alt.religion.scientology

[Pooks]

Hartley Patterson did a really good FAQ on the
ars newsgroup which can be located at:

http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/faq.htm


To me ars is like visiting an insane asylum with
only a few good posts every now and then.

There's a core group of critics that populate
ars, most of them are have websites that
help to expose Scn and many of them are "wogs".

Ars is flooded with spam every day. There are
several types of spammers. There's the OSA/
anti psych spam that gets posted through out the
day. They do this because they believe in a
magical process that tells them to OUT CREATE
the entheta and they do this by flooding the
truth about the real sp's on the planet

-- THE EVIL PSYCHS --

Then there's the Kook Contingent. These are
people with severe mental problems and apparently
have chosen ars in which to communicate about it.

Barbara Schwartz is one of them and she posts as
many different people so you really can never tell
if there are just a few Kooks or if the place is
running amok with all kinds of crazies. Barbara
Schwartz considers herself a Scientologist
She even has her own Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Schwarz

There's another guy named Koos Nolst Trenite.

Another mentally ill person that was let out of the nuthouse
after he killed his daughter. My guess is that Koos is
off his meds.

http://web.ncf.ca/cj871/koos.html

There are a few others but these two are special as
both have received the Usenet Kook of the Month award,
and based on the competition, that's no easy feat.

Then there's the Machine Gun Spammer. This is usually a
critic that temporarily loses his/her mind and starts
replying to all the spammers, creating even more spam.

The you have the "Idiot" spammer. This is someone
that posts ridiculous subject lines and then posts even
more ridiculous links to news stories that have little
to nothing about Scn.

Then there is an entire contingent of trolls, and
some of the trolls are critics that are just plain board
and so start pretending to be OSA or a Scio just to
get the newsgroup all riled up.

The cure for all nuts, kooks. trolls and spammers is a killfile.
People can read alt.religion.scientology on google but
that is completely torturous. You'd have to be a
masochist to use google.


You read it by downloading a good "newsreader" program
(See FAQ) and then killfiling all the noise.

What you have left is a Core Group of critics, many of
them run websites. These critics tend to be helpful to
newbies arriving and asking questions. The Core group
has been around for a long time and knows more about
the goings on in Scn that most Scientologists.


The paranoia run deep and anyone not of the right mindset
will get accused of being OSA by the lunatic fringe. I
am even considered to be a double agent of OSA by a small band
of zealots and dumbasses.

There's not many ex's on ars. There's a few of us, but
we are outnumbered by the experts that took a personality
test and then watched the South Park episode on Scn and
so now he considers himself a fucking expert.

I both love and hate ars. It’s like being addicted to a
really bad soap opera.

Ars is not for the faint of heart. It's a rough and tumble
place with lots of "entheta".

Having this board is a much better place for someone just
leaving the cult, or just trying to deal with their own
shit from having been in Scn for a long time. Right
now, your not missing anything by not reading ars.
Anything real important will be cross posted here.

Patty

 

[Dulloldfart]

Thanks, Patty.

I sometimes (rarely) read ars, using Google, and yes it is somewhat of an ordeal.

Does it work the other way around too, that anything really important here gets cross-posted to ars? Not that I am too sure what would be considered "really important" here.

Paul

 

[nw2394]

There's not many ex's on ars. There's a few of us, but
we are outnumbered by the experts that took a personality
test and then watched the South Park episode on Scn and
so now he considers himself a fucking expert.

Hillarious.

Thanks for posting.

Nick

 

[programmer_guy]

From what I have seen on ARS... for a newbie like me, it might be less work to make an "allow" list rather than a killfile. However, I know that it doesn't work that way. Oh, well...

 

[gomorrhan]

Thanks, Patty.

I sometimes (rarely) read ars, using Google, and yes it is somewhat of an ordeal.

Does it work the other way around too, that anything really important here gets cross-posted to ars? Not that I am too sure what would be considered "really important" here.

