THE DEFINING MOMENT IN SCIENTOLOGY

[DartSmohen]

So, what was the defining moment in Scientology?

What was that exact moment in time when things suddenly changed?

There are two aspects to this; First there is the aspect of what changed in the "game" of Scientology and the second is what happened in your "game"?

I know many of you will have your own experiences and perspectives on what was, for you, the tipping point. That point where you made the decision; that point where you switched from "I'm in" to "I'm out".

Personally, I do not think it was any one specific point ( ie basic on a chain). I think there were a series of seminal but siesmic changes, each one an epicentre of effect.

I have mentioned these events in previous threads, but the one, for me, that represented the most tectonic plate shift occured in late summer/Autumn of 1967 in Las Palmas.

The Sea Project was an operation totally removed from the goings on of Scientology. We had moved on from there.

Hubbard had set up a WW org structure to run the Scientology business. It meant he could walk away from it and focus on other games.

However, as he stood on the dock of the shipyard, having received telexes back from the first mission to St Hill, tears were running down his face, he thought (wrongly) that he had been betrayed by his oldest and closest confidante, Reg Sharpe. He had thought (wrongly) that there had been a coup where he was being usurped.

Historically we know from his earlier writings how paranoid and vengeful he couild and would be against anyone who he thought had betrayed him.

All of a sudden, in a split second, Hubbard realised that the game he had set up to run without him being involved was falling apart and that he could not continue persuing his new goals.

"Goddammit ! It looks like we are back in the org business again".

The "Great Game" we had established with the Sea Project could not continue as it was. Hubbard was particularly the effect of his "medicinial and pharmacology reliance". He was envious of the abilities the project members were displaying. He was physically not up to it.

So he took the Sea project members and used them as the founding basis for a new group, The Sea Organisation, a group that would now have to oversee and run the Scientology business.

As part of his vengeful response, Hubbard declared that from now on, every person was responsible for their own case. The orgs were no longer responsible for their product. Each person would have to attest completion of whatever they did.

All of this was going to cost money, a LOT of money. Hubbard didn't have that much, so the focus was put on selling services and Gross Income.

The rest you pretty well much know.

Anyway, that, for me, was when it all changed.

On a personal note my own "tipping point" was long in coming, but finally I had to accept that Scientology was beyond recovery and was not willing to correct itself.

Despite letters from Diana and MarySue pleading with me not to walk away, I had come to that point; the game was over.

I invite you all to tell your story; what was the defining moment for you?

 

[Good twin]

One of many was "The War is Over" event when CoS climbed in bed with the IRS. Seemed like a win, but soon became a major shift in defining financial crimes.

 

[Axiom142]

Thanks for that Dart, I love hearing about the ‘old days’.

The defining moment for me?

Well I’m not sure that I had one moment, it was more of a case of death by a thousands cuts. That is to say, I suffered numerous losses in my quest to achieve ‘Total Freedom’ and finally realised that I could never make it to this state. It was only after much soul-searching and investigation of the true nature of the Church of Scientology that I finally realised why this was.

It was all an illusion, Scientology couldn’t deliver what was promised. But by the time I realised this, I knew that there was no possibility of my going back – I had well and truly burned my bridges. Rather an apt term, perhaps?

However, having said all that, there was one incident that stood out and was perhaps the final nail in the coffin of my involvement in Scientology.

This was just a couple of years ago and so is still very fresh in my mind. I had asked some questions regarding the CoS and Hubbard, that I wanted answers to. I won’t go into the background to what caused me to do this, as this forms a major part of my autobiography, available in shops in due course.

Anyway, I had asked some questions about things which I had heard about Hubbard, things which had troubled me as they seemed to be at odds with the image that I had of this ‘great man’. One of these questions concerned the fact that Hubbard had claimed to be a Doctor. I had read on ‘critical’ web sites that he had bought a totally bogus doctorate from a diploma mill and was using this to give the illusion of credibility that he didn’t have.

This is mentioned in his Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_ron_hubbard and in other places such as here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/science.htm . But, in summary, it was claimed that Hubbard paid for a bogus PhD from a bogus university (Sequoia University) and then claimed that he was a ‘real’ doctor.

