I know I'm a little late on this but I wasn't fortunate enough to live in Southern California for the time of it's release. So when it finally showed up in Wichita, I hopped in the car to go see it.
I thought the movie was pretty good, had some funny moments and made a lot of good points. However, this is not Bill Maher at his best. They hype that surrounded it was too much for what was delivered and the trailer was far more entertaining than the movie. I was not impressed with the editing job either.
Anonagi, on the wwp forum, wrote: A few weeks ago, I recieved this email on the San Diego Anonymous account. It was from someone who had claimed to just left Scientology, telling me a bit about her story and just wanting to share.
At the end of the email, I cried. It was one of the hardest things I have ever read, and made me think "This is why."
I wrote her back, and asked if I could share her email. She agreed, and there were a few changes made. I got the final versin of it she made with the changes to remove identifiers for her own safety. (There weren't many to begin with because she was still scared but there were enough for OSA to track her down if they read the original message.) The final one ended up back in my inbox on the 17th, and I printed this up to read to the San Diego anons at our global. I'll post the video when our camera anon gets back to me.
This is why, people. Make sure you have tissues handy - it's just too incredible not to share.
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I don't even know where to begin, so please, bear with me.
I was a Scientologist until very recently. It's very hard for me to type this out, and it's taken me a few weeks to decide wether or not to write you. I have no idea who you are, or what you do. I just saw the email link on your site and decided I had to write you.
I'm in my 50s. I cannot tell you where I lived or give you names, for reasons you know better than most people in Scientology do. I wanted to share my story with you, and how thankful I am. I'm going to try to speak in terms the general public can understand, based on you asking me if you could share this email.
I was a public Scientologist for over twenty years. I got into Scientology as a single mother, because members at the Org would babysit my daughter. I ended up eventually going up the Bridge until the level of OT2 before after spending alot of time, money, and more auditing sessions than I can begin to remember over the course of 15 years.
My daughter started attending courses and doing auditing as well and when she was in her later teens, Flag sent some Sea Org executives to our org and she was hooked. She signed on at the Sea Org when she was eighteen years old, in the late nineties.
I was very proud of her. My daughter was doing her part to help clear the planet and I was doing my part at the stress test tables to bring people into the Orgs and then selling them the Basics.
In 2002, I was called in to the office with the president of our Org. He sat me down and told me that my daughter was requesting to "route out" from the Sea Org and Scientology altogether and as her only close relative and one in Scientology, I was being asked to handle her to convince her to stay in.
We fought for several weeks. She had told me what was happening to her in the Sea Org and at the time I didn't believe her. She was telling us of working 18 hours a day 7 days a week, of being touched and groped by senior Sea Org officials, about not eating properly, and other horrors, very similar to what you've all read and what I've read over the last few weeks. I didn't want to believe her, and I was told that if I couldn't handle her I would be declared PTS for being connected to her. I remember calling her that night, and begged her to stop tearing our family apart, that she had to stay in, didn't she see? She was very upset, and said that was one of the reasons she had to leave, that she just believed there was something better out there, there had to be, there had to be something better than what she was in that would make her mother believe what she was being told over what she was hearing from her own daughter.
After that conversation, she blew a few days later and never finished routing out properly. She just up and left. She had called me several times to try and get me to listen to her, to hear why she had to do it and I felt like I had been betrayed. All the good Scientology had done her, had done me, had done us, why was she doing this, why was she turning her back on Hubbard and the Tech and her own mother? I was legitimately angry at her and hurt, and I couldn't realize it at the time. My heart told me something was wrong, but my head and my way of thinking told me otherwise, that I was doing the right thing.
I ended up disconnecting from my daughter around Christmas of 2002. It never did sit right with me, but I knew we were right, I knew we were clearing the planet. I wasn't PTS but I was given several auditing sessions and security checks to make sure I wasn't harboring any "crimes" against Scientology.
I continued on staff the next six years. My daughter would write me once every few months - I didn't even open the letters she sent and threw them away in the trash. It countinued this way until 2008.
Then in March, an amazing thing happened that changed my life. I was told on March 15th to not come to the Org that saturday, because there were "renovations" that were happenning to the interior or something similar. Most staff and workers got the same notice. I had left something at the Org that I needed, so I went there early in the morning.
