Re: How does Scientology view marriage and the family?
[26 Jan 1998]

...I was ordered to disconnect. When I refused, that was when I was ordered into auditing and lockup at the celebrity centre in Hollywood.

Main Index A.R.S. Web Summary Ex-Scientologists Speak

From: astudent@top.university.org (A. Student)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: How does Scientology view marriage and the family?
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 05:03:46 GMT
Organization: IIU
Lines: 278
Message-ID: <6ah5fd$8an@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.69.34.252
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452
X-No-Archive: yes
Xref: spln alt.religion.scientology:253939

 

On 25 Jan 1998 19:11:47 -0600, wbarwell@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (William
Barwell) wrote:

>In article <34c7dc5a.0@news1.starnetinc.com>, Eve John <EJohn@jewel.net> wrote:
>> -------------
>>
>>Scientology regards the family as the building block of any society
>>and marriage as an essential component of a stable family life.
>>
>>A person who comes into Scientology often finds his relationships
>>with his spouse and other family members strengthened dramatically
>>as a result of Scientology.
>
>Often Scientology makes you disconnect from husband or wife, or mother
>and father or children, or friends and family because family members
>try to dissuade one from wasting their life in Scientology.

In my case, my family did not dissuade. They did not even know about
my membership in the sea organization until after I left the cult. No
one knew where I was or what I was doing. I had left home at the age
of 15, I was very independent (including financially), and went, more
or less quickly into the lower courses, then into the sea org.

But, I was ordered to disconnect. When I refused, that was when I was
ordered into auditing and lockup at the celebrity centre in Hollywood.
Of course I could have busted out. But, they threatened that I would
not be able to get a refund for outstanding cash balances. The sum
was substantial, so I stayed. As it turned out, the refund was just a
ruse anyway. They had no intention of paying it. A staffer later
told a family member that I had agreed to it, paid for it, and that
was it, there would be NO refund.

>Scientology definitely values a mark with money over a strong
>family that knows Scientology is a fraud, and tries to keep a family
>member from wasting their money on a foolish, lying cult.

The money was extremely important, as I found out all too well. I
pursued a refund through all the normal channels in California;
First, the church and its management. Second, the Better Business
Bureau. Third, the Consumer Protection Agency. Fourth the California
State Attorney General's office. Only after this last step did I
receive a partial refund.

Probably what shocked me most from this experience was the total lack
of a support network in the legal sense. I had signed an agreement
forever waiving my right to sue the church in my lifetime as a
condition for receiving the refund.

I remember the day well, a Sunday, finally seeing the brutal side of
the cult--it's all business side.

After my experience with the State Attorney General's Office and
reading about litigation tactics used worldwide to silence ex-members,
I felt very threatened at the time. Well, I was a teen and not very
saavy about the law. What I believed was that my hands were tied, so
that I could not pursue litigatation, nor did I have any idea how to
go about it really. Most of what I knew about the law came from
watching re-runs of Perry Mason! If the State Attorney General could
not make the cult do right, then who could?

I went into a state of silence. Reeling from the shock of the
powerlessness of the State Attorney General's Office, and the
realization that the cult posed as a religion on the surface but
maintained a very large global network of attorneys. I wondered how
the government could be so powerless to take action on behalf of a
consumer. Now, I wonder no more.

I watched as one women decide to get tough in court, so they entered
countersuits against her in countries all over the world. They
litigated her into the wild blue yonder.

I suppose in some ways I am an SP grade of some sort, though I don't
really use it for myself. I don't care about being a member of the
ARSCC either. But, scientologists who post to ARS claim ARSer's are
acting as a group. I'm here to dispel that myth. After my experience
with the cult, I don't trust anyone conected in any way with CoS or
ARS.

I did not know it was a cult until after I left the sea org. I knew
from day one that it was not a full-blown religion. Sure, they told
me it was so, but I never saw one religious ceremony. What I did see
were lots of classes and auditing, people listening to programs with
headphones, and so forth. Sure, there were ministers, but then anyone
can rent a frock and claim an "official" ministerial calling.

