I am presenting this piece of writing which appeared on ESMB recently as an example of what I believe to be a pathological state of mind for an Ex-Scientologist to develop.
This particular Ex-Scientologist has been out of Scientology for a long time and has had many opportunities to reconcile with his old self as a Scientologist, to dispute his own cognitive distortions, to forgive those things that can not be fixed, and to build a life without bitterness and rancor over his own past decision-making.
I have a lot of respect for this man, but he presents here a cautionary tale – a caution to other Exes in his present attitudes and his present inability to heal himself as a person who spent time in Scientology.
Maybe I shouldn’t make an example of him. But maybe making an example of him would turn this waste of words into something useful for other people.
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It is an understatement that I was dismayed and distressed by Pete Griffiths’ statements in the Irish High Court last October. There is a sense of personal betrayal and a sense of a sullied friendship. I have refrained from making any statement on this to date; giving him time to come out and clarify what he actually meant by those statements. He has not done so, so here I go.
Statements made in the High Court become public record and carry the full weight of Irish jurisprudence. Recorded statements made therein are entered into permanent record and are referred to by legal experts for the purpose of legal precedence as similar cases come up in the future and they are studied by students of law who will form tomorrow’s legal community.
Pete Griffiths’ stark public avowal “I have no problem with Scientology or Scientologists’ were a stab in the back for those in the ex Scientology community who have not only suffered unconscionable levels of abuse and personal loss while active within the cult but have gone on to speak out and been subjected to hate campaigns and disconnection from family and former friends.
It is a slap in the face for bereaved mothers such as Victoria Britton whose child’s murderer was protected and hidden away by Scientology’s highest level officials. It is a kick in the guts to the fourteen year old girl cast out by the cult with her mother and father’s collusion to walk the cruel streets of London because she was ‘a source of enturbulation’ and a block on their progress as ‘good, dedicated Sea Org functionaries.’
For those in the ex community that might get nervous at the thought of dissension in the ranks here in the ex community, let me just say that this was one of the nasty little tricks the cult played on us when we were all good little Hubbardites. We used to suppress our individual needs, cast out lovers, family and friend’s ‘for the greater good’ of the Third and Fourth dynamics.
During the dark days of World War II French and Italian partisan groups were made up of bitterly opposed factions. The Italians had both Trotskyist and Stalinist Communists. They fought on the same terms as Catholic priests and Italian Royalists. The French had a similar make up of very diverse political views united for the purpose of defeating the NAZI. What briefly united them at the end of the war was a universal condemnation of collaborators and in particular, those that betrayed the movement from the inside. In our state of permanent war with this monstrous cult we have to be sharper than that, we know how the cult operates. So we must call out betrayal for what it is when it raises its ugly head.
We were all sickened when the turncoat Marty Rathbun betrayed us to Miscavige. I am sure he scuttled off with his thirty pieces of silver grinning from ear to ear. He was always conflicted. We could see in the insightful 2016 Louis Theroux documentary. Marty never stopped admiring his bloated guru. He could never face up to being reduced to the status of a common wog. He found it painful to lose his position of power in Miscavige’s pretend navy.
Not many of us liked Marty Rathbun while he was with us, but we tolerated him in the hope that he would help us bring the sick cult and its perverted leader down. What we all missed was that he was a narcissist, an egotist running the ‘Marty Rathbun Show.’ It was all about him and the slights that he suffered. We let him lash out when any of us dared to criticise his mind-numbing ramblings. We gave him space and supported him and in return he burned us.
Observing Pete Griffiths over the eight odd years that I have known him, I see aspects of the Marty Rathbun phenomena. In fact he displays many of the traits of the Narcissist. Check out this link if you doubt my observation.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/…/5-sneaky-things-narcissists-d…/
Pete had a relatively gentle time of it in his rather brief few years as an active Scientologist. His biggest loss was £2000 for a venue he rented out for a local IAS fund raiser or a Hubbard Birthday event in Kendall and the impoverished Scientologists from Sunderland got out as soon as possible with the megre contents of their stressed wallets intact.