Now, I knew that Hubbard had claimed to be a doctor as he had referred to himself by this title in a couple of HCOPLs from 1959 soon after moving to St Hill. There were also newspaper articles that referred to him as ‘Dr Hubbard’ and where Hubbard claimed that he was perfectly entitled to call himself a ‘doctor’. So I knew that that part was true.

I had also thoroughly researched Sequoia ‘University’ and had established beyond any doubt that this was a bogus establishment and had never been accredited to give out degrees, much less doctorates. Details can be found in many places on the web, but as usual, Wikipedia is a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_University . So, the obvious implication was that Hubbard had cynically purchased a bogus qualification in order to give himself a false authority and had then lied about the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of this. If this was true, then this would mean that Hubbard wasn’t the person that I had thought him to be and thus brought into question the veracity of the whole of Scientology.

Even so, I was still hoping that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this and that Hubbard would be fully restored, in my eyes at least. So, when I was shown the piece of paper (eyes only, no copies allowed) that contained the ‘answer’ to my question, and read the words “L Ron Hubbard was awarded an honorary PhD from Sequoia University in recognition of his outstanding work and contributions in the fields of Dianetics and Scientology.", my heart sank.

I knew then that there was no way back and that I could no longer trust in ‘LRH’. If this was true, then how many other criticisms of him were also true? I would have to question everything that he had ever said or written.

But, such was the conditioning that I had been subjected to over the previous 20 years, it still took me the best part of another year, before I finally and irrevocably left the ‘Church’ of Scientology, culminating in my joining ESMB.

Axiom142

 

[xenusdad]

Defining Moments

That's a very dificult one to answer and I've been mulling over it for a few days now. The truth is that much like the previous post it was more death of a thousand cuts.

I blew the org in 1989 because my wife and child and myself were starving. We got a friend to send money for train tickets and high-tailed it out.

However I still was under the illusion that co$ only stood for good and so with the help of a friend started up a mission. This is posted on my "how I got in" story so I won't repeat it.

Eventually the mission was wound up, which shows me how co$ fizzles out when nobody does it anymore.

Fastforward 13 years! I'm still of the believe that the co$ is of benefit to mankind when a friend tells me he's going to picket the mission. When I ask why? he spouts the usual wog lines and tells me to look it up online.

So I do. And here the cutting process begins. 6 months down the line and I'm finally free. I can still be cut and hurt by stuff I read and do so on almost a daily basis.

The hope for the future now is that some day soon the shit will hit the fan. More OTs will confess to their own stupidity (thats takes balls - oops, sorry girls). And the whole sad sorry mess will come crumbling down with desertions occuring en masse, people going free at last, free from self-delusional states of mind, free from the tyranny of the co$.

Bring on the day.

 

[nw2394]

What made me leave the SO (March 84) was, in a direct sense, gettng the HRD - which was great - shortly after I got a 2D together and we both left the SO. However, I wouldn't have left if I hadn't already been dissatisfied. There was no one thing in particular that made me feel that way - just a long line of stuff:

1) Every year we'd head about "expansion", but the truth is that the graphs were flat. One felt impotent to implement the whole purpose line of being there.

2) Even before I joined the SO (late 78), I had a tough time reconciling why we had so many management networks - LRH Comm, KOT, GO, FR, FBO. The tech/admin ratio in orgs already was shot to buggery - then the generally best people were ripped off to be yet more managers. Later the CMO spread their tentacles, the Missions got their own "network", uplines there was the "Watch Dog Committee" - more fucking managers. My stable datum was the Flag Bureaux and the FOLOs - which was already top heavy - but what I was used to at least.

3) Beans and rice with no fruit and next to no pay was shit. Even getting a cup of tea was an effort.

4) Then there was the edict about no more kids - and before that there was the fact that SO families had been getting "Child Benefit" (a standard, un means tested (at the time) hand out for families in the UK) - but were told to give it up as they had "other fish to fry".

5) When the GO got replaced I simply didn't believe that what was going to be put in its place would be any better - I was around at St Hill while that mission was going on in the Manor - it was nothing to do with me particularly - but it just didn't feel right - bad vibes.

6) Next to no training or auditing given to staff generally. If you were lucky enough to complete your full hat and get some, before any amout of time passed you got musical chaired onto another post. In particular I had personally come to a brick wall with their arbitraries about Clear.

7) Lack of Libs time.

8) The NOTs lounge felt like an old peoples' home.

