This statement epitomizes the mindset of the scientology bubble.
Their city (fill in name) is where scientology can flourish because it’s such a wonderful place, filled with amazing people (and when they are trying to recruit they add how great the schools are, the art scene is, the delicious food, the museums… anything they can think of). It’s like their city is the unique petri dish with just the right ingredients for the experiment to finally succeed. It’s all so bright and hopeful — and absolutely absurd.
But, despite all the wonderful things and amazing people, “everyone in (fill in the blank) is struggling” and WE have “the only thing that can really permanently solve their problems.” (They cannot solve their OWN problems — unable to open their “ideal” org, don’t have enough staff, can’t pay them or their bills etc etc etc) So, how could we possibly fail? Like every other org in history… Not a single one has expanded long term, and not a single one has ever had any real impact on their city.
How do they deal with that reality? It’s all irrelevant, because “I have personal certainty” that “we are the only solution.” This is truly all that matters and no evidence to the contrary makes any difference at all. Scientologists live in an unreal universe of “personal certainty” that overrides anything and everything.
Part of their delusion is that they are “Clearing the Planet.” And that being on staff is a “bigger game.” Obviously they are not close to clearing the block their org is on, let alone their neighborhood or city or state… Or the surrounding states with NO orgs at all. Let alone the planet. But joining staff is a “bigger game” — bigger than what?
The delusion in scientology runs VERY deep. And it’s contagious. Scientology is an echo chamber of positive confirmation. They hear other people saying things and know they should be saying them too. They repeat themselves with what become mantras of their “faith” and you hear the same phrases over and over and over: “playing bigger game,” “I am now at cause” (because I ran around a pole), “any barriers holding me back are now gone,” “this (fill in the blank for any auditing or course or lecture series or book) gave me the greatest gains I have ever had in scientology”– the list is a long one.
Pity the people in the bubble. Their critical thinking has been eaten away by the corrosive concepts and control mechanisms of scientology.
Is this just me or does this Joe Cecela look incredibly smug in this staff recruit PR photo? So smug that his expression borders on contempt? To me, his whole stance is contemptuous. Smirking, looking down. Bully for you, Joe; you joined staff. La di da and lets see how long you last. And yes, I know these new staff recruits are TOLD how to pose, the crossed arms, etc., the “The Tone 40, the “I have total certainty on what I’m doing and I don’t adjust my beingness to my environment I adjust my environment to me” persona, etc. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Still, just from this picture alone I would not choose him as my auditor. This may be unfair; he may be a very good auditor and a very nice person and posing as instructed. This snottiness may be what the Sea Org wants a staff person to project in these recruitment pieces but IMO it is quite out-PR expression for an auditor. Ok, I got that off my chest, thank you, end of inconsequential rant.
Having been in the “Tech” side of Scientology for almost 35 years and now out for many, it still kinda stuns me how absolutely stupid/unknowing Scientologists are. Hey Joe, even if all of what LRH said was true, how the HELL do you think Scn can possibly have an impact on Chicago as far as numbers go charging the amount of money it does? Even if it was worth it, and we know now that a lot of it isn’t, only a very small fraction of the people on Earth could afford much of Scientology. Do none of you see this? Are you all so stupidly blind? (already answered really)
would you consider making a video and showing us some of the books written by ex scientology? i am finding there isnt a good list on whats out there.
There is a list right on the front page of this blog: “Important Reading” there is also a list at the back of my book
A list
https://whyweprotest.fandom.com/wiki/Chronology_of_publications_on_Scientology
One thing that I think a lot of people never get is that Scientology and Dianetics are hypnotic in nature. They affect some people.
Every school of hypnosis I have seen has had an idea that goes something like this: apparently some people are easy to hypnotize. Some people are highly resistant to hypnosis and can’t be hypnotized. Most people are somewhere in between.
So, some people in Scientology are not hypnotized and some are.
Part of hypnosis is euphoric trance states. In some of these states people are highly suggestible and some people will “remember” events that never occurred if these events are suggested or if leading questions about these events are presented.
This has been known by hypnotists for a long time.
Research in psychology has confirmed this quite thoroughly.
So, Dianetics and Scientology effectively puts some people in euphoric trance states and has them “remember” events that never occurred and suggests the recall of these events will free the minds of the members.
It also has members undergo indoctrination designed to induce confusion and solve this via referral to the definitions and doctrine provided by Hubbard in his materials. This is similarly a hypnotic technique.
