I CALL THEM AS I SEE THEM
The things I wrote are my opinions. Not everyone will agree with someone's opinion and I know going in that many will not agree. If a disagreement is stated in good faith, as Claire Swazey's was, I take a good look at it and will perhaps ammend my post, as I did in her case. Bitter hostile posts using cuss words and such are just background noise as I see it. Such posters have the right to post here also and I respect that. They are entitled to their say and other ESMB members can judge whether they agree with those types of posts or not.
It took me a long time to see that there were essentially 5 types of groups who were reading and/or posting on ESMB. Three of the five were the ones I covered in my recent post. The 4th group is composed of people who were never in Scientology but are researching it as scholars or just out of interest. Of course the 5th group are OSA plants pretending to be exes.
I said the 3 groups were a very broad subdivision and that each group TENDED to have certain characteristics. Some in group 3 say they are different; they did not experience this or that trait which I mentioned. I say again that my classifications are broad and not detailed.
I have dealt with dozens of Group 3 people and most of them share some of these traits. THE THING IN GROUP 3 IS THAT THEY NOT ONLY DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SUBJECT THEMSELVES BUT THEY FIGHT WITH PASSION AGAINST ANYONE WHO SAYS THAT ANY PART OF THE SUBJECT HAS VALUE OR CAN ACTUALLY HELP ANYONE. It is important to know this!!
They have every right to leave the group and its subject behind and move on with their lives but why do they fight so hard to dissuade all others from saying that any part of the subject has actually helped anyone. IT IS THIS QUESTION WHICH CAUSES ONE TO WANT TO "PULL A STRING" TO SEE WHY THEY DO THIS WITH SO MUCH PASSION AND SO MUCH FORCE, often including cussing and downgrading anyone who differs with their opinion!
The most compelling reason which I have found for this type of behavior is what I have said above and that usually involves a family being broken up, a business being destroyed or someone's health and finances being ruined or a love one dieing while in C of S. This might not always be the case. Maybe someone such as Olska is just being altruistic and feels strongly that the subject is harmful and doesn't want exes or brand new people to use it. This is certainly possible.
What puzzles me is that if someone agrees that the basic subject is bad but insists that they got some major gains out of certain parts of the subject and want to keep using those parts, an altruistic person would let it go at that. The fact that group 3's do not let go at that point and never stop fighting that person shows me that there must be something else driving them other than only altruism.
Anyway, when someone such as Mich comes on the board, I just want to share some of the insights which I built up over 2 years or so on ESMB so as to speed up her search for truths on this forum. People arriving newly on ESMB do not know there are several opposing factions here which will be giving them advice and encouragement. There is no need to go on a treadmill for months before they figure this out. Why not just tell them up front that different factions exist so that they will know what to expect?
Lakey
Thanks, Lakey. As usual a top-notch sane reaction. And BTW it is helpful to have an overview as a guide. I guess we all know about gradient scales, and that applies to people as much as to anything else, but a generalization can be useful to a newbie like me, so I can find my feet.
Still, I am grateful to Olska for reminding me that it is just a generalization.
I, too, am curious as to why those who rail against anything and everything connected to Scientology are so adamant. The thing that worries me is that there must be a reason for some scn to work, and are they not cutting themselves off from that? If you do a little homework you find that Freud and LRH agreed on much, because Freud influenced LRH. So if you come across someone else who is helping others based on what they learnt from Freud, do you cut them off 'cause it sounds like scn? What about all the other stuff Ron plagiarised? It seems to me you could lose more than you gain....