Paul

Depends what you consider important, for sure. I, myself, have found the variance of viewpoint to be of value. ARS was very helpful to me in sorting out some things, particularly those things kept secret by scientologists adhering to the confidentiality credo. However, I was also reading the Pilot's Super Scio, and Self-Clearing books, and a variety of other sources that simply took the gloves off and discussed stuff that I had otherwise caught glimpses or hints of in conversations, but people just wouldn't talk about.

Then came ACT (alt.clearing.technology), which for a while was a tremendous variation of different sources of clearing technology. It has degenerated somewhat into an enforcement of spiritual perspectives, at this point, but Homer (the owner) still "roboposts" (automatically reposts) articles from people who've been contributors over the years, not least of which is our own Alan W, but there are many others. I can't remember who the author is, right now, but there was one who correctly indicated and expressed something I was looking for, and summed it up as arbitraries in CC, OTII and OTIII. Very useful group.

As a repository of clearing tech, I still consider it very valuable, although finding a map through the GPM area there is not a simple task, and will require you to put on your own "source" hat to accomplish.

Once I've mastered the area, I'll definitely do a writeup which I will make freely available to all and sundry with no cosmological prerequisites (that's right, no eligibility, no confidentiality, choose your own adventure).

That should occur over the next two years, after I've completed metapsychology's Unstacking section.

 

[The Oracle]

Great post Patty. Well written actually, very well written.

T.I.

 

[The Oracle]

Hartley Patterson did a really good FAQ on the
ars newsgroup which can be located at:

http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/faq.htm


To me ars is like visiting an insane asylum with
only a few good posts every now and then.

There's a core group of critics that populate
ars, most of them are have websites that
help to expose Scn and many of them are "wogs".

Ars is flooded with spam every day. There are
several types of spammers. There's the OSA/
anti psych spam that gets posted through out the
day. They do this because they believe in a
magical process that tells them to OUT CREATE
the entheta and they do this by flooding the
truth about the real sp's on the planet

-- THE EVIL PSYCHS --

Then there's the Kook Contingent. These are
people with severe mental problems and apparently
have chosen ars in which to communicate about it.

Barbara Schwartz is one of them and she posts as
many different people so you really can never tell
if there are just a few Kooks or if the place is
running amok with all kinds of crazies. Barbara
Schwartz considers herself a Scientologist
She even has her own Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Schwarz

There's another guy named Koos Nolst Trenite.

Another mentally ill person that was let out of the nuthouse
after he killed his daughter. My guess is that Koos is
off his meds.

http://web.ncf.ca/cj871/koos.html

There are a few others but these two are special as
both have received the Usenet Kook of the Month award,
and based on the competition, that's no easy feat.

Then there's the Machine Gun Spammer. This is usually a
critic that temporarily loses his/her mind and starts
replying to all the spammers, creating even more spam.

The you have the "Idiot" spammer. This is someone
that posts ridiculous subject lines and then posts even
more ridiculous links to news stories that have little
to nothing about Scn.

Then there is an entire contingent of trolls, and
some of the trolls are critics that are just plain board
and so start pretending to be OSA or a Scio just to
get the newsgroup all riled up.

The cure for all nuts, kooks. trolls and spammers is a killfile.
People can read alt.religion.scientology on google but
that is completely torturous. You'd have to be a
masochist to use google.


You read it by downloading a good "newsreader" program
(See FAQ) and then killfiling all the noise.

What you have left is a Core Group of critics, many of
them run websites. These critics tend to be helpful to
newbies arriving and asking questions. The Core group
has been around for a long time and knows more about
the goings on in Scn that most Scientologists.


The paranoia run deep and anyone not of the right mindset
will get accused of being OSA by the lunatic fringe. I
am even considered to be a double agent of OSA by a small band
of zealots and dumbasses.

There's not many ex's on ars. There's a few of us, but
we are outnumbered by the experts that took a personality
test and then watched the South Park episode on Scn and
so now he considers himself a fucking expert.

I both love and hate ars. It’s like being addicted to a
really bad soap opera.

Ars is not for the faint of heart. It's a rough and tumble
place with lots of "entheta".


Patty

And then Emma said, "Help me build a better forum".

