Lurker5
Gold Meritorious Patron
Lurker5 here - I have been on this board for awhile now, but didn't enter here on the New Member Intro. I have been posting all around since joining, but not here - until today.
I am posting my story here because I was never IN scn. I brushed up against it. My story isn't much, not compared to the ones who have suffered, but it is my story, and I am going to tell it, so that folks here can understand my motivation for being interested in it now - in an anti way - and for being on ESMB.
It was long long ago, approx 30 years ago. I don't remember clearly the year, or my age, or the order of things, but certain things stick out in my memory. Also, there is no way I want to be identified, so I am changing the names and circumstances a bit, and going to be vague about other things. I hope this doesn't make this dry and boring, but if so, so be it.
So - I am just going to pick a year, 1980, because it was around then approx. It was before the Mission Holders were raped. I was older than 25, younger than 30. I don't know - even today - if the scn place I went to was an org or a mission. I knew nothing about scn at the time. Not even sure I'd ever heard the word before a friend asked me to go down with her.
It is hard to seperate out what I know now, because I have been reading everything 'anti' on it - as far back as the first book published after the Mission Holders rape. Age gives us lots of knowledge and it is sometimes hard to go back to when we were younger - and knew hardly anything at all -LOL. But I will try to go to that place.
I knew nothing of scn. A good friend of mine had a friend, in the town where she grew up, who was an 'auditor'. She must have explained to me what that was, because when she and I walked in the door of scn I knew - sort of, that an auditor had nothing to do with finances and money. It had to do with therapy, and cans. OK.
This auditor friend of hers kept bugging her to go to scn in our town, to check it out. My friend knew quite a bit about it. Sort of - for a wog. LOL.
My friend talked me into going with her.
We walked in the door of the local scn org/mission -whatever- and told the girl at the desk that we wanted to take the Tone Scale course. From what I know now, this must have blown her shorts off - I mean undies - she wasn't wearing shorts. She was nicely dressed. Everything was nicely done. There was this picture of a horribly ugly man on the wall. I thought he was gross.
We took the Tone Scale course. It was fun. We didn't always go together to study, as she worked nights, me days, and she was in college too. After that first night, we were both mostly on our own there. We talked a lot about it, in our spare time, and tried to pin-point where our friends, and our bosses, teachers, even family, etc, were on the 'tone scale'. We had FUN with it. We had a BLAST. Yak yak yak like girls do.
When we finished we were asked if we wanted to take the personality test - or whatever that thing is. Yeah, sure, why not. It was long. When it was done/checked, my graph 'line' was above the heavy line cutting across the middle of a page of columns - except in one area - Communication. LOL.
Remember I didn't know then what I know now . . .
OK, I could see that. I was (and am) a prolific reader - and writer, but rather shy, and not much of a talker - with people I do not know. But if I know you, it is hard to shut me up (or on an anonymous blog, LOL). So, OK, maybe I am not my best at communication.
My friend had her graph 'line' go way below the heavy line across the middle of the page, on a lot of the columns. She had lots of 'dips' - or ruins? Did they use that word? I am not sure. My friend got pissed though. I mean, I knew she was pissed, that I did rather well, and she apparently did not - but the girl talking to us would not have known my friend was pissed.
We left that night, and my friend never took another course. She was too busy, didn't have the money, blah blah. She did keep coming down with me, buying books, hanging out. She and I talked and had fun with whatever she knew through her auditor friend, and from her reading (she did buy books there, and was a huge sci fi fan), and from what I knew/learned from the Comm Course. We SHARED our knowing . . .
My friend had a crush on one of the guys on staff. Eventually she had him move in with her, not to have a relationship, but because he wanted out of the scn building - lots of staff lived there - and my friend wanted help with her rent. She thought all scn'gist were rich. She wanted some of that. She had lots of misconceptions like that, and passed them on to me. That is why she originally wanted to go down there - that - and taking the Tone Scale course. That course was a big deal to her. I just went along for the ride.
And it did seem that the regs had money . . . Staff? I wasn't so sure - especially when my friend began to complain about her new boarder.
As it turned out for the poor fellow sleeping on her couch, he had no money to help her out with the rent, and laid on the couch all the time watching tv, eating her food. And she got pissed, considered this to be way out-ethics, for a scn'gist, and reported him to the local scn place. He got yanked, of course.
