RESIDUAL EFFECTS

[Happy Aberree]

RESIDUAL EFFECTS:

For the sake of this thread I'm going to classify 2 types of people (please forgive me, and no offense intended):

1. Those who were in scientology and are now out and opposing it (let's say EX-SCIENTOLOGIST)
2. Those who were never in scientology and are opposing it (let's say ANTI-SCIENTOLOGIST)

I don't think you can be a scientologist for 30 years and then, after realising it is a scam, suddenly become the person you would have been -had you never entered the cult. I think this is something inherently different between EXes (myself included) and ANTIs, and I think it is also a potential weak point within the overall group that opposes the CofS. And at the risk of increasing current disagreements and disputes, I will try and explain.

"But he's out now -why does he still use the jargon?"

When you dedicate more than half your life to a belief system, and then leave that belief system, it is only natural to retain some residual layers of that system. Even if it is just to laugh about it or criticise it, rant about it or whatever. And it gets shown on the board here every day. You can't expect a person to drop all that baggage that they have accumulated daily for decades the moment they realise it is a ruse. The cult's hold on a person happens over decades and takes time to deprogram. I still lose my coffee reading posts here because they still are pointing out idiocies that are so wild, so far out and so weird -and I used to believe all of it!!!

"Why don't they just wake up? Just tell them what a con-man Hubbard was, and they'll wake up."

As part of the cult's hold on a person, there are defense mechanisms that trigger very easily and then stop the person listening/looking anymore. (SP for example -if a scientologist decides you are an SP, THEY WILL NOT COMMUNICATE WITH YOU ANYMORE). It sounds easy (to just tell a scientologist about Hubbard or Lisa MacPhearson or DM) but if you trigger the person's defense mechanisms at any time it doesn't become harder to show them -it becomes impossible. This is why exes here work on slower methods of getting people out. They are trying to work in and around that person's defenses that have been built up over the years by the cult, and it takes time.

I am opposed to the CofS and it's affiliates, most of its activities and all of its abuses. I personally do not think a great deal of the technology of scientology but I am sure some of it gets some results, and the same goes for the policy. As far as what parts work? I'm sure I'll look into it one day. There are many who still use and advocate the technology -which is fine. But even being so indifferent to scientology and being against the CofS and its havoc, I will still use the terms here and there, make jokes about the staff, argue technical or administrative issues, and listen to a scientologist talk straight 'scientology' at me. Apart from hardcore Sea Org members or high-status public (in which case my patience is fleeting), I can manage a reasonable conversation. And I do this because I don't believe that you just have to drop the whole thing instantly and I don't believe that you can.

I want to add more to this later, but that's what I have so far...

 

[Kathy (ImOut)]

Scn is like every other bad life experience - it doesn't just magically go away. You keep some of the scars, wounds, thoughts with you forever, in my opinion. You may get over/thru the experience, just like a rape victim moves on (hopefully) from the rape, but that is forever a scar on the persons psyche.

But if there were a pill to take to get over all of life's bad experiences I still don't know if I would take the pill.

 

[La La Lou Lou]

As an Ex, no matter how much you've decided to dump the crap there will be times , particularly when you're off guard, that you think the solution for something might be the same as you did years ago. I fully believe that the tech sucks but I have no faith in any alternative either.

I think it must be impossible for someone that's never twisted their mind with this stuff to fully understand how deep it goes.

 

[EP - Ethics Particle]

Worth repeating!

As an Ex, no matter how much you've decided to dump the crap there will be times , particularly when you're off guard, that you think the solution for something might be the same as you did years ago. I fully believe that the tech sucks but I have no faith in any alternative either.

I think it must be impossible for someone that's never twisted their mind with this stuff to fully understand how deep it goes.

Can it be stated more succinctly? :confused2: I can't. La La

 

[Happy Aberree]

But if there were a pill to take to get over all of life's bad experiences I still don't know if I would take the pill.

Oh Christ -I don't know whether I agree with you or not! It's like saying you can have it so it never happened. As much as I would love that most of the time, it was still life experience. Many other things happened as a result, many friends were met, and it was all part of life. Really tough call.

(cringe)...yeah (CRINGE)... I probably wouldn't take the pill...

I think things should evolve naturally

 

[Happy Aberree]

Repeating

I fully believe that the tech sucks but I have no faith in any alternative either.

I think it must be impossible for someone that's never twisted their mind with this stuff to fully understand how deep it goes.

Can it be stated more succinctly? :confused2: I can't. La La

I don't think so EP -this is so close to how I see it, it's not funny.

 

[Student of Trinity]

I fully believe that the tech sucks but I have no faith in any alternative either.

This sounds to me like one of the worst residual effects, that it becomes hard to believe in anything at all.

Lots of fundamentalist belief systems explicitly insist that if you don't swallow their entire line, then the only alternative is to believe in nothing. But this is really just another threat to keep you from challenging even their littlest dogma, by holding your every hope for anything better hostage. Just another brick in the wall.

