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Whattodo

Patron with Honors
It's been a little while since I last posted so I thought I'd start afresh.

I've never really been in luckily! I did one course and I snapped out of it pretty much straight away but it was my family that was trying to get me in.

They are still in and it seems to be getting more intense as time goes on now. Their "sales people" are obviously working their tenticles ever so further around each one of them.

I've been watching Leah Remini and reading a little on here and when I do it just makes me more desperate to get them out.

But how can I wake them up without me being declared pts or even an sp? At times I feel like just saying wake the hell up and read what's out there like you read about everything that's anti public, anti establishment and more importantly anti physc!

My problem is we (One of them and I) work together so I have to be so careful, in regards scientology it's just not discussed yet when there are issues and problems I hear the scientology coming through. These are obviously caused because people are down the tone scale, their ethics are out, we don't know how to communicate, stats aren't recorded properly etc etc. At times there is a real superiority viewpoint and I'm talked to like I'm just not in the know. There is probably terms for all of this but luckily I was never in long enough to learn them. I'm just a wog! Lol

However nothing too serious encroaches into the business, no money is taken out to pay to scientology and nothing is imposed on the employees just the occasional book offered and this after a good number of years. I worry this could change but ethics are of the upmost importance so anything underhanded would go against every fabric in their body.

When they go away on course which the world of the cloud now allows us to be more agile in our place of work, there is always a change in their demeanour. I can just tell they are being forced to sign up to more courses, push scientology more and I do naturally worry they will target the business if their personal income drys up. Once off course it settles down again!

Their kids are now in, they all live such estranged lives it's weird to see. The natural human side keeps them covertly bonded but the church could suggest they are just mere thetans like everybody else and not really related! They don't seem fussed about birthdays, Christmas, are socially withdrawn, at times lack sympathy or empathy for other people and not what you call a naturally loving family. Writing love on a card or giving a hug must be so hard or alien to them! But when together underneath the surface you can see and sense that a natural love is there and yet they are expected to believe otherwise.

They now all live apart and I mean all of them, one in the states, one in Asia, three in different parts of the uk. There seems to be alot of interest in South Africa at the moment, I wonder if things are taking off there? or this is what they are led to believe!

Scientology the fastest growing religion don't make me laugh!! yet if only they opened their eyes and saw what is true to them! Orgs in the UK disappearing, certainly not opening or expanding as they claim and yet they actually dont question this, They are so blind!

I have read one or two amazing stories on here. I feel like printing them off and just posting them to one of them as an anonymous sender to see if this might just wake them up or sow some seeds of doubt. That's if they do read it, I'm sure it will come out in their auditing! And then with that being a crime then, who is the pts that needs dealing with!

Any thoughts on how I can get them out would be greatly appreciated? But I realistically know that even for the most ardent and high up former scientologists that some of you are, you too have family in and are unable to find a way to get them out.

I have rambled but I just find it so sad seeing this happen to my family but it's now just an acceptance, it's their choice!
 

He-man

Hero extraordinary
I am sorry to hear that you are in that situation.

I am in a similar situation with family who are still in. I've come to learn that there isn't much to do about it apart from being ready to help when they decide to take the plunge out in the real world. The decision has to come from them.

There's a risk with being too negative in regards to Scientology, and that is of course disconnection.

If you try to inform them of anything negative against LRH, Scientology or current management, they have to disconnect. No "enemy lines" as they are called, are allowed a Scientologist in good standing with the church.

So, you can either be informative, which most likely leads to a disconnect, or try and stay in contact with them, accepting that there are limits to what ye can talk about.

That's how I see it.

Either way you choose, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor! May the force be with you, always.

:hug:

EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention, is, you never have to "accept their reality" If your colleague family member pushes his narrative towards you, you don't have to accept it as "facts". What I do in similar situations is I try and "kill them with love" Smile, explain that there could be other causes, go through them.
 
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Enthetan

Master of Disaster
The First Rule of a Good Lifeguard: Don’t drown with a drowning victim. Save yourself first.

What happens to your job prospects if you are declared? If you go to work elsewhere, will they say anything positive to your new employer? Yes, the trend these days is for employers to not say anything, positive or negative, in order to avoid lawsuits and liability, but there's lots of ways to get a tone across without saying anything of substance.

It would be best to look for a job with a non-Scio company while you are still on good terms. You will probably make better money too.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
You have explained what it means for someone in your position extremely well.