An hour later, a group of people wearing masks, listening to music, and waving signs all approached from across the street and by our front doors, coming out of nowhere, about thirty to fifty people, I couldn't see through the windows too well. There were about a dozen staff members in the building and three in the lobby when this happened. I remember thinking it was the strangest thing I had ever seen, with all the masks. The signs said negative things about Scientology - that it was a cult, that it was a scam, and other things that would have normally made me brush it off, but the strangeness of it all kept all three of us locked on what was happening.
Immediately, one of the higher execs came from upstairs and told us we had to go to the meeting now, that we had to go upstairs to the conference room we used for auditing. It was in the middle of the building with no windows. All 12 of us went there, and there was where we stayed. Half of them didn't know what was happening outside and when we went to discuss it, the exec who rounded all of us up told us that it was a dangerous group outside and that they would try to kill us or hurt us if we went out - that they had been making death threats, had made bomb threats, had even killed - KILLED - people. We were being held inside for our own safety, and we were not to discuss what was happening outside, or to listen to anything we may have heard or seen from outside. One staffer went to call the police and called several times over the few hours that the "terrorists" were there.
They kept us in that room for six hours, only allowing short trips to the bathroom and we had to be accompanied by the two top execs who were there both to and from, taking a way through the building that made sure we wouldn't pass any windows.
They finally told us to forget about it and go home, at around six pm, and to forget what we saw as it was a group of SPs who we didn't want to talk with, didn't want to listen to.
I went home that night and I remembered a big sign I had seen with a website on it. It was whyaretheydead.net. I went to the site, and I panicked immediately when I saw what it was, but something just clicked on me, remembering my daughter, and I read for hours on that site and all the other ones linked through it. I read through the night, and had a large headache and didn't come in the next day because of it.
When I did get back to the Org the day after, there had been no renovations done at all. It was strange.
The exec I had mentioned earlier was an OTV. I made the first mistake I shouldn't have. I pulled him aside and asked him, since I was OTII, and had already paid for most of the preparation courses for OTIII, if the Xenu story was true, since I had seen it on so many websites. I was asked how I found out, and why I was asking, and when I said I had just looked at a few sites and was confused, I ended up getting sec-checked for three days, and was told that unless I confessed my crimes I would be kicked off the Bridge.
Over the next few months, I made the decision to leave Scientology, after doing research on it. It was a very, very hard step for me to do and it still is. I've had to move twice, change phone numbers twice, and take other steps to keep them from bothering me. I told them I wanted out completely. My friends inside were told to handle me, and I broke down and cried every night for two weeks when I realized what they were doing to me was what I had been told to do to my daughter six years ago. They disconnected from me when I told them to leave me alone and I really felt I had nobody.
I ended up looking up my daughter, who had moved in the six years. I was so scared when I picked up the phone, it took me five tries to dial the number. She picked up the phone on the third ring and said "Hello?" My voice cracked as I said her name. It was the first time we talked in six years. She just said "Mom?" in the same type of voice, and we both cried. We spoke for six hours that night.
I had missed so much of her life. Since she blew Scientology, she had moved, found a career, and was back in school. She had met a wonderful man and they had married in 2006. They had their first child around Thanksgiving last year, a beautiful daughter.
After I hung up the phone, I was so hurt and angry. I missed everything in my daughter's life because I insisted on not listening to her when she told me why she was leaving, or when she would send me letters. All her life was in those to tell me how she was, and I missed them all. I missed the letter telling me that she got accepted into school. I missed the letter about her telling me about her new job. I missed the letter that she wrote telling me about her new boyfriend and year later, her fiance. I had even thrown away my own daughters wedding invitation. I never got to see my little girl walk down the aisle, I never read or opened the letter that told me she was pregnant with her first child, or the letter that said it was a girl.
It has been a long road the last few months, but my daughter has forgiven me. I had lost twenty years of my life to Scientology, and so many meomories, and I thank god every night that I didn't lose my family too.
Scientology robbed me of all those things and I was too blind to see it, but I created a new memory that I cry everytime I remember because it was a miracle to me. Four weeks ago, I held my grandaughter for the very first time.
I'm taking it slow, one day at a time, and seeking the help I need, seeing the same doctors and specialists that helped my daughter when she left years ago.
It has taken me a long time to type this up because of the tears in my eyes, I've had to stop, it's taken me six hours to write this email.
Thank you, whoever you are. While I may never be able to stand with you, or meet you face to face, you will always have my tearful thanks for doing what you are. Get the word out to more people, and don't give up doing what you are doing, because it's working in ways nobody could have ever imagined.
