at an enormous cost. All for higher stats???!!!
Believe me, this was known everywhere. I wonder if 40 years later it has even been honestly taken care of. You should doubt it – although 27 years ago ASHO was looking at the pile. I could be wrong. But the wrongness of that and it being ignored is startling. The addresso with multiple repeats for thousands of people and the financial waste for years, it’s just criminal. I could list the serious outnesses for pages. You got the point. None of it should exist. Each post being taken care of properly, would result in highly efficient and successful organizations. But the reverse is true. Does one overlook the obvious… this has been ongoing for 40 or so years and is still wrong. I know a few OT8s who are in a horrible state. They aren’t all SP’s. Sorry. Management has changed hands over and over and the old are declared SP’s. Seems like all the SP’s of the world found scientology. Remarkable. The illogic is palpable!
It’s scary contemplating returning to the world you left and scorned with nothing but an older body, a few personal possessions, and probably no money. I know!! But you don’t realize that your old friends and fellow staff who are alive will give you more support than you ever imagined.
YOU DESERVE SOME FUN AND HAPPINESS. Escape!!!!
One last note: many years ago I was submitted to an interrogation that the NAZIs would be jealous of. I somehow survived. My friend, also so tortured, basically succumbed. One of the perpetrators of this heinous act apologized to me, and meant it. And I forgave him, and love him for his bravery. We all jumped into the shark-infested pool. Usually eyes wide open.
OK. Time to realize the truth –oops — you made a mistake.
ESCAPE.
Love
Michael Silverman
Cece says
RIP my friend 💕
Thank you for going to the trouble to reconcile the past for yourself and your loved ones.
It took me hours to pour over your stories and our messages back and forth over the years.
I had not seen that you named me a true friend and ally in the comments. Thank you kindly 😘 and I have always thought of you the same 💕
Oliver McMahon says
I always loved it when Mike Silverman came to visit our mission. His magic always amazed me. I later took up magic myself.
Fredy says
I remember Pam (Moore) and Mike from my time on staff in Toronto in the 1970s.
Thanks for your post.
Lee Lawrence Lipton says
Michael, is your body-mind-organism still here? Wow never saw so many responses as to your post! Beautiful ones too.
You won’t believe who this is! This is someone from the first two years in Toronto! One crazy mf’er if there ever was one! But somehow am still perceiving through this “robot”! haha
Crazy crazy times. It was fun and in retrospect a great honor to have been friends and palled around with you for awhile.
All Peace Michael!!!
Lee
Michael Silverman says
Hello Lee!!! I remember you and your father as well. Those were the tough old days.
I am writing you from Mexico where I am wintering. I just got to this site for the first time in years—and there lies a message from you! I hope you get this and hope you are well and happy.
Take Care
Your old friend Michael
Lee Lipton says
Michael!!! So glad to hear from you. Just saw this reply from you now.
So glad you are still here and well and you don’t hate me to bits!
Thought you were always a very cool person. So good to hear from you.
Living in northern New Mexico now for the last 23 years.
Feeling the best have ever felt. It’s a holographic movie! Yeah?
What a trip.
Love & Peace Michael.
Michael Silverman says
Hello Lee. That’s some delay!!! Buy I am really happy to hear from you . I have ‘zero’ negative emotions about you. I’m glad you are well and surviving in NEW MEXICO!!! of all places!
Take care and enjoy your life.
Michael
Lee Lipton says
Hey Michael! Yeah it’s funny I was hoping you might see my original reply and remember checking it quite a few times for a few weeks but didn’t see anything and then figured you either didn’t ever see it or didn’t remember me much anyway so stopped checking. Yesterday was just a bit bored and decided to google some Big-S stuff for fun and came back to Mike Rinders blog and there was the reply from November? You must have replied just after I gave up! Ha
And what’s funnier is last night I had this very strong feeling that you got my last reply right away. And you did! So that’s that.
Are you having fun? Are you happy? Things alright?
Crazy wild ride if you ask me! Haha
Lee
(Michael, I had just sent this to you as a reply to your email at my email address but it came back as undeliverable so posting it here.)
Lee Lipton says
Michael, it won’t let me reply to your response at my email address.
Michael Silverman says
My email address is
al_bha@yahoo.com
Dio says
Michael,
RE: Quote:
An interesting exercise to rehabilitate oneself is to sit alone, quietly, relax for a few minutes, eyes closed, and then recall any negative event in your life and just view it without comment or justification or complaint. Just see what happened. Nothing defensive on your part — just look like an observer and see what actually occurred. Then forgive those who committed that act against you. ‘For real’ forgiveness. Then look at what you did to them and forgive yourself. No justifications or explanations, just see what you did and forgive yourself. That activity, repeated as necessary until you are blown away, will clean you up as good or better than what you have tried or experienced before, and help relieve you enough to let you “pop” out (more of this would be for another time or discussion – but not here).
I like that part of your post.
RE: (more of this would be for another time or discussion – but not here).
I would like you to make that “other time or discussion” a post next week.
Thanks,
Dio
Michael Silverman says
I will try to get into this in the not too distant future, but no immediate promises.
Spike73 says
Excellent!!
Dio says
I can’t wait, Michael. 🙂
Dio
Michael Silverman says
I am amazed and humbled by the many responses to my post. Thanks to you all. I truly understand the negative emotions connected to Scn. and the desire to reach out and ‘slap’ to make some attempt at righting all the wrongs. The majority of staff were there for one reason – to make a better world and to better all of us.
A horrific part for all of us who were involved is that we really couldn’t do that. But we tried. I feel that although my post was intended to help heal and inspire, this blog is open to anyone and those not fully aware of what went on may feel that there is some self serving point or an ingenuine attempt to justify myself.
The following is my effort to clarify.
My comment about how cheap New Yorkers are was self ridicule at the pitiful amount I regged initially ($1.00 the first week etc) and blaming the public for being so tight with their money when in fact I was such a terrible registrar. It had no more significance than that.
Since 1996 , I have spent approximately 15,000 hours researching, studying and learning about health and nutrition and have been counselling and helping people with weight issues and all health issues to become healthy. I have done this for no financial or any other return.
As a registrar, I never crush sold anyone and never put anyone into financial straights. I would help the person find the money for their services through loans, mortgages, family and whatever means that would enable them to continue moving up the bridge.
Sorry if this sounds too unbelievable – it is how I was and still am.
Regarding commissions – I gave 1/2 of my commissions (when they were paid) to staff who directed a potential public to me who then paid for services. Over the years, this amounted to approximately $50,000. (from what I understand, staff weekly pay currently would amount to the same amount over the same number of years. Back then, I was the best paid staff member in the SO outside of FLAG and the IAS and similar groups. When commissions were paid, they were 1% for sales of services. More often than not, they didn’t exist. Back in the early 70s a very good reg generated $10,000 in a week for their organization. 1% amounted to $100. No one was getting rich that way. But I was different and regged (got people to pay) enormous amounts of money in fact, the first price increase, late ’76, I regged $300,000 in 1 week and then commissions were cancelled for a year. Of the $3000, I received, I gave $1500 to those who helped find potential cycles for me.
I recall one Christmas that an old friend who worked on selling LRH originals (signed) received a $10,000 Christmas bonus. At the time, more than I had received in 5 years of selling services.. I NEVER sold books off account to anyone who had not completed their services at AOLA. I would reg them for new money for a new E-meter or whatever. I wasn’t and never have been money motivated.
At FLAG- as you have read here, all staff were expected to push for income from all the public. This was not the case anywhere else to my knowledge. The unspeakable evils that I supposedly leveled against the public did not occur.
My regrets, in retrospect, is that I was so successful in getting people into Scn. and it was all for nothing. I must admit that my increased awareness of my own spirituality was something I got and am extremely happy about.
One of the severe handicaps of being on staff in the SO is that your morals change. Things you would never say or do became OK and justified by “the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics” (8 areas of life – like self, family etc). I took all of my savings and used them (while on staff ) to help someone get their life together and start their own business – with the agreement to be repaid when they were able. Never got a cent back and all communication ceased as I was later a suppressive person (labelled as evil) and not to be communicated with. I had documented with promissory notes etc, proof of at least another $10,000 that I lent to public to help them along the way. I never got back a cent and the IJC (international justice chief) was on my side (even after I was declared) trying to get these monies from the staff and public who owed them to me. (I think she expected I would use these monies to buy my way back in!?)
Years ago, I posted on someone’s blog an apology to those whom I had adversely affected.
Completely unrelated and implied in my post here a few days ago, I have pursued my spirituality. I have had a few out of body experiences and unusual things happen to me or that I did. Many were witnessed and undoubtedly contributed to the belief of my “OTness”. We, unfortunately are living on a doomed planet. It is severely poisoned and seems unfixable. I have thus tried to enhance my own abilities and awareness to avoid another ‘recycling”. I know several things and one being that I am spiritual. It’s not the same as believing or hoping. As arrogant as this may sound, I am hopeful, but not certain, that I will will be able to reach the state where I can function without a body. If this occurs, I will “run” around, waking those who have gone unconscious.
This may all seem nonsense to many, but for those of you who understand, this is a real goal and something attainable. Hopefully by me.
I do remember many of you who wrote comments here (Pam from Kokomo and all the guys you came with) Sheila my old friend and Cece (a true friend and ally), Mike Rinder, and many others. Forgive me for not mentioning you all but you know I know you and love and appreciate your kind thoughts and words.
Be not dismayed by the cat-calls and negativity. A lot of damage was created in Scn. We could do well by loving , caring, listening and supporting those who need it.
My love to you all.
Michael
marildi says
Michael: “My regrets, in retrospect, is that I was so successful in getting people into Scn. and it was all for nothing. I must admit that my increased awareness of my own spirituality was something I got and am extremely happy about.”
No, it was not “all for nothing.” Many of the people you reg’ed (I was one of them) or helped in other ways are also extremely happy about the increased awareness of spirituality.
So have no regrets!
On top of it, I’m confident that you did your best – and there isn’t more we could ask than that. I for one thank you. ?
Spike73 says
Thank you, Michael, well said and I look forward to more.
Mary Williams (formerly Winfrey) says
Hi Mike! Thank you so much for telling your story. I always wondered what happened with you. It’s been about 37 years since you regged me for my OT 1-3 at AO. You were awesome and you did a great job with me. Always honest, clean and straight forward. I was married to Dennis Winfrey at the time. About that time as a public person, I noticed things going off the rails. I left shortly after I completed OT3 and went to Mayo’s AAC where the ARC was incredible and did successfully did my NOTs and Solo NOTs with Julie Mayo as my CS. I’m glad to hear that you made it out from the stifling suppression in the church. Thanks for telling your story. Never once did I ever doubt your integrity.
Harpoona Frittata says
Oh no, I’m being disconnected from!
“Schizophrenia, these days called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), is ranked as one of the top 10 causes of disability worldwide.”
It’s NOT called DID, you have a fundamental misunderstanding there. See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis_of_schizophrenia
Scan down to the “Differential” section and read the following sentence there:
“Schizophrenia” does not mean dissociative identity disorder—formerly and still widely known as “multiple personalities”—despite the etymology of the word (Greek σχίζω = “I split”).”
You don’t appear to have clue one about what you’re trying to sound knowledgeable about here. It’s time to study up for sure!
Sheila M Huber says
That’s wonderful that you can look up terms on the Internet, Harpoona. Congratulations. You are correct, they are not the same thing. The rest of my post, with that small bit I wrote in parentheses omitted, is accurate and you were still wrong in your statement that schizophrenics and psychopaths have no traits in common, because you lack the fundamental understanding and basics of anyone who seriously studies these things and cannot comprehend the idea that different traits can cross different illnesses.
You seek to label others and put everything in neat little categories. Despite years of posting and your claims of being out, you still greet an ex who has come forward with, “What are your crimes?” just like a true believer would who considers those who leave his enemies. You demands amends as if you expect an ex to start doing Scientology conditions. You make airy claims of others out there for which you are personally acting as their representative for justice, when in truth, you never even heard of Michael Silverman before and don’ know a single person he has wronged. You doggedly respond to every single post, just like a Scientologist. It seems you still have not left much of the cult-think behind you and still have a long way to go in your recovery. It also seems you like to pretend authority and inner knowledge that you don’t have, because your posts about exes are completely lacking in any understanding of cult indoctrination and recovery. I’ve seen wiser posts from Newbs.
MPD, btw, is considered a myth by most professional practitioners these days, since the book “Sybil” was exposed as a con. But you are right, I was mistaken about DID, since the term was not used when I formally studied the subject. (Your lack of respect for formal education and lack of initiative to personally obtain a formal education is also a Scientology hangover, btw.)
Harpoona Frittata says
Shhh…don’t tell the cult, but I’m a mental health professional who’s been at it for more than three decades, so I know my DSM pretty well.
You got off on a side point of little significance to the discussion we were having and for no apparent reason. I thought that you’d just made the simple error of inadvertently writing “schizophrenia,” when you obviously meant to write “sociopath” or “psychopath,” based on the behavioral attributes that you described.
There’s really no need to go into attack chihuahua mode, is there?
I’m fine with you thinking anything you like about the differences and similarities between schizophrenia and DID, or between schizophrenia and anti-social personality disorder (i.e., sociopathy/psychopathy), many folks have many different opinions.
But my remarks to you concerning the lack of overlap in defining symptomology between schizophrenia and sociopathy was based on the DSM which is the “bible” of several professions, including mine. If you don’t believe me, then just google it for yourself.
“You make airy claims of others out there for which you are personally acting as their representative for justice, when in truth, you never even heard of Michael Silverman before and don’t know a single person he has wronged.”
I love it! Our very first true OT telepath!! Please tell me more 😉
” You doggedly respond to every single post, just like a Scientologist”
Well, FFS, and I just thought I was being polite and responding, as best I could, to folks’ sincere concerns and counter-perspectives…silly me, huh?
“MPD, btw, is considered a myth by most professional practitioners these days, since the book “Sybil” was exposed as a con. But you are right, I was mistaken about DID”
Truly hilarious! Did you realize that you book-ended my face-ripping session with the repeated mention of your error? Who does shit like this, it’s just completely mad!
If you’ve been out of the field since before MPD was disappeared as a formally designated disorder in the DSM, then you’ve been gone for awhile. If you were more open and way less defensive about your current level of knowledge and understanding in the field, I’d offer to steer you to some key references which could bootstrap you into PT.
But now you’ve done gone and started to piss me off, so…no soup for you!
Spike says
Re Scn-speak, I remember at some point making a very big effort to stop using Scn terms in every day life, even though in some cases they would have been more precise than ‘regular English’s for the situation. I didn’t want my kids to start using these terms, and then run into issues with their friends at school not being able to understand them. In private with my significant other, we sometimes still say 2d, dev-t, … it’s like speaking another language…
Michael Silverman says
Definition Sheet for Michael Silverman Post.
12 1/2 HOUR INTENSIVE –
Scn. counselling was sold in 12 1/2 hour blocks from $25 per hour from day 1 (1950’s)
to as high as $1000 per hour (currently)
ADVANCE COURSE ADMIN –
the person responsible for safeguarding the confidential upper level materials of Scn.
AO, AOLA –
Advanced Organization (Los Angeles) The Scn organization that delivers the upper
levels of Scn. which supposedly rehabilitate one as a spiritual being and regenerates
your native abilities
ASHO, ASHO D & F –
an upper level Scn. service organization delivering those services below AO, AOLA. D
& F refers the Day organization (Mon-Fri 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and the Foundation
(Evenings and weekends) organization both functioning out of the same physical
location
AUDITING –
the action of counselling by a trained specialist to help relieve one of trauma and past
upsets to ultimately help you achieve higher states of awareness
AUDITOR-
one trained to deliver auditing
CERT –
certificate – a document acknowledging some personal accomplishment
CHIEF REG –
chief registrar – a staff member who was the most senior of the salespersons in each
organization
CLASS 8 AUDITOR –
a person highly trained in the counselling technology of Scn.
