Yesterday, Tony Ortega continued his assertions that L Ron Hubbard & Scientology endorses pedophilia. He used Sunny Pereira and Nora Crest experience in Scientology to do it. But, it turns out, Nora Crest had something to say about Tony’s exploitation of her standing in the Ex community to continue his belligerent, and false, narrative.
Here’s what she said on Facebook
Dear Tony Ortega,
First of all, you did NOT have my permission to quote me for your article today. You did NOT ask for any of my comments to be on the record and as a journalist you should have had the integrity to do that. I have worked with MANY journalists over the past several years and every single one of them, except you, has ALWAYS ensured that every comment I gave them was on the record before printing anything.
Secondly, I do not appreciate you attacking, very backhandedly I might add, a family member of mine by screen shotting a quote from him, and labeling him a “Hubbard Apologist”. You didn’t even screen shot his entire statement to you. Only the part that suited your narrative. And you never responded to his PUBLIC comment to you on the fan forum, instead you screen grabbed it and placed it on your site and welcomed the pile on of this person with no way for him to defend himself or even know that you had done that.
Those are the actions of a coward. I am telling all of this to you directly, in this message and I am posting this publicly to my page and to every fan group.
I do NOT trust you Tony. Your motives are not clean here. As an ExScientologist that is still very much in the process of healing from a lifetime trapped in the cult, I can say unequivocally that you are NOT helping anyone to recover. I feel used by you. Used to further your site hits and your popularity, and your supposed authority in the subject of Scientology. Used by you to suit your ends only and I am ashamed that I allowed this to go on this long.
I don’t work for you. I never have. But the way that you speak to myself and other exes in your messages to us and in your phone calls is disgusting. Demanding information from us at all hours of the day and night. Getting furious and swearing at us if we discuss parts of our story with anyone else but you. You treat us the same way that Scientology did when we were working for them. As something that gives you power, something to be used, and not as human beings. YOU don’t own our stories. They are ours and ours alone.
Real recovery from Scientology can only come from gaining a true understanding of what you went through, what you actually did to yourself and others, and from a lot of time. When people are in the process of coming to terms with all of that it is hard to let go of everything all at once. To throw away a lifetime of what you thought was “helping people”. You may have “had wins” or helped another person to “have wins” and that felt good at the time so it doesn’t seem like that was a bad thing, or wrong. So you cling to it. because 10, 20, 30, 40+ years of your life can’t have been a total waste. Otherwise what the fuck do you have?
So I am calling you out Tony, very publicly, because instead of having compassion for this man, and others who are recovering from decades of mind control, physical and mental torture, you used him as fodder for your ego and allowed a group of strangers on the internet, who know NOTHING about this person, behind his back, to tear him apart.
That is disgusting and lacks integrity and is devoid of any humanity. And you can quote me on that.
Nora Crest
Whoa, way to go Nora!!!
And yeah, I witnessed–first hand–Tony trying to solicit comments from a well known ex. He wanted them to post a comment on his blog story that day–to support his story. They were not taking his calls or replying to texts. Apparently they hadn’t been for awhile [I am not referring to Nora, if that needed to be clarified; but I will not name publicly who it was. I believe I told Alanzo during a phone call.]
I know Nora contributed a lot to the UB, now I wonder how many of her comments were of her own volition or solicited. I’m sure most were her own; but she also made a video–one that I know of, there might be more–for an article. I cannot imagine the additional pressure such ‘requests’/demands would place on someone still recovering.
May getting this out help her on your path and also help show others the path. I truly hope Tony doesn’t start a backlash against her, as we know he is wont to do if someone crosses him or he’s done with them, or he can no longer use them.
Here’s a train of thought coming from Alanzo mentioning his “theory”. On Dec.12, 2013 Geir Isene on his blog posted a topic called “Scientology pros and cons”. He asked people to list five pros and five cons.
When I first started reexamining my scn experience I did something like that and it was beneficial but nowadays begging the question of what I got out of scn is just reliving the past and I rarely do it and it can actually lead to self invalidation.
In scn auditing there is a term called “rehabbing a release”. This meant (verbal tech coming up – lol) bringing back to the present or “rehabilitating” a previous state of awareness or a realization. Some of the now “old timers” commenting on Geir’s topic just ended up joking around.
yah, it’s also called rehabbing “wins”. That’s the purpose of ARC Break auditors sent out into the field when somebody has a upset about LRH, DM, Scientology and Dianetics.
Marty Rathbun did the ultimate rehab of wins with Tom Cruise.
It’s also rhetoric, the art of persuasion thru logos, ethos and pathos. And very refined,
Geir seems to have understood rhetoric in his latest post:
https://isene.me/
Truth vs Emotions
I suppose one could rehab the “wins” one had with a partner in life although they were physically and mentally abusive. And that is Hubbardology and Scientology, to entrap. IMHO
I really don’t get it!
