Ignorant – A shorter way of saying, “Don’t take any notice of that ant on your leg.”

OK, as long as you aren’t a plant. lol Kidding. When I first came out of the church and was getting active on the sites, people thought I was a plant. I wasn’t.

Glenn, I think the CofS is more authoritarian regime than snake oil wagon – since at least the 1960s, perhaps marked by the point when the Sea Org came ashore and started to spread out to implement “source”‘s KSW, “fair game” style ruthless and controlling organizational policies. Hubbard seems to me to have abandoned all but the pretense of “kinder, gentler” scientology after his experience running the ships with an iron fist – and drinking of the sadism of chain lockering children, overboarding people unable to swim, and making old men push peanuts around the deck with their noses until they bled.

Totalitarian leaders don’t seem plan for being deposed or having to flee, and history shows that they either hang on until the bitter end (ex. Mugabe in Zimbabwe) or die with their boots on (ex. Libaya’s Gaddafi). I believe that the CofS actually had to stop Hubbard’s practice of hiding money offshore (don’t forget “mankind’s best friend”‘s pallets of cash in overseas bank vaults), as part of their agreement with the IRS, and repatriate it.

That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if Scientology doesn’t secretly own property in a country that has no extradition treaty with the US, for use as a backup base from which Miscavige could run the CofS if things ever got too hot in the US. I doubt DM has any plans to take the money and run – if nothing else he would have the classic dictator’s problem, that whoever took power in his stead might well be bitter and vengeful enough to send assassins after him (think “mankind’s best friend”‘s R2-45 policy and “Bolivar”), sort of like what happened to Trotsky in Mexico, or at least he would risk ending up on the receiving end of scapegoating and vilification in a way his ego couldn’t stand.

I realize that you probably had a limited or different perspective on things given where you were at in Scientology and when you were there. In my view well-intended and idealistic people like you created a positive experience in spite of Hubbard, not actually because of him.

P.S. If you are going to write your posts first before publishing them, I would recommend you write them into an editor where you can save them. I would avoid writing them in longhand. IMO, there is no good reason to write in longhand. Although many great writers always write in longhand. So what do I know?

Cindy,

It seems we have so, so much in common and I truly love playing poker with you.

I too have a lot of SO history and would really like to swap more stories with you.

I understand completely Mike’s site isn’t the best place to do it. He has both my email and yours. Lets ask him to share them with us. It would be totally fine with me.

And so Mike. Will you please share my email address with Cindy and of course hers with me?

Table of Contents at the back of the book.

That’s funny.

But I’m curious why that post does not seem to have a “Reply” button. That is pretty strange.

Skyler – I just had a cognition from this conversation with you! The only way I’m going to improve my brain to keyboard skill is to just go ahead and write down what I’m thinking. Practice makes perfect. Damn the torpedoes – go ahead!

One last comment about the Grammar Dictionary. In typical scn paranoid concern about never ever going past a misunderstood word the authors put the table of contents at the BACK of the book so you wouldn’t get an MU while looking at the table of contents – laughter

Skyler – I agree. When I started reading and posting on the scn blogs in 2015 after watching Going Clear I had no previous experience in composing written messages and none of the blogs I was on had an edit feature. For almost three years the only way I could make what I was thinking make any sense in a post was to write down my comments longhand in a notebook first to see if they made sense! Even as I’m writing this I’m double checking to see if I’m communicating correctly. I still need more practice on brain to keyboard. Lol

Trivia – I was curious about how some people can write such long comments since it would take me forever to check out if I composed a long comment which communicates. I read out loud from a magazine article and timed myself for one minute. It turns out that a normal speaking rate is about 140 words per minute. A lot of people can type 100 words per minute so they are pretty quick on brain to keyboard. I’m getting better. Lol

I just wrote the above paragraph off the top of my head so here goes the “post comment” and I’ll see if I’m making sense – haha

Peace Maker and Glenn (there was no reply button for Glenn so I include it here.) I hear what you’re saying. I think we all experienced stuff like this but never spoke of it because we’d be written up and sent to ethics for “being disaffected” or “nattering” when in actuality we had been taken advantage of.

And the Affirmations of Ron’s were surprising to me at first, but now I can see that he did these things probably. It shows a state of mind that he didn’t let anyone see usually.

And my being in the SO is too big a story with too many outpoints and out tech to go into here.