COMMODORE’S MESSENGER –
Hubbard called himself the Commodore (a naval title)
and then formed his own group of youngsters to do his bidding and deliver messages in
his place. Receiving a message from one of his messengers was equivalent to
receiving it directly from Hubbard
ED INT –
Executive Director International – a senior Scn. executive
FLAG /FLAG SHIP APOLLO –
Hubbard ran Scn from several ships (which he hid on to avoid capture and
imprisonment) and the Apollo was the leading ship. Eventually, he moved ashore in
Clearwater Florida and the headquarters there was simple called FLAG
GOLDENROD –
ethics orders written about individuals pointing out their misdeeds or supposed
misdeeds and always printed on goldenrod colored paper
HARD TRs –
TR means training routine These are drills to teach one to communicate better, confront
and control things better. HARD TRs was developed in 1971 as a steeper gradient of
these drills to make one even better regarding the skills mentioned above.
HCOB –
Hubbard communication office bulletin – basically the technology of counselling as
developed by Hubbard, issued on white paper in red ink
KHA KHAN –
a status from an ancient culture acknowledging the superlative behaviour of an
individual and bestowing on that person forgiveness for 10,punishable by death,
crimes. Published by Hubbard in an administrative policy saying there are such people
and they need to be acknowledged with such an award.
KR –
Knowledge report. A report written about another who has done some misdeed
LRH –
L. Ron Hubbard
LRH TECH –
L.Ron Hubbard Technology. Those materials written up as ‘red ink on white paper ‘
bulletins (the counselling technology), or written up as ‘green ink on white paper’ being
administrative technology. Other writings are also part of the Technology, but the former
were the most used and significant
LTMX –
L10 MX an experimental procedure developed by Hubbard in 1971 being a modified
procedure of the already existing L10 (I believe meaning ‘list 10’ ) which I also believe
was for higher level processed individuals and LTMX was modified for not so highly
processed individuals to see if a somewhat similar result could be accomplished.
It was never officially documented in the bulletins as a procedure to be used for anyone
as needed.
MISSIONS –
scn. organizations that deliver basic courses and counselling of the lower levels of Scn.
usually privately owned but who also pay tithes to senior Scn. management and must
follow Scn. policy and procedures exactly, or they lose their license.
OEC/FEBC –
Org Executive Course/Flag Executive Briefing Course – lesser and greater training
courses in the administrative technology of Scn. to enable executives of Scn
organizations to be better able to run Scn. organizations with Hubbard technology
ORG – abbreviation for organization meaning the actual building where a Scn group
functions out of
OT –
Operating Thetan. Operating meaning functioning knowingly and Thetan meaning the
non physical self. So, operating thetan means one functioning to a greater or lesser
degree with or without body but aware of self as such
OT8 –
a high level of Scn processing.
O/Ws –
‘O’ meaning overts and ‘W’ meaning withholds. Overts are misdeeds and withholds are
misdeeds that have been withheld (not communicated about) Getting off your O/Ws
would be telling or writing in detail, about the misdeeds you have done and are known
about (maybe) and those which you have not communicated about and are now ‘
getting them off your chest’
PAC –
Pacific Area Command . The Los Angeles area of Scientology
P/L –
policy letter (the green ink on white paper administrative material)
POSTULATE CHECK – payment for services by the public with a check for which there is
no money in the bank but the person writing the check intends to honor by getting the
money into the bank before the check is attempted to be cleared. Most of these ‘paid’
checks were never made good and Scn. organizations spent the money from deposited
postulate checks, expecting the public who paid would make them valid. OOPS!
PTS –
potential trouble source – a person connected to an SP. They are a potential
troublesome source for Scn. as they will be adversely affected by the SP and
potentially cause problems for Scn. while at the same time probably not benefit from
Scn. due to their connection to the SP
PURSER –
naval term for the officer responsible for the money on the ship and now the executive
of an organization also responsible for the monies of the land based Scn. organization
PULLED IT IN –
meaning like Karma – you put out ‘bad’ and you pulled in ‘bad’
RPFd – RPF –
Rehabilitation Project Force. a separate group, isolated from the rest of
Scn. where one was sent to be fixed for their misdeeds. RPFd – sent to the RPF
RPFs RPF –
a more severe gradient of punishment where one had to be further isolated and work
through that level before being allowed into the group punished for their misdeeds
REGISTRAR –
a Scn salesman (reg)
REGGING –
the actions of getting money from the public
REGISTRATION –
signing up for services as a public in Scientology meaning paying for said services
SO –
Sea Org – that group of Scn. who sign 1 billion year contracts, get little or no pay, eat
terrible (beans and rice ) to OK food, live in dorms or separate rooms with spouses, and
devote all their time (most often for registrars 18 hours per day, 7 days a week) to fixing
the inhabitants of this planet and bringing them up to higher states of awareness.
SERVICE COMPLETION AWARDS – a copy of the automotive rebate system for buying
cars. Once a service is completed the service organization ‘rewards’ the public with a
percentage back, which they may keep and which the registrar usually has for them
and convinces them to put this back onto their account for future services.
SP –
suppressive person – one of the supposed 2 1/2 percent (more or less) of the
population who are truly evil and psychotic and whose goals and aims are to hinder and
hurt others and anything good. Anyone who leaves Scn, or publicly disagrees with Scn.
or who is thrown out is labelled an SP and is forbidden to receive Scn. services or to
talk to any Scientologist and is open to persecution by any Scn. in good standing.
STATS –
statistics. the numbers that represent the volume of production
TECH SERVICES – technical services – a department of Scn. that is responsible for the
attendance of students and persons receiving counselling and all of the activities
involved in that
TOURS REG –
a registrar who travels for his branch of Scn. to visit other Scn. groups and amongst
other things , get their public to pay for his organizations services (those services that
cannot be delivered by the organization being visited.
TREASON –
a lower state of existence where the individual has betrayed Scn. Of course, Scn has
rules for one labelled as treasonous to work out of that state through penance,
admission of misdeeds and the like.
WDAH –
well done auditing hours. That is the number of hours of counselling that were delivered
to the public (paid) and were scutinized by a senior technical individual and deemed to
have been done correctly and by the book. If not, they cannot be counted on the
statistics and the individual counsellor who made whatever errors they did have to be
corrected. If the conselling was done incorrectly, the public still pays for it and so it
goes.
Elle says
I wonder if the insistence on using Scien-talk is wise after leaving the cult. LRH created this absurd language to distinguish the faith and culture from all of the lesser ones. But now you know there are no lesser faiths because this is a lie. It’s a make believe world created by an inadequate and deeply troubled person, where he finally has value and influence. The official records of his school and military service reveal his uselessness. Scientology is a vanity project. I would have a hard time ever using those terms again, knowing he pulled them out of his arse.
secretfornow says
it seems like some may keep a few words in their vocab. For me I agree with the idea that it’s best to shed it to really escape the mind control – this is a work in progress. But when discussing Scn, it’s ideas, rules, or our experiences, – when discussing it with other Scios or Ex’s, it’s easier and more precise to use the terms of the time period and the subject when fitting.
That’s the way it’s been for me so far.
I’m still working on what to think about anything.
Sheila M Huber says
When we’re remembering things in our Scn past, we remember them in Scn-speak. That is, if we are accurately remembering. Because that’s how we thought, those were the terms we used and remembering is going back to that time.
Redefining those memories without the terms we actually used has no therapeutic value to the individual, because it was in the past. It would also be an alteration of an accurate memory, so less accurate. If I lived in France and was immersed in French culture and thought and spoke in French at the time and later spoke English, there would be no therapeutic value to have me relay my French memories in English. It’s when we continue to use those terms in our present thoughts and life that the cult-think has not been left in the past where it belongs.
Of course it would be easier for everyone else to understand without the Scn-speak, but many of our jobs were so loaded in cult thinking that much of it doesn’t make sense outside that bubble and becomes tedious to explain. Those details wouldn’t matter to anyone but former members, anyway. It seems Michael’s post was intended for exscns and those still in, as he has clearly left the cult in the past where it belongs.
secretfornow says
This! THIS is what I was trying to say! PERFECT!
Ed Barrington says
The article re Silverman was difficult to follow; there was so much scientology (ese) references and structures and inner processes…for non sci difficult……but big factor Silverman did $ XXXXXXxX lots and Sp KR etc whatever they are means nothing
secretfornow says
The deeper in you go, the more cult speak is required to relate the tales. Hearing from Silverman is therapeutic, he was a much loved and admired “opinion leader” and the events our org held wherein he came to speak were crammed with a receptive audience. He was a rock star. I never knew he was out.
It’s great to hear from him. In the bubble, you NEVER know “what happened” to so-and-so. Scn gives the fallen-from-favor and dissenters the 1984 treatment.
I talked to staff at Flag who told me that Ronnie Miscavige was “off lines handling a PTS A sit” (in other words, temporarily not involved due to a family member, but would be back soon”.) Ronnie is Misscabage’s brother who left scn fully and wants nothing to do with scn. I never knew the truth until I mentally broke out and read the internet (and his daughter’s tell all book)
The staff who told me this lie believed it themselves, they were missing Ronnie because “he was such a good guy, gentle and easy”. (veiled message, “nothing like his brother”)
David M says
Hello Mike. I often think fondly about you and your cards tricks when you came to my residence in Reseda Cailfornia . Your personal “Find The Ruin” FSM training at CCLA was interesting albeit I never was a true believer. I hope you’re more than well in life. David
Hana Eltringham Whitfield says
Hello Michael, It’s so very good to hear from you and to finally hear your side of all you went through. In my book, you were always one of the good guys who tried to uphold some decency, honesty, and morality in the madness that circled around us constantly. Thank you so much for taking the time sort out and write down your experiences and thoughts. They are so important for others who are in doubt about Scientology, including members of other cults who may be in doubt about their affiliations. Thank you again.
Tony DePhillips says
Excellent.
Glad he made it out.
Maxim Zbitnoff says
Mike S…. I remember you as a warm and caring guy with a big smile. Thanks for sharing.
Nada Jurisich-Fontana says
So great to hear from Mike Silverman- when I joined the sea org in L.A. from Canada , he was one of the Scientology superstars and so charismatic. I bet he can still work a room like few others.
secretfornow says
Me too!
Alex says
Bravo Mike, your revelation is enough. You did what we all wanted to do for a better world, better than most, harder to confront.
Amy Flynn says
Could someone tell me what’s going on with Marty Rathbun? I read that he said some lousy things about the series Aftermath? I don’t get it.. he spoke out big time in the documentary I saw on HBO? Why is he now turning on the people he was in total agreement at that time?
Wynski says
Amy, he is back working for David Miscavige.
jewel says
Why on earth would Marty work for DM covertly or overtly? That is ridiculous. DM had his mad dogs on Marty for years and years. He has gone through hell and back. You say he is working for DM as though this is fact. Do you have some hot inside information or something in writing…or are you just being sarcastic, putting fuel on an idea that has been a blog topic?Marty’s entire transformations are all on his website and in his books. Just because he didn’t jump to participate on Leah’s show and finds the outpoints (I do watch it, but there are outpoints) and wants to trash it, whatever, doesn’t mean that he is now a DM bot. Remember, he was with the inner circle with DM for years, and has personal experiences and knowledge that may contradict what is on the show. Big deal. People who leave the church go through many changes. Mike, by the way, has obviously gone through his own. He agrees with Leah that Scientology is 100% bullshit., which was not what he was touting when he first got out. He was only talking about the suppressive craziness of DM in the things I read and watched. He was for the independent movement. Now its all bad. What should I read into that? I’m not going to read anything into it! I don’t agree with the idea that it is all bullshit, and I have my own criticisms of the show, but that doesn’t make me a DM bot by any stretch. There’s this weird thing happening where blogging people are either ‘with Marty’ or ‘with Mike’. This is just stupid. These guys have their own commm lines with each other and they know what’s going on between them. The rest of us are spectators to it. I have no reason to ‘take sides’ or make nasty comments toward these guys. I read both blogs and feel they both have their own agendas for their own purposes.
Wynski says
jewel, look at what Marty is defending and attacking andwho is using that material. Logic 101.
Elle says
His wife also dropped a lawsuit that she appeared to be in danger of winning. If you are referring to Louis Theroux’s doc, “My Scientology Movie”, I was struck by two issues with Marty. The first is that he still believes in Xenu and only left the Miscaviage Mafia when he was expected to be a MAN and take the abuse he so delighted in dishing out. He was ticked that Theroux didn’t recognize or appreciate his status as a leader/playground bully. He has outrageous pride. The other thing I noticed was how upset he became when one of the trolls referenced his child. So I assume they either paid him off with money and a Get Out Of The Hole Free card, or they threatened his adoption. But then I don’t know why he would go back if he cared about the kid. He’s going to be expected to dump him in a few years so that he can detail Travolta’s car and fluff his…wigs.
secretfornow says
yassss. If you could surgically extract his arrogance and self importance it would like letting all the air out of a Macy’s Day Parade Balloon. All you’d have left is a limp puddle of synthetic color on the ground.
Amy Flynn says
All I can say is “ WOW “!!!
lagunascott says
Hi Mike, You recruited me into the Sea Org for ASHO day back in ‘85 where I was promptly ripped off by the Ship Project after I started the EPF.
Adventure…
secretfornow says
Yep.
….oh the promises that were made!
We could have several big fat books of the tales of “ripped off for….”
“urgent directive” the tornado that rips your life apart, scientology style.
Ms.P says
Thank you Michael for sharing your story. I remember you from back in the day at AO although Enid was my reg, you were the legend.
I would like to take this moment and say to Mr. Rinder and family, Leah, all the bloggers here (some who are a hoot and crack me up daily, you know who you are) and especially ex-SO/staff that suffered under the cult regime – have a happy, healthy, fun loving Thanksgiving!
Madge Filpot says
Hi Michael. Judi here from the Toronto Org back in, probably 1970. I have always had a very warm spot in my heart for you Michael. I was Div 6 and you would come to the Toronto org to reg wouldn’t you? Or were you on staff in Toronto then? Details of those years, dates and such are fuzzy for me. You were kind, fun and up lifting. I hope you are well and thriving in all ways. xox J
Spike says
Hi Judi, you were the queen of new person intake! Karen from Toronto org here, 1973-74. 🙂
john warnes says
Mike….When I was CO CMO PAC you had me on stage in front of hundreds of staff and had me place my hands over two cards and somehow made them switch when I lifted my hands up….more memorable than being declared clear or…..being declared.
M8 says
”Seems like all the SP’s of the world found scientology.”
This is remarkable! Maybe scientology wasn’t created for the able as much as it was created for the sinister.
Now that they are concentrated, the world can literally watch hell boil over..??
Haha
Aside, I was able to tell my bro nicely that the church is going down. Tone 40 style? Not so much intentioned. More like heart felt, with no mixed emotions. That the justice system is burnt toast. That he can build a better bridge, etc and I wouldn’t put it past him.
Note, my bro is an ex spaceship captain. Sane a.f. , competent like crazy, yet seemingly bored on this planet, high hopes for ot rehabilitation. So I’m wondering what he does to handle all the sp’s around him.
The days of extremes are over.
KatherineINCali says
M8 —
I’m sure Hubbard created $cientology for the “able”. Don’t even get me started on how arrogant and shameful it is to only want to service the “able”. Apparently, he was convinced of his own superiority and didn’t want to have anything to do with people he considered less than “able”. So disgusting.
But it was certainly created by someone sinister — Hubbard, of course — rather than for the sinister.