Why people discuss or argue dianetics and scientology w/o the end goal to be had or lack of in the discussion?
per you alanzo:
“Getting out of a ‘cult’ is not something that you recover from, it is something you are strengthened by.” — Alanzo”
Well, I got out of the cult of dianetics and then later scientology, and I am strengthened by it. So I speak my mind and am strengthened by it.
What is my mind that I speak of?
Simply, I first thought that when I first got involved in Dianetics I could achieve a status written by Hubbard as “Clear” and if I followed his procedures I would be Clear , and then when I was further involved I thought I could achieve a state of religious awareness and philosophy of life known as “Operating Thetan”.
Turns out Hubbard died and said he failed. And it turns out no clears have ever been produced by Hubbard’s tech, nor has any OT’s been produced.
In my eyes, that is the recovery, and that’s all it is to it.
If one wishs to recover from dianetics and scientology, simply realize there are no clears or OT’s.
I wish it were true that we could go clear and OT. I no longer have faith in scientology, LOL
But being in scientology is more than clear and ot. People got all kinds for things. It’s why they didn’t quit when they went OT and still remained a scientologist.
They were still getting something out of it. What was that?
Alanzo,
First of all, nobody went OT as the levels up to OT8 are pre OT.
Well, why didn’t people quit? Answer because of Hubbard’s rhetoric and very powerful to those that had “wins” but they eventually figured it out and then quit.
Many OT8’s quit, and C/S’s and auditors. Have you not researched and connected dots?
The very first auditor was actually John Campbell and then Dr Winter, and both quit, and both said Hubbard had it all wrong. LOL
Here’s the theory, Gib.
People got themselves involved in scientology because it did something, or multiple things, for them.
When scientology quit doing those things for them, they quit.
No amount of rhetoric is going to do something for somebody unless it does something they like, or want, or need.
You can’t blame Hubbard for your own decisions to stay because you liked, or felt you needed, what Scientology did for you.
You can blame Hubbard for some things but not for everything. Some things were your own cause, and no one else’s. I think it’s important to identify those things and not hide them from yourself with an adolescent and angry teenage blame.
This theory doesn’t include any superstitious beliefs in the MAGICAL POWERS of brainwashing or mind control or rhetoric, so it doesn’t have much in the way of excuses that you can use to blame on few people but yourself, so it might not be very popular among anti-scientologists. But I think it’s pretty workable.
What do you think of my theory?
I don’t agree with your theory.
Gib –
Do you want to believe in the POWER of rhetoric because the more POWERFUL rhetoric is, the less responsible you are for the fucked up decisions you made to stay in scientology?
Just a theory, Gib. An alternative theory to the theory that we was all HYP-NO-TIZED!!!
Remember, you should never have just one theory or hypothesis or explanation for something you are observing but don’t have all the data for. You should juggle at least two or three explanations and assign each a certain level of likelihood.
Why did I make so many decisions that did not work out in scientology?
1. I was overcome by the POWER of rhetoric
2. I liked being a scientologist and going to course and studying new things
3. I was a brainwashed zombie who did whatever I was told.
What level of likelihood would you assign to each of those?
Here’s mine after being out for 18 years.
1. 15% likely
2. 90% likely
3. 5% likely
What’s yours?
Here you go Alanzo, my answers:
Why did I make so many decisions that did not work out in scientology?
1. I was overcome by the POWER of rhetoric.
I’d say yes, but I’d say I was duped by Hubbard’s rhetoric.
2. I liked being a scientologist and going to course and studying new things.
For me no not really, I didn’t like being a scientologist and specifically a staff member. I didn’t like going to course, it was a pain in the ass following the “rules”. I did enjoy in the very beginning learning some new things by having read POW, A New Slant on Life, etc prior to being on staff.
3. I was a brainwashed zombie who did whatever I was told.
When being a staff member, that’s pretty much true provided it was per Policy or L Ron Hubbard, so I quess I was a zombie to him. As a public somewhat true but difficult to say “NO”.
Here’s a theory, why is it some scientologists never got that much auditing but became true believers? It’s a theory about rhetoric and it’s power and explains it somewhat, also explains other cults you might say. And you couple in Le Bon’s works on “The Crowd” (which Hubbard read), it kind of gives a big picture, the outer layer of the onion is the analogy used by others.
Interesting that Le Bon is French and studied the French Revolution and France does not like scientology/Hubbard as well as many European Countries.
Here’s something, off topic, and I don’t know for sure, but the Star Trek TV series. Here we have Captain Kirk’s character as Ethos, or character, Bones is pathos or emotions, and Spock is logos, or logic.
Captain America is ethos, so is Superman, etc. Hubbard claimed hisself to be man’s best friend, a nuclear physicists, a doctor, etc, that is his use of trying to create ethos and that is why he lied because he thought nobody would listen to him if he told the truth about his past credentials or ethos, so he made it up!
The Power of rhetoric, if one examines any blockbuster movie, and if one knows the ethos, pathos and logos, one can see those in the movies, or books, etc. It’s quite fun, that’s the secret!