We had no idea the shit he was in for, and if we had known, probably she would not have done that.
We had no idea what was really going on . . .
So I take the Comm Course, and had a fun time with that. During this time period, and I have no idea how long that was, or how long it takes to go through the courses - I just don't remember - there was other stuff going on, get togethers, lectures, whatever, etc, right there at our local scn place. I went to some special events, paying for every one, of course, but it wasn't expensive - none of the courses were expensive (lol, it was public).
Mike Rinder was the speaker at one event. I remember that name. One of the staff, with whom I was friendly, told me he was a big deal in scn. I didn't really care about that, but she seemed in awe, just speaking his name. I didn't remember he had an accent, but it must have been part of why his name stuck in my mind. He was handsome, and charming, and a very good motivational speaker.
What we did in this event was look around at our environment, touch things, blah blah, get in present time. And I did. It did bring me into present time and make me very aware of my surroundings. It was like a high, almost.
Now I know lots more about doing that. It takes one out of one's thought processes (and negative/critical self-talk). It can be used for over coming stage fright, nervousness in public, etc. But it is just a technique to be used for a situation. Then one is to get back into normal internal thought processes, because that is how one makes proper JUDGEMENTS about what is going on in one's life and environment.
Well, I was never one to be out of my head for long.
I remember another time when a staff member, whom I really liked, a sweet girl, came downstairs with two official looking people at her elbows. She looked petrified and out of sorts, not her normal pleasant happy calm self. She was fearful and near tears. To me she seemed to be - in a word - TERRIFIED. She was dressed to the nines, wearing heavy make-up, like a mask, like she was trying to hide. It appeared that these two elbow holders were literally holding her up by her elbows, 'dragging' her along, dragging her non-moving feet/body forward. She didn't want to be doing whatever it was she was being dragged into doing.
I asked someone what was going on with her, and I was told she was going to dinner with her mother - she was on the outs with her mother. Oooohhh.
But it didn't sit well with me. In fact, by this time, there were lots of things beginning to not sit well with me. Like that freaking picture of LRH on the wall, and the way everyone talked about him, in hushed awed tones. WTF ! He was ugly and gross as sin. He gave me the creeps. But I kept all that to myself.
I told my parents about scn, this really neat thing I'd been doing, and they didn't immediately freak out, but they did give me some reservations on it - something like - I think scn was in the news recently, It wasn't good stuff.
I gave them the codified speech about how the media lies. I had been told by a staff memeber that the media recently had dumped a bunch of lies out there - had I seen any of that? Not at the time I was asked.
My parents later gave me a photocopied news article on scn. I don't remember what was in it. It wasn't good though. I remember thinking, Well, I'll decide for myself.
But I was becoming wary. I remember thinking, I am NOT a scn'gist - I don't JOIN things. I was a big fan of Ayn Rand, when I was younger. When my mom found out that Rand was like a hero to me, she told me Ayn Rand was a fascist. So I re-looked at that - still liked her idealism, her libertarian ideas, her idea of integrity, but got what my mom was talking about. Everything and everybody - life - is NOT black and white, there are lots of gray areas. Ayn Rand expected everyone to believe as she did, and if they did not, then they were parasites, while the heroes and producers in the world believed as she did. Period. No gray there.
Well, I brought gray into my world, even though it was easier to just keep it black and white, cut and codified. I mean, I trusted and respected my mom -so I listened to her, and gave it some credence, relooked at Ayn Rand.
I did keep Rand's ethos about not joining stuff/groups (too) - LOL, which has something to do with jr high school cliques and ostracization. . . I didn't fit in there either. I'd never really fit in anywhere.
I was ripe for scn, and in a transitional period in my life, a bit like sailing without a rudder.
But I was also sort of prepared to not fall completely for LRH/scn.
I came close.
My next course was my choice, and I chose Ethics - because ethics means a lot to me. Boy was I ever surprised - the course wasn't anything like I'd thought it would be. Did I have a misconception about ethics - or was this another definition that I didn't know yet?
Whew, this is long, and the story gets dicey from here on out, so maybe I should stop here, and give myself some space to put it all together without restimulating it all too much.
Is anyone reading this? Anyone interested to hear more? If I am being ignored, or being put on 'ignore' I will stop. But just one encouragement - just one - all I need is ONE encouragement - LOL - and I will continue.