M8 says
I hear you. Back in the day I was on staff, body routing/ passing out tickets for something or another. There was a homeless lady standing around next to me on the sidewalk, and she held the ticket with some confusion. Yet there was a glimmer of hope in her eye and it stayed with me. This homeless person wanted to be part of something, wanted to have a role, or wanted in the club – something like this. But I had no instructions on how to body route a homeless person. Here was a really awesome person, with real life in her eyes, genuine care, yet she was obviously lacking in any form of material wealth and might’ve been overjoyed with a shower. I soon quit staff.
Later on, when I went through my own homeless stint, I learned of the full disconnect between the have and have -nots.
A major social ill it seems.
Social strata blah blah, all that can melt in a big fondue pot for all I care. Able, disable, rich, poor, sane, insane, mundane vs elite will become simply unique individuals that we are blessed to have with us.
That the church is full of his nightmare- sp’s – is demonstration of his own doctrine: you get what you resist.
secretfornow says
I believed it. I believed we had to help the able, in order to become strong fast, and then we could go and pick up the less and less able. We were being smart. We needed the able so that we could end up helping everybody.
I knew this in my bones, it was true like air was true.
I believed in the goodness and rightness of upstats, reaching with money, and helping the able …
it was like, …not helping the drowning man beside me, but swimming for the boat, so that I could bring it to help all the drowning people.
Sheila M Huber says
You said that beautifully. That’s how I felt, too.
I Yawnalot says
Wow Michael! That’s the most remarkable piece of “source” (ie been there done that) I’ve read on the subject of Scientology’s management of income. It’s mind blowing and will take a little time to digest it all. I too know of the 1991 amnesty and saw many take it, I even encouraged some to take it. It’s amazing how foolish one can be in the guise of hope. I use ‘guise’ here because in the background, you always suspected something was very wrong but went with the flow anyway. Well… until enough is enough manifested either by being thrown out or walking out – fuck Scientology is a bitch of a thing!
Many thanks for your narrative of what is, the murky world of Scientology. Best of luck to you.
Rodger Scoular says
As a previous commenter said, the language in this post could only be understood by a person in or previously in Scientology. It put me off so much that I quit reading. It would help me, as one who has never been in the cult to have them written so as to be understood by us. Thanks
I Yawnalot says
It’s a different thing to try to explain without using Scientology lingo and experiences, as a lot of it is the experience of being in that environment, being forced to use the policy & tech of Scientology. It takes sometime to get the flow of that stuff, most, if not all staff just become robots with it, it’s cleverly designed that way. It leads to both suffering from and helping to create the consequences of it at the same time. If it could be translated easily to understandable terms the jails would be full of Scientology management. I wish it could be easier for you but I suppose an analogy would be in trying to understand what operators in business/legal law do to involve and protect themselves within politics.
Leah & Mike’s Aftermath series is trying to do exactly what you ask. It’s been a tough call getting Scientology’s abuses across and the reason for them understood by the public. It’s working though.
Thanks for trying to understand and good luck to you.
CGarrison says
Yawn – first and foremost happy holidays !! Having been captured in a different cult, they had their own language as well. To add a bit to your analysis- it seems that this different, cryptic language acts as an us vs. them barrier. Analogy in my mind is young teens or college age kids come up with clever acronyms, sayings,etc. It creates a feeling of insular oneness, total hipness, we have something ‘they’ don’t. Oh man, I just showed my age with…hipness, ugh. Peace, love, dove, right on, groovy and far out. Ha.
I Yawnalot says
Happy holidays to you too. It sure seems the older we get the more languages we pick up or observe others using. Ever tried to understand two navy guys having a chat or a couple of young teenagers?
Elizabeth says
I agree Rodger Scoular. It put me off too because I am a never in. I would like it translated to understand the post.
Sue K says
Agree. I was thinking it would be inappropriate to say “I don’t understand a flippin’ word” but now I am saying it. HUH?
#1 Son says
It’s important to understand that this specialized lexicon was necessary for Hubbard to spin his scam. As we were drawn further into the cult, we gained a sense of belonging when we mastered the jargon and acronyms. When you were new to the cult, you felt somewhat stupid or uninformed when you didn’t understand what was being discussed. It served to create a “mystery sandwich” (another one of those unique SCN terms). That mystery was enticing. We wanted what they had. We wanted to belong. And so we were sucked in.
After being in for a while that lexicon gave us power over the “wogs” (aka non-scientologists). We were superior and elevated. I could use it with my siblings in Jr. High and talk right over someone’s head.
It also served to identify us to each other. The guy who came to my high school to promote taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test used certain words that identified him to me as a Scientologist. When I spoke to him after the presentation, he confirmed what I had observed.
Don’t let the lexicon hang you up…it’s not worth knowing. Those who’ve posted about dropping the lingo have a good point…it’s best for us to let it go. It used to piss me off when my Dad would revert to SCN lingo, especially in an argument he was losing, long after we’d left the cult.
secretfornow says
For Never-Ins, finding out the truth of the lies of Hubbard, the true story of what happened to our friends, our past opinion leaders, the old execs, and so on – could be “interesting” or “enlightening”, or a mere curiosity.
For Scios and Ex-Scios, it’s a whole different level of impact. It’s liberating to hear the stories, it resolves mysteries, it’s truth, it’s a relief of hearing from old friends and cohorts or idols.
The REAL exact tale can only be fully “duplicated” (understood) told in the jargon.
His main audiences are the Ex’s and Ins.
If you were never in, you never wondered what happened to him, never heard the rumors, never suffered a loss of him or had a side. It’s going to be interesting but not life altering.
(if this wording is off putting, sorry, I’m still learning how to talk human)
Sheila M Huber says
It’s just fine. You express yourself very well, actually, and made some excellent points.
Michael Silverman says
Hi. Better late then never! I saw your post and wrote a lengthy sheet of definitions for ALL the words and abbreviations that I used in my letter so it can be understood by any who are patient enough to refer to the definition sheet. Sorry for the confusions.
Michael
Harpoona Frittata says
So, Michael, as a former devoted member of the cherch and a very effective instrument of $cn’s evil, now that you’re fully aware of just how much harm you were instrumental in enabling, let me ask you this: What exactly have you done since you awakened to your own culpability in the furtherance of that true evil to make up for the major role that you played in it? Anything at all, besides just saying the right words now? If so, it’s not at all apparent from your account here.
This very detailed mini-memoir of your long affiliation with the cult is very long on personal vindication and grievance airing against the “bad” $ea Org staff who treated you unjustly, and it’s very short on taking personal responsibility for the results of your actions which, no matter how you justify them relative to others “unethical” behavior, had exactly the same evil effect as theirs.
Indeed, by your own account, you were a prize specimen of cult connivance — the kinder, gentler face of a truly ugly and sociopathic enterprise. More than words are required to redeem yourself here, imo. Perhaps you’ve actually done something tangible to atone for your major role in perpetrating the very long-running con of $cn that I’m not aware of, nor is in evidence in your piece here. If that’s so, then you should lead with that. Otherwise you just come across as someone who had no scruples about conning folks out of millions until the evil of this thoroughly sociopathic organization was finally turned on you. Kind of like Marty Rathbun, in fact.
Tough words to hear, I’m sure, but nowhere near as tough of an effect to bear than that caused by your direct actions in continuing to front for a depraved, criminal and totally evil cult whose despicable actions you bore direct witness to at the times of their occurrence, yet continued to further despite that growing awareness, resulting in hundreds more being conned out of millions!
In your long tenure as a cult bloodsucker, exactly how much did you earn in cult commissions for fronting for this criminal fraud syndicate and how much of that total have you tried to return to those that you were instrumental in the cherch defrauding? How much of it have you contributed to others’ efforts to right the many other wrongs the cherch perpetrated against its own members?
That’s the huge missing piece from your mini-memoir that’s glaringly absent here!
marildi says
Harpoona Frittata: “What exactly have you done since you awakened to your own culpability in the furtherance of that true evil to make up for the major role that you played in it?”
My answer would be that Michael pointed out, for those who are able to grasp it, the following wisdom and attitude to take, with regard to their experience:
“We all made the mistake of seeing outnesses, I mean really obvious wrong things and overlooking them.”
Tierney Clark says
Doesn’t sound to me like Harpoona Frittata is very far “out”. Sounds more like a little baiting if you ask me
Harpoona Frittata says
Words are easy, actions are what counts.
KatherineINCali says
Hey marildi–
I think Harpoona just wants to know if Michael has done anything to make amends to anyone, aside from saying what he did in his story.
I agree with Harpoona that if he hasn’t, he should try his best to make amends personally with people who are now out of the CO$ who he took a ton of money from. That’s not a bad thing — it’s a very noble thing.
Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand how ex-Sci’s fell into the cult’s sneaky trap but continued to make excuses and/or justifications for everything they saw that was wrong or flat out criminal.
marildi says
Hey Katherine,
I hear you. But I still believe Michael gave some extremely wise advice – more valuable than material wealth could ever be.
And Mike Rinder’s input couldn’t have been better, where he wrote:
“You don’t have a right to demand, let alone expect, anything from anyone before you have walked in their shoes.”
Happy thanksgiving to you and everybody. 🙂
Harpoona Frittata says
That’s exactly what I’m inquiring about. I had never heard of the guy before, so I had no other background info to draw on than what he’s told us here, until I heard from some folks who he’d worked his “magic” on in the past.
He told us half a story; I want to hear the other half. Everyone knows what folks like him did in the cult, he’s literally the sleight-of-hand guy who made your home equity and kids college fund disappear…LOTS of home equities and college funds.
Through straight up criminal fraud; setting spouses against each other; going after the inheritance when the grand parents die, and about a hundred other slime weasel moves, these vulture reges engaged in some of the most destructive behavior that parishioners were ever subjected to! These are much worse crimes than your basic white collar crime, like simple Ponsi schemes. Lives are destroyed, families are torn apart…then they really go after you until you’ve literally got nothing left.
Let them off with a few quick sorries and no real full, direct and straight forward accounting of their crimes and serious wrongdoing? Oh, hell no! How can anyone even imagine that’s a good idea!?
Mike Rinder says
Let them off with a few quick sorries and no real full, direct and straight forward accounting of their crimes and serious wrongdoing? Oh, hell no! How can anyone even imagine that’s a good idea!?
Oh, you are judge, jury and executioner? Who appointed you to the role of arbiter of such things?
Harpoona Frittata says
Look, KatherineINCali caught my meaning right off, it’s just not that difficult of a position to understand, is it?
You already asked who has a right to judge and I already told you who did. I can’t make it any more clear than that here.
Besides, the fact that I’m asking for more info means that I’m still asking and not in the concluding mode. Let him speak up if he’s going to; if he doesn’t, then that says something too.
Sheila M Huber says
Harpoona, you are generalizing and making assumptions and you are just wrong. You did not know Michael Silverman. You did not see him there after hours comforting an upset staff member like I have seen. You did not see him go to battle with the Flag reges over and over when David Light or someone similar would cash out every last nickel a person owned with vague promises or take huge donations from an illegal pc with lies that the person would get services. You did not see Michael upset with the Bookstore Officer for telling someone they had extra money on account and spending the person’s money on books when Michael had set aside the person’s OT levels at old rates. You did not see the pure love Michael had for his wife in his eyes, or overhear private conversations when he comforted someone who lost a loved one with tears in his eyes and then lied to the C/O and told him it was a reg cycle. I saw all of these kinds of things, for years. I was a cashier, a Dir Income, a Letter Reg, even the Exec Esto AOLA. I spent years every day working around this man. Michael Silverman is and was a decent human being. Your words are mean and inappropriate. AOLA was not like Flag. All people can’t be painted with one paintbrush, either.
I’m not saying Michael never did anything wrong, or that I never did. Far from it. But who are you to judge? You weren’t there.
Harpoona Frittata says
Sure, I’m completely open to hearing the whole story here and have said about five times now that I’m asking, not concluding.
Let me ask you, since Michael doesn’t seem to want to tell the other side of the story here: Is it reasonable to expect folks who’ve done great harm to do more than say just words in order to make up for it? If Bernie Madoff skipped in and said he was really sorry for what he’d done in scamming your family out of their savings, would that be sufficient? Oh, hell no, of course not. Top-earning $ea Org reges were required to do way worse than he did, even if his take was bigger.
I certainly believe it is. Words are just too easy, actions are the true mark of folks who know they’ve done wrong, feel remorse for it and understand that they need to make up for what they’ve done.
It’s not so much what I need him to do as it is what everyone who has done serious harm to others needs to take on in order to get right with themselves, by doing the best they can to make up for what they’ve done which “sorry” does nothing to correct.
Look at Marty, as a very good example there. Giving him a pass on coming clean and making full amends might have seemed kind and forgiving, but it really did him no good at all, did it? You know what? I never trusted the dude, because he never seemed in touch with, or truly remorseful about, all the truly evil shit he did in his long cult career as lil davey’s head thug.
So, I don’t need to rub that in certain folks faces around here, but it is an excellent case in point to illustrate why what I’ve asked Michael about are very important things to know.
I was non-$ea Borg staff many years ago, so I’m definitely NOT holding myself apart as someone who doesn’t have my own share of responsibility in furthering the true evil which is $cn. I definitely do and there’s nothing at all wrong with asking me, or any other ex-$cilon for that matter, the exact same questions that I’m asking him here.
Facing up to what you’ve done which has seriously harmed others, then making it right in whatever ways that you’re able, can end up being your life’s work, especially if you’ve done a whole lot of harm to a whole lot of people over many years.
Folks like Mike, Marty, Michael S. DID do a whole lot of harm during their cult careers, there’s just no two ways about that one. So, they’re either up to taking responsibility for it and feel the deep need to make amends for it or they don’t. If they don’t, then I’d say they’re still in the cult mind set, even if they’re no longer in the cherch.
I don’t need to judge them, they’re just never going to be someone I trust until they do what everyone else who’s done the kind of unconscionable and indefensible things that they have own it completely and try to make things right, to the best of their ability and in whatever way they’re able. Because you’re not doing them a bit of good by acting like “sorry” makes it all good…it doesn’t!
When you don’t hold folks responsible for the serious transgressions they’ve committed, and just let them off with some cliched false equivalence slogan (“We all did wrong”), then you end up with someone like Marty, who never came clean and failed in the end to make it right, which destroyed him.
It’s very interesting to watch someone like Mike, who’s very obviously feeling all the pain and remorse for everything that he did, and facing it straight on before an entire viewing audience, to not get the incredibly simple point that I’m making here, when he’s got it already on a much deeper level than words.
Both Leah and Mike come across as very sincere individuals who are driven, in part, to do what they’re now doing as a result of not doing what they know now with complete certainty that they should have in reflecting on the past.
That’s the only way back to becoming an actual caring and compassionate human , if you were once a true believer Ronbot for any extended period of time, imo. I wish the road back was easier for those who’ve been the long and willing tools of pure evil, but it’s just not.
To fail to understand this is a very large mistake…just look at Marty if you remain unconvinced, it’s not at all difficult to see.
Sheila M Huber says
Harpoona, thank you for your explanation. Of course you make some very good points, and I will do my best to address them.
As I have been one of Marty Rathbun’s most consistent and adamant public critics and one who knew him personally when he first joined the Sea Org, I can tell you one thing about Mark Rathbun: he was always a big jerk on an ego and power trip, your typical high school jock and bully. He wasn’t made into a self-centered a&%&e, he started out as one (though he may have become a far bigger one after Scn). Unfortunately, Scientology attracted its share of power-hungry narcissists and sociopaths who saw an opportunity to take advantage of the idealistic, nice people who also joined. DM himself was described as a narcissistic, abusive jerk by those who knew him as a young teen, as I’m sure you know.