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I recieved this letter three days before a cease and desist notice was sent to my grandparents home, accusing me of being a terrorist. My grandmother ws angry at me, and hurt, for getting her involved by proxy, and the feelings of anger I had at the cult, dealing with my grandmother, and also having this weigh heavily on my mind almost tore me apart. I could not read this speech at the protest without tearing up.
I pointed her in the direction of ESB, and told her the last thing she should do right now is join us. I told her to get to know what she's missed, get to know her family, get her life in order, make sure she takes care of priorities. I told her not to make the mistake that so many of the old guard had made when they left - leaving Sci on a friday, and picking up a sign on monday, for a lack of better term.
At that moment - just from some newly ex Scientologist telling us what she's endured since we started in February, and the remarkable journey she's been through...
All we've been through...all the harrassment, all the stalking, all the drama, all the assaults, cease and desist notices...everything Scientology has done to us and everything we've done...
If all we accomplish in this campaign is to have reunited a woman with her family, and her new granddaughter, then all of this would have been worth it.
This. Is. Why.
Anonymous; you kick ass in ways I can't put into words.
Yesterday, Lydia (a.k.a. marlysfan) and I walked over to the Church of Scientology to grab a couple of Scientology DVDs and a Something Can Be Done About It booklet (we enjoy collecting Scientology propaganda) before heading to a local bar for a pitcher of ale. I also had a good cigar to puff on and a long walk was the perfect plan to do all 3.
When we got to the Org we grabbed 2 dvds (one for me one for Lydia) and a booklet. Afterwards a lady Scientologist stuck her self halfway out of the door to give us an angry face.
Look, if Scientology should want anyone to take their literature it should be the critics. If we're so uninformed or have the wrong idea about Scientology that the least they should do is give us free DVDs and books to sway our opinion. Not to stare us down like we're Hitler and make our heads explode with their minds.
So here's my pitch Scientology; if you are reading. As you know I did buy used copies the whole new basic books set, Interview with LRH DVD and some other Scientology books, so I don't need anything you charge for. However, I would like an Anonymous Hate Crimes and Psychiatry: An Industry of Death DVDs and whatever information DVD, booklets, pamphlets you want to toss my way. You give these out free anyways so send a copy over to the Wichita mission for me to pick up. I will watch them, read them, hell I'll even take a stress test. Just stop with the dirty looks when I do grab them. I mean you are giving them out free anyways, right?
I'm over it. I paid an for an extra month tier for the church, handed over the keys and left. I don't plan on returning to Second Life ever again. I have no interest in it whatsoever anymore. It was fun while it lasted. I have a life too demanding me to make a fake catgirl run around a fake world anymore.
However, I have decided to blog & Twitter more because it only needs a small bit of my day to do and people have been bugging me to do more with this anyway. This blog will stray a bit from political issues for the most part but I will dib and dab from time to time and talk politics and skepticism, but I am more focused on cults, and mind control.
I do ask people use my Amazon links and support me that way. I do get a cut of the proceeds and all of which goes into my pocket which in turn will inspire me to blog more. You don't have to pay extra to do this, and you're gonna use Amazon anyways, so why not go though me? I've been an Amazon whore of late anyways. I pretty much do all of my shopping though Amazon these days. Real life stores are overrated ^__^
But enough pimping my shit. Be sure to follow this blog because more is coming.
For this blog I will use Scientology's jargon. I will post at the bottom definitions for them. So if you have an MU or if a particular word doesn't fit right in the sentence, clear it and do not skip a gradient! I'll try to highlight them as I go along.
A lot of people have been asking me why I am such an outspoken critic of Scientology when I was never in or even met a Scientologist before I picketed against the church. They ask in real life as well the internet. When most ask me I think they are really trying to find out more on Scientology than my personal beef with the Church of Scientology. So I will address both at the same time.
Let me make a few things clear right off the bat. I have no problem with what you want to believe. Be it Hubbard's tech, Jesus dying for your sins, or even the PETA lie that beer is better for you than milk. Believe it, shout it, live it, I don't care. My problem isn't Scientology the belief, it's the organization of The Church of Scientology and their practices of fraud and abuse.
