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Welcome Jonathan!

I'm pondering Carmelo's basic premis that if your name is mentioned in an ESMB thread that the post will show up in a Google search of your name.

Is that true?

Yes, if you use someone's full name it does show up on Google. I'm happy to be here and to share my experience and I would also appreciate not having my full name searchable on Google in relationship to Scientology via ESMB. It's like that nightmare I never asked for beginning all over again. Thankfully, compared to most people on here, it was for a very short period in my life and I am definitely, nor was I really ever, a Scientologist. Wanting help for my business and trusting that WISE group led me, and hundreds of other Chiropractors, down a rabbit hole we would soon come to regret. Joining that group seemed so benign back then only to slowly realize (after your check has cleared, of course) they behave just like the CoS. I reported many incidences to WISE (how ridiculous that seems now!) only to find out that this WISE group has 'ethics protection'. Meaning, that you donated (actually required to give 10% of gross income) to CoS, so they're off the hook. :angry:

Alright gang, more on this later.

Best,
Jonathan
 

Gib

Crusader
Yes, if you use someone's full name it does show up on Google. I'm happy to be here and to share my experience and I would also appreciate not having my full name searchable on Google in relationship to Scientology via ESMB. It's like that nightmare I never asked for beginning all over again. Thankfully, compared to most people on here, it was for a very short period in my life and I am definitely, nor was I really ever, a Scientologist. Wanting help for my business and trusting that WISE group led me, and hundreds of other Chiropractors, down a rabbit hole we would soon come to regret. Joining that group seemed so benign back then only to slowly realize (after your check has cleared, of course) they behave just like the CoS. I reported many incidences to WISE (how ridiculous that seems now!) only to find out that this WISE group has 'ethics protection'.
Meaning, that you donated (actually required to give 10% of gross income) to CoS,
so they're off the hook. :angry:

Alright gang, more on this later.

Best,
Jonathan

with that set-up, one is working for the church for some pretended knowledge. Welcome to the banking industry. :hifive: got cha

:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:
 

anonomog

Gold Meritorious Patron
I am so pleased you decided to post again. Your voice will drift around the internet for years to come and warn other chiropractors that joining WISE is anything but.
Don't underestimate the power of the net. Even one post can make a difference.

Side note, I feel staying anonymous or not, is entirely personal decision and should be respected either way.
Due to the amazingly effective church PR (may it long continue) even people who know very little about Scientology practices do know something about their creepy controlling underhanded tactics against whistle-blowers. Chances are you would be respected for your stand than censured. Just my 2c.

Good luck!
 
Yeah, the problem is that these doctors and practitioners are not aware of the situation regarding the fraud and abuses of WISE and the CoS... and even if you spelled it out for them, it just seems so wildly unbelievable. So, they take a course, Ups and Downs or Personal Integrity and that seems ok and then they start to compare their experience with the 'entheta' and that's the beginning of the end. You feel what you have learned is valid and benign but what you don't realize is that you are still staring at the storefront and are not yet exposed to the rape in the back office.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
Try googling these words <snip>

Congratulations. You just guaranteed that future Google searches will lead to this thread.

How it was working, I believe, was that his full name *was* in this thread, which Google indexed. This thread was then edited to remove his surname, at least the text of it as the image doesn't count, and after a few days the revised thread would have replaced the old thread in Google.

And the person that quoted your message in full repeated the error.

Paul
 

guanoloco

As-Wased
Your nick...one of my favorite golden oldies, my friend.

[video=youtube;Gd8pk9crPMY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd8pk9crPMY[/video]

...and Tony Stark wearing the concert T in Avengers...

550w_captain_america_avengers_stills_1.jpg
 

anonomog

Gold Meritorious Patron
Yeah, the problem is that these doctors and practitioners are not aware of the situation regarding the fraud and abuses of WISE and the CoS... and even if you spelled it out for them, it just seems so wildly unbelievable. So, they take a course, Ups and Downs or Personal Integrity and that seems ok and then they start to compare their experience with the 'entheta' and that's the beginning of the end. You feel what you have learned is valid and benign but what you don't realize is that you are still staring at the storefront and are not yet exposed to the rape in the back office.

What was the first thing that made you doubt the validity of it all?
 
Congratulations. You just guaranteed that future Google searches will lead to this thread.

How it was working, I believe, was that his full name *was* in this thread, which Google indexed. This thread was then edited to remove his surname, at least the text of it as the image doesn't count, and after a few days the revised thread would have replaced the old thread in Google.

And the person that quoted your message in full repeated the error.

Paul


Yeah! I know! Jeesh! Don't do that! :duh:
 

apple

Patron Meritorious
One thing you have to say for the Scientology of today is their outflow line is like a rushing river and their inflow line is like the creek in somebody's backyard in the drought that has seen better days.

An excellent analogy.
 

Lurker5

Gold Meritorious Patron
Hey everybody! Glad to be on this site with all of you. I'll look forward to making some new friends here and sharing my story about being fleeced by a WISE group as well as the CoS!

