From: "Kevin Brady"
<rockslam@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Message to Kevin - and other scns out there (was Re: Letter from Moxon and Kobrin)
Message-ID:
<rnuP2.4279$gr5.3777@news.rdc1.ct.home.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 21:34:15 GMT
<kady@wwwaif.net> wrote in message news:7elgf1$20c_002@news.bigmomma.com...
Hi Kevin,
Thanks so much for your post!
While I'm sorry that the material on Andreas' site was disturbing to you, I think it's great that you were willing to open your mind to the possibility that the CoS was feeding you 'false data'. It is people like you that make all the legal and extralegal harassment worth putting up with, if it means that one more scientologist gets a chance to read the *other* side of the story.
You are operating under a false assumption. I should have been more complete in my last communication. I am not a newbie to the Internet, nor even to this newsgroup, nor even to the freezone. I worked in the Treasury department of the Church and for the OSA project which "handled" the IRS audit of 1991, and then left the Church due to a variety of reasons. First and foremost, they were not giving me the training and processing that I had signed the contract for. Second, my pay was continually between $0-$120 per week, for eleven hour work-days, with admin training (ONLY) at night, for over two years. I was continually put into "Lower Conditions" because I would not disconnect from my parents and friends outside of the Church, whom the Church claimed were making me PTS (which stands for Potential Trouble Source, and means you are feeling uncertain about your involvement with the Church). This meant that despite my affluence trending statistics, general high-tone, recruitment of good people who stayed on post, rapid completion of hatting courses, and devotion to the group, I was considered by them an accident waiting to happen. Eventually, I guess they were right, because I left, taking my then-wife with me. I was declared suppressive, eventually tried to come back to the Church, as I couldn't find anything like Scientology out in Wogdom. After six months of the same kind of abuse all over again, they came to the conclusion that I simply was not going to be admitted back into the Church, despite my rapid completion of the A to E steps. They had no explanation, and in fact, had lost the records of my having been declared originally, although they insisted that I had been, even though "if it isn't written it isn't true". Whatever. I was pretty concerned, until I went online and discovered the Freezone. Now, I just want to get trained and open up my own little practice, auditing relatives and friends and training others.
I think it's difficult for anyone to face the possibility that something they see as benevolent and beneficial has a dark side. There are a number of reasons why this is true - from the natural human reluctance to admit that one has been the victim of a con game, to a fear that the 'benefits' one believes one has received will be shown to be nothing more than a placebo effect.
Agreed.
Meanwhile, I will continue to explore the usefulness of auditing and the emeter using free materials available on the net. I have a vested interest in coming to the conclusion that the meter is useful (otherwise I am a FOOL, n'est-ce pas?). Man, do I hope I am not a fool! I have yet to sue scientology for a refund, but I am about ready to do so. They owe me about seven grand US dollars. God knows I can use the money.
Well, as a critic who has never been involved with scientology, I admit that I am personally sceptical of the value of the tech.
That's OK with me. I'm skeptical too. I'm not certain of the value of anything other than what I have done, which is O/W write-ups, condition formula's, admin scales (planning your life), battle-planning (a write-up of your next days activities to get yourself aligned with your admin scale), and a few auditing sessions (Security Checks - confessionals that are not protected by priest to penitent relationship).
However, if even one tenth of the possibilities hinted at in Dianetics and Scientology are possible, it is worth the investment in a meter and some training to investigate further. Not inside the Church, for me, but in the Freezone, where I will be more free to form my own opinion. Remember, Hubbard is not the only person responsible for the development of "Clearing". He simply usurped the title of Source, but that doesn't make it so. Carl Jung and Volney Matheson are really the sources synthesized in scientology (Jung for his work with archetypes [implanted valences], Matheson for developing the portable emeter). And others have investigated separately from Hubbard, coming along just as far or farther in the field.
But I don't think there's anything wrong with someone else having a different opinion on that :) There are a number of freezone websites that offer auditing and other scientology 'tech' *without* all the negative baggage of the CoS.
I know. I practically live at the www.fza.org site. Thanks, though.
Here's a suggestion that you might find helpful when evaluating freezone services: make a list of all the things you experienced in scientology that 'worked', in your opinion. For many exiting scientologists, the main complaint is with the 'ethics and justice' aspect of the scn belief system, and not so much with the tech itself. Other reasons given by now-former scns for their exit include disagreement with the actions of upper management and OSA, and the prohibitive price of services.