My knowledge about Scientology was very limited before early 2006 when I first started looking into Scientology and the Church. I knew L. Ron Hubbard founded it, tons of celebrities are Scientologists, and it was based around the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. So right off the bat I knew there was some quackery afoot but I never investigated it any further until Tom Leykis (radio talk show host in Southern California) was telling his listeners that "Trapped in the Closet" was the best episode of South Park he's ever seen and to go watch it. So before any spoilers could be said, I turned it off and tracked down a copy of the episode to see what all the fuss was about.
Xenu? Body thetans? No way! This can't be real right? After I looked around I found the answer; Yes it's true Xenu is a part of Scientology, yes people buy it, and they buy it for about $300,000 USD.
So I went on various anti-Scientology groups on MySpace and was inquiring and talking more about the Xenu story. Now remember these were full of people who were already critical of the Church. There were no fence sitting Wogs or Scientologists to enturbulate. Even so, it was enough for them to put me on a list and passed around various pro-Scientology to have my account with MySpace shut down. I was lucky and my account survived. I could not say the same for others who I was talking to. They kept it up to the point where I was left with 2 options. Get more angry and passionate about my right to free speech and critical perspectives or give up and shut up.
Like 90% of the population, I don't give up or shut up when people try to get me to. I get louder. That is what they have done. Tory Christman, a critic whom I have infinite respect for told Church officials that they create their own enemies with OSA and their tactics they use to silence critics. She was right. They created me. It infuriated me that someone was willing to infringe MY right to free speech because they didn't want possible adherents to be scarred away or have their own members blow that I met up with a fellow critics "marlysfan" and "Messenger" to hold a sign outside of the Kansas City Org.
All they had to do was just let me have my weeks worth of fun talking about Xenu and I would of been over it. I would of just thrown it in with all the other crazy crap I've heard only to be brought up to friends or maybe mentioned in a blog post, but no. They insisted I take further actions against the Church by stifling my gift as a human, my right as a human, and the very one they claim to be champions of.
Now as for me, even something like this could grow old for me. I could of just dropped off the critic scene, and I almost did, until they tried to get it shut down for the 13th time (that I've counted at least.) I haven't even posted anything anywhere about Scientology for at least 10 months. However, once a critic, always an SP, always an enemy. I few under the radar even still just until I could have gotten situated in my new home. Then they tried again! I stopped even bothering to count or look because it was clear that even though they have been very successful in shutting down most of my anti-Scientologist friends on MySpace, they couldn't get mine down.
In the frame of those 10 months without Scientology interactions I spoke earlier about, I visited other message boards and became quite fond of one called 4chan.org ebaumsworld.com and found this video.
My fist reaction was not a pleasant one. I've seen how Anonymous has acted before and had just as much hope as I did fear having seen good things they've done, while at the same time had to deal with a group of them called "Patriotic Nigras" giving me shit in Second Life. But it looks like Anonymous, with the help of Mark Bunker, did the right thing. Before I saw the February 10th protest I decided to not attend any of their protests until I could see the way they conducted them selfs before I joined the next one. I was surprised how well they did, and I was there for the protest on March 15th and will be there for the one on April 12th in Hollywood.
I did meet some interesting people at this protest that reminded me why I fought so hard in Kansas City to get people to see. I met a woman who was in the Sea Org for 30 years and was scarred she would die if she left the Church because she lacked a high school education and loved ones outside the church who was there to protest Scientology forcing Sea Org women into having abortions. I met a man who was declared an SP because he helped his Son leave Scientology and now he cannot speak to his Daughter who is still in.
One of the most disturbing revelations of that trip came after I got home. Scientology claims that Anonymous is a terrorist organization and made a short DVD and posted a copy on the internet:
You cannot see in this video but you can in the DVD video (UPDATED: The Road to March 15th video contains the best video proof of this. http://www.vimeo.com/824772 at about 12:30) that the Bomb threat message at about 3:18 that claims they ripped it from the YouTube website from an Anonymous member. A closer look reviels that the video "ripped" from YouTube is in high def. Meaning one of 2 things. Scientology got ahold of the master copy of the video somehow and just said they ripped it from YouTube OR they made the video them selfs to paint Anonymous as terrorists. Here's a obvious giveaway that proves this bomb threat was NOT Anonymous. Notice how "Anonymous" said "This will be the world's biggest terrorist attack on a religion." Terrorists do not call them selfs terrorists or say "We're going to commit terrorism", especially if they are not really terrorists not committing terrorism. The other big giveaway was saing Scientology is a religion when Anonymous's message is that it is not a religion but just a tax exempt multi-level pyramid scheme cloaked as a religion.
