In the Scientologists Vs. Anti-Scientologists war, a Scientologist argues:
Because there’s so much good in Scientology, there’s no need to talk about the bad.
An Anti-Scientologist argues:
Because there’s so much bad in Scientology, there’s no need to talk about the good.
Both are illegitimate arguments, and show the problem with tribal thinking when it comes to the truth.
The truth about Scientology is BOTH the good and the bad – each are just as important to talk about if you want to tell the truth.
The war between Scientologists vs. Anti-Scientologists generates some of the craziest hysteria ever. Be sure to step back, take a breath, and search for perspective in both sides’ histrionic rhetoric.
Consider this: Just as Scientology is not as good as a Scientologist tells you it is. And Scientology is not as bad as an Anti-Scientologist tells you it is.
Tell us about the good time in Scientology!
Here we go again. If Scientology is so evil and horribly abusive and traumatizing, on a level comparable to Soviet gulags and Nazi concentration camps as Tony O and his sycophants allege, why the hell would there be close to 7,000 Sea Org members willing to subject themselves to 14-18 hour workdays, 6 1/2 days a week, with most receiving no salary save for a weekly allowance averaging between $25 to $50 and an occasional bonus if they and their org are upstat on a stable basis?
Why would anyone even attempt to join the Sea Org, which requires ALL aspiring recruits to first undergo a novitiate program called the Estates Project Force (EPF)? If you’re familiar with the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), it is virtually identical to the EPF in discipline and structure and is essentially a lightweight boot camp involving 5 hours of study/training/auditing. On the EPF schedule you do basic Scientology and Sea Org hatting courses, while on the RPF they do auditor training courses and co-audit each other up the Bridge. But the menial labor and standards of discipline are almost exactly the same, and both are open-ended in terms of pace of completion, though technically on the EPF recruits are expected to complete it within 3 to 6 weeks. But I’ve known plenty of people who got stuck on the EPF for months, a few even as long as 12 to 14 months, and this is in spite of the fact that technically they’re supposed to summarily offload anyone on the EPF who gets bogged down for more than 8 weeks, and the only reason anyone would subject themselves to that kind of dedication is because they want to do it. No one puts a gun to their head.
The anti-scn haters will answer these questions by claiming that Scientology “brainwashes” them, because in their view, that’s the only reason anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to what they view as a grueling and oppressive way of life. But Scientology isn’t the government, nor is it anything like a gulag or concentration camp or Maoist re-education camp, which is actually what the original Chinese term referred to, state-mandated compulsory re-education. “Brainwashing” is the literalist translation, i.e. cleansing or purifying the mind to conform to state ideology. “Brainwashing” in the sense of Manchurian Candidate style reprogramming is a Hollywood invention that LRH himself was directly responsible for by way of claims made in Dianetics and ultimately fully synthesized in the notorious 1955 “Brainwashing Manual” that he claimed revealed top secret and highly effective methods of Soviet psychiatric mind control that were refined from earlier Nazi experiments.
That’s one issue anti-scn trolls are in full agreement with LRH and hardcore Scientologists, that brainwashing is real. There’s only one problem: there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support any of it. Like the polygraph machine, e-meter and other GSR biofeedback devices, “brainwashing” is total pseudoscience. In all the years I spent in the Sea Org, I could never accept the claims LRH made about the meter and its effectiveness, just as I could never accept the reality of past lives, the various “space opera” elements, the OT III narrative and the idea that we are infested with so-called “body thetans”.
So, if we’re not all brainwashed and mentally handicapped assholes, how can our involvement in Scientology be rationally explained since you and others claim there is little to nothing remotely positive to be found in Scientology and that only a lunatic would waste their time with Scientology, and that one would seriously have to be retarded to dedicate their lives to Scientology in a criminal enterprise like the Sea Org.
Therein lies the rub. Nothing in this world is as binary the way the anti-scn agitators make it out to be. The “us versus them” type of thinking is and always will be utter bullshit.
And at long last, to answer your question, to share an example of what may be construed as good and positive in Scientology.