9) Hoppy (Ron Hopkins - then CO UK) blowing after bonking Celeste Oram was quite a disillusioning moment.

10) David Mayo getting declared - I simply didn't believe he was a bad hat.

Probably a few other things that don't come to mind just now - it was just a long list of stuff that made me feel that I was not in the right place at the right time. But I didn't leave because I had nowhere else to go, nothing to do particularly - until I got married.

After that point I was still very much a Scientologist - well still am in the broadest sense - but it wasn't until I found the Freezone that I actually became an ex (in the sense of being ex Co$).

Nick

 

[Lesolee (Sith Lord)]

Now, I knew that Hubbard had claimed to be a doctor as he had referred to himself by this title in a couple of HCOPLs from 1959 soon after moving to St Hill. There were also newspaper articles that referred to him as ‘Dr Hubbard’ and where Hubbard claimed that he was perfectly entitled to call himself a ‘doctor’. So I knew that that part was true.

Of course we have things like the Philadelphia DOCTORATE course, and LRH dispensing Doctorates to leading Scientologists who had made large contributions to the Tech (early 1950's), all quietly forgotten nowadays.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

Of course we have things like the Philadelphia DOCTORATE course, and LRH dispensing Doctorates to leading Scientologists who had made large contributions to the Tech (early 1950's), all quietly forgotten nowadays.

Not actually an issue. Technically neither is the Sequioa nonsense. It argues for Hubbard's intellectual insecurity and wish to impress others. It also shows his deliberate intention to mislead.

Anyone can call himself "doctor" or award himself a "doctorate". It means nothing in itself. Hence the presence of diploma mills. What matters behind any degree or adopted honor is the reputation & accreditation of the granting institution.

So if you want to give yourself a Doctorate from Lesolee's Sith Academy, feel free. Don't expect the rest of us to give you more respect as a result of it though.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Vinaire]

The year "1983" disillusionment with Admin.
The year "2000" disillusionment with Ethics.
The year "2005" disillusionment with Tech.

.

 

[HappyGirl]

...as this forms a major part of my autobiography, available in shops in due course.

Can I buy a pre-release of this, please?

The start was reaching "total freedom" but Flag, having no provision in the tech for anyone to attest to the state of total freedom, saw fit to completely destroy my mind and personality as I knew it. After a decade of anxiety, in which I was terrified that my case and BTs could kill me, for which there was nothing I could do because I was as terrified of Flag as I was of my case and wouldn't go back, I still didn't wake up. I was so desperate for relief, however, that I lowered my resistance to "other tech," and began learning about Abraham, a subject my husband had been studying.

One of the concepts presented to me for the first time ever, was that nothing can effect you adversely that you don't allow into your life. It occurred to me that, in that case, the "reactive mind" and "BTs" can't effect me adversely, either. Still in the mindset of needing "others" to think for me, I found the one and only place that Abraham talked about Scientology - a very old tape for $10, which I immediately got. The questioner asked my question, "does that also relate to the reactive mind that Scientology talks about?" The answer was yes, nothing at all can effect you in a harmful way that you haven't invited into your experience. My thought was reinforced! That was a real eye opener for me that changed my entire outlook on life. I immediately stopped inviting crap into my life!! (Definition of crap = anything not fun and joyous!!)

I was still in the mindset of Scn, but I stopped worrying about my case and all the limitations Scn had put on me, and started enjoying life and having fun, which was exactly the "tech" that restored my mind and myself. That's when I got "happy." Haha.

That set off this change of events: 1) Scn wasn't fun, so I'm not doing any more of it. 2) Since I was never going to go back to Flag I stopped caring how thick my ethics folder got, 3) which lead to the possibility of my now checking out the internet with impunity! Once I found ESMB, the rest was history. I am a true ESMB success story. ESMB was what woke me up. Posts like this one, for instance.

Hopefully, threads like this will wake up others. I would like every Scientologist to have the freedom that I now have.

 

[Amadeus Einstein]

It was just a matter of one KR too many. All my colleagues ever managed to do towards the end was write KRs. They appeared to have lost the ability to say thank you.

Perhaps they should have spent a little more time flowing me the particles I needed to do my post, and less time asking me to withdraw the job endangerment chits etc. that I wrote.