You can’t change or improve a psychopath, you can only contain them or cut them off. We can’t detect the majority of schizophrenics, either, because they lie so incredibly well and believe their own lies. So no matter how much others try to get them to take responsibility, those people will still be sick, destructive individuals, mouthing the words they think others want but simply continuing with their abuse, manipulations and delusions.
In the end, the only way to judge others is by what you or others have personally observed or experienced.
I’ve also consistently supported Mike Rinder as not being the least bit like Marty. He isn’t. Neither is Michael Silverman, and I knew Michael very well in the SO.
Harpoona, it’s not a good idea to greet someone who has barely come public and spent most of his life in an abusive cult by asking, “What are your crimes?” That is the last thing any of us want to hear. We were accused and felt guilty and horrible for every little infraction for years.Michael may or may not feel safe to make public statements like that yet. I’ll let him speak for himself, but please don’t make the mistake of thinking he is anything like Marty the a&*ê.
Speaking of guilt, I am reminded of a time Michael Silverman came to see me as Exec Esto, upset and concerned about something. He never felt comfortable to tell me what it was, though, so left my office. I feel terrible about that. I had been too much of a Ronbot for him to feel safe, and he wouldn’t have come there if it wasn’t something grievously wrong and important. A crime could have been prevented, an innocent person helped who was unjustly punished, maybe he even wanted to leave staff or talk about something personal… but he felt unsafe to tell me. Afraid I would report him or something and maybe I would have, because I could be a Ronbot a^^&*e too back then. I’m sorry, Michael.
We should be making exes feel safe when they come forward, Harpoona. I doubt Michael Silverman wants to lead an ex group or anything like that, but there is pain and there is healing and nobody has ever improved by being bashed over the head by someone telling them they’re a bad person. We each do the best we can, but healing takes time and it’s different for every person, too.
Harpoona Frittata says
Sheila, thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response. I seemed to have touched on a sore spot for quite a few ex-SO folks who knew Michael S. back in the day and remember him with fondness. That wasn’t my intent and I should have used less inflammatory language to convey what ends up being a very simple concept to understand.
This is a very “charged” area for many and it’s never a bad idea to tread lightly and carefully in approaching topics such as this one. My continuing efforts to respond fully to everyone who took me to task will, I hope, demonstrate my commitment to clarifying my meaning and conveying it in a way that will serve the purpose that I intended. Unlike $cn, I can change it up on the fly and alter my viewpoint on subjects like this one, given additional information and feedback from those that my initial impression of was not so wunnerful.
That’s why I asked him what I did, in order to gauge whether or not what I was picking up from piece was accurate.
Before saying more about that, let me interject a minor, but important point of correction. You stated that, “We can’t detect the majority of schizophrenics, either, because they lie so incredibly well and believe their own lies.” I’m pretty sure that you meant to say “sociopaths,” not “schizophrenics” there. Schizophrenia is a neuro-developmental brain disorder with a large genetic component which has almost no overlap with the symptomology characterizing sociopathy.
***********************************************************
I re-read Michael S’s piece after taking on board the criticism that I received from more than a couple ex-$O folks here to see if I just failed to pick up on his underlying remorse and contrition for what he’d done in regging “…many 10s of millions of dollars.” But upon doing so, I could detect none; instead, it came across to me as even more self-serving and clueless about the damage that he’d been instrumental in creating.
He ends on the now-obligatory note, “Kids, don’t do $cn, it’s a bad, bad thing,” which is a good thing, but try reading it without that brief ending and you tell me if it’s not all about bragging, self-vindication, grievance airing, being butt hurt about being treated unjustly by an organization which does nothing but treat people unjustly, and the like.
There’s literally no mention of his own direct culpability in being the front man for a killer con which destroyed the financial solvency of many, many individuals who were charmed by him. It’s literally the other half of the story, which he left completely untold — the most important part of it to the cult’s victims — and, quite curiously, very few of his fellow ex-SO members from that evil era, who were with him at the epi-center of that evil here on the Left Coast during those times, picked up on it at all.
In sharp contrast, pretty much everyone who was not an “ex-SO co-conspirator” in furthering the criminal fraud that $cn was and continues to be, saw the simple point that I was trying to make in my typical TL;DR writing style.
I tried to sum it up in the question that I posed to you in my previous response: “Is it reasonable to expect folks who’ve done great harm to do more than say just words in order to make up for it?”
I think it is, without doubt. Not because I have any felt need to castigate them for their actions, or sit in judgement on them in order to feel superior. but instead for the reasons that I tried my best to explicate in my previous response to you and to each of the others who took offense at the, umm, rather direct way I put it to Michael himself.
It’s a much deeper subject, which much better writers, historians and cult experts have gone into in detail. So, I’ll leave it there and continue to wait to hear the other half of Michael’s story. It’s the only one that the cult’s thousands of fraud victims are really interested in hearing, and to not lead with it seems to me to directly convey the writer’s continuing cluelessness and lack of conscience concerning the evil that he’s had a very direct and even masterful hand in implementing.
marildi says
Harpoona Frittata: “My continuing efforts to respond fully to everyone who took me to task will, I hope, demonstrate my commitment to clarifying my meaning and conveying it in a way that will serve the purpose that I intended.”
Well, you still haven’t responded to my comment – written last night. I repeated the question another poster had asked you, which was: What have you yourself done by way of amends? You evaded the question by saying the posts where you described what was done can be found in various blogs – all of which have thousands of comments or more.
I also noted in my comment that although you had said you were not going to continue to hound Michael about it, you then continued to do so for several more paragraphs – and you’re still doing it. You can see the rest of my comment here: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/michael-silverman/#comment-201342
Lastly, in your comment above, you posed this question: “Is it reasonable to expect folks who’ve done great harm to do more than say just words in order to make up for it?” And you added: “I think it is, without doubt.”
In my view, that’s too absolutist. It may be part of YOUR belief system that “actions speak louder than words” in all cases, but realize that’s not a universal belief – and it’s not an absolute. You may also believe that you and others have the right to be the judge of whether or not a particular person needs to do amends and what the proper amends would be in your book – not to mention, you want to do it in the court of public opinion, where it’s highly unlikely to be a fair “trial.”
In my book, H.F., Michael Silverman, like anyone else, has the right to decide for himself what he does or doesn’t need to do. For all you know, he did far more good than harm, especially under the circumstance, and basically did his best. If that’s the case, maybe you’re the one who needs to take stock of your condemnatory attitude.
jewel says
Re: the Silverman thread:
Thinking that Mike Silverman or any other S.O. or Class 5 org staff needs to do something for pushing Scientology agenda or ‘harming’ people may be naive as I can’t think of what any of them could do to change the past, in actuality. I think what Silverman is saying is that he got hit and was scape-goated for stuff he didn’t do. He is also broadly speaking of what many staffers did to give the illusion that the stats were up and things were well so as duck the wrath if your stats were down. I don’t believe that any of these folks need to list their overts in public. All they can do is give an apology, but remember that the most dedicated people and biggest players were originally there to create a big effect and help people go toward freedom. Yes, it all got twisted, and anyone who got personally screwed and had no recourse (which you really don’t as a public or staff) is going to feel angry and betrayed. I, for one, had very positive dealings with Mike S as I was a staffer and I felt that he was one of the few OTs (very few back then) who seemed like he had some real power. I remember have telepathic conversations with him, which was something I couldn’t not do with general staff or even a few other OTs. I don’t know what harm he did one way or another but he was, at that time, an impressive being.
Re: Marty. I started reading his blog ten years ago, and I think he has done a lot, and not just in words, to take responsibility in several ways. One, just putting up his blog was bold. He and his wife have suffered continual and unbelievable harassment from the church because he finally started speaking out in response to it. He attempted suing, he and Mike got Sweeny on t.v. and put the guy on an emeter. He tried to not to throw the baby (all the tech) out with the bathwater (the church under DM), and I know he has audited people who wanted it for free or very little. Silverman did make a point, and that is that all people who got into and stayed in Scientology probably witnessed or committed things that weren’t quite right in order to continue up the bridge with as little hassle as possible. At some point, staying in itself becomes an overt and the responsible thing to do is to leave.
Giving praise to Leah for starting a t.v. show about the evilness of the Church and holding her up as the ultimate in taking responsibility and showing remorse, is a little over the top. It may seem to many as a wonderful, brave , and responsible thing to do, as she seems to be sincere and caring. I don’t know her personally, so I can’t honestly attest to how much of it is caring and compassion toward others and how much of it is simply unleashed anger at the church and herself for supporting and being a part of it all those years. I was in since ’73 and I am trained and I did ot levels, and as much as I hate the church as an organization, I can’t pretend that the training and auditing I got was ‘bullshit’. She says often its all lies and all bullshit. I feel that this is a strange way to ‘take responsibility’. I mean, if I thought it was all bullshit then I would have left after a few auditing sessions. If I say I was brainwashed, then that makes me a victim, and alleviates me of all responsibility. Remember, she gave a million dollar donation. Why? To be OT and say you got nothing out of it is unreal to me, and I want to know why she kept up with her auditing if she was in doubt?
If you are on staff and you are untrained on the tech, and you just follow orders then I get the ‘brainwashing’ bit, because you are simply accepting unexamined information. However, she doesn’t strike me as someone who would pretend to say she liked the auditing if she didn’t. So, in essence, I’m not convinced of her compassion or responsibility or the lack of it. I simply don’t know and can’t assume. I don’t blame her however. She is an actor, she is funny, and she has created a brilliant way to get back at the church and make bucks! I do see it as a personal revenge in which she has offered others to join to give testimony and authenticity. I absolutely believe that the people on the show went through hell. Just remember that many people who are fighting, or have tried to fight against the church independently (like the Garcia’s and like Marty and wife did ) didn’t have the celebrity contacts or the money to go big. I do watch the show, but I have to say that I personally can not advocate throwing all of Scientology tech out in the way she does. Not everything quoted on the show is entirely accurate, but unless you know your tech and policy, it won’t stand out. She is, unfortunately, using the same cherry picking techniques that the church uses when attacking an enemy. Anyway, having a show doesn’t necessarily mean that she is taking more responsibility than other exScientologist, she is just doing it in a way that is in her blood, so to speak, and which ultimately serves her purpose.
I did like the way Mike and Marty had Sweeny on t.v. and showed him the emeter. At that time, they were attempting to divorce the current Church of Scientology under DM from the LRH bridge. Sweeny probably couldn’t give a rats ass, but, I think that the intention to differentiate between what does and doesn’t work in Scientology was commendable. Now, the agenda is all of Scientology is bullshit and mind control ; past, present, and therefore future.
marildi says
Jewel: “I do watch the show [Aftermath], but I have to say that I personally cannot advocate throwing all of Scientology tech out in the way she does. Not everything quoted on the show is entirely accurate, but unless you know your tech and policy, it won’t stand out. She is, unfortunately, using the same cherry picking techniques that the church uses when attacking an enemy. Anyway, having a show doesn’t necessarily mean that she is taking more responsibility than other exScientologists, she is just doing it in a way that is in her blood, so to speak, and which ultimately serves her purpose.”
Well said, Jewel. These are my observations, too.
Your other comments, about Mike Silverman and Marty, etc., were also level-headed and a breath of fresh air.
And I give Mike R. credit for allowing your views to be posted.
Spike says
Jewel and Marildi – I resonate with this.
Ms.P says
Harpoona – wow – that’s a biting comment. Anyway, someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think regges in the SO collect commissions. If they do, what’s the percentage? just curious.
Harpoona Frittata says
Let’s let Michael respond here, if he’s willing to.
You can’t have been a long-time, top-earning bloodsucker for the cult like Michael was without becoming acutely aware of the very destructive consequences of defrauding folks of every last cent you can squeeze out of them.
Let’s hear him tell us some of those stories instead of trying to paint himself as the victim of the “bad” Sea Org personnel who were all around him. This is an ex-clam with the dirtiest of hands whose mini-memoir almost makes it sound like he was the good guy!
Mike Rinder says
That’s a little over-the-top. There isn’t anyone who was involved in scientology that has not done things that are against their nature. He is here, posting with his own name, in full public view, trying to warn people not to get involved in scientology and to escape if you have already fallen into it.
You don’t have a right to demand, let alone expect, anything from anyone before you have walked in their shoes.
Take it easy…
nomnom says
+1000 for Mike, a voice of reason.
jewel says
Ditto. Anyone who set foot in a church and was a full time student or a staff member has some level of responsibility for pushing the agenda of Scientology, for better or worse. If you were simply a student in training and had no idea of the darkness within the church, you still don’t get to blame. Everyone was initially there to go free, but duress for non-agreement or non-compliance is real, and the game becomes one of personal survival. It’s sad that people can become the effect of bad reg cycles, broken promises, and overwhelm in the name of ‘helping’. If one experienced these things and still continued to attend courses,auditing, or staff, and didn’t protest or simply leave, then don’t make someone else your executioner. If you are truly innocent (sea org kids!!) and simply believed in the aims of the church and your freedom, but didn’t get what you paid for then you got screwed. Pointing fingers is rarely, if ever, a healing process.
Michael Silverman says
Harpoona Frittata:
You make a valid point in , “Is it reasonable to expect folks who’ve done great harm to do more than say just words in order to make up for it?”
That is and was the point you were making throughout all the posts and the back and forth responses.
You should have expected that perhaps this did not apply to me especially since you had so much disagreement from the other posters – suggesting that you got something wrong here. But, I do get your viewpoint.
The unethical registration and assorted evil activities of which you refer to were done. The error you made is lumping those actions into all registration throughout Scientology’s existence.
The shit hit the fan with the advent of David Miscavage. (during the late ’80s, after Hubbard’s death.) His first actions were to rid himself of any dissenters and he systematically removed virtually all of the execs and anyone else perceived by him to be a potential threat to his command or competitive, popularity wise with himself. Once he accomplished this – by 1990, he then went on his psychotic rampage of changing the good, re-enforcing the bad, rewarding the bad and making the current garbage and evil cult that we are all witness to. This is not to say that things were priorly good. Not at all, but they were negative-wise, nothing compared to what DM generated when he took over.
I was never part of the madness in registration that you refer to. Your outrage is totally justified. It is and was thoroughly disgusting and evil. I assure you I had no part in such activity. I battled against it in the last years of my tenure and corrected some of it. I became the bad guy since I stood for at least what was written as how to do things.
My disagreements were noted by management and I was attacked regularly on whatever post I held. RPFd twice and declared once before I was eventually thrown out.That did not stop me and eventually the only way to stop me was to throw me out with whatever accusations could be levied. None had to be proven just asserted, and that is exactly how I came to be exSO. Lucky me!!
The fact that I generated 10s of millions for Scn is more a testimonial to my sales skills than to how others got the $ for Scn. Of the $300,000 that I regged in the fall of 1976, almost all of it was generated by the public calling me to pay before the 1st price increase. I sat there and it poured in. To me particularly, because I was so well known by the public.
One of the mission holders, who prior to me doing an event at their mission, had never even allowed anyone from Scn. management or any speakers or registrars to enter their facilities, called me and sent me by courier, a check for $50,000 for their staff’s OT levels. That was how it was.
I went to a mission in Phoenix which was facilitated by Carol Woodruff (Craig), gave a lecture, and afterwards regged one of their public for $10,000 and gave the money to the mission for services there. It was more than they ever regged in a single week. That was how I operated.
The above is not for bragging but to give you some idea of who I am.
Sorry for the delay in responding. I submitted my post to Mike Rinder months earlier, but due to the TV series, he explained it would be some time till he could get to it. And so it was. When he did post it, I was away (20 Nov to 30 Nov) and only discovered it had been posted because of an e-mail that he had sent to me while I was away and only saw on my return. Hence the response on 2 Dec.
I hope this clarifies things.