To borrow Gore Vidal’s description of Ezra Pound, There is something of the ‘Strutting Peacock’ about Pete Griffiths. One who uses you to shine the spotlight on himself, one who uses your notoriety or public recognition to further his own ends. Pete admitted to me that he was tooling along in life, still considering himself, at at least conceptually, a Scientologist, until he heard me speaking on one of the highest rated Irish national radio shows shortly before publication of my book in 2008 and the massive attention it garnered – here in Ireland at least. From that moment on I could not shake him off of my coat tails.
The narcissist will use you to boost his profile and standing in the community. I have been less prolific over the past few years, struggling with illness and stress related exhaustion, I have noted that Pete has subtly turned on me. Not a big loss, but noteworthy based on the linked narcissistic personality exegesis above.
Friends have told me how Pete has betrayed my own confidences to him in an effort to undermine me. Now I don’t really care about my profile and standing, but I do care when the trust that I give is turned against me. I do care if people that I care about deeply are lied to about me and as result drop me as a friend. He saw fit in the courtroom context to toss the courageous, brutally honest and beyond generous and giving John Magee under the bus. What might he do with you if it suits him?
I remember inviting him to dinner with my then partner. A highly educated, refined and caring executive in a national State agency. He saw fit to reduce the table conversation to his regaling us, in nauseating detail, with a listing of seedy sexual encounters and a graphic description of the first time he had sex with his partner, Tony. Now I am an enlightened and open minded man, but this does not comprise polite dinner conversation and my partner was left wondering what the hell am I doing hanging around with this person, and perhaps questioned what she was doing living with me if this was the kind of company I keep.
A friend of mine asked him once to forward a gift to a bereaved mother. Pete forwarded it alright, but sent as a gift from himself.
Let me just unequivocally state my position: I HAVE a problem with Scientology and I HAVE a problem with Scientologists. A Scientologist condones every single abuse of human rights, every covered up abuse of children – from the awful neglect children suffered in the Cadet Org to the sexual abuse suffered by the likes of Miriam Francis – by merit of their fanatical allegiance to the cult doctrine and its ‘justice’ system.
Scientologists are not inherently evil. The wonderful Ramina Nunnelly is a case in point. She took me under her wing when I started working with her at Central Marketing, an Int level operation captained by Ronnie Miscavige junior. I have never felt a stronger friendship, nor have I admired anyone in my life more than Ramina. Her incandescence stayed with me long after I had rejected Hubbard and his darkness.
The cult redirected her fierce and protective love of her wonderful children and harnessed her power to the Scientology Marketing machine. She was good. She was dedicated. She was a brilliant administrator and the kindest and most caring of people managers I have ever encountered in or out of Scientology. But I had a problem with her as a Scientologist and it was only as she began to wake up to the injury and damage she had caused her children as a result of her misplaced trust that I began to rebuild my own friendship with her. You can bet that until that moment she had a problem with me as well.
The ex and anti Scientology movement attracts low functioning narcissists like flies to the proverbial. The ridiculous Steve Mango being a case in point. There are plenty of others who are not as proficient at self promotion, but are equally manipulative and equally skilled at forming their own little bands of sycophantic followers. I will call them out where I see them impinging on people I know and care about. But you are going to have to protect yourselves one way or the other. Learn about the sociopath, learn about Narcissistic Personality disorder and cut such people loose from your world the moment you spot them.
We are all imperfect creatures. Malformed by abuse, neglect and permanently damaged in ways that we cannot fathom by our association with Hubbard’s Scientology cult. Indeed, our vulnerabilities are what attracted us to the seductive Scientology promise of perfection and healing by way of The Bridge to Clear and beyond in the first place. We are wiser now, but we are also maybe too trusting of anyone that claims to be a fellow traveller. Thus we are the arbiters of our own demise. This has proved true again and again in the ten years or so that I have been acting to highlight the abusive practices of this cult.
