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Comment count is 15
SteamPoweredKleenex - 2013-06-18

How long before this tax-free nuthouse has a schizm? I mean, I could tolerate some suicide bombing in America if it was two flavors of Hubbard-readers trying to wipe each other out.


Paracelsus - 2013-06-18

I'm not sure it's strong enough to withstand a schism. Frankly I'm surprised that this con job has gone on this long--willing to bet Miscavige is the Last Emperor.


sasazuka - 2013-06-18

Scientologists harassing former members is one of the few legitimate examples of "organized stalking", though, even then, it's not nearly on the scale of what the paranoid schizophrenics who post gangstalking videos believe.


EnochEmery - 2013-06-18

It's hard to read Hubbard's "Scientology: A History of Man" or listen to some of his psychotic ramblings on tape without coming to the conclusion that he may well have been a paranoid schizophrenic albeit a high functioning one. While he was the consummate con artist he seems to have actually had a delusional inner life that is the core of the whole Scientology scam. His constant paranoia seems to have been stamped onto the whole organization and is still an intrinsic part of it.


sasazuka - 2013-06-18

Wouldn't surprise me at all. I think most religious texts, old or new, were written by people who would today be classified as paranoid schizophrenic.


misterbuns - 2013-06-18

sasuka:

there is a great video on here of a lecture by a stanford professor of ...neurology? I believe about the adaptive qualities of the genes responsible for schizophrenia.

You should watch it. His argument is that religion comes from people who have an adaptively expressed disorder of the same genes responsible for schizophrenia, which is clearly a maladaptive condition, and because of the profound reproductive success of religious figures in human culture, these genes persist and are sometimes expressed as schizophrenia, which explains how something so debilitating has survived in our genome for so long.


EnochEmery - 2013-06-18

For added fun read Tony Ortega's post: What Scientologists at War Left Out: Some Annotations on Channel 4′s Documentary.
http://is.gd/tB3ZTh
Particularly interesting is how the "church" recently had a parody website nuked for, among other things, “impersonating a human person online.”


misterbuns - 2013-06-18

I have such an odd relationship with scientology.

I became friends with a high ranking, high profile ex scientologist who is pretty well off. I spent some time with him and his family at his ranch. They were wonderful, gracious people, who definitely were 'out', but Scientology was essentially all they ever talked about. You could tell they still viewed life through the prism of scientology even though they rejected it.

they were like recovering alcoholics whose whole life of sobriety is still essentially shaped by alcohol because the addiction still constantly effecting the choices they make to remain sober.

Much of this is because of the efforts by the CoS to constantly invade their lives, physically, emotionally and legally so even after these people of power, wealth and talent had done everything they could to distance themselves from this world, they couldn't because that world was following them, and constantly pulling these people back into the psychology of Scientology. Imagine trying to stay sober if someone was sneaking into your kitchen and mixing vodka with your orange juice?

It's not that CoS wants these people back: they just want to make it clear that they will control them forever, and I think they kinda do.

It was sad and strange.


EnochEmery - 2013-06-18

The ex-scientologists that post on Ortega's site say it takes much longer to re-adapt to normal life after being in Scientology than most other cults. They estimate something like 12 years. The reason seems to be what you mentioned plus the fact that the years of drills and mindless repetition really caused a change in the way they think and react to us "wogs". They see it as actual brain damage. That and the shame many of them feel for being suckered for so long seems to takes quite a toll.


Redford - 2013-06-18

It's amazing that he clearly is stating the Scientology is bullshit, and yet continues to worship the bullshit he was given like it's reality even though he's no longer a Scientologist.

Hubbard created Scientology as a method to control people's minds, wallets, and eventually their entire thinking existence as a person. These people have decided they don't want to be owned by the church (even though that is what it was created for) and instead want to practice a series of random lies outside the church detached from their ultimate purpose of control.

He is staring reality in the face, and is stating "I don't care. I'm a Scientologist." just as he was trained. If this isn't brainwashing I don't know what is.


misterbuns - 2013-06-18

Not sure if you are talking to me or Enoch,

But my friend doesn't 'worship' Scientology, but his whole view of the life and self has been shaped exclusively by Scientology until late in life, and I'm not talking about false history of absurd mythology (like Xenu, or LRH's claims about his life, or for example, how people in DPRK think the rest of the world is starving), i'm talking about incredibly complicated strategies to understand and explain human interaction and desires that all have their own arcane language, just like any exhaustively developed scifi or fantasy world.

And the thing is, this language is intriguing and in some cases actually descriptive in ways no other english words are. But this is nothing new to science fiction. You could say the same thing about Herbert's world of DUNE. Or Stephenson's magnificently detailed world and language in Anathem.

What Hubbard did was brilliant: change the way people talk and you change the way people think: a cornerstone of imperialism from the beginning of war. While not exactly neurolinguistically true (all languages are 'small infinities' and equally expressive given enough context), it IS true if YOU are the one controlling what words mean and how they are used in real time, and while languages are more or less equal, culture is not. Scientologists are people's whose whole perception of themselves and others have been shaped by a total immersion in a culture and language designed to be meaningful and rewarding _if it suits the needs of the powerstructure_

Remove these people from the power structure, reveal their leaders to be abusive liars, demonstrate how the tech has lead to the ruin of themselves and those around them and the language and strategies (the tech) still remains, because they haven't developed ways to create meaning for themselves.

So you'll have these people genuinely angry, even hating CoS, criticising policies but doing so in fluent scientology terms.

it's really fucking weird.

this leads me to believe that there is something to some of 'the tech' but no more than there is to the mythology and language of a good Heinlein or Herber novel, and probably much less.


BiggerJ - 2013-06-19

misterbuns, do you think the 12-year-recovery estimate Enoch mentioned is accurate? If not, what estimate do you think would be closer? In either case, do you think there are some traits that are likely never go away, and if so, what?


misterbuns - 2013-06-19

er the reply below was meant for BiggerJ


That guy - 2013-06-19

Fascinating.

"Mental Virus!!"
*clap clap* *clapclapclap*
"Mental Virus!!"
*clap clap* *clapclapclap*


misterbuns - 2013-06-19

I don't know, every long term ex scientologist ive met was damaged in some way, even very intelligent and compassionate ones, some had been out for a long time.

i'm not a psychologist and can only comment on stuff i've observed.


i guess id have to say the common theme ive seen is that scientology continues to be a central part of the lives of the people who leave it.


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