Sincerely,
Michael Silverman
p.s. Sorry to the never-ins for all the Scientologese. I was unaware that anyone on this site was not ex Scn. I would like to reword my effort but it was lengthy, the thought of re-writing fatigues me. Perhaps in the near future I’ll do a word definition sheet to which you can refer.
Cindy says
Michael, I liked you and your flamboyant ways. I remember being called in along with others to the PAC Lebanan Hall. You were the guest speaker there telling people to get money for their bridges to ask their elderly relatives such as grand parents to put a second mortgage on their paid for homes so the Scn could get the cash from it to put on the Bridge. Of course, you told them they had to pay it back. But I wonder how many actually ever did pay back that money? Any money I ever lent a Scn was never paid back.
Harpoona Frittata says
“There isn’t anyone who was involved in scientology that has not done things that are against their nature.”
True enough, you and I have publicly owned up to our parts in all that and have sought to make up for it, as best we could and when we were able. I’m simply asking Michael S. if he has done the same, because, if he has, it’s not at all apparent from his blog article and I don’t know his background other than what he just wrote here which struck me as pretty self-serving.
“You don’t have a right to demand, let alone expect, anything from anyone before you have walked in their shoes.”
Or, until you’ve been wronged by them yourself, or know close personal friends or family members who’ve been wronged by him…I’d say those folks have every right to speak their piece and find out where he’s coming from, wouldn’t you?
Let the guy speak for himself, in response to my polite but pointed inquiries, if he wants to. If he doesn’t, that’s fine too.
Cece says
Harpoona, Mike is my dear friend of 40 years. He left in early 90s. The crap you are talking about started up about then and first at FSO and IAS. I never saw Mike do those things nor do I know of his ‘clients’ going bankrup.
Each person that leaves has his own onion to peal in his own time. Mikes post was not self serving. It’s his reality. He was saying to his friends what he went through. It’s therapeutic for him and us as it is.
Perhaps he will follow up with what he’s been doing (for his ‘amends’) but perhaps he considers that self serving.
At least he posts with his name and has told us about his past on staff.
Do you have your story posted somewhere with a link please?
jim says
Cece,
Thanks for your statement..
Harpoona Frittata says
Yes, I’ve recounted many different stories from my days as a $cilon, both here, in the UB and on other $cn-related forums. I was in the cult from the mid 70’s until right around 1980 in Northern California, beginning as a public person in Martin Samuels’ Co$ Mission of Davis at Sacramento, then on staff at the old Sac Org.
I can appreciate your perspective on both the times and the individual. You’ve got a much deeper well of experience with him with which to give meaning to his piece. I don’t. This is the first time that I’ve heard his story, so it’s the only source of information that I had to draw on — which is exactly why I asked him those straight forward questions, in order to better frame my understanding.
I’m getting a lot of push back from folks who were also $ea Org members, but a number of folks who were never in seem to grasp my very simple point with ease. I’ll see if I can boil it down even further here and say it in another way: Words don’t make up for actions, only tangible acts of atonement, restitution and amends do that, especially when real and serious harm has been done.
Am I the one to judge what constitutes suitable amends or what signifies sincere remorse? No, only those who were harmed by another’s acts are in a position to grant that forgiveness and to determine if things have been made right.
Do I have a right to ask the questions that I have of someone like Michael? Of course I do, this isn’t fucking $cientology! Does he have to answer my questions? Of course not — again, we’re no longer in that horrible cult, so he’s completely free not to, and I’m certainly not going to hound him to do so.
If he doesn’t wish to come clean about his actions as a top-earning $ea Org blood sucker, in this forum or elsewhere, and has done little or nothing to make up for the very real harm that he’s done to families and individuals by being the con’s front man, then you’re completely free to give that the meaning that you think is most appropriate, exactly as I am.
I hope he is the dude you seem to think he is. I’ve just seen no evidence of that. He told half a story — the one which put him in the best light. I want to hear the whole story and I’m mistrustful of folks who try to diminish the part they played, while alluding to others as the “bad” $ea Ogres who treated him unjustly. The attempts at self-vindication at the expense of others and the carrying on about how unjustly he’d been treated is completely self-serving.
Look, we did Marty no favor at all in allowing him to rejoin us here in the land of normal, decent folks without coming completely clean and making full amends for his completely heinous, despicable and truly evil behavior. In fact, it destroyed him not to take full responsibility for the serious harm he caused.
I never trusted him for precisely those reasons and, although I don’t need to rub anyone’s face in it here, it’s painfully obvious that trusting him, before he’d done what he needed to do to make it right with those he’d harmed, was a huge mistake.
If that’s not the case here with Michael, then I’m sure he’ll be able to deal with a few pointed questions and tell us the full story and what he’s done to make things right. If not, then that tells me all I need to know as well.
marildi says
Harpoona Fritatta: “I’m getting a lot of push back from folks who were also $ea Org members, but a number of folks who were never in seem to grasp my very simple point with ease.”
The never-in’s can “grasp it” because they never experienced how it was – and apparently you didn’t either. We were all part of the same culture as the reg’s, and for the most part believed what was going on was all for the greatest good – including our own greatest good. That was how it was at least up to 1980, when I think you said you left.
The reg’s had their part to play in that culture, and people actually appreciated reg’s like Michael who wanted for them what they wanted for themselves. Others had their part to play too, including the public, and if they now want to place blame they should include themselves for going along with the groupthink. Those who didn’t go along with it aren’t the ones complaining, funny enough. Those who did go along but aren’t complaining are the ones who took responsibility – and some are even grateful for having learned the invaluable lesson to think for themselves.
More to the point, the reg’s were no less indoctrinated than anyone else. Yes, they had certain advantages, but the disadvantages were just as great. They could and did get hit hard, as Michael described.
It all sounds very righteous to demand that a person redeem himself and announce publically what was done in that regard. You say you’re “just asking,” but you do so in an accusative and judgmental way. Why would Michael even dignify such an approach? In any case, it’s between him and anyone who might feel they were wronged by him. You said that yourself in the above post, and that you weren’t going to hound him about it – then continued to do so for several more paragraphs afterwards, with even stronger insinuations of guilt.
I saw that you managed to get out of answering how you yourself made amends, by directing the poster to look on several forums, with countless posts each, to find the posts of yours on that specific subject – like looking for a needle in a haystack. Surely you can summarize it for us, or at least give a couple significant examples? Then we can decide whether or not to continue the public inquisition. 😉
Joe Pendleton says
While I hold people like Mithoff, Heber, Guillaume, Yager and others at the top as complete enablers of Miscavige (because they saw and they KNEW) and maybe in that sense even MORE responsible than the psycho himself … I confess to some affection for “my” long standing regges. Heck, people like Bill Bertinot regged me for YEARS unsuccessfully until I bought my ASHO package from him. Even finally bought some stuff from Kenny Shapiro and yes, made my final AO package deal with Mike Silverman. And I had love for Ruthie for thirty years … still do, so I guess it’s forty years now.
I think the best a former reg can do now is tell their story like Hy Levy did and like Mike S. has done here. I really don’t think he needs to do more than that.
jewel says
I agree Mike. Besides, back in the day, before the IAS, reges went for the throat on reg cycles because it was getting the person on and up the bridge. It was assumed that the person would benefit greatly from the auditing and training which, by the way, was (still is) the stated goals of pc’s. I think sometimes the person could benefit from someone lighting a fire under their ass to get the money they needed. The problem comes about when the pc goes against his or her own determinism and does something against their own will just because the reg had more intention for the cycle to happen than did the preclear. Rarely does one person make another do something that they are in complete disagreement with unless we are talking torture and abuse as an incentive!
#1 Son says
Thanks Mike, and thanks for giving Michael a place to share. I hope the readers don’t miss Michael’s point. There was much he did and much to which he turned a blind eye. I don’t think it is intended to be a “look at me and how bad I had it” – not what I read.
Michael’s story provides an opportunity for any still-in who is seeking and comes across his story to say “hey…that’s me too.” Even if his story helps one person escape…or plants the seed..any perceived required atonement is accomplished
Foolproof says
“Normal” Regges did receive commissions, don’t know if they still do. The IAS Regges certainly did as well, again I don’t know if they still do. I believe they were collecting 10% at one time until the big money started to roll in whereupon I read that the big commissions were cancelled, by Miscavige presumably. Big commissions I also heard were funneled back into the IAS as a (more or less enforced) “donation” from the receiving IAS Reg as well. For all I know they may still be collecting 10% and probably are, as IAS Regges were considered above all others (money for nothing, after all). Most other staff didn’t have a clue all this was going on and the Regges kept it quiet, certainly in my Org. Perhaps someone can update all this with what happens now?
A slightly different kettle of fish were the book sellers or rather those in the know about book sales commissions. Many regges, including Harvey at Flag, as well as the Book Store Officers, would often try to get public to transfer money paid for T+P (training and processing) or rather purchase books from this money, so that they could then personally get the book sale commission. This is/was a very shady business imo usually as the person didn’t know about the commission as well, although that was actually “booked” from the Org’s profit. It was done merely for the Reg to get the commission.
Shelley Jackson says
Regarding commissions. If a person has an FSM (not a a staff member) then the commission is paid to the FSM directly. If an FSM is directly responsible for getting the person to donate to the IAS, likewise, that person is paid 10% commission on the donation.
If no FSM is selected when a person pays for services or makes a donation, then the commission is paid to the Reg’s org and is put into the pot towards staff pay. The Sea Org can also get commission this way and very often, if a SO staff member is involved in any IAS fundraiser or Reg cycle, then his org (CLO or CMO) is awarded the commission. Strictly speaking, the payment of FSM commission to a higher org is off-policy according to the famous FSM #1 policy, but just try fighting that one (I did, and got nailed BIG TIME).
Individual book commissions for staff were cancelled when the Basics came out in 2007. This was a HUGE blow to staff and Regs as it was at least one way they could augment their meagre staff pay. When I queried this, I was told that there was no official LRH policy on the subject of book commissions, and that he’d only mentioned the 10% book commission in a telex decades ago – therefore, this was cancelled.
Wynski says
Foolproof. AGAIN you show that you don’t know anything about the internal operations of the CoS. S.O. regges didn’t make commissions from selling services. They could sell a million $ in auditing and not receive a single penny in commissions. Only El Con profited.
Lulu Belle says
I was an AOLA staff member and worked with Mike for many years.
Regarding regges getting commissions:
My memory is that there was an HCO PL regarding reg commissions. The concept was that there were a few reg commission systems the org could have, and that the staff were able to vote on which one was used. However, the reg commission system wasn’t mandatory, and most of the time, from what I remember, the org didn’t have one. Occasionally there would be a GI mission or something where it was part of their MOs (mission orders) to put one in, but they generally didn’t last very long. Management generally tended not to spend a dime on anything that benefited any staff that they didn’t absolutely have to.
Regges did make money but that was usually from selling bookstore items (books, course packs, tapes, meters, etc.).
I want to point out that for a good period of the time Mike was in AOLA he wasn’t actually a reg. He was the D/CO D&E for several years that he worked there. His job was to get arrivals. To some he was considered to be kind of an anti-reg. He would figure out what services people could get from existing money they had on account. There were various ways he would do that, but the bottom line is he helped a lot of people kind of get their money back and get old promises kept.
I think that he was eventually put back on as a tours reg. Kind of had to; he was the best tours reg that ever existed.
Anyway, it’s good to see him resurface. Mike was always a controversial figure, but he was definitely a unique character and pretty much anyone who worked with him for a long time had an enormous amount of affection for him.
Tierney Clark says
Harpoona Frittata: With all your long winded pontificating, what exactly do you expect him to “do”?
Harpoona Frittata says
S/g, not just say more words!
Tierney Clark says
And your contribution?
Harpoona Frittata says
You’re new here, right? Scan my past posts here and in the UB for your answer, it’s all there.
BFF says
Harpoona, my dear lady, your self entitled, quasi justifying Pseudo intellectual attempts to “hear the whole story” of Michael Silverman is at best pathetic and at worst a reflection of your own lack of intelligence, knowledge and ability to communicate correctly. I kindly request that you cease and desist with regards to all things Michael Silverman. He is a quintillions times more aware, empowered and intelligent than you are in current time. Until such time that you can match Michael’s capacités of manifesting his being, I recommend you work on your own problems and stop worrying about his wrongdoings and sins. He has done more for humanity and the people he has interacted with than almost anyone on the face of the planet. He is a truly remarkable and beautiful being. Until such time that you truly know him and understand him, reserve your pointed, judgemental comments which serve only to make you come across as the uniformed being you currently are.
Foolproof says
A good story Michael, I enjoyed reading it. Ignore the adverse comments, there will always be someone harping on about something or other. You did well for your Org(s) and maintained your integrity.
Eh=Eh says
“Ignore the adverse comments, there will always be someone harping on about something or other”
Spoken like a true pro!
Foolproof says
Haha! Touche! Moi?
WhatAreYourCrimes says
Well the good news he is out and not helping the evil cult anymore. As Shrek would say, “better out than in”.
nomnom says
Harpoona, Are you an ex or a never in? Your comment reflects a pround lack of understanding of the Scientology experience.
Harpoona Frittata says
Not too “pround,” I hope.
I’m an ex-$cilon who’s told most of my cult days tales here, in the UB and elsewhere. I’d say that, based on my direct experience in the cult and decades of cult study since then that I’ve got a very good understanding of most things cult-related, but I’ll leave that for you to judge.
Wynski says
Harpoona, based on what you accused Mike of doing you have a poor understanding.
Were you S.O. or NSO?
Harpoona Frittata says
How so? I’m pretty sure I know exactly the kinds of things that top-earning $ea Org reges were required to do in fronting for the con during that period. It’s no mystery is it?
Non-$ea Borg staff.
Wynski says
How so? HE didn’t do most of what you accused him of. THAT is how so. Fucking moron.
If you are going to accuse someone of specific actions BRING EVIDENCE. Or, take a dirt nap.
Harpoona Frittata says
W, of course you know that you’re completely welcome to ES, then SCOHB, right?
You’re a bully, a drive-by poster and a semi-literate person hiding behind a key board. I’d say that it’s way past time to wake up and get all the way out of the cult mindset, don’t you think?
Sandy says
Thank you Harpoona for so eloquently saying what I could not verbalize. As a never in I don’t feel it’s my place. But I had the same reaction. Actions speak louder than words.
Harpoona Frittata says
It’s just not that difficult of a concept to get, so all the pushback is pretty interesting.
I asked him two very straightforward questions which would tell me pretty much all I needed to know about him to understand where’s he’s coming from. Last I checked, we weren’t all still in $cn, so there’s no crime in asking out here in the real world.
So don’t ever let folks give you shit for seeking to learn more…that’s a straight-up cult carry-over move that a whole lot of exes slip back into like it was second nature, as if they didn’t even realize they were doing it.
webber517gdw says
Ahem ,Harpoona Frittata . I’m with you . Seems like a bunch of bragging to me .
Harpoona Frittata says
I’m always up for a reality check from others, in order to gauge my own response relative to others.
I just didn’t get anything from his piece but bragging, self-vindication, grievance airing, whining about being treated unjustly by a group that does nothing but that, and most importantly, no sense of guilt, remorse or determination to make things right to those who were harmed as a direct result of his con skills.
If that’s not how it is, I’m fine with altering my opinion. It just seemed to me exactly as it did to you, which prompted my pointed, but civil questions.
jere Lull (37 yrs recovering) says
Harpoona. that seems a bit harsh.
Michael at least owned up to his actions at the time. And confirmed there were abuses he observed even if he was unable to do much about them at the time. I expect he had some misgivings, but it seems that he did what he COULD do at the time, perhaps a bit more, and got punished for his efforts. The push for STATS was everything, and as he said, $$$$$$ was king stat for the org. Without the ever-increasing demands for $$$$$$ being met, staff didn’t get paid even the pittance due them each week, nor did they get even subsistence-level rations. Rice and beans is a pretty effective weight-loss diet.A little of that and even the lowest-ranked staff would start getting on his case, such was (and undoubtedly still is) the culture of Scientology orgs. Toxic?