Hi :wave: jonnyblade - cool nick - and :welcome:. We love SPs. :biggrin:
:bravo: On your courage - for doing/saying what you felt was right and true. That always works for me - and got you out of co$. Yea.
:happydance: Tell your story, :drama: if you like. We love to hear the stories. You are one of US.
:thumbsup:
 
So do you think that means that the name must be in the title of the thread to show up in the search, or it will/might show up if the name was used inside of a single post?

I helped raise a friend's hotel in google rankings.

the principles of raising an item or listing are equal to and reversed for getting an item to the bottom of the search

activity is one key ingredient

as an example if your name gets mentioned on the Apollo thread, here on ESMB, where there are over one million sixty thousand hits (views), your name will rise faster than if your name is mentioned on a thread that got one hundred hits.

This is off the track, but I'll return to make my point in a moment.

The one downside I had to my Scientology experience was the years I devoted to it, when I could have been making an income.

Jonathan is a young man. It is far better, from my point of view, to expend your energy capital, when you're young, making money - a nest egg.

Fighting windmills can wait until you have a comfortable cushion.

I've never said or implied "don't post or sue about the abuses of Scientology" what I have said is don't make that apart of your branding.

Most of the posters and former posters here on ESMB on down from HH to AnonMary and Trouble are anonymous. They are still quite effective.

According to Roger being out front and posting as yourself is more powerful. I submit that Mark Baker fits that category, but HH doesn't. Yet HH has more power on this board. Representing yourself as your name is not the key ingredient.

I say "stay under the radar"

post all your experiences and thoughts, just don't get yourself googled as your name in business and personal life.
 
Congratulations. You just guaranteed that future Google searches will lead to this thread.

How it was working, I believe, was that his full name *was* in this thread, which Google indexed. This thread was then edited to remove his surname, at least the text of it as the image doesn't count, and after a few days the revised thread would have replaced the old thread in Google.

And the person that quoted your message in full repeated the error.

Paul

As Watson would say, "no shit! Sherlock"
 
What was the first thing that made you doubt the validity of it all?

Hey Anonomog!

Ok, I used to work at a chiropractic office in San Francisco from 2003 - 2006 and the owner is a long standing Scientologist. In the three years working there never was I pressured nor was I really exposed to Scn. One day, the owner asked if I would come down to the Org. Sure, ok. Seems harmless enough. Got there, seen people reciting things to walls, doing high school indoc, playing with tinker toy type objects while they were reading books (you know, to gain mass in study...) and I just turned to him and said, "Um, this looks like the back room in a mental ward." But you know, I'm super polite, this is my boss, he invited me into his church and I contained my Jersey vernacular. I asked him if L. Ron Hubbard was still alive and he said that he willingly discarded his body to do work exterior of it. WTF? I asked him if he really believed that and he said I would have to find out how that could happen and Scientology has a way for me to do so. Now, just living in the Bay Area, the new age capital of the world, that paled in comparison with some of the other horse shit I've heard since living here. So, I finally said, "Ok, well I'll go home and look more of it up on the Internet." He said, "WHOA NO! Don't do that!!!" Huh? I can't look something up on the Internet? Now, it just so happened that that exact week, the South Park episode came out. I laughed my ass off. I also thought, "Jeesh! How strange!" It truly was bizarre. To know someone who was, at one time, super successful as a Chiropractor as well as someone that I really liked as a person believes in THAT? So, I looked more, came across Operation Clambake, etc. and as you can read in my Goldenrod I was 'heavily involved' with enemy sites before entering Scn. I was! It was incredibly interesting to me. There certainly wasn't anything like it. So, for months I read and read and read and learned more and eventually it just fell away as an interest. The person I worked for was very respectful, never brought it up again and that was that.

Moving on, I then purchased my first practice in Northern California and to make a long story short I found out that the person who had sold me her practice lied about her income from that practice for the last 3 years. Although I had seen her tax returns, she included the income of her 2 businesses on one tax return and I only bought one business. So, I hired a consultant (non-scn) and that didn't help in the least. So, one day I was sitting around my practice during lunch and a fax comes through from this WISE group with a list of 'highest evers' in income. Here I was, over $150K in debt from school, just got burned on buying a practice, had to fire my consultant and I was pretty much screwed. So, I called these guys and said, "Look, I don't want to hire you but you do have my attention. I really do need some help for my practice." We scheduled a time to meet in the next day or two, they said to be by a fax machine and a fax would come through. After I get the fax, I was to call them. Fax comes through and I'm looking at this thing and I think, this really looks familiar... where did I see this before? Ah, the 'Org Board' in the break room at my old job! It was a blank one with the 7 divisions. So, I called them up and said, "Are you guys Scientologists?" "Yeah!!!" "Um. Ok. Are you going to clear my engrams or something?" "If we have to." "Right. How much does your program cost?" "Well let's just do the interview... (aka we haven't had time to ruin your highly qualified ass yet to justify our flagrantly obnoxious prices you qualified piece of raw meat! I mean come on! First we have to RUIN you, then we have to dig into all the ways that its going EFFECT you and then you will feel a FEAR OF WORSENING as we rub more fucking salt into your wounds and then and only then will you begin to come up-tone and rise, just like we engineered you would, you soon to be ron-droid, into a state of DEMAND OF CHANGE and then NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT!) Well, all I can say is that being as young and as desperate as I was in having to find out how to get myself out of this mess, they closed me! It didn't come easy, but they did... for $25,000.00. Paid. Up. Front.