I had to laugh there at the Scientology Ideal Org opening in Dublin in October. Pete Griffiths was notable in his absence. There we were, a small, disparate, ragtag band of misfits. Four gay guys, an alcoholic pirate from Devon, me – a rapidly aging Scientology burnout with barely enough health and resilience to get out of the house in the morning – an autistic mother of five kids, two of them equally afflicted, a wild and unruly undertaker and a few struggling waifs from the local community blighted by unemployment. All of us facing off to a multinational cult with billions stashed away in tax havens and its leader swishing in and out by way of a private Gulfstream jet and blacked out Mercedes Benz and surrounded by ex special forces security guards like some East European dictator.
The contrast could not have been more stark. Indeed, the illustration of the reality of our ex and anti Scientology communities efforts could not have been better stated
https://www.irishtimes.com/…/man-appalled-at-behaviour-towa…
“I do not have a problem with Scientology or Scientologists,” he said.
“I hold my hand up and regret my role and I think it was terrible,” he said.
looking back now at the video, he felt the two CoS members, Zabrina Collins and Michael O’Donnell, “are due an apology for what went went on” “actually appalled” looking at a video played in the High Court of him following two church members distributing booklets in Dublin.
It was not his intention to harass or intimidate anyone, and he always wanted to act lawfully
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Way too many Ex-Scientologists are living in a toxic and highly distorted ideological mindset about Scientology, Scientologists, and their own pasts in it. If this toxic Ex/Anti ideology were true, that would be one thing. But it is certainly not. These Exes are living distorted lives of unexamined hatred and vengeance.
There is WAY too much unnecessary pain and suffering in the Ex-Community, caused by nihilistic and distorted thinking about Scientology and religion and “cults” in general. If this whole “cult recovery” paradigm were true, shouldn’t there be more Exes who have recovered by now?
These Exes need to read this, among other things, and think about it:
…”If you are a victim who comes forward and resolution through the court provides a conviction, it will not undo what happened to you. You will still have to heal. If you come forward and there is insufficient evidence for a conviction, that is a reality you will have to face, and you can find a way to begin recovering in spite of that. If you are given the choice to not prosecute and spare yourself the trauma of a trial, highly publicized or not, you can make your choice, go forward with your life, and begin to heal. If you never come forward to the authorities, tell no one or only someone close to you, you can begin to recover and overcome what has happened to you. Under any of these circumstances, there will always be those who doubt you and nothing will erase what has happened to you. That does not have to stop you from healing.’
“The most important thing is to try to begin recovering from within. I don’t think you can heal from outside events happening. Waiting for the actions of others— be it the courts, your family, the opinions of those you care about, or the words of strangers—places you in a situation that you cannot control. And despite what was done to you, you do still have control.”
– Samantha Gelmer, “The Girl“
There’s much more where that came from.
It is difficult to see the growing public use of terms like narcissist, sociopath, malignant narcissist, psychopath etc. The Personality Disorders ( the classification for these diagnoses) are not the same as Mental Illness. Lumping them together is an insult to the mentally ill.
Professionals are very careful to make a full assessment before slapping those labels onto a person, especially a young person, because young people can always change.
These are not diagnoses that can be assigned using an online checklist. They are serious charges against the basic personality structure, in some ways against the humanity, of a person.
The terms malignant narcissist or psychopath refers to persons without empathy or human “fellow-feeling”. They damage, mutilate or kill with impunity, as a matter of convenience. I have known a few of these types (in locked settings). Some were charming, some intellectually brilliant, some cognitively impaired. In every case they were terrifying. They liked to make people cry, or cause a slow-witted person to attack, it relieved their boredom. They laughed when the person who attacked them was dragged away and sedated
When people behave badly or go through a disordered period in their life they are not narcissists, they are just “fucked up”. If Pete Griffith jumped on someone’s coattails, or talked about his sex life he may sometimes be described as opportunistic, or exhibitionistic, or even grandiose. This is a description of his behavior, not his personality. There are probably other times when he was generous, or empathic.
That is many nautical miles from the terrifying mental terrain that is the mind of a human whose mental structure is that of a psychopath.
“Malformed by abuse, neglect and permanently damaged in ways we cannot fathom by our association with Hubbard’s Scientology cult.”