Does this sound like a Church to you?
Cult Jargon:
M/U, Mis-U, or MU - a misunderstood word, meant to cause everything from blows (sudden departures) to overts and withholds, and actually being the root cause of SPs. Because of the centricity of "MUs" and their destructive potential it is a crime to go by them when studying, and subjects the student to the risk of getting a kangaroo "court of ethics". The cult is fanatical about not going by one, and insists that everyone look things up endlessly in dictionaries and go through every definition. This becomes quite tedious with words like "to", "set", and "be." Extensive pieces of the "tech" are devoted to "word clearing", qv, and so the hapless student ends up trapped in a arbitrary system which may punish or help, punish or help, alternately, with the word clearing or the ethics actions. The very definition of "MU" is mutable and arbitrary in that it is a word that makes one frown or blink or stumble on or slow down on reading, etc., as spotted by others - all of this adds to the coercive, conforming, and group- pressure nature of the beast. See M3, M4 for more on this topic. "Look up your M/Us and quit your nattering Mister, or I'll have you busted down to Ethics!"
Gradient - a gradual approach to brainwashing that Scientology employs so as not to scare off potential recruits. Things like OT-III, widely available over the net, are deemed to be "out-gradient", as they drive away raw recruits because they look like insane gibberish sputtered from the foaming mouth of a brain-fevered baboon. Also called a "gradient scales approach". Deviating from this tech is called going "out gradient"; a serious error.
Xenu (ZEE-new, ZEEN-you), sometimes spelled Xemu (ZEE-moo, ZEEM-you), the evil galactic ruler that packaged us all up, put us on Hawaii, and blew us up with H bombs 75,000,000 years ago, according to L. Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics. The picture on the cover of Dianetics is meant to restimulate this incident implanted by Xenu, and force us to buy a copy. What's that you say? Hawaii didn't exist 75,000,000 years ago? Shhh! You'll wake him! Note: which spelling you choose is up to you; the field is split about 50/50 in ex-Scientologists, critics, and even authors on which one is best. Each side vigorously defends their pet spelling, and both sides have documentation to back up their version, which they insist is the only correct one. I believe either is correct, but I prefer Xenu with an N, pronounced ZEE-new. It is rumoured that this emotional debate will eventually lead to a schism of the arscc into two distinct and warring camps (can't you *see* the difference? *He's* black on the *left* side!)
BT, Body Thetan - Usually plural. Evil spirits which need to be exorcized. "OT 5 consists entirely of running out BTs; what a bore."
Wog - a derogatory and racist term the cult co-opted from British slang, and now uses to refer to people outside of Scientology's purview.
Enturbulated - Hubbardese for being upset. "Suzy found ars so enturbulating, she ran away."
OSA, Office of special affairs. The "dirty work" department, the cult's KGB. Took over from the GO, Guardian's Office, when the GO's leaders went to jail for infiltrating government offices, stealing and altering official files that put the cult in a bad light. "OSA Int - Office of Special Affairs International - Oversees DSA (Director of Special Affairs) network as well as handling international external threats against the Church of Scientology and international legal matters." - Jonathon Barbera. Also called GOSA as a pun on GO+OSA, and as a means of putting the lie to the constant PR refrain that "we've reformed; we're no longer criminals". Yeah, right. Only the name changed, in fact; the dirty tricks and harassment operations continue to this day. Just ask any of the ars regulars for examples; many have first-hand experience. OSA Int is now located at the HGB, qv.
Blow, 1. To leave suddenly. Also, the person who does this. "Sam Blew off post today; he's our third Blow this week!" 2. To get rid of the charge or mass of an engram (a moment of pain and unconsciousness). "I blew so much mass in my session!" See MU, M3, M4.
SP, Suppressive Person, an evil person; someone who criticizes Scientology in any way. (the two are one and the same in the cult) SPs are the cult's _1984_ Goldsteins, and give definition to the group and a common enemy. Supposedly, some large fraction of the total population is composed of these "anti-social" characters, variously cited as 2% or 20%. Hubbard listed 12 traits of the SP, such as talking in generalities, criticism, and so forth. SPs are formally "declared" with a goldenrod issue, and lists are kept of these dangerous people. Ars has adopted its own SP levels as a badge of honour; in Scientology, there are no levels of SP. SPs create PTSes, people who are influenced by them. See MU, PTS, Disconnection.