I don't believe that anything else works as totally and as easily as Scientology claims to work. That doesn't mean nothing else works at all. And it's okay if it isn't really as straightforward as Scientology promised. Humans are tough enough to cope with a fair amount of struggle and uncertainty. Taoists say that the way that can be named is not the true way, so the true way can't be clearly described. I'm pretty sure the true way is not completely smooth, either. That doesn't mean there's no true way.

 

[Zinjifar]

As an Ex, no matter how much you've decided to dump the crap there will be times , particularly when you're off guard, that you think the solution for something might be the same as you did years ago. I fully believe that the tech sucks but I have no faith in any alternative either.

I think it must be impossible for someone that's never twisted their mind with this stuff to fully understand how deep it goes.

Impossible may be overstated, but, no question that the mindfuck is mindfuck in depth, and, like all Scientology, it's *always* worse than you think. I think one of the problems with talking about the 'residuals' is that Scientology is an ongoing process. As long as it's a live virus, the damage is being being recreated and reinforced, even as you dismantle it. Until the process is stopped there's no 'getting over' the damage. But, until then, you can dismantle Scn-Think piece by piece, but, when you come back tomorrow, it's 'BAAAAACK'.

Just from the viewpoint of an outside observer, it seems to me that the only way to *stop* the process is to stop it entirely; dump 'the Tech' entirely, whether there are 'good' parts or not. Otherwise the supposed 'good parts' reestablish the bad in a constant circular exercise in ditch-digging/filling.

After that, well, it may be possible to pick and choose and find the 'good', but, I'd still be suspicious of it.

But, if you can stop the ongoing process I do think the damage itself falls into the more normal human kind of damage that everyone carries, to one extent or another; one kind or another. You don't 'get over it' and it doesn't 'go away', but, as you add additional human experience it becomes less of a percentage of your life.

Trying to *remove* 'engrams' is what got you in trouble in the *first* place

Zinj

 

[Kathy (ImOut)]

Oh Christ -I don't know whether I agree with you or not! It's like saying you can have it so it never happened. As much as I would love that most of the time, it was still life experience. Many other things happened as a result, many friends were met, and it was all part of life. Really tough call.

(cringe)...yeah (CRINGE)... I probably wouldn't take the pill...

I think things should evolve naturally

I don't think we'd be the people we are today, if it were not for the experiences we had in the past. I may not be perfect and I may not be as whole (mentally, emotionally or spiritually) as I'd like to be. But I am happy with who I am at this point in my life. And I can only imagine it's going to get better as I grow and mature more with more life experiences and more wisdom.

 

[Lurker5]

as an outsider / anti

I don't think we'd be the people we are today, if it were not for the experiences we had in the past. I may not be perfect and I may not be as whole (mentally, emotionally or spiritually) as I'd like to be. But I am happy with who I am at this point in my life. And I can only imagine it's going to get better as I grow and mature more with more life experiences and more wisdom.

I have to say, I am very impressed with everything in this thread so far. I had a brief brush with scn long ago, and lots stuck to me too. It went way deeper than I would have thought - if I'd never bumped into it, if I was a total outsider/stranger to it.

It is hard for outsiders to 'understand' deeply, or how deeply it all goes, how it 'becomes' part of the person. And I agree completely that our experiences make us who we are - and if we can find happiness with who we are, then it was all for a reason. It is all life-experience, and it can be good, even the bad. It all depends on how we come to look at it, once the 'healing' has taken hold.

No one gets out of this life without trauma, abuse, betrayal, abandonments, hurts, tragedy. No one is that lucky. The lucky ones are the ones who get to that place where it is just a part of they are today, part of the past, that made us who we are, and that we LIKE that, who we are, today . . .

I have discovered much from being on this board, about exes and anti's, about PEOPLE. I am still learning. Thank you, ESMBers

 

[IMMORTAL]

RESIDUAL EFFECTS:

For the sake of this thread I'm going to classify 2 types of people (please forgive me, and no offense intended):

1. Those who were in scientology and are now out and opposing it (let's say EX-SCIENTOLOGIST)
2. Those who were never in scientology and are opposing it (let's say ANTI-SCIENTOLOGIST)

I don't think you can be a scientologist for 30 years and then, after realising it is a scam, suddenly become the person you would have been -had you never entered the cult. I think this is something inherently different between EXes (myself included) and ANTIs, and I think it is also a potential weak point within the overall group that opposes the CofS. And at the risk of increasing current disagreements and disputes, I will try and explain.

"But he's out now -why does he still use the jargon?"

When you dedicate more than half your life to a belief system, and then leave that belief system, it is only natural to retain some residual layers of that system. Even if it is just to laugh about it or criticise it, rant about it or whatever. And it gets shown on the board here every day. You can't expect a person to drop all that baggage that they have accumulated daily for decades the moment they realise it is a ruse. The cult's hold on a person happens over decades and takes time to deprogram. I still lose my coffee reading posts here because they still are pointing out idiocies that are so wild, so far out and so weird -and I used to believe all of it!!!

"Why don't they just wake up? Just tell them what a con-man Hubbard was, and they'll wake up."