That poor bastard really took a licking! I’m sure glad I didn’t get beat up like that! What a drama queen!
I can’t take that guy seriously. Too much natter and flowery rhetoric. I think he’s going for “The Anti-Scientology Creative Writing Of The Year Award”!
Such personality types boil down to being bullies. If an open debate without name calling can’t happen, then it’s just a bunch of apes flinging poo.
There is a battle to control the Ex narrative, and some large conflicts going on in the background. Looking at the Bunker, Tony’s links of related sites has shrunk to virtually nothing compared to a year ago. Chris Shelton, Aaron Smith Levin, and others have been removed. There should be wide enough tolerances to allow for many shades of opinion.
Looks like some folks follow Mr. Crowley’s teachings, not just Mr. Hubbard. Using the corpses of your former allies to climb to the top smacks of “do as thou wilt” — coldly utilizing individuals to further your own purposes — is more of what “the proprietor” has been up to as of late. And the peanut gallery continues on blind to what transpires.
Quoting Mr. Leary, think for yourself.
Ortega has now even burned his bridge with Shelton? If this is true it’s even more evidence that Ortega is an out-and-out narcissist and deliberately cultivating his own personality cult.
His behavior is baffling. He’s had plenty of opportunities and even a number of offers to expand his blog beyond Scientology but not only does he not take advantage of those situations, he keeps undermining his own credibility with pointless gossip and unverifiable allegations that have nothing to do with Scientology abuses or alleged crimes. This thing with Tom Cruise and Suri, for instance. Probably explains why things didn’t work out for him at Raw Story and Lip TV or whatever his last employer was called.
He reminds me of a blogger named Luke Ford who had a similar tabloid blog about scandals and abuses in the porn industry back in the late 90s. He had a huge, huge readership and journalists were calling him “the Matt Drudge of porn” and predicting he’d become as filthy rich as Drudge because there was no one else doing what he was doing. But at the height of his popularity where his blog was making way more than enough cash that he didn’t have to worry about a day job, he went completely off the rails, burned all of his bridges in almost exactly the same way as Ortega has been doing and screwed himself, big time. He ended up selling the blog for peanuts and quickly went broke and almost became homeless. He tried to revive it a few more times but it was too late and he had zero insiders to give him reliable dirt.
Wikipedia has a halfway decent article about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Ford_(blogger)
All the links to Shelton’s videos/etc are gone. I won’t infer anything specific, but it’s obvious there’s a schism somewhere in the Bunker-sphere. A dog doesn’t sh*t where it lives, but somehow that lesson is too deep for Mr. Proprietor. Not surprised about the silence — naysayers are subjected to the “Marty treatment” when they speak out.
I wonder what the guy’s gonna do when the Anti-Scientology fad is over? How much blood does this guy gotta squeeze out of the Ex community before people realize he’s a parasite?
Well I definitely missed this story. What happened between O’tega and Shelton? If this is truly a schism that is big in the AST world. (Anti Scientology Tribe)
Tony just posted another one of Chris’ videos yesterday.
Yeah I’d be very surprised if there were ever a schism between those two. They need each other too much.
“Tony just posted another one of Chris’ videos yesterday.”
Maybe Tony had been lurking here and saw the comments about Chris’ links being dropped so decided to make you wrong. 🙄
aomical, when I left scientology and did a bunch of research, I stumbled upon the term “useful idiot” and I realized we where as members of scientology just that, myself included.
This is pretty off-topic, but are you aware that Tony deleted a story about Tom Curise? Here’s Tony explanation of what happened:
https://tonyortega.org/2017/10/30/we-got-catfished-tom-cruises-friend-rooked-us-with-a-lot-of-lies/
Here’s the deleted story’s url:
https://tonyortega.org/2017/10/19/tom-cruise-childhood-friend-toms-family-told-me-he-doesnt-want-to-see-photos-of-suri-online/
It leads to an empy page but thanks to archiving sites nothing really gets deleted nowadays:
https://archive.is/A6zUJ
Yeah that was another example of his unprofessional-ism and irresponsibility as a journalist. Or in his case, “journalist”.