Well, yeah!, but we ALL forgave so much insanity in our personal crusade to clear the planet. We had to, to keep even a little sanity. (or *were* we even a little bit sane? I sometime doubt it as I review those times. Certainly, we all did some crazy things to “get by”
Harpoona Frittata says
What all of those top-earning $ea Org reges were up to was way beyond a little harsh, I’d say.
Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s a good idea to give folks a pass on their past behavior, just because they said words, especially if they haven’t shown any sense of remorse, contrition or true understanding of the harm they’ve done, or tried to make up for it in a serious way.
Why isn’t it a good idea? One word: Marty!
I
Wynski says
“What all of those top-earning $ea Org reges were up to” What a fucking, uneducated generality. Harpoona, where were you when Mike was regging at AOLA?
n.b.- S.O. regges didn’t earn reg commissions.
Randomness says
The flag rep at our church definitely earned commission…certainly enough to buy a brand new car….
Mike Rinder says
Probably book commissions or IAS commissioins. Back in the day commissions for books did not go into the staff pay sum. They went directly to the reg.
Wynski says
Randomness, your FR did NOT earn any commissions for services sold.
Harpoona Frittata says
By “top-earning,” I meant, bringing in the most money for the cult, NOT that he made bank off of the marks. I asked him directly if he made commissions off the folks he regged, I didn’t conclude that he did.
Get your shit straight, Wynski, before you act the fool and run your mouth like that with me. You’re a bully and a drive-by poster who’s always got something vile to say from behind your keyboard.
CGarrison says
I second that motion Harpoona, If I remember correctly, a few months ago, Wynski bragged that he left Scientology before,’ he learned to drive.’ I have previously commented on the name calling and put downs that are a trademark with him. Sharing ideas, experiences or open debate need to be carried out in a mature, civilized manner. Disparaging remarks bring in a negative slant that can turn a helpful discourse into an ugly brawl.
Foolproof says
Ahem! Cough cough!
“saying” that, are Harpoon’s original remarks above not also somewhat near the edge of what you are talking about?
Wynski says
CGarrison. Really? Find that quote or admit you are an insane liar.
CGarrison says
The comment I refered to Wyn – was made by you on 9/25/2017. However, you did say old enough to drink rather than drive. My mistake. However, your disparaging parting shot just proves my point. Our country is currently teaching others that bullying is not to be tolerated, or haven’t you heard ?
Wynski says
CGarrison thanks for admitting that you are a liar.
CGarrison says
Wynski – You are a troubled human being. I hope you dare to open your heart up some day. It is a remarkable and much more peaceful place to be. Happy Holidays.
Wynski says
And CGarrison I hope you find what you are seeking so you stop lying about people.
Peace.
CGarrison says
Lying ? You have completely ignored the statement you made on 9/25. I think you are either a Scientology mole or a bored 15 year old. The couple of debates you engaged in here are not substantive and you have difficulty discerning the facts because of your own stubborn arrogance. Otherwise you just look for opportunities to shame and/or trash other posters. You sir, only attend this blog to spew invectives, belittle and mock others. This is not intelligent interaction but rather a hall mark of immaturity. Finally, I don’t believe you are an attorney. Any lawyer worth their salt would not have the time nor inclination to troll this site looking for victims. And that is a fact I know about. Go play online gaming with your teenage friends or grow up.
Wynski says
Harpoona, if you think Mike Silverman was even REMOTELY like a Rathbun/OSA Op type, you are sorely misinformed. I never saw or heard of Mike pitting spouses against each other or any type of malicious crap. He did no different than auditors at the time did. They pushed something they thought was real.
Harpoona Frittata says
Well, you wouldn’t have seen that, would you? Folks that end up bankrupted by the cult just fall away, they don’t stick around to announce their penury. No one comes in and says, “Holy fuck, my credit cards are tapped out, the kids college fund is gone and the equity in our home is gone,” do they?
It’s embarrassing as hell to be seen as a broke ass loser in $cn, so no one that I knew who was financially ruined by these blood suckers did anything but slink away in shame and humiliation.
Look, white collar criminals and flim-flam artists are incredibly smooth and personable, that’s how the con is worked best. Folks who are really good at it end up doing the most harm because they are very believable and friendly. But just because they don’t stick a gun in your face, doesn’t mean that you weren’t robbed.
Wynski says
No Harpoona I would have HEARD it. There was a little RE.D. (256?) that allowed me to hear it for ALL org reges.
Harpoona Frittata says
I don’t know what you’re referring to there. The cult has always operated by isolating folks, shutting down comm lines, stovepiping information sources, etc.
It does not do its evil out in the open because *doh* most of the folks who are involved with the cult are NOT evil people. Similarly, its victims are always either hidden from view or, quite unmagically, scapegoated as the ones who were ones at fault, or as SPs.
Wynski says
Of course you don’t know what I’m referring to Harpoona. Just as you don’t know what Mike S. did or did not do. And what went on exactly in S.O. Service orgs at the time You are such an idiot.
Harpoona Frittata says
.Don’t be a douche, explain what you were referring to there or scuttle back to your crevasse and trouble us no more!
Wynski says
Ah, poor widdle Harpoona is shown to be ignorant (in MANY ways) and is demanding an education. Sorry, only after I see enough amends by you for attacking a good person like Micheal.
Gerhard Waterkamp says
The bottom line is all exes, same here, did fall for the master persuader. Some fell harder, some fell less deep. To varying degrees, we bought into the believe Scientology was man’s only hope, our eternity was at stake and summarily the greatest good equals the good for Scientology.
With that believe LRH set the trap and once we stepped into it many things became possible, on both sides the tormenter and the tormented. They were both in the trap. I can hardly imagine what power any reg or church official could have over anybody who did not share this believe. Nada, without this believe the perpetrators where just dumb clowns in uniform to be laughed at. It gets of course more complicated once one is in and family, disconnection once job etc. is at stake. But still the basic principle holds true, because one could have planned a smart exit strategy if one wasn’t under the spell and have a chance to pull it off with minimal damage done.
While I share Harpoona’s resentment for people who did commit heinous acts on others, I believe it is best left to their conscious how deal with it. The sin they have committed, assuming they had compassion in the first place, was to let themselves corrupt by their ideology and did not listen to their inner voice of humanity at points in their career.
I was a young adult when I came into Scientology, my values where long formed before Scientology. In this regards I was lucky. When actions or intentions of the church collided with my values the latter won in every case. If I had been born into Scientology, it might have been a different story.
There is no need for resentment once one realizes it is mere luck and circumstances than personal fault.
People like Mike practically born into Scientology had no chance, as they did not know different. Only the strong come out of this and start doing something about it.
To end the abuses once and for all the trap has to be dismantled, and “Indies” are not really helping. His problem is not solved by removing the executive sociopath from the sociopathic trap. A nicer Slave master is not the solution, doing away with slavery is.
So, if somebody should be resented with full right it is the creator of this trap. A sociopathic con man with no true compassion (other than pretense), no truth and no value our beloved LRH.
jewel says
Harpoona: your comment “Folks that end up bankrupted by the cult just fall away, they don’t stick around to announce their penury. No one comes in and says, “Holy fuck, my credit cards are tapped out, the kids college fund is gone and the equity in our home is gone,” do they?” Well actually, sometimes people do. But more importantly….if people rack up their cards, take the kids college funds, etc. then that’s on them. If they feel they didn ‘t get what they wanted, then of course they would be upset and should take issue with that by getting a refund (which is not impossible if you don’t care about the declare–which you shouldn’t if your getting your money back) then you can quit). I’m just trying to point out that taking money out of the bank is not something a reg or anyone else can do but the person who owns the account. So, I hate the church policies and the way it operates, but I don’t like when people say the church stole their money as though they had nothing to do with it. I gave money to a reg on the flag ship for Narconon, and I deeply regret that I did.. I had experienced the most melodramatic plea for it…the guy should have won an academy award…but, I don’t say the reg is at fault and stole my money. I just regret handing it over when I could have put it to better use!
secretfornow says
I can’t read through all the following explanatory bullshit you spew here – I can barely stand to stomach skimming it. Your initial posting is bad enough:
You can’t hide behind a pretended “reasonable” sounding argument. This is what you did –
You attacked someone who publicly spoke out in this blog giving his story. You jumped on him in the worst way at his first (welcomed) post on Mike’s blog. (MIKE’s blog, not YOURS)
That’s not fair, it’s not your job, and it’s not what he came here for. It’s not what kind people do.
If you want to call him out, if you REALLY feel the need to find out what you feel he needs to do, the KIND thing to do would be to do it privately.
He owes you nothing to start with.
Don’t you SEE? What’s the matter with you?
webber517gdw says
Secret you need to get your own house in order . Before you try to tell other people whats up.
Harpoona Frittata says
S4N, I appreciate constructive feedback on my writing and well-supported counter-arguments, as well as additional information that I may not have been aware of. That’s exactly why I asked Michael S. the pointed, but civil questions that I posed to him.
Lots of folks have pushed back on my original post, which is completely fine. I’ve tried my best to follow up with each and every one of them, just as I’m now doing here with you. The fact that I’ve taken the time and made the effort to re-state my position and clarify what, to me, seems a very simple concept to understand, will, I hope, demonstrate my concern and willingness to engage with those like you who object to the way I framed my response to his piece. If you can’t hear the very simple point that underlies my comments to him, then that fact alone suggests that I need to re-phrase the way I put it.
To that end, please see my reply to Sheila H. today and see if you can come up with a response which isn’t just off-topic and an ad hominem attack. I know it’s taxing on many folks’ attention spans these days to read longer posts, but unfortunately, that’s what’s required to get the heart of some very deep and crucially important issues, like this one.
To cut to the chase here, if you’re not up for reading my much longer response to Sheila, then let me just ask you this:
Is it reasonable to expect folks who’ve done great harm to do more than say just words in order to make up for it?
Sheila M Huber says
Harpoona, I will respond here since there is no room for more replies to your last response to me.
No, I did not mean ”psychopaths” in place of schizophrenia, that was your misunderstanding. I clearly stated psychopaths AND schizophrenics and that is what I meant. I’m pleased to see you have some sort of working knowledge of some basic psych terms, but it was presumptuous and arrogant of you to try to correct me with your supposed “superior knowledge” when you obviously have no formal degree in this area and I do. I didn’t mean to get into a discussion on this, but since you brought it up:
Schizophrenia, these days called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), is ranked as one of the top 10 causes of disability worldwide. It affects from 0.5 to 1.1% of the population, which is about 1 in every 100-200 people, and it’s more common than Diabetes or Alzheimer’s. Because schizophrenics honestly believe their delusions, a large number go undiagnosed. It is believed by many professionals to be a degenerative disorder, but very treatable. Unfortunately, many psychiatrists estimate as many as 50% of those with schizophrenia are undiagnosed, most of those never even seeing a counselor.
You are mistaken in your statement that those with schizophrenia would have no common characteristics with those who are psychopaths. A person with schizophrenia can have another mental illness. They can also have individual personality traits similar to a psychopath.The history of schizophrenia diagnoses also began with symptoms of aggression, as well as those of hearing voices, etc. Additionally, both psychopaths and schizophrenics lie (for different reasons, though).
As for the rest of your post, you still aren’t understanding the points I and others have made, so there’s no reason to continue this discussion between us.
secretfornow says
your question doesn’t address my disagreement. I was expressing horror at the idea of jumping on someone who was speaking out and telling their story for the first time on Mike’s blog. And this someone was a B-E-L-O-V-E-D and admired old somebody. I was chiding you for your bad taste and timing in making contrition and atonement demands based upon your moral outrage judgments.
This has nothing to do with your vague philosophical question regarding amends.
Harpoona Frittata says
S4N, I’m routing you to Sheila H. for face-ripping, then to Disconnection Land where you can be right as rain, all by your lonesome, until it’s time to meet the Mighty Thetan in the Sky, who’s been waiting there just for you!
secretfornow says
nope.
Wynski says
Harpoona Frittata, Mike gave you a long & polite response to your ranting accusations (quintessential Silverman). Why didn’t you at LEAST acknowledge?
Sheila M Huber says
Hi Michael! So good to hear from you!
Do you remember me from AOLA? I was pulled off Letter Reg, where I’d been busted for I don’t know what by then C/O Val Lisa to cover for you when you were on the RPF for a few weeks in the 80s. I did miserably compared to you! I regged maybe $30,000 compared to your $200,000! The desk and windows were nice, but I wasn’t much fond of having execs sitting there in front of me all the time asking for a line-up. The line-up you left wore off in a few weeks, that is, the ones Enid didn’t claim as her own, ha ha! 😉
Do you remember when I first came to AOLA and had to announce new arrivals and you wrote in the arrivals book, “Connie Lingus”? I announced it out loud, OMG was my face red when Nicole Simms took me aside and explained what it meant! But I was just a teenager then. I got even with you by writing in the book, “John Jacob Jingle-Heimer Schmidt” and when everyone was in on the joke but you, you asked everyone where he was. Ha ha! Nicole led the choir and we all sang it to you. 😀 <3 <3
Mainly, I just wanted to give you personal testimony and support that I never personally knew about any financial irregularities. What I do know is what you said about driving everyone crazy at AOLA by locking up OT packages at old rates for people with original money on account is true. It was always you doing this, and there were always others challenging this. You made sure people who paid money years ago got their services for what their money bought back then, and you did it thousands of time. This guy's OT 1-3 for $850, this guys Solo-OT7 for $1250. You killed the VSD stats ("Value of Service Delivered") with those packages, but because of you, a lot of people found out what they wanted to find out and didn't ruin their lives over it. You also kept the 2 for 1 intensive deal thing going almost forever. You didn't like taking all of people's money. You liked people and they liked you. I know I did.
So glad you are out now and free of that. You were practically chained to your desk, all for money. That isn't life. It never was.
secretfornow says
this cracked me up.
the finances back then … such a wild ride.
(Emile Gilbert, CO CLO CAN, “this week only, 500 dollar intensives! we’re going to get the stats UP!”)
Spike says
Hey, Secret, I remember Emile Gilbert! I wonder what he’s doing now?
Pam Kopeschka says
How could you forget Emile Gilbert? I was on staff at Toronto when he was Executive Director. I’ll never forget when it was my turn to be on watch all night and was doing my rounds and he and Stuart Smith jumped out from behind something and scared me to death. They loved to play jokes on people. Also when I was Dir Comm, Emile would come down to find out how much money was in the letters. He used to drive me nuts with all the dev-t, but I could’t complain. He was the ED. If anyone finds out where he is, I’d love to know. ? ???? ??
Spike says
Pam – I remember the two of them, Emile Gilbert and Stuart Smith. For a brief time I was Stuart’s communicator (‘assistant’) when he was ED Toronto LOL!
janis says
At this time, in a season of gratitude, I want to express my thanks to Mike Rinder and Michael Silverman for this Nov 22nd post. It is personally relevant to me because I entered Scn gung-ho in the era of LRH and left (much earlier than most) somewhat disillusioned, even before DM.
I entered ahead of the game, in my mind, because I already knew I was primarily a spiritual being. My parents helped create a concept through their church teachings that all things spiritual were more important than the physical aspects of life. What attracted me to Scn, like Silverman, was the intelligent approach to resolving life’s problems using the template of personal ethics and spirituality.
In one of my earliest Scn courses before I’d joined Sea Org, my twin kept flunking me on my MU (misunderstood word). I couldn’t quite assimilate the dictionary’s definition with Ron’s as he meant it in his text. After several flunks, my twin finally said to me, “Make it your own.” I was able to do that and then passed. Ever since, I have attempted to use the same yardstick on all my MU’s regarding Scn. If I cannot make what I misunderstand about Scn as my own, it is not for me. By so doing, I have retained my self-determinism.