Scientology uses ALL the basic hypnotic techniques of confusion aka contradiction aka paradox, attention fixation, vivid imagery aka guided imagination, mimicry, repetition, and repetition-with-variation.
The missing ingredient that most people outside of Scientology don’t see is the euphoric trance states.
In Scientology they are defined as something beneficial whenever they occur. As Robert Jay Lifton described in his eight criteria for thought reform the loaded language used redefines reality for members and the trances are the mystical manipulation that Lifton described. In mystical manipulation something is experienced that actually occurs but it’s interpreted as something else.
In Scientology feeling euphoria is interpreted as gaining spiritual awareness in auditing, It’s interpreted as gaining understanding of the secrets of the universe in indoctrination. It’s always interpreted as evidence that Scientology is correct and working but people had all the experiences that Scientology generates in other practices before Scientology existed and in rare instances Hubbards even admitted this.
Here are examples:
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/04/scientology-ron-hubbard-and-hypnosis-3.html
I’ve been recently thinking about the “mindset of the scientology bubble.” Why are these people still there? I can’t really get inside their heads, so I can only go by my experiences as public and staff, and those of my fellow church members. But that was many years ago. I’m starting to think that today we’re seeing a slightly different breed of churchies. And I’ve just begun considering a particular segment of the group I hadn’t seriously considered until now: Every org had its “dilettantes” in the LRH sense of the word.
The term dilettante was a pejorative label we’d usually reserve for the wog world, never a fellow scion. (Unless you were a reg trying to pressure someone into laying down some money.) But we had them, though it was rarely a serious issue. In any case, these were the lightweights who enjoyed the camaraderie and support of the group and basked in the self-important status of being the only people who could save the planet. Not as experienced, auditing and training-wise, but enthusiastic nonetheless.
I think that what today’s org environment lacks are the win-or-die-in-the-attempt militants who insisted that “standard tech” be implemented into every square inch of org operations. But to our credit, and ultimately to our benefit, once things started looking like they weren’t adding up, we left–or in many cases, were forced to leave. And I find it delightfully ironic that for the most part, the orgs are left with those “namby pamby bunch of panty-waist dilettantes” who LRH warned us about.
OK, that’s my thesis. Now someone will have to explain to me about the IAS whales. That was just after my time.
According to Kristi Wachter’s completions site there are now 4364 OT8s – including people who already died, left etc. https://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/ot-viii-completions
Back in 2012 Patty Moher published a list of OT8s from completions for whom I did research as to where they were back then. That list contained some 2700 names
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KTq41-3rbSBe2xMWHGwZ-dn4BKDYx6kn13G3p2y9fug/edit
This means that, as far as we know from completions. in 10 y they added 1664 OT8s – about 160 a year.
I’d rather join a circus of meditating iguanas.
In the last year or so I became involved in rehabilitative veteran matters and it consumed far greater time and emotional energy than I ever anticipated, I withdrew from a lot of things, this site too but have sort of bounced back now my input has been all but finalized. The world’s a crazy place and unfortunately our service personnel take a huge hit of the brunt of that craziness. Many of them need our recognition and support to get their lives back in some sort of shape to enjoy life again. Interestingly, in Australia the first of an annual “Veteran Games” kicks off in Sept 23 on the Gold Coast to get veterans both serving and ex back in comm with their mates and the public to give them a unified purpose.
Scientology for all their “running off of the mouth” of how good they are and are saving mankind from itself, are the only ones that have the tech of life, blah blah blah… are actually part of the problem they and much of mankind is in such a mess. Hubbard adopted some pretty destructive mechanisms in Scientology. Someone like Miscavige dovetailed into it easily.
I hope I can get this across, it’s my opinion only but I’ve been looking at some history and stumbled across an incident that occurred on 7 June 1944 and involved the brutal massacre of Canadian troops by the Waffen SS 12th Panzer Division. They committed severe atrocities on the battlefield as well as murdered quite a few prisoners. Those SS units were truly evil and terrorized much of Europe, were the guards at concentration camps etc. In the article I read the author explained the 12 SS Panzer Division was comprised mostly of Hitler Youth inducted in 1933/4 as children into that organisation. (However Hitler began much earlier in 1925 creating brutal, black uniformed, “political soldiers”). At the time of the war they were teenagers and had been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the ‘master race’ concept they were capable of doing anything to defeat or eliminate their enemies, which was pretty much anyone that wasn’t them.