It’s called check your sources before you print. I guess he didn’t learn that in kolledge. He says he got “catfished”. Lol… What a maroon.
There’s more where that came from.
Because he is so certain and unskeptical about the conclusions he pushes on to people (a very non-journalist quality), he has probably been catfished when it comes to his “Shelly is missing AND being held in a fortress prison” story.
Angry Gay Pope reported on Tony Ortega’s hinky source for his certainty about exactly which fortress prison Shelly is being held in. His recent treatment of someone who questioned Tony – and who was there along with Angry Gay Pope, reveals his horrendous confirmation bias – another trait that “unbiased journalists” do not have.
And notice that when Tony is called out on his abusive emails – which were witnessed, while there was no witness to the “harassment” that AGP supposedly committed – Tony says “Donald’s a big boy” – completely dismissing his own harassment and abuse of Scientology critics and Exes.
Yes I just happened to be lurking on the UB at the time when this exchange was taking place real time. I was expecting TO to drop the ban hammer because Jenny was really challenging him and not letting up one bit. I was rooting for her to say the least.
Just to put things into perspective…have a read:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/bob-coy-founder-of-calvary-chapel-fort-lauderdale-accused-of-molesting-child-9827948
Now, this is a church where church leaders have committed REAL crimes and have gone to prison.
Compare this type of behaviour to Scientology. It makes them look like Puritans.
Quote from the posted comment:
“Let me just unequivocally state my position: I HAVE a problem with Scientology and I HAVE a problem with Scientologists. A Scientologist condones every single abuse of human rights, every covered up abuse of children – from the awful neglect children suffered in the Cadet Org to the sexual abuse suffered by the likes of Miriam Francis – by merit of their fanatical allegiance to the cult doctrine and its ‘justice’ system.”
By the above “logic,” I guess every Catholic has condoned and covered up the abuses of priests – “by merit of their fanatical allegiance.” Wow, that’s what I call fanatical desperation.
I was a member of the CoS for over two decades, first as a public person doing services, then as an org staff member, then in the Sea Org. In all that time, I was never even aware of such abuses, and I am pretty sure I speak for the vast majority. I don’t doubt that some did occur, as with any large group, but I do doubt that it was more prevalent than in any other, probably even less than most.
I’m wondering – is the author saying that HE condoned this behavior when he was a Scientologist?
This is what I am saying about how an Ex must reconcile with his earlier self as a Scientologist. The author has covered over that old self of his and walled it off, and replaced it with a demonized version of it – if he thinks about it at all. Was he, personally, as evil as a Scientologist as he assigns that quality to other Scientologists now?
What nightmare version of himself is this author living in?
I think in a way you are condoning it. When you are in the sea org do you not see children working all day with no parents? Someone has to be aware of teenagers as young as 15 living alone together in l.a. with no parents. Does no one in church see families seperated.
My mother and sister in law are chatholics . My mother in law feels complicit in the abuse of children, it was not a secret that it was going on. Nobody spoke up because it was the church.
Alanzo and Allison,
Above Alanzo wrote: “This is what I am saying about how an Ex must reconcile with his earlier self as a Scientologist.”
What I’m basically saying is that for most Ex’s there isn’t that much to reconcile with regarding what is suddenly popular to accuse “Scientologists” of.
In general, however, many (maybe most) of us adopted the approach of putting Scientology above all else – which greatly affected what we did with our time, money, family, etc. as well as how we viewed what we observed in others. I now see this as very wrongheaded, based on ignorance – rather than being something especially difficult to confront and reconcile with, as would be the case with clearly criminal acts or covering them up.
In any event, the ASC doesn’t EVER get into the responsibility of Ex’s for what occurred when they were “in.” Have you ever noticed that? They want us to see it all in terms of blaming “Scientology” and Hubbard for what THEY did TO us.
Marildi wrote:
This is an extreme response from having been a Scientologist where YOU were responsible for every intention/counter-intention on all flows on all dynamics that Hubbard saddled Scientologists with. So you get out and you’re responsible for NONE of it.