And the rest is history!

T.I.

 

[Lulu Belle]

This is an excerpt from one of Alanzo's recent posts on ARS in response to Dennis' diatribe over there:

ARS is not a sane place. It's a place of war. It has its uses, but ARS is certainly not the optimum environment for an ex-cultist who needs to sort out what happened to them, exhume their real personalities, and get on with their lives.

Especially over the long term.

Over the long term, I think ARS damages people. Or at least it sticks them at a certain level of growth from which they never progress because they have to become so offensive/defensive all the time just in order to operate at all in this environment.



And another one in response to a comment that there have been kooks that have come and left.

True. But some remain. I see them here still. And they are exactly the same. Just as bitter and crazy and freaked out as they always were. Some worse.

For instance, Skip Press used to have some sense. Now, from what I've seen, he's just a mass of insulting attacks and senseless poop. Too bad, really.

And Sten-Arnie.

My God.

I think ARS contributes to that pathology. The constant fighting gets in your head and embroils you. The longer you stay, the more it keeps you embroiled until it becomes a permanent part of your personality.

How are you going to evolve and grow with that shit going on in your head all the time?



I have never read anything that has nailed ARS to what it has become like Alanzo's posts have.

Both observations are totally, in my opinion, accurate and astute.

There are posters there who I considered to be sane when they first appeared there who have basically degenerated into flaming trolls. Alanzo gave two excellent examples, but they are not the only ones, by any means.

I was a regular poster there for a long time. I stopped posting there almost a year ago.

I actually went through kind of a mental detox after I stopped.

ARS definitely has a place in my heart as the first place I came in contact with other exes and the first critical forum I had ever been involved in. But there was no XSO, OCMB or ESMB when I first got out. It was pretty much the only game in town.

Now that there are those other forums, I would not recommend that a recently out Scientologist go to ARS. There are better and safer places, IMO.

That environment has become so toxic that I feel it might do more harm than good for a person trying to feel their way out of their Scientology experience.

 

[Vinaire]

I like Alanzo.

.

 

[Kerry]

I like ARS. A lot.

When I first checked it out it was getting "language poetry" spam (this was via deja when I was a lurker-only re the Scientology cult), it drove me crazy, but I did get a kick out of the "poetry" -- which, check it out if interested, is, I believe, an originally American phenomenon. http://www.poetrypreviews.com/poets/language.html.

When I first posted to OCMB in 2002 after lurking for a very long time there, someone posted another way to read ARS, I think Zardonovsky/deja (sp?) was off the air?). It wasn't easy to simply click on and view ARS then, iirc, and I was able to get Homer's Lightlink version I believe it was. Lots of spam, and for a year or two I thought it wasn't worth the wading, and I wasn't willing to put my head on the CoS chopping block and post there for various reasons. But for some reason I persisted in reading it and still do. Daily if possible.

I don't post there now either, not for exactly the same reasons -- and not that they need me in any event. I only read it through Google, yet I have learned how to filter out my version of the wheat from the chaff (even via Google!) and .. I still .. love it.

All the groups and boards have something to offer me as an activist against the cult of Scientology, so they're all worth reading as time allows, imo.

 

[Tanstaafl]

I like Alanzo.

.

You can get help for that.

 

[hartley]

What you have left is a Core Group of critics, many of
them run websites. These critics tend to be helpful to
newbies arriving and asking questions.

That used to be the case, but there are few who do this left now and if they don't happen to be around all questioners get is abuse, bigotry and insanity.

Thanks for the plug for the FAQ. My attitude to those who moan about ARS is to tell them to get a killfile and start making the kind of posts that they would like to read.

 

[Lulu Belle]

My attitude to those who moan about ARS is to tell them to get a killfile and start making the kind of posts that they would like to read.

You may have a point.

But I have seen many, if not most, if not all, attempts at good quality postings there get derailed.

Person A posts something sane and relevant. Then the smartass comments follow by the usual band of posters-turned-trolls. Then someone starts a flame war. Current news or whatever it started out to be turns into the usual trash.

Face it.

