Susanna,

I’d opine that like me when I was in, most Scientologists, if they were being honest, don’t like events and attend only because they can’t get out of them with some acceptable excuse.

As to how many, attend I know for a fact that for the last ten years or so of my being “in”, too – low event attendance was a continual issue with staff at my org. My org was a small one. In the 10 years before I left, the most I ever saw at an event was about 50, and out of them, roughly 18 – 20 were staff (who absolutely MUST attend all events.) The usual amount was roughly 30 people, pretty much half of whom were staff.

The other day I saw on line a sweatshirt with “SORRY I’M LATE I DIDN’T WANT TO COME” on it.

Ooohh, to attend JUST ONE MORE cult event…so I could show up in THAT 🙂

i’d keep a jacket on and make sure to get seated in the VERY FIRST ROW.

Then before event started, before the lights went out, I’d take the jacket off, and stand up so everyone could see it.

Before getting thrown out

I really have this picture 🙂

But I’ll never get invited. I’m too dangerous 🙂

SOMEONE PLEASE do this!

Order the sweatshirt and I’ll reimburse you or I’ll order it myself and send it to you.

TOO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, Miscavige was one of them. The kid got thrown out so they raised the afterbirth. Live and learn.

bix, glad if that was useful – it’s a somewhat confusing subject, seemingly fraught with misconceptions, that I try to clarify every time I get the chance. And I’m in the habit of writing assuming that newcomers may be reading, so I may tend to over-explain, and hope that the authors of comments I’m responding to don’t take that in the wrong way.

Anyway, from what I can tell, a lot of the people who seem to like to write about positive experiences in Scientology in the late 1970s and early 1980s, were at missions that were seemingly still doing well – and were maybe not among those who saw or suffered the growing abuses and frauds at those missions, which were propped up in good part by increasing resort to the sort of “hard sell” and “ethics” tactics that we see used at the orgs nowadays. It was easy to get a mistaken impression of the general state of things, and the fact that the most obvious signs of decline coincided with Miscavige taking over control make it easy to blame everything on him.

I think it’s important to understand that Scientology was suffering from the same decline in interest and participation that hit just about all the other groups of its ilk and era in the 1970s, as generations and society itself changed, and that Hubbard was actually the source of most all the dysfunction that developed, with Miscavige just following in his footsteps. It was an interesting time, with all sorts of things going on, wasn’t it?

It looks to me like Scientology is weasel-wording again:

“He was part of the original Class XII training program for the delivery of the L-Rundowns”

It seems to me that all they’re specifically claiming there is that he was part of the first L-Rundown training for Class XIIs – something later, I presume, though I don’t understand the details of that training. Typically, it appears intended to imply the grandiose claim that he was part of the original Class XII training program under LRH – but to avoid actually saying that, so that whoever produces the propaganda can justify to themselves that they’re not really lying, just telling “acceptable truths” and not responsible for the mis-comprehension of people who don’t parse the words like a grammar teacher or a lawyer.

It’s still shameful, and reflects badly on the actual mores and ethics of Scientology, and their deteriorating state, that they resort to such propaganda tricks, and can’t be trusted to simply tell the truth and live with the integrity of that being good enough. The fact that the people who put out this material often resort to the childish trick of saying something they know is likely to be misunderstood, as if it’s not actually a lie, tells us that they have remaining human compunctions about their compromised truthfulness, and know that it is fundamentally wrong. It reminds me of the sort of disingenuous and mendacious things that the North Korean regime puts out.

And Foolproof, petty details of the specific example aside, what do you think of the fact that Hubbard produced an organization full of liars – and almost based on lies? Shouldn’t he himself have had the integrity never to lie, rather than, say, telling provably false stories such as about his relationship with Aleister Crowley, that because of his playing fast and loose with the truth, cast doubt on other things he said (and, apparently, set a bad example that his adherents have ended up following)? Do we know – or do you have some standard for judging – what his threshold was for telling lies and telling the truth, whether he would lie about Crowley but not about things like “research,” or whether he might have lied about anything and everything? And if you think the “subject” is separate from Hubbard, does it then itself call for a rigorous relationship to the truth and honest communication, unlike the deceptiveness that Hubbard modeled and the CofS now practices, or do you believe it is justified to lie to others whenever you think it serves a purpose (not just theoretic extremes, such as in a situation where someone has a gun to your head) – and do you do so here to defend Scientology?

one thing the Co$ didn’t think about was the possibility that people coming back were some of the forced abortions – oops!

COS sound like that Popeye Cartoon Character “WIMPY”

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger today”…..

COS: You can gladly PAY US NOW for courses you WILL OR WILL NOT be able to take

The point was he was NOT “part of the original Class XII training program under LRH”. Why you want to fight and argue about that and try to be right about it is anyone’s guess. He was not. Period. You want to play your games and wriggle and slide to try to be right about something that is ridiculous.

True that I Yawn.

Chuck, he was already concerned in the early 80’s with the really harsh ethics atmosphere at Flag. Can’t imagine how he feels since DM took over the CoS from Hubtard.