There is a middle ground of responsibility where you are responsible for some things that happened to you, and Scientology is responsible for other things that happened to you, and some things happened out of complete random chance.
So there is a vital process for an Ex to examine all these issues of granular responsibility that brings about real healing and the ability to see yourself and your own decision-making in new ways.
It’s built into the tech to blame yourself and SPs for everything wrong that ever happened as a Scientologist – those are the only two causative factors allowed in the worldview of Scientology. Never Scientology itself, and never even “upstat Scientologists” lest you be “Type Two PTS”.
So when you get out, the pendulum swing is to blame EVERYTHING on Scientology.
Both are wrong and lead to getting trapped in a victim-prison of blame. The author of this article has obviously not taken the time to sort out these issues of responsibility as an Ex and he is in a state of heavy heavy blame. It is one of the most obvious characteristics of his pathology as an Ex/Anti.
“There is a middle ground of responsibility where you are responsible for some things that happened to you, and Scientology is responsible for other things that happened to you, and some things happened out of complete random chance.”
Well said.
However, Al, you have apparently picked up groupthink where you believe this:
“It’s built into the tech to blame yourself and SPs for everything wrong that ever happened as a Scientologist – those are the only two causative factors allowed in the worldview of Scientology.”
There is no such datum in the materials, although I will grant you that it does seem to be the case that many Scientologists have that idea. I stated this in a comment one time on Mike’s blog, where Terra Cognita had written in a guest blog post that, for example, “If they get broadsided, it’s not that the other driver was drunk, but that they ‘pulled it in.’”
Mike replied to my comment and quoted excerpts from the book *Advanced Procedure and Axioms* as the reference. Here’s the first part of what he quoted:
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“DEFINITION: Responsibility is the ability and willingness to assume the status of full source and cause for all efforts and counter-efforts on all dynamics.
“There is no compromise with full responsibility. It lies above 20.0 on the tone scale and is descended from in order to effect randomity but is descended from with the full knowledge of its assumptions. It means responsibility for all acts, all emotions on every dynamic and in every sphere as one’s own. It includes such “disrelated” data as the death of an individual one has never met on a highway on which one has never travelled at the hands of a stranger no matter how culpable. One does not send to find for whom the bell tolls without full willingness to have tolled it and to have caused the cause of its tolling.” (AP&A)
————————————————-
My reply to that was, as the quote itself stated, this was the level of responsibility above 20.0 on the tone scale – and that it was the ultimate goal for Advanced Procedure, a sort of “bridge” at the time.
Tellingly, Mike left out the paragraph just before what he quoted, claiming that whatever was omitted was just “gobbledygook” that no one understood. That preceding paragraph makes it clear that this definition is the ultimate level of responsibility and that it is achieved with the Fourteenth Act – which is the final Act of the whole Advanced Procedure. Here’s the omitted paragraph:
—————————————
“In the Fourteenth Act, the proper control center is rehabilitated. This is done by an indoctrination of the principles of responsibility and the running of responsibility. An auditor, thus, must understand this subject thoroughly. The preclear will make his largest leap ahead with the Fourteenth Act.”
—————————————–
In other words, per LRH Full Responsibility is at the top of a gradient scale of responsibility – not a way of holding everybody responsible for everything, certainly not in any practical sense. Other references would be the various other definitions of “responsibility,” every one of them more realistic.
Mike had no response to my reply to him as described above, which was also telling, as he always tries to completely “dead agent” any counter opinions to the narrative. Yet in spite of having no comeback, he repeated the same false datum later, in an episode on Aftermath, and used the same quote as the reference. It’s instances like this that cause me to lose confidence in Mike’s, Tony’s, and Leah’s integrity and intellectual honesty. They still haven’t learned the lessons they should have learned from the very experiences they had in Scientology!
In Mahayana Buddhism, this kind of separation of “Infinite Truths” vs “Relative Truths” is the 2 Truths Doctrine, a foundation of most Buddhist thought. As a Buddhist you are taught that here in the relative world, things are not infinite, and there can not be infinite responsibility for “all flows on all dynamics”.
