A very powerful expose has been written on the Families Against Cult Teachings (F.A.C.T) website which exposes some of the problems with the Aftermath Foundation and with the actions of the Ex-Sea Org Members who run it.
You can read it in full here:
This is a personal account from a former Scientologist of 25 years, Janette Allen.
There is one part I would like to copy here to comment on it:
“Within the last year I’ve witnessed some very shocking things occur. I’ve witnesses a young Scientologist (one of my child’s best friends growing up, who used to live with us off and on) do a segment on the Aftermath show (I will not name names for confidentiality reasons), lose her family, friends and entire community as a result of doing the segment, only in the end it not make it to air for “legal reasons”. Grown adults, who manage a non-profit and run a TV show – knowing the consequences this young girl will face for doing a segment on the show, still went ahead and wanted to film her story and let her face the “Aftermath” and consequences for doing so. If these grown adults, who have much more resources than this child has, had her back and her best interest at heart they would have responsibly advised her to stay under the radar, keep her family support system continue to focus on herself, get some counseling and just withdraw quietly from the community without being declared an sp etc. But instead, they wanted to run with her story, to sell more TV. They didn’t need her story and in the end didn’t run it anyways for “legal reasons” and her life is upside down and in shambles as a result.’
“She deactivated her social media accounts as the drama was overwhelming to her last summer. I supported her in that. She then told me that “Aaron Smith-Levin asked her to reactivate her facebook account and make her fundraiser for the Aftermath Foundation live again as it was gaining “traction and funds”. She complied. I was in shock. This 24 year old young girl, who was going through a major crisis, just lost her family, was not stable in the least – and Aaron had the audacity to ask her to publicize her fundraiser. There is more but I will leave it at that!”
For a guy like me who has been out of Scientology for 20 years now, and who has seen the landscape for Scientology criticism change so many times, I can’t tell you how bizarre this latest Celebrity Anti-Scientology phase of Scientology criticism has been for me.
Maybe the decision to start businesses based on criticizing Scientology, and to raise money from people, and to get rich off of a TV show, was a good one – at first. Any endeavor needs funding, right?
When I first became involved in Scientology criticism, no one actually tried to make criticizing Scientology their business. But now that Leah Remini and Mike Rinder are making high six figure incomes off of telling the stories of Ex-Scientologists – and those Ex-Scientologists make no money for appearing on their show – and these Exes get disconnected from and fair-gamed as a result, I can’t help but think this is becoming a form of exploitation.
And after three seasons of their show, they have not exposed one criminal act that would put Mike Rinder’s former boss, David Miscavige, or any other officer of the Church of Scientology into legal jeopardy. As a result, David Miscavige is still in power – still doing whatever he wants to Scientologists.
And Mike and Leah’s Gravy Train has been thoroughly impotent in changing that.
And for Mike Rinder – the source of fair game against critics of Scientology for 22 years under David Miscavige – to be enriching himself on the stories of Exes – well it’s just one more mind-bending twist for me.
Maybe it’s just an unintended consequence.
After you read Janette’s article, maybe these unintended consequences deserve to be corrected.
Maybe?
ALL TRUE. Thank you Al for continuing to expose the hucksters on both sides.