It really dawned on me the similarity of the cadet corp Hubbard put together using children and the fanaticism I saw in some of the SO members I was involved with personally who were brought up in Scientology that way. I’m not saying they compare with the SS but the same sort of mental conditioning principles are involved. There’s certainly no hiding the fact Scientology has an inner core of fanatics who see nothing wrong with destroying people’s lives, both financially and emotionally and indoctrinating a slave culture within its own ranks. That insanity is enforced throughout the entirety of the Scientology structure. Pretty scary stuff when you really start wrapping your mind around it.
This push on manning up staff for Chicago Org is a typical example of the propaganda used by such fanatics.
There are many similar, such cultures festering in which children learn their life crafts, grow into adults and fall inline to serve their masters. From street gangs to the hallowed halls of power.
The sooner Scientology is disbanded the better off so many people will be.
Mike,
Off topic, but the old German TV news people have put the high quality version of the “Lost in Happy Valley” TV show on the internet, and it is worthy of much discussion, for history purposes.
It shows clearly the RPF camp trailers, and there are easily a dozen ex’s, I was one, who can confirm being IN those trailers when the helicopter flew over.
Jesse Prince says things in this TV show which is only in his book, also.
I feel this reporter really deserves someone interview him, and answer all his questions.
Here’s his email address:
peter-alexander@gmx.com
I hope you or Aaron or Marc contact him.
He’s wishing to find out more details of their visit.
https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Witness-Life-Top-Scientology/dp/1725992639
Mormonism works the same way. I know the Mormon Church is true because I had a burning in my bosom which is the Holy Ghost telling me that the LDS Church is true. Never mind that Joseph Smith changed the First Vision story several times. Never mind that there have been numerous changes to the temple ritual despite Joseph saying that the ritual came from God and must never change. Never mind that today black people can come into the church and receive eternal live yet they were deprived of all gospel blessings prior to 1978. No, I had a burning in the bosom so none of that matters.
No wonder someone suggested that Mormonism should be renamed Ziontology.
Are you sure it wasn’t the very hot chili you had for tea before going to bed that caused the fever dreams overnight?
Nah, it was nothing like that.
When I saw the title of today’s post my first thought was you were going to talk about the South Park episode Trapped in the closet
An eternal flaw of the subject of Scientology, is Hubbard’s never simply defining what the core practices of it are.
Scientology is soul memories pseudo-therapy, to alleviate one’s supposed soul deterioration due to multi lives worth of bad incidents stored in our soul memories.
Scientology is soul pseudo-therapy, mostly.
Second mostly, Scientology has a significant block of exorcism (OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are the five long expensive and highly secretive individual steps, Scientologists cannot speak or write the exorcism theory details publicly still to this day) and the basic exorcism theory is that soul memories of OTHER souls which infest and orbit around us, leak their soul trauma memories into our soul minds, further messing us up.
Scientology is a two phase soul bad memories supposed alleviation soul pseudo-therapy and exorcism practice.
The whole movement delivers this soul pseudo-therapy and exorcism.
Hubbard never ever simplified, and instead all the Scientologists are allowed to do, under penalty of excommunication, tell superlatives of what their subject is.
Never can they just simplify and tell the world what their Scientology core practices are.
Therefore, all of the promotional magazines explanations of Scientology are ipso facto merely superlative adjectives.
Scientology itself, due to Hubbard’s flawed rules for selling Scientology, cannot define itself, and possibly Scientology never will define itself.
It’s left to former members and outsiders who see through all the Hubbard massive wordage on Scientology, to simplify and define Scientology.
Chuck Beatty
ex who gave this a lot of thought
Like yourself I was a Scientologist.
As many people know I was in Scientology for twenty five years and left in 2014.
I knew hundreds of people while in Scientology who were members and probably more since I have left.
I found that perhaps ninety nine percent of the people in Scientology never reach OT III and above and since these levels are confidential and secret they don’t learn about or practice the exorcism in Scientology ever at all.
I think this is vitally important to the conversation and far too often left out.
Additionally Scientology doesn’t tell members that the OT levels like virtually everything else in Scientology and Dianetics were stolen and plagiarized by Ronald Hubbard as he took ideas that had two qualities.
They were ideas that held appeal to at least some people when presented and most were ideas that over time were found to be failures such as the abreactive therapy stolen and combined with hypnosis in Dianetics and the various therapies taken and combined with hypnosis then repackaged as Scientology auditing for example. These practices did increase dependence and suggestibility in patients. The patients became dependent on the therapists and more suggestible to the statements of the therapists with abreactive therapy for example.
I wish more people would explain that almost all Scientologists never hear about Xenu.