Hubbard never taught the “Two Truths Doctrine”. And he constantly ran infinities on Scientologists – right here in the relative world.
So while I do see your point, and it is a good one, I also see Mike’s point.
And yes, Mike was part of the very unenlightened and very stupid and abusive regime of David Miscavige for decades, enforcing these stupid interpretations onto Scientologists.
But then again, Hubbard never came up with the two truths doctrine, even though he claimed to be the reincarnation of the Buddha himself.
So how hard do you want to continually fight this “correct interpretation of Scientology” battle, Marildi?
I do not want to derail this discussion off onto “angels dancing on the head of a pin” type Scientology interpretations. The discussion is about toxic Ex/Anti ruts to get stuck in, and ways of coming out of them into a healthier Post-Ex kind of mindset. To the degree your point about the correct interpretation of Hubbard’s work does that, then all is good.
But let’s avoid derailment, please.
How do you work out what you were responsible for what happened to you in Scientology vs what Scientology was responsible for?
“The discussion is about toxic Ex/Anti ruts to get stuck in, and ways of coming out of them into a healthier Post-Ex kind of mindset. To the degree your point about the correct interpretation of Hubbard’s work does that, then all is good.”
I do think the false interpretations are at the root of many of the toxic ruts – probably more so than you and others think.
Be that as it may, I really appreciate your broad-minded response.
You might be right about that.
I think that may very well might end up being another factor that helps certain Exes & Antis find a resolution to their toxicity after Scientology.
It’s a good point.
Add to that everyone has “great wisdom” with hindsight. It depends on where you want to go with it.
Ha ha, the attempt to prove with a psychological checklist that whoever you don’t like is a “malignant narcissist” is EXACTLY the “toxic Ex” equivalent of the Churchie’s use of LRH’s SP checklist. It’s a tool for witch-hunting. I hope Peter Griffiths is noting that, if he laughed along when Marty was being dead-agented, it’s not so funny when you’re on the receiving end.
I think the un-knowing adoption of all the logical fallacies and labels of “narcissism” and “sociopath” after Scientology is one of the most damaging things that can happen to you as an Ex. Rachel Bernstein’s entire Cult Recovery practice seems to be based on these superstitious distortions.
A huge part of her practice seems to be about moving exes from believing in ptses and sps to believing in narcissist and sociopaths. The skills of confronting and shattering sps moves over into confronting and shattering collapsed narcissists.
There are of course such thing as malignant narcissists, our current political and economic system positively selects for them as leaders. But the diagnosis of “sociopath” is something else entirely. The idea that there are some people who are so “broken” that they will always try to destroy other people and can’t be stopped is creepily close to the old LRH note that some people should be “quietly disposed of without sorrow”.
I think that there is narcissistic behavior and there is sociopathic behavior, etc. And I think that, because of being presented with the same problems every day by one’s environment, you can develop these behaviors into habits which can persist.
But I know a couple of people very well, who, by any measure, would be classified as the most dangerous of psychopaths (one spent 15 years in federal prison in a special unit reserved for the “worst of the worst”) who today, with a complete change of his environment is not at all the person he used to be.
So I have a tendency to lump all these labels together such as “sociopath, narcissist, psychopath, Suppressive person, degraded being and of course “witch”. They are all attempts at understanding what goes on inside the heart and mind of another person. And the more those attempts try to label someone permanently, the more they fail.
They tend to be extremely self-sustaining beliefs in the believer of these beliefs about other people, as well. Even evidence which should debunk the belief gets turned around and used to confirm the belief. It’s amazing to watch.
So while I understand that a lot of very smart people believe in these things, I don’t.
Alanzo, I’m interested in knowing more about the people you knew who were labeled “dangerous psychopaths”.
Were they predators who engaged in harming people for convenience or sport?
Your excellent description of psychopath in your other post this morning does not describe the person I know best at all.
Your description shows how hysterical exes have become to call Pete Griffiths a psychopath or any of the other labels you describe.