Apart from all the misemotion and angst caused by my association with Scn, I am grateful for certain specifics I have learned:
I know I am the ultimate authority (Source) on my own spiritual well-being whether I have Scn certificates of completion or not. I know what I know spiritually.
Ron said he wished to make the able more able. I think I have become more able by applying certain technologies taught in Scn such as: The mechanics of the communication cycle; By discerning that which is worthy of expansion (whatever augments theta) (not-ising can never work); And by knowing why the spiritual universe will ever expand, while the mechanical, physical universe is destined toward entropy.
We are all connected. I am so grateful for that. I am so thankful that my own spirituality mysteriously connects with other like-minded people whether we are physically associated or not. So thank you, Michael Silverman, for sharing your experience. I recognize your intention to augment theta. And thank you Mike Rinder for providing a platform, a way of facilitating such.
Hole says
A little turkey bird told me Mike Silverman showed up today at the other Mikey’s Place. Holy cow. Been up to my a**hole in smothering a**holes these days so haven’t any a single spare ounce of room for Scientology crappola of late. But for you, I had to stop by for a visit.
Bonnie (Kincaid, later Bonnie Woods) and Silverman were the first two who disarmed my distrust and unlock my hopes for something better. Bonnie with her wide open heart and smarts (she’d managed psychiatry courses down the street prior) and of course, Mike with your wide eyed magic. Reg office in old St Louis org – first met both. I was told you were OT. You told me, the wide throated singer/songwriter, I would do country music. My first doubts about that OT thing right there – I hated country music at the time. heh
Somehow you and I and Bonnie all found ourselves in PAC years later. ASHO/AOLA/PAC tours – with you, Carol, Jeff, Bill, me, Jane, sometimes Amanda, and there was a long parade of others. And dear Ruthie.
Well I’m glad you ‘splained it all. I probably was one of those who believed the Bad Reg Bad! bs. We’ve all come around to realizing not much was true and all of it was unreal. I wanted to apologize for spreading any garbage at any time. I do want you to know that when I read one of those Mike, Bad SP Bad! I was on my way out anyway, but did sob it couldn’t be. I thought I was crying for you, but I was secretly grieving for both of us. I just didn’t know that until a few decades later.
But I remember you most from one of those RPF stints. Something else we shared. We were helping out the Old Man with running around a pole in Griffith Park to redeem our Bad Sea Org Bad! selves. I felt like I got to know the real Mike one afternoon sitting it out on the sidelines, sipping on our cal mag witches brew, performing a little podiatry rescue of our aching feet. For those brief few moments, I saw myself not as a useless, wicked wretch they’d convinced me I must be, but the kind and compassionate human being I was when I first walked down those cold stone halls inside that haunted Lindell Blvd org.
Because I saw them through your eyes and your voice – I heard kindness and compassion coming from you and it was one of the triggers that woke me up. Not wide awake – but I figured out what to do and say right then for my first steps toward escaping that hell hole. You were loved then and you are loved still.
So along with any and all apologies due, please accept my warmest regards and thanks. Scientology is the only black hole embedded on a planet – sucks the life out of any and all that get too close. How we survived beats the heck out of me. Hearing you did too gives me extra reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving. My best to you and yours from my heart. Cindy (Moxie Magee)
https://youtu.be/JiAPYxEG3cQ
#1 Son says
And here is the atonement of which I spoke above. Michael has made a difference and helped someone start the leaving process.
And there are more we don’t know of yet and will be more to come, because Michael Silverman, who saw and did something about many things that were wrong – told his story here.
Lydia Beckham says
As old-time public, staff, SO for 40 years myself, I remember you. It is fascinating to hear your story and nice to learn that somebody was fighting (albeit unsuccessfully) to restore the money that had been stolen from my AOLA account. Thank you, congratulations and best wishes!
The comments here are also interesting. Thanks for posting this, Mike, and Bravo on your excellent series!
Tim-S says
Despite all the terrible outnesses of the times, during those times when Michael was regging at AOLA were the best at least for me they were. Not including being in front of Michael for regging (joking) Michael was the best. He made you want to jump through fire to bring in your money for services. And you always somehow felt validated, right and pleased to get Michael’s approval when you did. You made it go right and felt good about it. Despite the scores of horror stories there were good times, at least for me, at that time. As public, we would all be mystified when Michael was away. Rumor lines are what they are but the public I knew were always happy when he returned.
Michael- You were a palpable positive influence in the Org. (AOLA) The Org public was mystified when you left despite the rumors why. You were missed.
We all have our “war” stories of Scientology and Michael’s is much like the many others we see, read and hear about. This is not a statement meant to lessen Michael’s story just to point out that anyone with any long term association with Scn will have stories to tell of out ethics, criminal activity, injustices, abusive ethics, bad management, out tech etc etc of their own. It defines who and what Scn is. For a time and in a few places, people like Michael existed attempting to make things right and better within Scn. I was there for some of those times in a couple of different places and my early time at AOLA when Michael was there was one of them.. Thank you Michael for the experience you helped provide. You are the best.
L
Tim
secretfornow says
Yes. Yes. Yes. Thanks for this wonderful post in its entirety.
and special thanks for this bit:
” anyone with any long term association with Scn will have stories to tell of out ethics, criminal activity, injustices, abusive ethics, bad management, out tech etc etc of their own. It defines who and what Scn is.”
werreour says
Michael: You wrote, “For years, ASHO D & F had literally millions of bad address letters stacked floor to ceiling untouched, unopened and unhandled (some with cash in them )…”
You lost me. Bad address letters are letters that have been returned stamped “Addressee Unknown” (Add Unk). No doubt there are mountains of these, since keeping Central Files up to date never seemed to be a priority for ASHO. But returned letters with cash in them? How did that happen? This seems to imply that the org was mailing out letters with cash enclosed.
Cece says
You are correct but the Dir Comm would bundle them and send them to addresso. Dir Comm probably mixed it up – Dir Comm’s stat was not money 🙂
werreour says
Are you saying that the Director of Communications would bundle up letters that had come in to the organization and send them to the Address Unit? Doing something like that would be nothing short of psychotic; I can’t believe anything like that was going on. Per policy, letters in are opened in HCO Division One, Department of Communications. During my time at ASHO, a Treasury staff member (usually me, my Director of Income, or my Cashier) would be present during the daily letter opening so we could ensure money coming in was collected, properly invoiced to the payor’s account, and a letter of acknowledgement sent out with the white copy of the invoice.
I feel like I’m not understanding how allegedly “ASHO D & F had literally millions of bad address letters stacked floor to ceiling untouched, unopened and unhandled (some with cash in them )…”
This makes absolutely no sense. Letters IN are not “bad address letters”, and letters OUT don’t have money enclosed. So could you please explain?
Cece says
We were talking about the returned address unknowns. Those would not be opened just sent to addresso. The Dir Comm had to sort and yes like you say on the money. Every bit was opened and logged. Unless of course it was mixed up with add unks. Now you understand?
secretfornow says
me thinks you’re holding the magnifying glass too closely. He’s just talking about the unbelievable back log in CF – mainly all letters IN and returned.
As someone who worked iiiiiiiiiiiintimately with CF backlogs, those mountains of paper contained all the things.
jburtis2013 says
Fantastic!
Ed Barrington says
An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters: you use too many even on the series. These are Scientology terms and most do not know them. see above first paragraph AOAL AO HCOB and OEC/FEBC courses. .
Watch and Haggis is right…focus on Cruise and Travolta and they will fold. Weak people but Cruise has smile and perfect face. Makes money but he is shallow…anytime there is no director or script…focus on these people what they do contributions to Sci. C see I use Acronym also. Thanks Leah & Mike or L/M
Foolproof says
People can download an Admin Dictionary from Wikipedia and other sources.
Murray Luther says
I remember Michael well when he was a reg at AO. He was instantly likeable. Those who knew him then would remember the mind-boggling card tricks he would perform for his prospects. At the time, I failed to see any irony in a Church registrar performing razzle-dazzle slight-of-hand card tricks while trying to convince me to give thousands of dollars to the Church. I try to look back and laugh.
werreour says
Great to hear from you, Michael.
Cindy says
Mike there is duplication of posts here. I have read the same poster’s comments twice on your blog today. Some kind of glitch in the system.
Cindy says
HI Mike, you were my reg at AOLA. So good to hear that you escaped and are doing well. I have a question: When your ex wife, Ruthie Silverman Discher died, were you allowed to go to the funeral service? Or was one even held?
In the early 90’s as a public person, having a dear friend who was recently out of the SO die young. Her daughter held a memorial service for her at CC Int. I remember being appalled that there was not one SO member there at her service to pay respects, in spite of the fact she had been a high producer and valuable staff member at the Flag Office in LA. I asked why no one was there from her SO friends and was told because they have to get the stats up before Thurs at 2:00. It’s a shame that no one in the SO actually cared about friendship and loyalty to other staff members. It was an environment that promoted fear and dog-eat-dog and all is done for money. Michael, thanks for your honesty to tell us that no one actually cared about us despite the love bombing, and that it was all only done to get your money and that all that mattered was $$$$.
werreour says
Michael had been long out of the Sea Org when Ruthie passed away.
Joe Pendleton says
Ruthie was a friend of mine for thirty years. I was a student at ASHO when she died, and yet no memorial service was ever announced to the public, if indeed one was even held. You know … “distraction to production ” I guess. Yeah, Ruthie kept drinking the Kool-Aid, but she wasn’t a phony, and she had a good heart to help people , which is a lot more than I can say about “the church.”
jewel says
Yep, Joe, Ruthie was real. I always wondered what happened to her son. He was born in the S.O and I believe he was put into the cadet org, but I don’t remember.
georgemwhite says
Mike,
You are a legend! I remember hearing about you. We never met because I was on the East Coast.
I actually never wanted to get into a “reg” cycle with you. Dave Foster took most of my money.
Cece says
After the postulate check era came postulate Amex. Back then (Nicole Sims was Dir Reg) Amex required full amount of payment in 30 days or so. The Amex transaction required a phone call and authorization which the 2 diget number was written on the slip and circled. So if one of the reges couldn’t get authorization they’d bring it to Nicole and she would make up the number in the circle and the finance office (Allison) would send it in, Amex would FedX the money back but it would subtract the earlier fake ones if the guy hadn’t paid in the 30 days. When I came on as Finance Officer I was told Amex was suppressive! I had to sort out this mess. When the Amex ‘bounced’ the accounts weren’t even debited and many time the fake money had already been used. What a mess but even with this uncovered (I worked with the very helpfull Amex people to find out and Nicole came to see me one afternoon with her confession) she did not get taken off post for financial iregs.
Anyway – just so you know 🙂
Cindy says
Don’t get me started on Nichole Sims. She stole money off my account after I expressly said NO. She was never made to pay it back, but she sure got a commission on the money she took off my account. She was never made to pay that back.
Cece says
Yah, she’s the type that would end up a ‘born again’. She for years refused my liberty CSWs. I mentioned it to her years later and she did not remember. Conveniently blind.
secretfornow says
…. wow…
I remember having a reg teach me about how “anything can be a check” and they showed me how you could write a check on a paper napkin, and as long as it had all of the correct information, the bank would cash it.
“I don’t have my checkbook with me” wasn’t even a way to escape a reg cycle!
jim says
Wonderful Mike,
Reminiscent of when the good days were more numerous than the bad days, and there was much playing of the game.
I agree that the tech was nicely codified and allowed a slow learner like me to integrate it until it became a part of the whole of my understanding. The tech was indeed feeble in the hands of feeble auditors, but strong in strong auditors. It is always the enlightened guru that defines the gains of the learner.
PeaceMaker says
Or maybe it really hinged on whether the auditor was someone who came to Scientology with strong innate abilities, and would have been effective regardless of whether the framework was the “tech,” traditional psychotherapy, gestalt or whatever.
There’s actually some good modern research demonstrating that the therapists’ abilities to listen and relate are crucial, and the particularly modality they they are using is somewhat incidental – though given that understand, those abilities can be identified and trained to some extent (nothing at all like the “tech” training of auditors).
Cece says
Michael, this fixes a hole in my heart. ED Int put me in charge of inspecting your registration cycles to make sure there were no financial irregularities. I’m quite sure you’ll remember the many times trying to explain to me the cycle which I truly didn’t understand and one day ED Int came to see me and I got the gang bang Sec Check with several persons asking me questions. ED Int told me I’d be RPFed if I didn’t come clean. Well I didn’t have a clue – later I figured out Eric Reinerson had gotten OK from CO Pubs to call the long list of unpaid refund requests and debit their AOLA account for materials which were shipped to a Mission and then the Mission paid the refundee. It took me a lot of demos to finally understand this – that’s how shallow my understanding was. So Eric was declared (despite OK to do this), I was sent to the RPF and I didn’t really know what happened to you.
But I never fogot how our thousands of public loved you. Imagine them calling you to pay! Many times you’d ask me to get so and so on the phone and the phone would ring and it would be them. It was magic Michael and was that way because you cared about the person in front of you more then anything else including yourself I guess or you would not have continued on with the executive insanity on the registration lines. Thank you for posting.
A whole lot of persons will read this and it will fix the hole in their heart too because in my 20 years on staff and 40 in the church and the last 7 reading blogs – I’ve never heard anything but admiration for you. Despite all the hate from management directed to you over the years you’ve managed to prosper. Thank you for your write-up, I’ve been waiting 🙂
secretfornow says
this is a wonderful post.
Thanks so much. Team humanity.
Outraged in Oregon says
Thank you for your courage!
Cindy says
Michael, you mentioned Carole Woodruff whom I remember well. Did she ever escape the SO or is she still in?
werreour says
Carol is out of the Sea Org, but she appears to still be a Scientologist. She has two different Facebook profiles: carol.woodruff.908 and woodruff.carol
jewel says
She was working for Applied Scholastics at one point. I saw her there and talked to her. She had been on a ‘mission’ to help tutor at a school in the south for 6 months. I don’t remember the year,but it was in the mid 2000’s.
Cece says
Comes up 1st on FB search. My only mutual friend is a still in.
She must have unfriended me on command a few years back because she was on my friends list. She is not in the SO for prob 30 years now.
Balletlady says
How BLESSED are those who will be able to spend Thanksgiving Day with their loved ones because they escaped the clutches of COS. Nothing has made me happier than to see the JOY of Ramina’s love pour out of her heart, & the sadness & painful realization it took for her to open her eyes to see what was going on around her all that time. The blinders removed, the truth has been seen & heard….the sad reality of a wake up call that for Ramina, came early enough for her to enjoy many years ahead with her family. Unlike Bonnie Elliott, whose illness took her life robbing her of the years she SHOULD have had with her daughter Amy & family.
No more….no more disconnection, no more “blow drill recoveries”…..NO MORE smothering control.
LET THEM GO…..if “they” want OUT….LET THEM GO……under duress they signed a “Billion Year Contract”…or else…….the so called “church rite” to be able to hunt escapees down with a pack of wolves hot on their trail….so the escapee doesn’t lose their “immortal soul”……beyond anyone’s comprehension.
Who in our Nation’s Capital is listening to ANY of this…..no one it seems. Separation of Church & State, it does exist…..& THIS has been given the OK to be stated as a “religion”…..no doubt even with any intervention, the organization WILL continue….
Hey here’s an idea….withdraw the Tax Exempt Status….hang on, it’ll be a bumpy ride.