Heinlein called out John Campbell for using rhetoric on him to convince him about Dianetics while Hubbard & Campbell were preparing to release “the book”, this being 1949 in the Heinlein/Campbell letters available on the Heinlein Archive site.
I cross reference my post here to my tread on ESMB to preserve my thoughts. Not that it matters, it’s my research notes I guess.
I agree. Those three things do NOT have some kind of magical power or non-willed control over another person.
It’s time these people learned they aren’t as magnificent at controlling others as they like to tell themselves that they are.
It’s only an apparency that it “works” and only as long as the person, target, whatever, has HIS OWN REASONS why he is here.
Of course, this in NO way relieves the sickos who do definitely try their level best to manipulate, deceive, drug, lie to, propagandize to etc. of their responsibility in so doing.
But people need to be reminded of the power of a One, and why it’s so scary to the control-obsessed types.
https://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/field-guide-for-whistleblowers-and-truth-tellers-introduction-to-tactics-one-is-not-just-one/
Thanks for doing what you are Alanzo.
Virginia
,”First of all, nobody went OT as the levels up to OT8 are pre OT.”
I would rather say that nobody went OT because there is not such thing as an OT, just like nobdoy went “Clear” seeing that the State of Clear exists only in the imaginations of Scientologists.
thank you
Something happened with Clear. How about “A falling away of the significance of the past”? It’s no claim of superiority. The man on the street would also say “Live for today.”
Thank you Nora for having the courage to call out Ortega for attempting to subjugate you and your Scientology experience. And thank you Alanzo for creating a safe space to allow ex or other Scientologists to speak about their experience.
Her last sentence “devoid of any humanity” says it all. She’s just way over the top.
BTW Alonzo, can you set up an editing button? Drives me crazy when I read my posts and see the typos.
This particular commenting software has so many bugs that I am almost scared to turn on and off certain features because it has crashed the site before. Also, because of all the hacking attempts I get here at AlanzosBlog, I am hesitant to increase the user privileges of commenters, which would definitely make it easier to edit. But it would also make the site easier to hack.
You should see an EDIT button right next to the REPLY button. I just logged out and made a comment and I see the edit button.
There was a 24 hour time limit on editing before. I changed that to unlimited. Did that help, Eileen?
Thanks Alanzo, it is definitely not worth risking a hacking event. I can live with my typos.
Case in point… the changes you made seem to have set off a “confirm subscription” every time I post a comment!
Sorry, Put it all back the way it was!
I’m going to wax my poodle now. Keeps me out of trouble.
I went back and read the UB article that Nora questioned. Tony does quote her, and Nora does not appear to be questioning the accuracy of his quote. She seems to be questioning his right to use her comment without her explicit permission.
I thought that after Anthony Scaramucci everyone in the world knew that unless you specify “off the record” in advance you are on the record. She knows she is speaking to a journalist.
In regard to this paragraph Nora is simply wrongheaded. It makes me wonder if her other points are equally wrongheaded.
Her last paragraph about the healing process seems rational, but then she veers off course again.
Certainly, the need to justify Scientology wins because otherwise she will have wasted 30 years of her life is not rational. If people think they have wins then that should be respected, and if an auditor helped then good on them.
I’m trying to understand what you mean by this sentence.
The thing is that Scientologists continued in Scientology because it was working for them on some or many levels. When it fails to work for them, they leave.
So what does your sentence mean here?
I was referring to this paragraph. Very dramatic and over the top. Compare to the way you stated it above, which is fine.
…“To throw away a lifetime of what you thought was “helping people”. You may have “had wins” or helped another person to “have wins” and that “felt good at the time so it doesn’t seem like that was a bad thing, or wrong. So you cling to it. because 10, 20, 30, 40+ years of your life can’t have been a total waste. Otherwise what the fuck do you have?”…
Yeah. That’s the conclusion that the anti-cult anti-scientology mindset dictates. That, I believe is the damage that this present regime does to exes.
It is quite possible that scientology was a good and beneficial and nourishing thing for at least one ex on the planet. But if that ex involves himself in this regimes thinking, then his memories of those healthy beneficial times will be wiped from his memory and replaced with nightmare cult scenarios instead.
Very common in exes who have gotten out and landed at the underground bunker and stayed there for any length of time.
Some one needs to tell them that if you can find something good out of your experiences in scientology that it is okay, even preferable than living in nightmares for the rest of your life.
True about everything in life…
Yes. And so isn’t it a shame that the anti-cult movement undermines common sense to the degree of diseasifying a spiritual pursuit you had in a minority religion?
And isn’t it a shame that those who swallow the anti-cult movement’s corrosive propaganda on their earlier spiritual pursuits become so damaged by accepting it?
This is the main reason I have continued this blog for so long, and have continued in social media despite everything:
Because something needs to be done to counter the damage these toxic religious persecutors in the anti-cult movement inveigh against the mental well-being of Ex-Scientologists.
Hear, Hear Alanzo.