When I first joined the Sea Org, I didn’t know anything about Dianetics and Scientology. I didn’t even know what the hell the Sea Org was. I was in my teens, orphaned and homeless, totally broke, paranoid about getting sexually molested or raped in foster homes and shelters, based on horror stories I’d heard from other teens on the street, so I wasn’t about to seek help from social services. So I desperately needed a job and spent my days going door to door looking for work. No such luck. One day I walk into a building I thought was a hotel, saw a few prominent signs stating “NOW HIRING”. And guess what? They had plenty of open positions available and we could star the ball rolling right away, right that instant! That made my day. I thought this was kismet, that somebody up there must really like me and I had it made in the shade. This way to Easy Street, baby.
Little did I know that the joke was on me and that they were always hiring and why they were always hiring was because it was a church run by a religious order which appeared to consist mostly of young people running the show and where females vastly outnumbered males.
If I had known what the building was, I probably wouldn’t have walked in. If I had known anything about Scientology and the Sea Org and this EPF thing, I definitely wouldn’t have bothered. But you know what? They went out of their way to help me in becoming an emancipated minor, which I didn’t know anything about or that it was even possible, and get my GED, and through all this hook me up with a room in the house of a regular non-staff Scientologist, free of charge until all the legal issues got sorted out and I could begin the EPF. Obviously they weren’t doing all this out of pure altruism, but they also weren’t going through all this trouble just because I’d be another statistic to help them cover their recruit quota. I was not an easy mark for these people and I had a hell of a time dealing with the culture clash and the many eccentricities of Scientology. I could never get used to the internal culture and I would always get written up at least a few times a month by hardline fanatic types, from the EPF all the way to the last week of my years-long service. In almost all cases the KRs were thrown out because of my background and because I was consistently upstat. The few times someone tried to act on those KRs I would threaten to blow right then and there, and they always ended up backing off.
In many instances, those who wrote KRs on me would get in trouble instead precisely because the higher ups always knew that I wasn’t a true believer the way most others were. Nobody ever put a gun to my head or tried to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do or subject me to physical abuse or anything of that sort. Why I stayed as long as I did was because auditing helped, even when I didn’t think some process would work and in spite of my skepticism regarding the more esoteric elements of Scientology processing the closer you get to Clear and OT.
When I finally left, it wasn’t because of Scientology itself, it was because I was offered a promotion up to Int that I wasn’t meant to refuse, and which would require me to do the EPF all over again, and I’d be stuck working on a compound in the middle of the desert in Riverside County. Thanks, but no thanks. In addition, I’d already gotten fed up with middle management and the ever-present specter of bureaucratic incompetence, and it stands to reason that if middle management red tape and incompetence is bad, then senior management red tape and incompetence is probably even worse.
When all is said and done, at the end of the day there were more always more positives than negatives, otherwise I’d have never even gotten through the first week of the EPF. I always found Scientology auditing and courses to be tedious as hell, and for the first few years I went out of my way to avoid going into session because I found auditing to be many times more difficult than admin courses. But auditing never made me worse or drove me insane or brainwashed me or made me feel like blowing my brains out.
When I left, I didn’t have much more than I did when I first joined and pretty much walked out with the clothes on my back. But the whole experience toughened me in such a way that I didn’t care, and it left me hungry enough to pursue business opportunities with enough zeal that I never have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck. Plus, I’d made so many contacts with affluent publics that finding work when I first got out wasn’t a problem.
Believe what you will. But I’m definitely not the only one who has benefited more from having been in Scientology than not. Such is life.
Cube asked about good experiences in Scientology. Not much of that in your reply. Can you share good experiences (being made tough and hungry and leaving without any advancement doesn’t sound happy). Please stop leading with an attack, it obscures your point.
Thank you for sharing your story, Atomical.
In my scn experience up until 1983 I got training and auditing on the lower grade chart. I found nothing abusive or radical about it. I never bought into clearing the planet, but the idea of training large numbers of ordinary people to become competent auditors/counselors in a few months or a year of intensive training was appealing.
I had hopes of becoming a field auditor, able to help and improve others and make a living at it. The ever increasing prices led me to decide the organization was greedy and exclusive so I left. Everyone who remained in my time and I would assume afterwards felt they were receiving and giving benefits.
I don’t look at the entire subject of scn as Scientology = L. Ron Hubbard. Many others contributed. Hubbard signed his name to the bottom of everything for copyright protection. I don’t look at current scn as anything but a con game. I guess people might still be getting benefits from the subject in spite of the organization.
It sounds like you were able to take what worked for you and not engage unless it made sense to you. That seems to be a fairly common experience for some (maybe even most) ex-scientologists.
yah, what’s the truth about scientology