You have several things working in your favor. Scientology excels at alienating people and making enemies. The smaller the Scioverse becomes the more coercion they must apply on the remaining few for asset stripping and self-censorship.

Secondly, public awareness and the media have caught up to Scientology to the point that no Scientologist can completely avoid knowing what the general public opinion of Scientology is. Eventually they have to wonder why the exalted Scientology PR Tech doesn't work.

Scientology also pushes the envelope on moral and legal behavior and the more they do this the more likely there will be some completely random event or conversion of events that can blow up on them.
 

Whattodo

Patron with Honors
The issue is, it is my business well 50/50. There has never been any issues surrounding company finances, it's always been retained within the business.

The First Rule of a Good Lifeguard: Don’t drown with a drowning victim. Save yourself first.

What happens to your job prospects if you are declared? If you go to work elsewhere, will they say anything positive to your new employer? Yes, the trend these days is for employers to not say anything, positive or negative, in order to avoid lawsuits and liability, but there's lots of ways to get a tone across without saying anything of substance.

It would be best to look for a job with a non-Scio company while you are still on good terms. You will probably make better money too.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
I certainly hope this pans out, it's seems the noise about South Africa is some huge new org. Let's hope it's empty!
Right, Mike Rinder had that Africa story. Price cutting is a deadly serious business in Scientology. There is an LRH policy that strictly forbids it and you can be declared an SP for it so if they start promoting discounts you know they must be desperate. Saint Hill has also been pushing their services on the basis of more favorable exchange rates which also smacks of desperation and trying to work around the price cutting policy.

https://www.mikerindersblog.org/the-discount-ao/
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
The issue is, it is my business well 50/50. There has never been any issues surrounding company finances, it's always been retained within the business.
Keep a good eye on the books, and make sure your partners understand you will not tolerate any games.
 

Whattodo

Patron with Honors
Maybe gone for the cheaper courses lol, is it "registrars" who sell the courses?

Also what is the obsession with buying new property everywhere?
 

Glenda

Crusader
The issue is, it is my business well 50/50. There has never been any issues surrounding company finances, it's always been retained within the business.
Hi @Whattodo. This is never an easy position to be in having loved one's getting deeper and deeper into something you are aware is not a healthy scene. You are wise to educate yourself.

Others have offered sound suggestions. I would add a couple of things that come to mind.

Quietly work out what your vulnerabilities are and the limits you are willing to go to. E.g. business funds being used for private life activities, including scientology. Pressure being put on you to conform to running the business using scientology methods. Losing contact with some of your loved one's because you don't wish to participate or tow the party line. Whatever it may be for you.

Boundaries. Study up (if needed) what they really are and how they really work. Scientologists are trained to violate and disrespect personal boundaries, usually all done with a cheerful smile and some almost convincing bunch of words that leaves you doubting yourself but not having a clue how to respond.

Here's a real example:

I decided to leave scientology. At that time I was married to a devoted scientologist. He would keep talking to me using scientology language. My boundary was firm - do not use that language around me. I stayed very firm on that. Initially he was cranky at me. I did not back down. "Do not speak scientologese around me. I do not speak scientologese any more, nor can I speak Russian, Spanish, etc". He'd look at me as if I'd lost my mind. I held the boundary firmly. Never faltered. Eventually if he let slip a scientology word/concept in conversation he'd catch himself and re-word what he was saying in real English.

The question is what are your boundaries. What are you willing to tolerate in your life regarding scientology influences. Good boundaries work is done calmly, with very few words and a lot of consistency. My experience is that it works but can be hard going in the beginning. Scientologists are very black and white in their thinking. They can be very disrespectful of anyone they perceive is getting in their way to "total freedom". That is not how real life works. Healthy relationships are based on respect.

I like what @Enthetan wrote: "The First Rule of a Good Lifeguard: Don’t drown with a drowning victim. Save yourself first."

Work out what your position is, your boundaries, your limits, what you will and won't tolerate and don't get caught up in other people's drama or agendas.

Go well Whattodo. Just as a side-note this board is closing in about 2 weeks. A new board has been started. You would be very welcome there. :)

Link to Ex Scientologist Message Board Redux:
https://exscn2.net/
 

He-man

Hero extraordinary
Maybe gone for the cheaper courses lol, is it "registrars" who sell the courses?