That's all I need, just that and nothing more - (think Steve Martin) . . .
I am posting my story here because I was never IN scn. I brushed up against it. My story isn't much, not compared to the ones who have suffered, but it is my story, and I am going to tell it, so that folks here can understand my motivation for being interested in it now - in an anti way - and for being on ESMB.
It was long long ago, approx 30 years ago. I don't remember clearly the year, or my age, or the order of things, but certain things stick out in my memory. Also, there is no way I want to be identified, so I am changing the names and circumstances a bit, and going to be vague about other things. I hope this doesn't make this dry and boring, but if so, so be it.
So - I am just going to pick a year, 1980, because it was around then approx. It was before the Mission Holders were raped. I was older than 25, younger than 30. I don't know - even today - if the scn place I went to was an org or a mission. I knew nothing about scn at the time. Not even sure I'd ever heard the word before a friend asked me to go down with her.
It is hard to seperate out what I know now, because I have been reading everything 'anti' on it - as far back as the first book published after the Mission Holders rape. Age gives us lots of knowledge and it is sometimes hard to go back to when we were younger - and knew hardly anything at all -LOL. But I will try to go to that place.
I knew nothing of scn. A good friend of mine had a friend, in the town where she grew up, who was an 'auditor'. She must have explained to me what that was, because when she and I walked in the door of scn I knew - sort of, that an auditor had nothing to do with finances and money. It had to do with therapy, and cans. OK.
This auditor friend of hers kept bugging her to go to scn in our town, to check it out. My friend knew quite a bit about it. Sort of - for a wog. LOL.
My friend talked me into going with her.
We walked in the door of the local scn org/mission -whatever- and told the girl at the desk that we wanted to take the Tone Scale course. From what I know now, this must have blown her shorts off - I mean undies - she wasn't wearing shorts. She was nicely dressed. Everything was nicely done. There was this picture of a horribly ugly man on the wall. I thought he was gross.
We took the Tone Scale course. It was fun. We didn't always go together to study, as she worked nights, me days, and she was in college too. After that first night, we were both mostly on our own there. We talked a lot about it, in our spare time, and tried to pin-point where our friends, and our bosses, teachers, even family, etc, were on the 'tone scale'. We had FUN with it. We had a BLAST. Yak yak yak like girls do.
When we finished we were asked if we wanted to take the personality test - or whatever that thing is. Yeah, sure, why not. It was long. When it was done/checked, my graph 'line' was above the heavy line cutting across the middle of a page of columns - except in one area - Communication. LOL.
Remember I didn't know then what I know now . . .
OK, I could see that. I was (and am) a prolific reader - and writer, but rather shy, and not much of a talker - with people I do not know. But if I know you, it is hard to shut me up (or on an anonymous blog, LOL). So, OK, maybe I am not my best at communication.
My friend had her graph 'line' go way below the heavy line across the middle of the page, on a lot of the columns. She had lots of 'dips' - or ruins? Did they use that word? I am not sure. My friend got pissed though. I mean, I knew she was pissed, that I did rather well, and she apparently did not - but the girl talking to us would not have known my friend was pissed.
We left that night, and my friend never took another course. She was too busy, didn't have the money, blah blah. She did keep coming down with me, buying books, hanging out. She and I talked and had fun with whatever she knew through her auditor friend, and from her reading (she did buy books there, and was a huge sci fi fan), and from what I knew/learned from the Comm Course. We SHARED our knowing . . .
My friend had a crush on one of the guys on staff. Eventually she had him move in with her, not to have a relationship, but because he wanted out of the scn building - lots of staff lived there - and my friend wanted help with her rent. She thought all scn'gist were rich. She wanted some of that. She had lots of misconceptions like that, and passed them on to me. That is why she originally wanted to go down there - that - and taking the Tone Scale course. That course was a big deal to her. I just went along for the ride.
And it did seem that the regs had money . . . Staff? I wasn't so sure - especially when my friend began to complain about her new boarder.
As it turned out for the poor fellow sleeping on her couch, he had no money to help her out with the rent, and laid on the couch all the time watching tv, eating her food. And she got pissed, considered this to be way out-ethics, for a scn'gist, and reported him to the local scn place. He got yanked, of course.
We had no idea the shit he was in for, and if we had known, probably she would not have done that.
We had no idea what was really going on . . .