As part of the cult's hold on a person, there are defense mechanisms that trigger very easily and then stop the person listening/looking anymore. (SP for example -if a scientologist decides you are an SP, THEY WILL NOT COMMUNICATE WITH YOU ANYMORE). It sounds easy (to just tell a scientologist about Hubbard or Lisa MacPhearson or DM) but if you trigger the person's defense mechanisms at any time it doesn't become harder to show them -it becomes impossible. This is why exes here work on slower methods of getting people out. They are trying to work in and around that person's defenses that have been built up over the years by the cult, and it takes time.

I am opposed to the CofS and it's affiliates, most of its activities and all of its abuses. I personally do not think a great deal of the technology of scientology but I am sure some of it gets some results, and the same goes for the policy. As far as what parts work? I'm sure I'll look into it one day. There are many who still use and advocate the technology -which is fine. But even being so indifferent to scientology and being against the CofS and its havoc, I will still use the terms here and there, make jokes about the staff, argue technical or administrative issues, and listen to a scientologist talk straight 'scientology' at me. Apart from hardcore Sea Org members or high-status public (in which case my patience is fleeting), I can manage a reasonable conversation. And I do this because I don't believe that you just have to drop the whole thing instantly and I don't believe that you can.

I want to add more to this later, but that's what I have so far...

Being "out" newly myself, and by that I mean now openly questioning and looking where I didn't allow myself to before, I find this an interesting post.

I don't have this all sorted out yet. Wrapped up in this is the nomenclature, the illusions, the creation of future, ease of speaking with fellow and probably a lot more.

The nomenclature, say for example ARCU (affinity-reality-communication-understanding), makes it expedient to communicate a concept. I believe this would be true for any body of work such as photography, nuclear physics, being a vegetarian, Buddism, Catholicism or whatever. It's expedient to use certain words among fellows to communicate a concept.

Then, it's the person having read and understood the concept written, tried it, found it true and adopted it as a stable datum. So, it's hard to give up even when not being an active participant of the group.

The illusion, the concepts are enticing and one begins to create better things for oneself in the future based on the promises and gains of today. I believe this is true of even say any personal relationship. One begins the journey, creates it (and it does take active creation), continues it until for one reason or another the illusion is broken. Create-Survive-Destroy. Another concept elucidated in Scientology which can be seen to be true in the physical universe.

Because these things can be seen to work, whether they are called Scientology or some other name, they are held to be true by experience. It's hard to let that go.

 

[Operating Wog]

It took about a year of being out before I really realized I was out and not going back. I dropped all Scn lingo immediately. But still, almost a decade later, I'll start to say something and double check myself: "Is that a Scientology term? Or do normal people say that? Hmm... I better rephrase it just to be safe."

I had dreams for years. Actually pretty much the same dream. I'd be back at the org and back on staff and cursing myself for having been out and being dumb enough to go back in. And wanting to leave again, but no longer having the guts to do so and being amazed that I had the guts to leave the first time. The dream slowly evolved over the years. At first, I'd just be in despair about it. Then after a while, I'd actually decide to leave again in the dream. Then, finally, the dream would end with me actually leaving again. At some point a couple of years ago, the dreams drastically dropped in frequency, but I still have one now and then.

Overall, I wouldn't give up my experience, but if I could go back and change something, I probably would have left a hell of a lot sooner.

 

[IMMORTAL]

It took about a year of being out before I really realized I was out and not going back. I dropped all Scn lingo immediately. But still, almost a decade later, I'll start to say something and double check myself: "Is that a Scientology term? Or do normal people say that? Hmm... I better rephrase it just to be safe."

I had dreams for years. Actually pretty much the same dream. I'd be back at the org and back on staff and cursing myself for having been out and being dumb enough to go back in. And wanting to leave again, but no longer having the guts to do so and being amazed that I had the guts to leave the first time. The dream slowly evolved over the years. At first, I'd just be in despair about it. Then after a while, I'd actually decide to leave again in the dream. Then, finally, the dream would end with me actually leaving again. At some point a couple of years ago, the dreams drastically dropped in frequency, but I still have one now and then.

Overall, I wouldn't give up my experience, but if I could go back and change something, I probably would have left a hell of a lot sooner.

I understand that. And yes, I know already I'm not going back. THAT I've already decided. Otherwise, I would have never posted my first post; never taken that first decisive step.

The dream sounds just horrible! Gawdawful. I'm glad that is subsiding.

I wouldn't give up the experience either. I listened to the David Mayo video this morning and he said something that I found very interesting. About violating one's personal integrity. I think that is where is starts. Even let's say setting a course schedule for your first course and the repercussions of what happens if you disobey. It is really an insidious process one goes through without realising how much they have given up.

I know I'm out. I know that much. I'm just not sure where I am - other than a twilight zone limbo of inspection, analysis and evaluation that I should have done years ago right now. Glad to be started on it tho.

 

[Kutta]

From LaLaLouLou

I fully believe that the tech sucks but I have no faith in any alternative either.

After almost 30 years out, that I'm afraid is where I stand too. I couldn't bring myself to align myself with any belief system ever again. I have a special aversion to any organized belief system, anything with an hierarchical power structure. Perhaps not all are traps, but I'm not taking the risk.

 

[Happy Aberree]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6iCiul3D4

The lyrics to this song could have easily been about how I felt when I first came out.