Balletlady, I hear you on people being embarrassed about being suckered. Mark Twain said it; something like people would rather keep on BEING fools than admit that that someone has really fooled them. Admitting this is too embarrassing so they just keep on “being right” about it and being fools! You illustrated this very well in your post, and one can observe this phenomenon everywhere.

Well, I know for a fact that the Birthday Game and making staff do lower conditions, and then stressing them out with high conditions that have to be maintained when they do produce has given staffHUGE losses. Couple that with having to learn and relearn, sell and re-sell whatever Miscavige’s tech du jour happens to be and you have a terrible business model. I I follow formulas loosely and they work for me the way I cherry pick what I will personally apply and when. And loosely and informally managing staff with certain formula actions (“promote”, duh) work well.

But managing staff, strictly, that way?

Jesus! Making them do Lowers, giving them an arbitrary weekly target date and time, i.e., having to get everything DONE by Thursday at 2PM or whatever the day and time chosen, holy hell, just slit your throat before running a business with THAT policy! I’d NEVER treat my staff like that. If I did, I’d have long ago lost my business. I wouldn’t have a business! Producing staff, mostly working hard, earnestly, loyally, who don’t get EVERYTHING finished by some arbitrary time – punish them? Unthinkable! And then making them do Liability or Doubt or Enemy…Unthinkable! Not only cruel, but dumb.

It’s hard for people to realize they’ve been suckered…most people would never admit that they fell for this crock of shit. People are judgmental in certain situations as in “how could you be so dumb to believe in Xenu, atomic bombs, volcano’s. Well at least space Aliens might be under consideration as a distinct possibility yet to be proven, could Xenu actually BE one?

In reality Lron was a Science Fiction writer (dubious author?) who could spin a yarn with the best of them. He figured out soon enough as noted that the ONLY way to really make some cold hard cash would be to start a religion.

New cults were popping up all over the place, Heaven’s Gate, Children of God, young people in the 60’s hippie generation about peace & love trying to “save the world”…Or in Lron’s imagination “Clear The Planet”…..

For the long time still in’s, just how does one admit to themselves that none of what they’ve studied, paid thousands in cash for, sacrificed their entire lives for, so hard to admit it’s all a fantasy…that the brand spanking new “meat body” is never gonna happen. There have been cases where people under hypnosis can recall what they claim would be past lives or lives of someone ELSE who’s been long dead & now that “being” inhabits their body.

The depth & breadth of the human mind is still being explored today. WHY are some people geniuses, why are their some people with 70 I.Q.’s able to solve complicated math or science problems or play a musical instrument like a virtuoso…

AAAhhh we still wonder about life & just WHERE the HELL we ALL came from?

Good point. The decades of proof that El Con policy is a major failure might bring that about. Members are looking for someone who could do it better than Hubtard.

Is the “insane old bat of a lady” the same one from the Regraded Being?

The OTHER difference would be that the Catholic Church Pope is more or less ELECTED to BE the POPE.

David Miscavige voted himself in….he took over with an iron fist squashing anyone in his way. He had the BALLS & the back up to do it. His devotees still kiss his ASS as much as the Bishops etc in the Catholic Church kiss the Pope’s ring.

No no Aqua, don’t stop – I fully agree with you!

AM said: “Then again, how could they NOT lie to ME when for years they’d been lying to THEMSELVES?”

AM, that is a mighty powerful breakthrough. I think it takes a really good mind to achieve that kind of realization. So many people spend their lives blaming others for lying to them and cheating them out of their lives. Mike sets a good example. He readily forgives all the people who have lied to and cheated him and he asks forgiveness of all the people he has done the same to. Someone recently said we need to find a better name than “Bobble Mike”. I have always thought of him as “Captain Mike”. He deserves to be the leader of those people much more than The Monster deserves anything.

IMO, that realization frees both of you to transition to the next stage in your development. I have no idea what that may be. But I’m very proud of you for having figured that out they couldn’t help lying to you since they have been lying to themselves for so long. It is very difficult to put yourself in the shoes of others but it’s such a powerful thing to do. Now that you realize it was no one else’s “fault”, you can stop wasting your own time fuming and blaming and lost in anger.

Forgive me for making some very blatant assumptions about you AM. I have no way of knowing whether you have spent much time blaming others and that you now realize it’s not going to help you. I’m making other assumptions about you that I have no business doing. So I need to ask you to forgive me for that. It can cause you to feel bad if I say dumbass things and I’m wrong about them.

But I’m sure you have done something terrifically (bunch of new-age adjectives similar to “enabling”). I better stop before I say something hurtful. I just think it took an awful lot for you to realize these people weren’t at fault and didn’t deliberately try to hurt you.

After all, if they were walking down the street and stepped on some ants, they wouldn’t really have been to blame for killing them. They may just not have been paying attention because they were thinking about some stupid Scamology shit.

In summary? Not your fault, AM. I suggest you will be better off if you don’t waste your time beating up on yourself because you don’t deserve that.

I helped you? Well, I must say I’m surprised and delighted at that. I’ve spent many years at war on several forums and I usually get banned within a few weeks. No one has ever before said I helped them. Usually people just tell me to knock it off with my weird sense of humor.

Have you ever read George Orwell’s Animal Farm? It was required reading when I went to school. Required reading in the 8th grade. I was 13 years old and IMO, that was far too young to appreciate this great book.

But I think a lot of went on with the pigs is similar to this scam. The big difference is that it wasn’t fear so much as greed. Well, they were pigs after all.

But whenever I think about it, I see so much that is similar. All the double talk. All the fear of the leader. Of course, I also see a lot of similarity to the Nazis. The Nazis were even more like The Scam than the pigs at Animal Farm.

Is it my imagination or do the remaining three jive arses look as enthusiastic as a clown hired to perform in a real morgue?