Also what is the obsession with buying new property everywhere?
Yep, a "regges" sole function is to route you onto your next step up the bridge once you've completed what you're doing right now.

The "ideal scene" within Scientology is something akin to this:

A "raw public" starts a fairly easy course or some basic auditing within Division 6(The Division that deals with promoting Scientology).
Once complete
The person is "routed" to the "Reg" in division 2(The Division that deals with selling Scientology to Scientologists).
Once the Reg has sold the next step
The person is routed to Division 4(Where the Academy and Auditing centre is located) to "do the bridge"
Once the course or Auditing sessions are complete, the person is routed back to Division 2.

That's kind of the eternal cycle in Scientology, with some more steps added to it in reality of course. :)

The obsession with buying property, well... Two ways to put it:

In the early 2000's the Church started a task to ensure that all Scientology Organisations(generally termed "org") had to become "ideal" for the purpose L Ron Hubbard had set out in the early days of Scientology. At that time the story was that most orgs were in shambles, both when it came to facilities and how they were ran.
The solution was to get the public Scientologists to fund new fresh locations so that Scientology would recover in terms of PR towards non Scientologists and so that they would provide a perfect spot where one could go up the bridge. I suppose the best analogue is that no one would like to go to a Spa set out in the slums.

The way most critics of Scientology see it I suppose is that it's the new money scam. Funds raised for "churches" are a clear cut donation in almost any country, where one could argue that selling auditing and courses are not.
 

Glenda

Crusader
Ah so basically it aids their religious and tax exempt status?
Partly, yes but it also helps them funnel money all over the world to buy, & renovate, these pricey bits of real estate. The idea is that the funds to buy the buildings are fund-raised locally. That is not how it entirely works. Funds are also provided from the international funding machine.
 

Whattodo

Patron with Honors
Yet they remain unopened and/Or empty

I keep getting told the new Manchester org will open yet no sign, hopefully this might sink in a little for those scientologists in that area.
 
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TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Hubbard was kind of conflicted over real estate. On one hand he pushed the "The public knows us by our MEST" meme. MEST (Matter Energy Space Time). In other words he had a constant problem with orgs being run down and dirty and he wanted the staff to keep things up and maintain professional appearances. On the other hand Hubbard was a real cheapskate. His greater priority was skimming income so he generally only wanted to do the most superficial things to make orgs look good. The financial lines were designed specifically to maximize skimming. The FBOs (Flag Banking Officers) and AGFs (Assistant Guardians for Finance) both competed over skimming. Upper management wanted the money for their programs and Hubbard's personal accounts and the GO had an endless need for their Snow White type ops and legal defense funds and both had much more authority over money than the org's Executive Directors/Commanding Officers or Financial Planning Committee. FPs had to work with the crumbs. Scientology org FPs are like the California budget. So many things have been carved out by percentages with ballot measures and legislation that the actual amount of money they get to haggle over for the general fund is much smaller than one might think. The Federal budget has a similar problem between discretionary and non-discretionary funds. Scientology FPs have a lot of non-discretionary funds due to the accumulated effect of carve outs in many policy letters. The 82 Mission Holder's Conference was a major harvesting of the Mission Network and a push to bring missions under harsher skimming controls.

LRH constantly had programs for property acquisitions and renovations or modifications being run under CMO Missions and Miscavige became Action Chief directly under Hubbard over these Program Operations. My personal theory is that Miscavige understood property acquisition and real estate portfolio management better than Hubbard's New Age con and it became his hobby horse. Coincident with this Hubbard had set up the SEF (Safe Environment Fund) following the 1977 FBI raids in order to get donations to pay for lawyers and other GO expenses related to post-raid damage control and to fund his hiding.

It seems lawyers figured out that whereas money from services was considered money from charitable operations and came with IRS restrictions as to how it was used or not used but money from donations to the SEF as a separate entity could be used without those kinds of restrictions and the IAS was created specifically to replace and improve on the successful actions of the SEF.