Pretty much every thread on ARS that starts with something good goes down that road.

 

[Voltaire's Child]

There were many people on a.r.s. who are no longer there now. Who've moved on.

ARS was always noisy but there were people on there in 1998-2001 who would actually talk to one another- yes, there were flame wars, but there was some real dialogue back then when those people were around.

Some people who are on there now still engage in some decent dialogue, but some are not so into that.

It's a shame- what it's become. It used to have a rather different demographic.

When I was looking for information and dialogue several years ago, I got it there.

But then again, I think organizations- even cyber ones- have a shelf life. ARS has probably reached its shelf life.

I think that if a questing CofS member (not an OSA one. Just someone trying to figure out WTF was going on) was looking for a forum where they could actually talk to people- then nowadays it would be ESMB.

I think ESMB has supplanted ARS.

 

[Voltaire's Child]

You may have a point.

But I have seen many, if not most, if not all, attempts at good quality postings there get derailed.

Person A posts something sane and relevant. Then the smartass comments follow by the usual band of posters-turned-trolls. Then someone starts a flame war. Current news or whatever it started out to be turns into the usual trash.

Face it.

Pretty much every thread on ARS that starts with something good goes down that road.

With the departure of people like Ron Newman, Lronscam, Captain Nerd, Wolfen, Paper Tiger, Chris Owen (I haven't seen him post there in years) Tommy, (not to be confused with Messrs Padgett or Gorman) and some others- it's a very different forum now.

A few newer ones like Hephaestus and some other ones (not intentionally leaving anyone out) are great to talk to, but still, demographic changed greatly.

And even with that, even with what I said in the last post, although I firmly believe ESMB has supplanted ARS as the most lively and helpful critical forum, still, ARS even in its hey day probably was not as constructive as ESMB.

But I will always have some fondness for the old girl. (Fluffy envisioining ARS as a grand old lady with too much makeup, pretending that she does not have the advanced arthritis and loss of strength that she has, and who's still feisty and wears a feather boa.)

ESMB is like a super intelligent cute and pretty thoughtful but sometimes still newbie constructive young college girl who's making her way in the world and doing more much earlier than anyone had thought- but there're great deeds still in front of her.

 

[Free to shine]

But I will always have some fondness for the old girl. (Fluffy envisioining ARS as a grand old lady with too much makeup, pretending that she does not have the advanced arthritis and loss of strength that she has, and who's still feisty and wears a feather boa.)

ESMB is like a super intelligent cute and pretty thoughtful but sometimes still newbie constructive young college girl who's making her way in the world and doing more much earlier than anyone had thought- but there're great deeds still in front of her.

You are funny Fluffy.
I like the pictures you created.

 

[Voltaire's Child]

I always envision all these scenarios and mental pictures...sometimes I create rock videos of songs I like in my head. Kinda fun!

 

[Alanzo]

Until I went over to ARS to see what Dennis had written, I had not been on ARS for years. I posted there in 1998 as a staunch Churchie and then went back in late 2000 and 2001 and became an ex. It - kind of - holds a place in my heart, too. (Maybe the place it holds is a little lower than my heart)

But anyway - there is one good thing about ARS - information.

There are critics there who are constantly feeding new information into the newsgroup. If it happens any where in the world related to Scientology, it appears on ARS and gets discussed.

I think ESMB can improve a bit in that area. I'm going to start posting more things like that.

There are other good things about ARS that we can steal and have for people here, too. I read a post by Barb the other day that was excellent. It was a letter she had written to Sea Org kids, after thinking about her own kids. It was a message to them to get them thinking. Very moving and very well done.

I just had an idea! We can just steal all the good shit directly from ARS and post it here!

Yeah!!!

 

[Pooks]

I just had an idea! We can just steal all the good shit directly from ARS and post it here!

Yeah!!!

Sounds like a plan.

Patty

 

[Vinaire]

...
I just had an idea! We can just steal all the good shit directly from ARS and post it here!
...

I like that idea. But isn't that a lot of work?

I have never been on ARS. But it appears to be full of extreme randomity.

.