The final straw was a KR that was literally months stale dated. At the time the alleged incident happened, I was wildly upstat. Roll forward several months, I've been musical chaired into a post I was ill suited for and still trying to learn the ropes, and this person decided to finally write up this thing. The report contained a final paragraph about my production being in a low range, when it was this person and their friends that had been doing their damnedest to undermine me.

I saw the HAS and got put on a R/F that afternoon.

 

[lkwdblds]

Straws that finally broke the camels back

1971 - Quit aerospace job to become an auditor. Got kicked off the Dianetic Internship by an SP Class 8 auditor after I had met graduation requirments.
1973- After 2 successfull years in Treasury, passed over for the Treas Sec post for an unhatted 20 year immature girl because Yvonne was mad at me.
1973 - Posted on 2 posts on Apollo which I could not do because of no training and no hat write ups. I took the fall for senior execs with low stats.
1973 - After being busted on post, I was notified by LRH that he knew I had embezzled funds from CCLA Treasury. When I protested, he said that I had lied before to avoid blame. Both his accusations were totally false.
1977 - Being regged for Flag for $11,000 and told that a CS had reviewed my folders and given a tech estimate for $11k. Upon arrival their, they wanted $22k and said no C/S review had ever occured.
1987 - 3 FSM's showed up unannounced at my home, 2 OT7's and 1 OT8. We had a 2 month old daughter my wife was nursing. They regged me at a restaurant for 5 hours until I caved in and signed for a $65 package. As a result, I lost my home in foreclosure.
1998 - My Son had joined Sea Org and was being sent to Flag to train for magistrate for the local Org. He was one month short of age 16. He had approval from the local Org, the Sea Org and Flag and the S.O. had even purchased his air ticket. 2 hours before his scheduled take off, an OSA rep at the local Org stopped him from leaving because he was under 16.
1999 - Had heart problems and started taking prescription drugs for them. Was told to go to Flag to handle it. I told Reg I could not recieve auditing while on medications. Flag Reg lied and said he had C/S approval that I could recieve auditing while taking drugs. I went to Flag and was sent home, being told I could not get auditing because I was taking prescription drugs.
1999 - 12 year old daughter was on course at the local Org and every time we came to pick her up, she was sith S.O. recruiters. We told them that we brought her there to do the student hat and did not want her to join the S.O. until she had finished her schooling through high school. The teen age recruiters told wife and I that what we were doing was suppressive and they would write KR's on us.
2000 - Fed up with local Org, I took daughter, now 13, to CCLA for study course. On the 3rd weekend of the course, the daughter was taken out of the course room and taken to another building and regged all afternoon to join the S.O. I was not consulted or notified. When I went to pick her up to drive her home, no one knew where she was. It took an hour of searching to find her in a building several blocks from the Org. I wrote KR's but nothing happened, I got no answer. The Org believed the recruiters were doing good.

FINALLY - I decided I had it and wanted nothing more to do with this group!
I routed out of my local Org on a medical routing from and stopped going to all events. In retrospect, I wish I would have quit much sooner. Most people I talk to and my kids just don't understand why I took all this abuse and stayed active all those decades. The signs were there from the very beginning that something was wrong with the Organization. I had faith in LRH and the Tech and had built a life around being a Scientologist and it was hard to make the break. When my kids got jerked around, I finally "woke up".
lkwdblds

 

[Zinjifar]

Better late than never Glad you made it out.

Zinj

 

[Carmel]

Thanks for the info Dart - it's always good to hear from those who were there.

My "defining moment" happened in two stages, ten years apart (when I went 'off lines' eleven years ago, and when I got on the net last year).

Just before I went off lines, I finally realised that the game 'I' was playing or wanted played, wasn't the game at all. Given a new mgt regime, I was no longer able to "survive" within the CofS, and I had all but lost any hope that it would ever be what I believed it could be... so I 'left'. It wasn't till I got on the net though, that I got the fuller picture, and gave up a lingering hope for the future, which I was still holding onto.

Truth be told, it's only in the last weeks or couple of months that I've stopped having sad feelings about losing that 'hope', that 'battle', those 'dreams'. Even after facing it and burning my bridges with Scientology (and actively opposing the CofS), it was still a 'loss' and one of magnitude in my world until very recently - Something has finally shifted now though, and it's not anymore.

 

[BAYCB]

My experiences are also similar to the earlier posts... not just one thing but a series of many issues.