The Ideal Org strategy reminds me of the Outer Org Trainee strategy. Management could demand that orgs send trainees to Flag for training and they had to pay for training, room and board. In the Sea Org if the staff member left staff in violation of their contract then they would be charged for this as a Freeloader Debt and it can be many thousands of dollars. Since a lot of Sea Org staff do incur and pay off freeloader debts it is a net benefit to Flag and upper management. The net value is probably a loss to the trainee's orgs because the freeloader debt only reimburses them for what they paid to upper management and they lost the value of the labor of that staff member while in training. OOTs can be commandeered for cheap labor at Flag if their org can't pay the bills for room and board which happens all to frequently so the staff member's org can lose the benefit of that person's labor for many months on top of the regular training schedule. The details may vary but it is still essentially another method of asset stripping or skimming of a lower echelon by a higher echelon. So Scientology isn't just an asset stripping operation of staff and public but of itself.

I'm not exactly sure how the arrangement works with Ideal Orgs but at least in some cases it appears that the local field donates for the building acquisition and renovation but it is deeded to the mother corp and leased back to the local org or the mother corp makes a partial contribution and treats it as a perpetual loan. Of course by the time this has all been done the local field is so fleeced that they don't have much left to buy services or pay for staff and upkeep. It seems part of this strategy is to fire garrison or posting missions into the new org to man it up and they bring in people from poor countries like Russia and Africa to at least make it look like a functioning org for a while. I expect after the initial flash in the pan staff are rotated to other newer Ideal Orgs and the staffing settles down to an irreducible complement - mainly that english-as-a-second-language guy who tries to get you to watch the "Scientology is a religion" video when you ask him any questions.

As with the Garcia lawsuit it seems a lot of the money donated for the Super Power Building was used for other purposes so it was essentially a ploy to milk the whales.

This all seems consistent with the Status strategy where people are granted a status level based solely upon amount of money donated for no specific purpose. I expect that when it comes time to qualify for the OT Levels one of the criteria for approval is Status. If this is the case I suspect part of the reason might be that once people do the OT Levels there is nothing left to buy and a lot of people probably figure out it was all a con and leave so Status is a way to maximize the exploitation before the con reaches it's inevitable conclusion.

Scientologists are required to submit to extensive security checks as part of OT Level qualifications. These are very much like lie detector tests. Only sec-checks are often so overdone that people struggle to come up with things to satisfy Scientology's need for things that they feel guilty about. This is where you get Scientologists coming up with past life crimes like blowing up planets. It's been said Scientology is 90% guilt and I believe that. So you can see where Scientologists would donate money to Ideal Org or the IAS to compensate for guilt. I assume that when Scientologists are assigned lower conditions or amends that one of the popular ways to be upgraded to a higher condition is by donating to Ideal Orgs and the IAS. They basically submit a petition to an Ethics Officer detailing all the good things they have done to compensate for their perceived transgressions and just outright giving money for Ideal Orgs or to the IAS would be an obvious item on the checklist. In other words these serve as Scientology's equivalent to the old Catholic Church's Indulgences. Curiously indulgences were abused as a fund raising vehicle for the restoration of the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and became a primary motivation for the Protestant Reformation. Indulgences were also used in conjunction with confession (read: sec-checks). There are a lot of similarities between indulgences and Scientology's Ideal Org and IAS Status strategies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence
 

Xenu Xenu Xenu

Patron Meritorious
Hubbard was kind of conflicted over real estate. On one hand he pushed the "The public knows us by our MEST" meme. MEST (Matter Energy Space Time). In other words he had a constant problem with orgs being run down and dirty and he wanted the staff to keep things up and maintain professional appearances. On the other hand Hubbard was a real cheapskate. His greater priority was skimming income so he generally only wanted to do the most superficial things to make orgs look good. The financial lines were designed specifically to maximize skimming. The FBOs (Flag Banking Officers) and AGFs (Assistant Guardians for Finance) both competed over skimming. Upper management wanted the money for their programs and Hubbard's personal accounts and the GO had an endless need for their Snow White type ops and legal defense funds and both had much more authority over money than the org's Executive Directors/Commanding Officers or Financial Planning Committee. FPs had to work with the crumbs. Scientology org FPs are like the California budget. So many things have been carved out by percentages with ballot measures and legislation that the actual amount of money they get to haggle over for the general fund is much smaller than one might think. The Federal budget has a similar problem between discretionary and non-discretionary funds. Scientology FPs have a lot of non-discretionary funds due to the accumulated effect of carve outs in many policy letters. The 82 Mission Holder's Conference was a major harvesting of the Mission Network and a push to bring missions under harsher skimming controls.