It's more important for me to know that the cult made a mistake in my
case. How could they have known that I would go on to become a leader
in government, reporting to the Governor of the State of California.

How could they have known that I would go on from there to increasing
positions of power. The old saying rings true, it's a good idea to be
careful about stepping on toes.

While I would surely not abuse my position to persecute the cult, I
certainly do have a sensitized awareness of what is going on with it.

>L. Ron Hubbard lied that after WWII, he was "almost blind"
>and "crippled" and that his family abandoned him in this sorry
>state, a crippled war vet. But this is a lie. Hubbard's
>records show he was not blind nor crippled and Scientology
>knows this, yet they still peddle this lie, obviously expressedly
>designed by Hubbard to make the world hate his own family based
>on a set of ugly lies he told.
>
>If Scientology is for strong families, why does it break up families
>and peddle known lies like this in it's propaganda book,
>"What is Scientology"? See "Introduction to Scientology Ethics"
>for the ugly disconnection policies that have made Scientology
>a hated and despised cult, a cult that destroys families to
>keep suckers pouring money in cult coffers.

As a former member, I can tell you the view inside was very different.
Our mission was to save the planet from its downward spiral toward a
nuclear holocaust, World War III, degradation of everything good about
mankind by politicians, psychs, and so on. The evidence of a
messed-up world was only too easy to find. I suppose each of us also
had our various problems. Mine was adolescent rebellion. But others
I knew had come from broken families and divorces, and so on and were
seeking comfort and meaning for their lives.

Some of us were horrible smokers. I only put down a pack of
Marlboros, Camels, or Kools per day. But one fellow I knew kept--at
all times--three packs of smoke on hand. At least two were always
open so he could easily reach for another smoke without problem.
There were times when he would light a smoke, take a puff or two, set
it down, walk a few steps and light another. He smoked so much that
he would often forget that he already had a fresh smoke burning not
far away.

To us, hubbard developed a very powerful technology for curing all
that. Those of us on the path to clear knew nothing about BTs or any
of that rot. We were free to smoke, or believe in Christ, or anything
else. The idea that we were not able to do that is bogus.

The problem was that we didn't care to stop smoking, we loved it. And
we had little time to think about Christ or other religious practices.
Scientology wasn't incompatible with those things, it's just that your
own religious preferences just didn't really fit. Scientology was
more like going to school or work than going to church.

If you wanted a girlfriend or boyfriend, no problem. If you wanted to
get married, the population was large enough that you would have no
problem finding a suitable mate and a blissful relationship, at least
to start with. Though, relationships were of secondary importance.
First was the first dynamic, to survive. This meant clearing the
planet and, importantly, your own engrams. A very distant second was
to tend toward intimate relationships. Way down on the scale was the
consideration of the Supreme Being (whoever that is for you).

Clears were far and few between, they were looked upon as something
mystical by the newer recruits. Clears were touted as people with
control over their being. They were freed from those harmful engrams.
We often heard about clears and OTs but hardly ever saw them.

It would be so dear if I could go clear...

While we were sad to pay such exorbitant prices for courses, tapes,
auditing, IAS donations, and so forth, something about the environment
kept us in the flow. I know in my case, I had enough money to go to
clear and beyond. Money wasn't the problem. Time was the problem.
It seemed I could not get to clear fast enough. Sea org to me seemed
a very attractive option because I was single and had few
encumberances.

I did have a bit of a shock when I was told I would need to sign over
the title to my car, bank account balances, the deeds to any
properties (all assets), and terminate any business relationships
when I joined the sea org. However, I was heartened when a fellow
member told me I would be amazed how far a quarter would take me. I
was assured I would soon have a mate, and that anything I might need
would be provided for, a place to live, food, clothing, and most
importantly, the courses and auditing I would need to go through clear
and beyond.

Perhaps it was the comraderie of fellow scientologists. There was
never a problem finding a friend who could point you back straight on
your course, or help you find answers to questions about advancing up
the bridge.

But, back to your original statement about disconnection ... had it
not been for this, I would have not faced the ethics organization or
been locked in a room for hours, interrogated at one end of an
e-meter, asking me about my relationship with my parents, and intense
probing to find out why I would not disconnect. Up until that point,
my record was spotless. I had never been RPF'd or anything like that.
Honestly, I never heard of RPF (or ethics) until that crucial day. I
was never in a downstat condition prior to that point.