Seeing David Mayo declared SP even though I had seen him earlier at an event in LA and thinking that was the first time I had ever seen someone in higher management trying to make a difference in the Tech area.

Seeing a public receive a hand written letter from LRH after his son had claimed that he was really dead. I always wondered why didn't he just come out with a taped video. Why was he always hiding?

Seeing most staff never getting up the bridge unless they already had money or well to do parents/relatives. Plus no staff pay and no time off.

My final moment came when an RTC mission came into the org to take photos of the org and its staff. There I was sitting at my C/S desk with all of two public pc folders, no qual staff, one course sup, one auditor public/staff, and just a few students. I thought to myself "why the hell was I there... I couldn't even afford to get up the bridge myself...even with a staff discount." I started my routing form the next day.

Thanks Dart for this thread.... maybe it will help others to decide to leave.

Ron Minor

 

[Dulloldfart]

The personal defining moment? The straw that broke the camel's toe?

Getting taken off post (a post — supervising — that I loved) for the third time in five years for nothing to do with my post production.

Paul

 

[alex]

Thanks for the info Dart - it's always good to hear from those who were there.

My "defining moment" happened in two stages, ten years apart (when I went 'off lines' eleven years ago, and when I got on the net last year).

Just before I went off lines, I finally realised that the game 'I' was playing or wanted played, wasn't the game at all. Given a new mgt regime, I was no longer able to "survive" within the CofS, and I had all but lost any hope that it would ever be what I believed it could be... so I 'left'. It wasn't till I got on the net though, that I got the fuller picture, and gave up a lingering hope for the future, which I was still holding onto.

Truth be told, it's only in the last weeks or couple of months that I've stopped having sad feelings about losing that 'hope', that 'battle', those 'dreams'. Even after facing it and burning my bridges with Scientology (and actively opposing the CofS), it was still a 'loss' and one of magnitude in my world until very recently - Something has finally shifted now though, and it's not anymore.

Hope springs eternal, the battle was not lost, progress was made, dreams can be had anew. It doesn't have to be called scientology, because it is in our hearts and does not need a name. Every moment is a turning point, looking forward more than back is the key.

 

[DartSmohen]

FRANCE

Maybe this is going to be a defining moment.

 

[Carmel]

FRANCE

Maybe this is going to be a defining moment.

Absobloodylutely! ​

 

[scooter]

Defining moment - OSA telling me blatant lies about Carmel and Feral.

From the moment I found that, there was no way I could believe anything that had been said to me by anyone in the Co$.

It was such a stupid thing for them to do too - I was pursued by phone to be "briefed" on what my friends had said and it turned out to be bollocks - any doubts I had evaporated at that point.

"Death by footbullet" should be the epitaph of the cult

 

[ULRC/S]

I went to AOLA in '82 for OT levels. But before leaving Sydney I had filled in a Gold survey and when I arrived at AOLA I was told to report to a SO recruter. They wanted me for Gold, and as a professional audio engineer and having never used LSD, they wanted me for the long haul (1 billion).

I reneged, but finally agreed to go out there during my Solo Course period, as they said LRH had fired everyone at Gold who had ever had LSD and there was almost no techs left!

I get there and the whole sales pitch was a scam. The whole base was in liabilty and doing mest work. The whole electronics line was shut down.

So for a couple of days I helped the two remaining techs to service some gear. And one time the door to our workshop opened and huge guy in SO uniform came in looking around. Then a little shortass blond guy in serious SO uniform, then another monster.

The little guy who looked early 20's came up to us, all much older than him and asked" How's in going, Men?" The other two guys were kowtowing to him. Me, I felt it was 1942 all over again. From the first sight of them I got the essence of Hitler's SS, having been in the German military LLT and having had many run ins with them while just trying to do my job.

They left and I was stunned. "Who was that?" I asked - "David Miscavage, the head of the Church".

And I thought "Shit, here we go!".

Then later, during my NOTs, one morning the auditor looked very second hand and I got out of him that he'd been up all night on mest work as the whole org was in a lowered condition. How insane, he was making them some $500/hour and he's not sessionable? I said, "I'm feeling too keyed out to have sessions today" and went to the examiner and took the day off. The auditor appreciated my move.

Then I got back to Sydney and found the SS mentality was there in spades, so when my contract was up at the end of that year, I was out and never to return.

REgards, Allen