Next thing you know, I'm at their course room with a bunch of other chiropractors all of whom were extremely nice and helpful... their staff seemed alright and the whole Scn thing just seemed to take on a whole different light compared to what I had previously experienced for myself. So, I became very interested in finding out more. I became very friendly with the staff at the group, asked them lots of questions and they were just really great people. I kept asking about Xenu, Xenu, Xenu, Xenu... I want SOMEONE to tell me about Xenu. They all said they had no idea what I was talking about until I went to the store with one of the staff members to get some lunch and we were in her car together. I said, "Ok, look. You guys seem really really nice. You seem pretty normal to me, I've taken a few courses already (Ups and Downs and Personal Integrity) and I really don't see anything wrong yet with any of this. So, I want you to tell me the truth and I promise I won't say anything if it'll get you in trouble but, at some point, am I required to 'believe' in something on a level called OT III?" She said, "You don't believe in anything at that time but it's something you accept. That's all I can say." It was at that moment that I knew I couldn't fully trust it. I just had that feeling in my gut. I had that same feeling before when I first went into the SF Org. You just KNOW it's bad news somehow without really having to know anything further.

Now, this really is the readers digest version of an answer to your question and there is a lot more before, during and after that point in time. For example, when I decided to join the WISE group, I did go back to the SF Org and I walked right up to the bookstore, just as a stranger visiting and I was asking a ton of questions. Being paranoid, they sent the DSA up to keep an eye on me. I later found this out and in their classic paranoia thought I was a spy! When I heard that I was really creeped out because at that point I just wanted some information.

Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

If anyone has any questions for me feel free to ask. I'm happy to answer!

Best,
Jonathan
 

TG1

Angelic Poster
Jonathan,

Wow. Sorry. Thanks.

There are thousands of stories here like yours. And others that are different. But it all boils down to ... boiling very slowly until you're boiling.

TG1
 

TG1

Angelic Poster
Carmelo,

A couple of things ....

First, your name is on this board. You put it here, along with your wife's name. Just go to google and type your name and Scientology and ... here it is.

Second, there was a time when posting a photograph online but not the name of the person did not expose the person to doxing. However, no more. Google now has an image search function -- just drag the photo in question into the search box and google search away. And it's going to get worse. So you might want to stop posting pix of your kids. You / they / images are no longer immune.

You can embrace transparency, as some here have done. But you can't double-dog dare the Internet to find you if you throw out "just a little bit of information." It'll win. You won't.

TG1
 

AnonyMary

Formerly Fooled - Finally Free
Congratulations. You just guaranteed that future Google searches will lead to this thread.

How it was working, I believe, was that his full name *was* in this thread, which Google indexed. This thread was then edited to remove his surname, at least the text of it as the image doesn't count, and after a few days the revised thread would have replaced the old thread in Google.

And the person that quoted your message in full repeated the error.

Paul

Paul, I only replied to a question and had not read the whole thread to know anything about the being a need for anonymity. I thought that since the name was in the OP doc that the name was out there. And it was because it came up in the Google search I posted. Never the less, I was alerted to the problem by PM and then requested the post be deleted, along with it being quoted by another. Both are gone now.

Mary
 

anonomog

Gold Meritorious Patron
Damn it is so easy to slide into it all. Thank you for your great reply, it is fascinating to read how it all started and the moments of clarity.

I'd love to know more when you are ready. What happened when you wanted out? Is it possible to leave WISE without a hassle? Was there any benefits at all of being a member, or was it all a con?
 

Sindy

Crusader
Hi Jonathan,

This is so helpful and fascinating.

Let me ask you, in your travels through this experience, while hanging with other chiropractors and possibly other professionals, did any of them communicate discord, disaffection or intimate that they, too, had read weird stuff on the Internet? Or, were they all toeing the line?

Did any of them complain of excessive fundraising or the feeling that they were being controlled by a cult? I'm not asking for names, just trying to get a feel for the overall environment now. Is it a powder keg about to blow or confused people just keeping quiet and trying to get along as best they can.

I know there are lots of demands on WISE members, especially to buy books and contribute to libraries.

Thanks!

Sindy

P.S. My name is all over the Internet, connected to Scientology, and frankly, I'm thinking about changing my name! It's good to be wary, I think.
 
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