And I wish a lot of Scientologists and ex Scientologists and cult experts and academics would look at the evidence that Scientology was plagiarized.
Here’s an often unexamined example:
The Xenu story is extremely likely to be taken from the occult and it has many elements that are identical to the OAHSPE an earlier cult doctrine from the 1800s.
I found it to be stunning when I compared it against Scientology.
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/03/ot-iii-and-beyond-sources-plagiarized.html
I never done any OT levels because I never had the money to do any of it, if you would look over the following video, is that it or similar to what is done on the OT levels – what he is showing how to do in the video, is it soul exorcism ? :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OtLBVPM4vo
I’m pretty sure this is non standard per Hubbard’s rules, but in general, the guy is doing a decent show and tell, showing the meter/needle, and because he’s talking out loud, you hear what he’s “saying.”
Normally on OT 3 and 6 and 7, the exorcism is done silently.
But for demonstration purposes, he’s stream of consciousness explaining his thinking out loud, for this demonstration.
He’s a splinter exorcist doing things which are Hubbard Scientology related, but Scientology’s got way way way more detailed and regimented procedures, which he’s slopping all over the place, but, he’s having fun, or seems to be.
On the internet, on Wikileaks, is the Scientology confidential exorcism materials, and what I found “helpful” is to read the “NOTs Repair List” which a Scientologist Class 9 auditor will read out, and try to find out the problem. That NOTs Repair List, is kind of some of the steps this guy is just doing all on his own, doing his own poking around finding entities in himself.
So overall, yes, I’d say it loosely is like finding the body-thetans infesting oneself, but doing it loosely, freely asking oneself stuff to drudge up entities or body-thetans, and trying to get them to vamoose.
But I’m pretty sure this isn’t “standard” Scientology exorcism steps of OT 3 or OT 7.
but is this kind of like Scientology exorcism, it kind of is.
(Him asking himself “Why am I fucked up?” and variations of that, that is a self listing question, and per Hubbard’s rules, he’s not doing “listing” procedure “standardly” and again, he’s just loosely doing “listing” and “entity” finding, simultaneously, LOL.)
Thanks for the reply, the OT levels do not seem to be on wikileaks, I searched. I was talking to Rich – the man in the video a couple of years ago and he was telling me that he was into scientology but left after it was taken over in the early 1970s.
The Wikileaks needs an exact type of search line, to get into the bulk of the Scientology materials there, and then you go through the list, and get the “fake” red volume that was put together decades ago, which has all the upper confidential Scientology materials.
Here’s the search line, to begin doing the above:
https://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Index_Online_Research_Materials_-_Dianetics_and_Scientology_Advanced_Level_Services
There is a mammoth amount of material.
To narrow it down, you just have to stumble through this yourself, and trial and error get to the stuff you wish.
Remember, the actual procedures are probably still NOT in the above link. YOu might have to simply email with some ex OT 5 Scientologist, or an ex Class 9 auditor. The Class 9 auditor in Scientology does the long arduous exorcism of others.
Then also, best to just chat with any ex OT 7 (new OT 7) Scientologist, and they can give you the simply exorcism commands for OT 7 latest and greatest Scientology exorcism.
You can also probably get on other chat sites, and ask there, if there’s an ex OT 7 willing to give you the OT 7 exorcism commands used by them.
it’s all bogus though, this is all imaginary crap, all this exorcism is still imagination exorcism, not really real.
Human mind is quite suggestable to believe that souls infest us, and that exorcism is possible and effective. It’s all in your head man. Meaning your imagination since our imagination is quite powerful.
In the recent Thursday funnies there is a different picture of Joe cecela. I am guessing the picture in this post is not him . Simply More deception.
When I Googled “Joe Cecala Chicago,” I found a Joseph J. Cecala who appears to be Joe’s father. Joseph J. is the Founder & Chief Executive of the Dream Exchange. Joseph J. is also a scientologist as seen in a Chicago “Ideal” Org ad from the Feb. 9, 2023 edition of Mike’s Thursday Funnies.
Joe appears to be Joseph J’s son, and is also known as Salvatore Cecala, who is the Director of Promotion and Marketing (the company appears to be using L. Ron Hubbard’s Organizing, or Org Board). The photo of “Joe” in today’s blog looks just like the photo of “Salvatore” in the Leadership Team section of the Dream Exchange (“Salvatore” may be Joe’s middle name). Joe also goes by the name “Joey.” When I Googled “Scientology Salvatore Cecala,” Salvatore shows up in Flag’s Source 255, having completed Method 1 Word Clearing, the Survival Rundown, the Student Hat and the Cause Resurgence “I Ran Around a Pole” Rundown. Eleven months later, as noted in Source 261, poor Joe/Joey/Salvatore needed the PTS/SP Course.
