Dear Mary – I just saw your response. I googled you and read your story about you and your son. Believe it or not, we have more in common than you might think. I have had a similar experience but on the reverse vector.

I’m still under the radar (absolutely out but only a few know) so I don’t want to give too many details here. I would love to talk with you about this, if you’d like. Please ask Mike for my email if you’d like to connect.

I can’t say that “I know exactly how you feel…”, but I do know how I felt when I came 1,000 miles to see my young son on his birthday and my ex decided they would have my son 600 miles away so that I couldn’t see my boy at all, after having arranged the time beforehand. I was told, “I don’t think it would be good for him to see you right now.” No choice, Only told once I got there. I walked and walked and walked on the day I found out. Locked in a vortex of quiet, impotent rage vs. stunned and confused, apathetic frustration. Like being held in electrical currents pulling every way, all at once.

These are enough details so that people who know me intimately will recognize who I am. I hope that, if they do they’ll keep looking at this blog, read Debbie Cook’s letter, and finally know that they are right. There IS something wrong. Wrong in the sense that, if another group was doing this, they would be appalled and would make a public outcry against it.

And that they step away from the Church of Miscavige. It’s no longer what we signed up for.

Anyway, please write me, if you’d like.

I Yawn a Lot, wonderful post. I love what you said and you were very articulate and made good points.

That’s a wonderful post Terril. Good on you. 🙂

From 83 … stats week to week??? Brother, you are old school and way behind the times. It’s hour to hour, baby, and you’re freakin’ lucky it ain’t minute to minute, ya follow?

Indie, I largely agree with what you are saying here. I have no problem at all in recognizing all of the CoS’ similarities with the old USSR and its fascistic tendencies, while at the same time recognizing all the case gain I made in 35 years in Scientology and the thousands upon thousands of great personal wins I saw in the pc’s I audited and CS’d. (though I do think that after a certain time in the CoS, there is an inversion and by one’s own agreement, one goes severely downscale as far as any indpendance of thinking or acting goes). Similarly with LRH. Fucked up and often delusionary. And yet, he came up with (in my opinion) some absolutely brilliant observations about life and the spirit which I use every single day to understand life and make it better for myself and others (which isn’t to say I’m not somewhat fucked up myself still). On balance, VERY glad I got into Scientology as a teenager. Mixed bag? Like sooooooo much of life and so much of many famous and idolized individuals. Jesus (who, like Moses probably was not a real historical figure) is quoted in the New Testament as giving out some extremely wonderful and loving advice/commands (which few Christians follow) on how to live life and treat one’s fellow human beings. At the same time he was saying not to judge others, he condemned all who would not love and follow him or who did not recognize him as God. Yeah, people are often mixed bags. If you take Genesis literally, and God created man in his own image, then the Supreme Creator of everything was also one fucked up dude (ok, I’m channelling George Carlin here)

Didn’t work for me, it dulled my intelligence so much I believed all the lies they tell without checking them for myself, the result was being several hundred thousand $ poorer before I eventually came to my senses and said “enough!”. Yes there are some benefits to scn but the clever person takes what they can then gets out, the good soldiers become lifetime members – broke, broken family and unable to deal with the real world, fully believing themselves to be a superior being to those around them – “the wogs”.

If you ever wonder at the bitterness expressed on this and similar forums I think it can be summed up by saying that none of us like being conned, we are the ones who have woken up and realize we have lost money, time, family and friends to a huge lie.

Whether Scientology works or not is better phrased as whether it worked or not. It is history now. Scientology as it once was is only to be found among the Independents. The Church of Scientology does not practice it any more. GAT I ruined the Tech and GAT II killed it off. Now they are ditching the Policy Letters so the way to run the organisation is being killed off as well. But to give DM credit, this has removed the uncertainty that once existed in the Church. Now, everybody knows for sure that it isn’t Scientology any more. But some parts remain the same. Using the law to harass is working better than before. Fair gaming people has been extended. Disconnection has developed into an art form. But where they really excel is in the fleecing of the chumps. Donations for this – donations for that. Fleecing the whales has become a science – they know who has how much and they match ranks with them from within the Sea Org to engineer geting the most out of them. This is the modern day Church of Scientology. Donatology – the science of fleecing whales.

Aquamarine, I think we can laugh at the out-points but still cry or at least be understanding of the people still in.