Pamela Kopeschka says
This is Pam Kopeschka. I remember you at the Toronto Org. I was the receptionist and would have sent people to you to be regged. Later I was mimeo typist and typed LRH’S policies and bulletins. Then I was Director of Communications. Then I joined the Sea Org and became the Flag Representative at Toronto. One day I didn’t go in to the Org to do my job and that was enough to get me sent to the New York Sea Org Office for a Comm Ev and eventually sent to the RPF in the LA Harbor on a ship and latter to a hotel building on Hollywood Boulevard. Talk about a shock. I was freaked out and physically sick for three weeks. I was there for six months and could see no end in sight, so I routed out and went to my parent’s home in Kokomo, Indiana. I ended up spending $35,000 at Flag in Clearwater, Florida for auditing which is a drop in the bucket, which you already know. I was in Scientology for 15 years. It took me a long time to get over it. I even went to Wellspring in Ohio, that is a deprogramming place. I also read a lot of books against Scientology that you weren’t allowed to read when you were in Scientology. I went through a lot of emotional pain and anguish, but now I’m glad I’m out and happier than ever. Thanks for listening to my story.
Pamela Kopeschka says
Additionally, my name might have been Pam Moore back then.
secretfornow says
I’m glad for you. Good girl.
Being “ordered” to LA or Tor, or Flag… for “handling” or posts or or or… was totally a freak out. The absolute quiet power the org had over our lives and disposition was terrifying.
Pamela Kopeschka says
Thank you fo replying to my post. It’s hard to believe how much it helps to be validated by someone who has been there. I agree totally with you about the power they had over us and how they used the threat of the RPF to control us.
I am so much happier now that I have left Scientology that it’s unbelievable. Life is so much easier. I hope the same for all ex-Scientologists!!
secretfornow says
you’re welcome. And you’re right, it DOES help to be validated by someone who has been there.
Thank you for putting that one into words. That one’s a biggie.
Joe Pendleton says
Mike Silverman … who in Scientology didn’t know him from his tours days for AO?
Once again we see … Money and Religion … It never never NEVER ends well. A religion with commissions! That kinda says it all.
Bonnie Johnson says
I have to admit the whole article went zoom right over my head since I don’t understand $ci terminology, but I wondered when Mr. Silverman made the point that money is the most important thing that do the auditors really give a heartfelt shit about whether someone is achieving what their supposed to in their sessions or is it just a means to an end?
Dan Locke says
Hey there, Bonnie – Scientology auditors were, 99.999% of the time, heartfelt sincere people who very much cared about people. Most got very little or no pay at all. If you are lucky enough to ever know a person who put in any time in the auditor’s chair, you’re lucky. You’ll probably have a friend who is an incredible listener and will stick with you through problems big and small.
Spike says
+1 what Dan said 🙂
I Yawnalot says
Yes, me too.
secretfornow says
perfect. YES.
Most of the staff along the line – from div 6 greet-and-route right on through SS comp really care. Even the regges care enough to “get the person signed up and taking the service”
There is a duality that is hard to explain – we/they cared and wanted to help and deliver the tech to help. At the same time we danced to the execs-under-pressure, Admin and Ethics tech dictates.
olegerstrom says
But even fine working auditors were also part of the evil system. They gave good work and income to the bastards of hell, prolonging the sufferings of all trapped in the stinking poisonous swamp. They also accumulated a heavy kharma, having negative material to work with in the coming existence with probably no friendly auditor to help sorting it out.
Glenn says
Bonnie,
After 40 years my answer to your question is no. The most blatant proof lies in the times my auditor would follow me to the examiner after session and try to reg me for donations immediately after. Often that same auditor would team up with another who previously audited me so as to increase the pressure. And this occurred at Flag not some lower, local organization. It is a well reported fact that auditing sessions are recorded. After one in which I confessed I’d lied to a registrar about not having any large savings a registrar came up to me and began to hit me up for a huge donation. When I replied that I had no money, the reg stared me straight in the face and said; “I think if you look hard enough you will find you do in fact have it”. Yes, Silverman is quite correct. It is “all about the money” and nothing else.
I Yawnalot says
Flag really, REALLY sux. That’s terrible! Geezers… from my experience in my day in the lower echelon of the oppressed, to be expected to do something like that would be akin to ‘fightin words’. Yet again, from mid, lateish 80’s and increasing like mad into the 90s mega sec checks, reviews and case handling make believe bs was ordered by the bucketful. Just another way of stealing more money while conning the auditor, CS into believing it is all hunky dory standard (whatever the fuck that is). Yes, it’s all about the money but not many auditors got to hang around for very long either. The casualty rate in that profession has always been very high. Hubbard sure recognised that too. I noticed in CL4 Orgs a year or two was along time to survive as an auditor, after that you either turned into concrete or lost the plot, kind of. Never enough Qual was an interim accepted justification but that never lasted very long either.
A HGC auditor in the Cof$ of today? geezers!!! Think about where they their heads must be at?
jim says
Bonnie,
Before the 1970’s most auditors did it to ‘help’ the preclear feel better, do better, and live better. Few auditors made a good living auditing.
Dan Locke says
I can attest to org auditors conduct up from 1972 through 2004, when I was routed out of the SO. I have been to almost all the orgs in the USA and have personally met a big percentage of their auditors.
Glenn’s experience might well have been part and parcel to the experience of people at Flag during Glenn’s time period(s) there. It may have even been a part of others experiences at orgs after 2004 as well. But, I am thinking that this may have been something that only happened at Flag or in isolated cases, at other orgs.
The Auditors’ Code states that auditors may not evaluate for or invalidate anyone they are counseling; nor may they reveal things communicated to them in the course of therapy. The auditors who participated in Glenn’s experience violated that code. In healthier times for Scientology (and in healthier places) such conduct would be grounds for certificate cancelation.
I’d imagine most if not all of the auditors Glenn has experienced who behaved in this way have either stopped auditing or left the church completely. Participating in such a things as an auditor would be the stuff of which would cause your typical auditor to have nightmares.
Glenn says
Dan, Sadly that presumption is not the fact. The auditors I referred to had been auditing for 20 or so years, the majority of that time was at flag. And they had been awarded Auditor of the Year status on a number of occasions. They were not newbies who wouldn’t last long.
In their defense I can tell you that ALL staff were required to raise money; not just the registrars and bookstore officers. You are right. It wasn’t always this way. The trend began back in the late 70s when the Safe Environment Fund (precursor to the IAS) began pleading with public for donations to cover the legal and PR costs which stemmed from the US government’s prosecution of Mary Sue and others. But even then only a few staff took up this cause. Today, every staff member is expected to hit people up including even MAAs who call people in to their offices under the ruse of an ethics check and then plead for donations at the end. Fucking outrageous and only served to show the cult’s real purpose had totally changed.
OverTheBridgeTPA says
Good Morning, Mike. I wanted to put this out there before you are inundated by today’s post….I’ve been out of commission for a while but I read your blog everyday and have have watched all the shows.
All I can say is excellent, exceptional, and incredibly moving and heartbreaking. You and Leah have done an incredible job. To see someone recover their family was breathtaking…..there is no other word.
My thoughts go out to every person brave enough to appear on the show this season….it takes strong will and bravery to do this. You are all heroes.
Keep fighting the good fight…you are on the right side. All of you will prevail.
Yours…. OverTheBridgeTPA
Idle Morgue says
Wow Mike Silverman – thank you for telling your story. PLEASE – we all hope you are on the 3rd season of Leah Remini’s Emmy WINNING SHOW starring Leah Remini and Mike Rinder’s. A&E; Scientology; the Aftermath.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. WOW! WOW!! WOW!!!
Mike Rinder – I hope you have an episode where you invite us all to come out to be in a photo shoot. “SP’s R US”! 🙂
No photo shooping will be necessary – you will have thousands and thousands of SP’s lined up to be in that shot.
Unlike Scientology – who uses trickery to fool their clubbed seals and photo shop’s crowds of people INTO their glossy promo photos to provide the “smoke and mirrors” to Keep Scientology Deceiving and SCAMMING!
#1 Son says
Yikes…I can see it now – like the huge blow up photos after the Apollo was attacked in Portugal – hanging in the hallways of all the orgs with a clipboard and orders to review the group photo carefully and the staff member to identify who they know in the photo and immediately do a POW video against the person they ID’d in the pic!
OverTheBridgeTPA says
As a never-in…I am overwhelmed with emotion as I read all of the responses here today.
I would like to wish you all a HAPPY THANKSGIVING…..I am humbled by all of you….your incredible courage and strength to overcome.
Yours…. OverTheBridgeTPA
Terra Cognita says
Wow. Just wow.
Old Surfer Dude says
Not just wow, WOW!
Cognited and Out says
Great story – why taint it with a snide anti-Semitic comment – New Yorkers being tight with money?
Chee Chalker says
I didn’t take the NY comment about being tight with money as “anti-Semitic”
There’s all types of people in NY that could be considered ‘tight with a dollar’
As an aside, other groups are considered to be cheap. The Scots for example. As someone with both parents born and raised in Scotland, I can attest that in that instance, the stereotype is accurate!
IMO if you look for bigotry everywhere, you will find it everywhere
jere Lull (37 yrs recovering) says
My 1st wife was Jewish and once paid me a high compliment (in her mind): “The scots could teach the Jews a thing or two about money.” The reason so many Scots are engineers as because they’d rather fix something and make it work right than buy a replacement.(and they’re too impatient to wait for s/o else to create the working version.) Yes, I’m a proud Scots engineer from a long line of engineers.
Joe Pendleton says
I used to work in Scotland and I remember one gentleman just referring to his frugality as “Scots economy” … always good to have a sense of humor and there are no funnier people in the world than the Scots.
Foolproof says
I don’t believe there was any anti-semitism meant here. When I read it didn’t occur to me at all that there was any anti-semitism meant. Similar to the reputation the Scots have in the UK.
Wynski says
Fool, the Scots also had that reputation in the USA. Saw a funny early 50’s US cartoon where Scottish penny pinching was highlighted,
Foolproof says
Thank you No-Wynski.
Wynski says
Cognited and Out, you think that a Jew (Michael SILVERMAN) is spouting anti-Semitic comments?
LMAO
Spike says
LOLOL!
Cindy says
Mabey he is applying the Jerry Seinfeld system of you can only make a joke about a Jew if you yourself are a Jew. He did a whole show on that.
Wynski says
No Cindy. You don’t know Michael. Also, jokes and anti-semitic comments are two different animals.
Cindy says
I know Michael Silverman very well as he was my reg for years and also I FSMed people to him. And you don’t know me because you didn’t get that I was joking with my comment about Jerry Seinfeld.
Dan Locke says
I was having a wonderful time taking offense thinking that he was talking about all us “tight” Irish who lived there. Then you had to come along and ruin my day! (There is so much competition to be at the top of the victim ladder these days, and comments like yours are not helping!)
CGarrison says
Hi Dan – My Brooklyn NY, born and raised, Irish grandmother would describe a tight wad Irishman as: so cheap he could peel a potato in his pocket with one hand. I love NY – warts and all.
Dan Locke says
Nice story!
For a VERY interest “mini history” of the Irish, do a youtube search of: Thomas Sowell – A Brief History of the Irish…
CGarrison says
?- thanks.
BaraV says
Is working with credit card companies a way to expose Scientology as a fraud machine? Surely they have the capacity to be heard.
pedrofcuk says
Wow!
Spike says
I remember Michael Silverman very well from the Toronto org and AOLA days. What a guy! So happy to hear he is alive and kicking! Hi Michael, from Karen! Your story is awesome …
Eh=Eh says
Karen who? ? ? ?
Spike says
Hahaha!
Pamela Kopeschka says
When were you there at Toronto? This is Pam Kopeschka (I might have been Pam Moore then) and I was there from 1970 to 1974. I don’t recall any Spike.
Spike says
Pam – Spike is my nickname in the band. I’m incognito on this blog, LOL. Perhaps Mike Rinder can hook us up via email.
Spike says
Also Pam, I do remember you! A blast from the past. I was in Toronto 1973-74. Hint:. Karen …
Pam Kopeschka says
What is your last name Karen?
Spike says
Hi Pm – we can connect by email if you like, but for reasons of security I prefer to just be Spike on this blog. Mike Rinder can hook us up if you ask him.
Alex De Valera says
Very enlightening post. Thank you!
Diane Cisneros Kekilian says
What is the opposite word for Amprinistic?
Answer is a Microphone haha!
Thank you for this perfect story
bixntram says
Hubbard’s attitude to amlprinistics was vapulatory.
Wynski says
Yay Michael!
One of the kindest persons I have ever known.
Ann B Watson says
Mike & Michael. This may yet be one of the strongest personal posts I have seen,regarding your Sea Org time. I do now, that I saw your photo & name, I do remember you. I was SO Asho F 74-78 & like you had horrible screw ups What with Go/ Intel, Sec Checks every day etc until I blew in 78, really almost at the end of my tether. As you know how many times can ones condition write ups disappear & back I went to start all over again. And I was a Forever Ron when I joined with my copy of DMSMH the only contact I had with Scientology. And of course I dove right into the Sea Org head first. And it has taken me Years to tell my whole story & get the shards of Ron – glass out of my system. Dm- glass for those that had the torture of being his slaves. I left before he came,Whew!
The last paragraphs hit me because ESCAPE is the way Out. I had to plan mine for months in 1978, & I was petrified that the cab driver who picked me up at Highland Drugs by The Hollywood Cockroach Inn, my home away from home, was GO now OSA. Gave me nightmares for years.
In the Sunlight of 2017 I see so so many cracks in the entire cult/scam I totally missed when in until probably late 77 & 78. Scientology is an evil, cruel master of nothing but piles of cash, empty Orgs, a twisted wrecked bridge and those Invisible OT Levels still dangling for the celebs and whales who continue to support dms reign of Lies. I send you Love, hugs & so so glad and grateful you ESCAPED.?
secretfornow says
…Ann…(Happy Thanksgiving, and SO happy you’re OK)
..this post fits with some recent thoughts of mine…
How the Co$ attacks its critics with “he was a bad apple and we kicked him out” – and how the truth is, if you were ever staff for any length of time, you suffered, persevered, won and lost against the post changes, the urgent directives, the Int Finance Police, the New Tyrant On Post Exec, the musical chairs, the injustice after injustice cycles…. false declares, RPF assignments, kicked out, brought back, Up down and messed with!!!
Those who the church has “nothing on” to smear with, couldn’t have lasted much or couldn’t have been too closely involved. I don’t know any 40 year ins who had thin ethics files. Unless, they just didn’t really do much of any bridge or activity. Bookbuyer status!
The more dedicated and more in, the more dirt they think they have.
windhorsegallery says
Without a doubt — one of the nicest, kindest and oh smartest menschs around.
And his explanation of buddhism is stellar. As a matter of fact, his explanation of everything is stellar …
So glad to hear he’s well and happy.
Love,
Windhorse
Python Swoope says
Mike, You are one tough guy…..Hope your story motivates others to seek FREEDOM !
Sacrebleu! says
>An interesting exercise to rehabilitate oneself is to sit alone, quietly, relax for a few minutes, eyes closed, and then recall any negative event in your life and just view it without comment or justification or complaint. Just see what happened. Nothing defensive on your part — just look like an observer and see what actually occurred. Then forgive those who committed that act against you. ‘For real’ forgiveness. Then look at what you did to them and forgive yourself. No justifications or explanations, just see what you did and forgive yourself.
Beautiful!
Brian says
Hey Michael Silverman. I remember you at AOLA. I was married to Likki at the time. You were a reg legend as I remember.
So glad you are out and telling your story. Thanks for writing it up for us. I hope your life is happy.
Ann B Watson says
I am so pleased you remember Brian. My brain skipped and then I did remember Michael.Love to you two.??
werreour says
Brian: Do you know how to get in touch with Jon Ronning? Apparently he created a page about Christina McKechnie.