Google shows that a Dream Exchange in Chicago has closed permanently; LinkedIn shows the Dream Exchange as sharing two cities: Chicago and Clearwater, Florida (at 630 Chestnut St.).
Other Dream Exchange employees who appear to be scientologists include:
Chief Technology Officer, Bruce Trask. A “Bruce Trask” has appeared in various “Source” magazines, and has completed a plethora of scientology indoctrination. Those services include L10, L12 and the Cause Resurgence Rundown. He’s also a Full Golden Age of Knowledge completion. Prosperity 62 lists him as a WISE member. In the 2004 WISE directory, Bruce worked as a computer consultant in Bronx, New York; in his LinkedIn Experience, Bruce worked as a computer consultant for two companies in the Greater New York City Area (Objective Computing Inc. and BAE Systems).
VP of Public Relations, Jane Hayton. A “Jane Hayton” has completed various services at Flag, including L10, L11 and L12.
Chief Administrative Officer, Brian Moxon (is he related to Kendrick, his son perhaps?). A “Brian Moxon” has virtually lived at FLAG, or the Clearwater area, from 1995 to 2002, and from 2013 to 2016, completing almost everything on the Bridge to Total Freedom, including, yes, the Cause Resurgence Rundown.
Thanks for the details.
My pleasure, Geoff.
Re: an ad for the Chicago “Ideal” Org that Mike Rinder published on August 13, 2022 for an edition of “Thursday Funnies.”
For my comment that day, I responded to that ad, which included a picture of “Nick Cecala” and his success story, of sorts, for joining staff at that org.
In hindsight, I now believe that Joe/Joey/Salvatore AND Nick may all be the same person.
Talk about having multiple valences/identities/personalities!
I watched my old neighborhoods get burned and looted during 2020.
The only VMs I saw did clean up some trash, but it was WOGS in neighborhoods that set up tons of bags of groceries and food, offered real help for what was needed at the time. The neighborhoods burned, as the OT committee probably collectively (thought) the city to not burn and the rest stayed hunkerd down because of the dangerous environment. True it was at the moment, but that solidified the dangerous environment scenario to Scientology.
I really enjoy Mark and his efforts and David M being who he is, and single handily destroying scientology. But all this is for good reading. The real problem are the whales, they are the bubble that needs to be popped, they are the problem, their donations speak loudly. We need to boycott their products, services, and expose to the public who they really are.
Just like slime we elected to run our country.
How about we do what Scientology did to Marc Headley. Find out who the whales clients are and write the TRUTH about what they support.
thanks for the comment. at least someone is listening, and not just talk down about the cult, just trying to help it die quicker. the auditor in the interview seems very like, using the arc triangle, she really sounds convinced, and convincing like a very sane person, her convictions are high. its amazing to read Tony’s article on the conversation. The illusion can be so real for them. This will be a hard nut to crack if the whales feel the way same she does, and donate millions.
I also have read that there’s a money laundering issue (alleged) happening as well to keep Flag solvent.
Witnessing the tactics used by some of our elected officials in recent times, I’d swear that they have been schooled in LRH/Guardian Office attack policies (character assassination, dirty tricks, falsely accused of heinous acts, etc.).
I don’t consider any one single-handedly destroying the cult. I think it was bound to fail once a good look into the science fiction of their upper levels took place, the mind blowing costs of same, and the punitive way staff and public were and are being treated. LRH set the stage and blackened the cult’s credibility by saying one thing and then acting just the opposite. His clones followed suit. You can’t ‘clear the planet’ by abusing people.
I don’t know how many people have left the cult. I would imagine there are thousands. Had staff been treated humanely and not punitively, battered psychologically and physically, I wouldn’t be writing this.
I think greed had a big part to play in the cult’s demise as well. There’s one policy I remember reading about org premises…LRH wrote something to the effect that they’re supposed to be simple and inexpensive. But pricey ‘Ideal Orgs’ have since replaced LRH policy, and auditing and training costs gone through the roof!
When the top of any organization is deceitful, it will soon be found out. Leah and Mike brought the truth to the world. My eternal gratitude to them and those who worked with them.
Thank you so much Rheva. It’s always nice to hear from old friends who were in the trenches…
I don’t recall there being a Scientology Org in Columbus, Georgia when I was stationed at Fort Benning.