So I take the Comm Course, and had a fun time with that. During this time period, and I have no idea how long that was, or how long it takes to go through the courses - I just don't remember - there was other stuff going on, get togethers, lectures, whatever, etc, right there at our local scn place. I went to some special events, paying for every one, of course, but it wasn't expensive - none of the courses were expensive (lol, it was public).
Mike Rinder was the speaker at one event. I remember that name. One of the staff, with whom I was friendly, told me he was a big deal in scn. I didn't really care about that, but she seemed in awe, just speaking his name. I didn't remember he had an accent, but it must have been part of why his name stuck in my mind. He was handsome, and charming, and a very good motivational speaker.
What we did in this event was look around at our environment, touch things, blah blah, get in present time. And I did. It did bring me into present time and make me very aware of my surroundings. It was like a high, almost.
Now I know lots more about doing that. It takes one out of one's thought processes (and negative/critical self-talk). It can be used for over coming stage fright, nervousness in public, etc. But it is just a technique to be used for a situation. Then one is to get back into normal internal thought processes, because that is how one makes proper JUDGEMENTS about what is going on in one's life and environment.
Well, I was never one to be out of my head for long.
I remember another time when a staff member, whom I really liked, a sweet girl, came downstairs with two official looking people at her elbows. She looked petrified and out of sorts, not her normal pleasant happy calm self. She was fearful and near tears. To me she seemed to be - in a word - TERRIFIED. She was dressed to the nines, wearing heavy make-up, like a mask, like she was trying to hide. It appeared that these two elbow holders were literally holding her up by her elbows, 'dragging' her along, dragging her non-moving feet/body forward. She didn't want to be doing whatever it was she was being dragged into doing.
I asked someone what was going on with her, and I was told she was going to dinner with her mother - she was on the outs with her mother. Oooohhh.
But it didn't sit well with me. In fact, by this time, there were lots of things beginning to not sit well with me. Like that freaking picture of LRH on the wall, and the way everyone talked about him, in hushed awed tones. WTF ! He was ugly and gross as sin. He gave me the creeps. But I kept all that to myself.
I told my parents about scn, this really neat thing I'd been doing, and they didn't immediately freak out, but they did give me some reservations on it - something like - I think scn was in the news recently, It wasn't good stuff.
I gave them the codified speech about how the media lies. I had been told by a staff memeber that the media recently had dumped a bunch of lies out there - had I seen any of that? Not at the time I was asked.
My parents later gave me a photocopied news article on scn. I don't remember what was in it. It wasn't good though. I remember thinking, Well, I'll decide for myself.
But I was becoming wary. I remember thinking, I am NOT a scn'gist - I don't JOIN things. I was a big fan of Ayn Rand, when I was younger. When my mom found out that Rand was like a hero to me, she told me Ayn Rand was a fascist. So I re-looked at that - still liked her idealism, her libertarian ideas, her idea of integrity, but got what my mom was talking about. Everything and everybody - life - is NOT black and white, there are lots of gray areas. Ayn Rand expected everyone to believe as she did, and if they did not, then they were parasites, while the heroes and producers in the world believed as she did. Period. No gray there.
Well, I brought gray into my world, even though it was easier to just keep it black and white, cut and codified. I mean, I trusted and respected my mom -so I listened to her, and gave it some credence, relooked at Ayn Rand.
I did keep Rand's ethos about not joining stuff/groups (too) - LOL, which has something to do with jr high school cliques and ostracization. . . I didn't fit in there either. I'd never really fit in anywhere.
I was ripe for scn, and in a transitional period in my life, a bit like sailing without a rudder.
But I was also sort of prepared to not fall completely for LRH/scn.
I came close.
My next course was my choice, and I chose Ethics - because ethics means a lot to me. Boy was I ever surprised - the course wasn't anything like I'd thought it would be. Did I have a misconception about ethics - or was this another definition that I didn't know yet?
Whew, this is long, and the story gets dicey from here on out, so maybe I should stop here, and give myself some space to put it all together without restimulating it all too much.
Is anyone reading this? Anyone interested to hear more? If I am being ignored, or being put on 'ignore' I will stop. But just one encouragement - just one - all I need is ONE encouragement - LOL - and I will continue.
That's all I need, just that and nothing more - (think Steve Martin) . . .
What did happen to that guy who slept on her couch?