LRH constantly had programs for property acquisitions and renovations or modifications being run under CMO Missions and Miscavige became Action Chief directly under Hubbard over these Program Operations. My personal theory is that Miscavige understood property acquisition and real estate portfolio management better than Hubbard's New Age con and it became his hobby horse. Coincident with this Hubbard had set up the SEF (Safe Environment Fund) following the 1977 FBI raids in order to get donations to pay for lawyers and other GO expenses related to post-raid damage control and to fund his hiding.

It seems lawyers figured out that whereas money from services was considered money from charitable operations and came with IRS restrictions as to how it was used or not used but money from donations to the SEF as a separate entity could be used without those kinds of restrictions and the IAS was created specifically to replace and improve on the successful actions of the SEF.

The Ideal Org strategy reminds me of the Outer Org Trainee strategy. Management could demand that orgs send trainees to Flag for training and they had to pay for training, room and board. In the Sea Org if the staff member left staff in violation of their contract then they would be charged for this as a Freeloader Debt and it can be many thousands of dollars. Since a lot of Sea Org staff do incur and pay off freeloader debts it is a net benefit to Flag and upper management. The net value is probably a loss to the trainee's orgs because the freeloader debt only reimburses them for what they paid to upper management and they lost the value of the labor of that staff member while in training. OOTs can be commandeered for cheap labor at Flag if their org can't pay the bills for room and board which happens all to frequently so the staff member's org can lose the benefit of that person's labor for many months on top of the regular training schedule. The details may vary but it is still essentially another method of asset stripping or skimming of a lower echelon by a higher echelon. So Scientology isn't just an asset stripping operation of staff and public but of itself.

I'm not exactly sure how the arrangement works with Ideal Orgs but at least in some cases it appears that the local field donates for the building acquisition and renovation but it is deeded to the mother corp and leased back to the local org or the mother corp makes a partial contribution and treats it as a perpetual loan. Of course by the time this has all been done the local field is so fleeced that they don't have much left to buy services or pay for staff and upkeep. It seems part of this strategy is to fire garrison or posting missions into the new org to man it up and they bring in people from poor countries like Russia and Africa to at least make it look like a functioning org for a while. I expect after the initial flash in the pan staff are rotated to other newer Ideal Orgs and the staffing settles down to an irreducible complement - mainly that english-as-a-second-language guy who tries to get you to watch the "Scientology is a religion" video when you ask him any questions.

As with the Garcia lawsuit it seems a lot of the money donated for the Super Power Building was used for other purposes so it was essentially a ploy to milk the whales.

This all seems consistent with the Status strategy where people are granted a status level based solely upon amount of money donated for no specific purpose. I expect that when it comes time to qualify for the OT Levels one of the criteria for approval is Status. If this is the case I suspect part of the reason might be that once people do the OT Levels there is nothing left to buy and a lot of people probably figure out it was all a con and leave so Status is a way to maximize the exploitation before the con reaches it's inevitable conclusion.

Scientologists are required to submit to extensive security checks as part of OT Level qualifications. These are very much like lie detector tests. Only sec-checks are often so overdone that people struggle to come up with things to satisfy Scientology's need for things that they feel guilty about. This is where you get Scientologists coming up with past life crimes like blowing up planets. It's been said Scientology is 90% guilt and I believe that. So you can see where Scientologists would donate money to Ideal Org or the IAS to compensate for guilt. I assume that when Scientologists are assigned lower conditions or amends that one of the popular ways to be upgraded to a higher condition is by donating to Ideal Orgs and the IAS. They basically submit a petition to an Ethics Officer detailing all the good things they have done to compensate for their perceived transgressions and just outright giving money for Ideal Orgs or to the IAS would be an obvious item on the checklist. In other words these serve as Scientology's equivalent to the old Catholic Church's Indulgences. Curiously indulgences were abused as a fund raising vehicle for the restoration of the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and became a primary motivation for the Protestant Reformation. Indulgences were also used in conjunction with confession (read: sec-checks). There are a lot of similarities between indulgences and Scientology's Ideal Org and IAS Status strategies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence
sj5In6A.png
 

He-man

Hero extraordinary
Would you say most people blow once they hit the OT levels? Level 3 in particular?
I wouldn't say that.

Everyone blows for a different reason, most of the times, sadly, it's because they become the "it". It seems like.

Or they run out of money and goes into lowers.

Or they blow because the stress of being in the Sea Org or on staff goes overboard.
 
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