Oddly, it was this one thing that jarred me free of the cult. Until
that point, my sensations about the gradual assault of my ownership of
my own survival were numbed. I, as well as many others, had only the
best intentions about going clear and clearing the planet.

They really missed the mark in my case. My father was quite high up
in OTO and I had started early on to study other thinkers and astral
technologies and Ouspensky (The Fourth Way), meditation, Kirlian
photography, auras, biofeedback, and so forth. My father had ties to
Jack Parsons in Pasadena, but I hadn't heard of the sex magick. I
know my dad wasn't interested in it. As you can see, I was already
de-sensitized by my family environment before I ever arrived at
scientology. So I was a plum ripe for picking.

If only scientology leaders knew that I grew up riding my tricycle in
Hemet, and sometimes visited Hemet and Perris as I grew up in Southern
California. Hearing how tiny little Hemet has changed over the years
warms the cockles of my heart. The only hollow sleepier than Hemet
was Perris. Corona grew rapidly though. :) Enough of that story.

From my experience, scientology involved a gradual ascension of
sacrifice. The deeper you went, the more sacrifice you had to make
until finally, you would be willing to make any sacrifice the cult
might deem necessary. But, by that point, your senses would be so
numbed and your value system so altered, that it would be a baby step
compared to all that went before.

You would need to see this to understand that much of the talk about
BTs, aliens, Hubbard's record, and so forth have no impact on members
in the cult. I don't know where people get the idea that
scientologists cannot post here, it's not true. Most don't want to
post. Most of them probably think y'all are pretty sick. While they
feel badly about you, they can't go on in life focsuing about it.
There isn't time. I can sense the expression of wgert, RA, Susie,
mikesmith, Burning Leaf, LizzyAnn, ABeing8088, and so forth. Some
feel total revulsion about what they genuinely feel is an attack on
their beliefs, while others just want you to be reminded of the more
official lines of thinking.

At the same time, I can sense the expression the freezoner's, like
Heidrun, Pilot (I think I know who he is based on the way he talks),
and Ralph Hilton. They see a problem with the way things have worked
out under DM's lead, how litigious the cult has become over the years,
and really what is irresponsible, if not short-sighted, application of
the tech.

Having been a corporate executive with a Fortune 50 company, I can
appreciate the position of David Miscavige and Heber Jenztch.
Regardless of how you want to frame it, in the early years after the
GO bust and hubbards death, scientology has continued to expand
worldwide, and has survived a number of vigorous assaults. They are
concerned about the net though. It is a large PR disaster, and a lot
of it has been pulled-in by the previous GO.

Having been a member of the public, I can see how the public looks at
it and says, well it produced GO, and seems to have triggered The
Process and other problems, so if the tech is so great why does it
deliver these types of results? Surely something is broken.

I sometimes sit back and listen to the bits about the bigotry, the
hatecrimes, and attacks on religious freedoms, but, as a member of the
group of ex-scienos and internet I know those arguments really aren't
true. There indeed is some bigotry, some hate and anger, and an
intolerance to religious freedoms. But, what is it based on? I think
it is based on, for the most part, a genuine humane gesture to reach
out to help members break out of the cult. But members don't want to
break out. They want to be left alone so they can go about their
goals and objectives.

Bottom-line, scietologists don't see what you could do for them. They
don't believe the stories or the materials you have collected. They
see how we bash each other on occasion.

Many scientologists can do whatever they want, listen to whomever they
want, watch TV, read books, post on ARS, whatever. Yet, those things
have no effect. It takes something dramatic, something which too far
exceeds your threshold for sacrifice that will make you bolt.

To this day, I could care less for all the talk about Xenu, etc. The
only thing that has impacted me was seeing how the cult operated in my
personal experience, and then seeing the same story being told for so
many others who left the cult.

Good one Pope. You're a winner, as usual!

>Pope Charles
>SubGenius Pope Of Houston
>Slack!

Art Student