Yeah. That felt good.
If you wanted to post such a list to alt.religion.scientology, or to alt.clearing.technology (the newsgroup dedicated to discussion of the tech, populated mainly by freezoners and other former scns who still find some value in what Hubbard taught), I'm sure some of us would find it extremely interesting. We are always trying to find the best way to reach *current* scientologists, and one good way to do that is to find out what it was that made people join - and leave - in the first place.
I think pickets are probably the best way to reach the people inside. They can't avoid seeing you. They can't avoid wondering what the big problem is. They can't avoid asking someone. They can't avoid getting referred to OSA PR reps. They can't avoid being dismayed at the patent bullshit OSA will lay on them. And they cannot then avoid being in the condition of doubt, which will only be resolved for them by examining their church's statistics, and comparing them to the outside world. This won't be easy for them, it is what happened to me. A guy walked up and told me that L. Ron Hubbard used to "overboard" people on the Apollo, and locked a little boy in a chain-locker for two days. He told me this while I was taking a course called "Surefire Salesmanship Techniques" and drilling selling books to raw public on the streets of New York City. I followed the above formula, was referred to David Aden, PR for Boston Day OSA, who first tried to just brush it off, then asked why I was listening to such tripe, then finally gave me a pack of "information" about that. But the information was incomplete, and I thought it was weird that he wouldn't just come out and explain it to me himself. Later, someone told me LRH was a disciple of Aleister Crowley. I again was referred to OSA. They were getting annoyed at me, I think. Then someone said that LRH's children were no longer part of the Church, that he had many wives, that one of them went to jail, etc. These were all disturbing, and set off the alarm bells in my mind. But then I would finally get a session, and I would KNOW that auditing worked. It just didn't fit well. Trust me, if I had seen a picket, I would have walked up and talked to the picketers, and would have had MORE QUESTIONS for OSA. Now, not every scio is as overt as me, or as willing to confront OSA all the time. But those pickets WORK. People begin to have questions. Don't stop picketing. I think it is the single most effective way to bring people on the inside into communication with the outside world, and thus, to sanity eventually.
> OH BOY.
> My certainty is pretty low on everything. I continue to think that the
> metered sessions I had were amazing, that the auditor picked up on things
> using the meter that were suppressed memories for me, and that this type of
> thing can benefit people, but I'm pretty shaken.There's no reason you have to make up your mind right now, and I don't think you should consider yourself a 'fool' if you decide sometime in the future that your experience with metered sessions was misleading. No use beating yourself up over something you can't change, right?
True enough. I continue to think that a meter makes a session more accurate and honest and therefore more therapeutic, but I am not blind to the idea that I could have been misled.
> I'm sure that pleases some critics here, to see a clam uncertain and
> confused and admitting it. For you, I must say that the criticism only
> forces a scio into a corner, where he must attack and defend. Andreas has a
> better method. Let someone find what is out there by simply organizing
> information for their perusal. The Truth needs no defense, nor does it
> attack. Scientologists are not your enemy - confidentiality, secrecy, abuse
> of the legal system and fraud are.Well, speaking only for myself, I will say that I am pleased when I see any scientologist - current or somewhere-in-the-middle, as in your case - taking steps to find out the whole story, and read both sides of the debate. It isn't a gloating pleasure, tho - more the hope that another person has seen the truth that can set them free. I have never considered scientologists to be my 'enemy' - although I will say that I am not exactly fond of the ones who have harassed and intimidated critics simply because they are critics. And I hope that one day you will be able to share with us exactly what it was on the critical websites out there that convinced you that there might be something more to the criticism than what your church had told you.
That's the thing. It isn't any one thing that critics can do or say. It's that there ARE critics, and that they are so numerous. That they are willing to undergo hardship so that they might be heard and seen. That is why the pickets are effective. Scientologists can really relate to people who have a cause they are willing to endure hardship for. And real scientologists (those who are in it for spiritual gain and not for social security) believe in OPEN COMMUNICATION. Anything less than that seems suspect, and will haunt them. So when Church officials tell them not to communicate with the critics, THAT is when you will have your impact. Not just by being there, but by being there and having church officials tell them that they cannot communicate with you.
K
PS - I have also sent you this post by email, to make sure it makes it through the spam. Feel free to reply, if you wish, either here on a.r.s. or privately.
ok- I'll probably do both.
> Thanks for your attention
> kgb
> rockslam@hotmail.com