New Category of Post on AlanzosBlog – Lessons for Never Ins

Leah Remini and her Celebrity Anti-Scientology has brought in a huge number of good-hearted people who were Never In Scientology, and who have heard many shocking stories, feeling a sincere and humanitarian need to help. She has corralled Never Ins into private Facebook groups and heavily controlled the information they are allowed to be exposed to, and allowed to discuss there.

Some Never Ins have even started up blogs and Facebook groups themselves, believing things they were told such as “LRH was a pedophile” and other – to put it mildly – strange interpretations of the daily lives of Scientologists, and the customs and behaviors of their fellow group members, controlled by Scientology technology and policy.

I was a Scientologist for 16 years, from 1984 (age 23) to 1999-2000 (age 40) in Illinois and Los Angeles. I made it to “OT Preps” on the auditing side of Scientology and about 3/4s through the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course (props if you know what any of that means) And I spent 7.5 years working in missions of Scientology in Illinois and Los Angeles. I’ve also worked as Executive Director and Course Supervisor in 3 missions in those locations for a total of 7.5 years.

And now – for the lightening round: I’ve completed the Data Series Evaluator’s Course, Executive Status One, the PTS/SP Course (twice), the Ethics Specialist Course, the E-meter Course, and the Scientology Minister’s Course.

Yes. I was an Ordained Scientology Minister.

When I had enough experience to see the degree I’d been lied to, and saw and experienced the abuse and criminality flowing down from the Sea Org leadership, I left in 1999-2000 to fight Scientology on the Internet.

I was a very hard-core Anti-Scientologist for around 15 years. Then I began to see the same tribal abuses, the same types of distorted and superstitious claims in Anti-Scientology as I’d seen in Scientology.

So, just like my re-examination of my beliefs in Scientology led me to dump that ideology, so did my experience and re-examination of my Anti-Scientology/Anti-Cultist beliefs lead me to leave Anti-Scientology, and anti-Cultism ideology in general.

Obviously, I’m a slow learner.

Alanzo is a Suppressive Person AND An OSA Agent!

For the last 8 years I’ve been out of Scientology and Anti-Scientology, critically examining both.

Scientologists think of me a “Suppressive Person”. And since leaving anticultism, Anti-Scientologists think I’m an “OSA Agent”. These two fictitious labels serve the same function for each in-group: “Do not listen to him, he is just an enemy here to destroy us all.”

Scientologists are controlled by labeling me an SP, and Anti-Scientologists are controlled by labeling me an “OSA Agent”.

What’s hilarious – from my viewpoint of writing about Scientology for 40 years now – IT’S THE SAME PEOPLE ENFORCING BOTH LABELS ON ME.

Getting Out of Scientology and Anti-Scientology Has Taught Me a Lot

One should pursue the truth over any tribe.

Getting out of Scientology taught me that, and I have the scars to remind me. Getting out of Anti-Scientology has re-enforced that lesson for me, and the new scars I received there will ensure I’ll never forget it.

My purpose is, and always has been as a writer in this space, to provide the information necessary for people to make informed decisions about their involvement in Scientology and in Anti-Scientology. I have always, simply, tried to get people to think.

It doesn’t mean you should believe me, or even agree with me at all. Just consider the information I have – even for just a little while. Because with my experience in both Scientology and anti-Scientology, I guarantee it has value.

But you’ll be the judge of that.

How Ideologies Take Hold of the Human Mind

My fascination these days is my suspicion about ideologies and their effects on the human mind. It doesn’t matter whether the ideology is Scientology, Atheism, Christianity, Communism, Buddhism, Democratic Partyism or Republican Partyism: Once you adopt an ideology to use to make sense of the world, it starts to do all your thinking for you.

That’s how you get trapped.

The way out of becoming trapped in any ideology is to learn to identify the claims you’ve accepted without evidence, the assumptions you hold without inspection, and your own emotional reasons for holding on to the beliefs you have. (Shout out to Socrates, Plato & Aristotle![And Michael Shermer])

The hardest thing for a human being to do is to understand someone else’s cult. Some Never Ins have been given the impression, as a way of manipulating them, that you don’t need to understand anything about Scientology, you just need to know that it’s BAD and that people are being ABUSED.

Actually, people have been murdered. But for some reason, you never hear that from Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, or the rest of Celebrity Anti-Scientology. It’s incredibly odd. Before Leah Remini & Mike Rinder came along – all critics of Scientology knew about the murders. Now, almost none of them do.

Like I say – very odd.

So this category of posts on AlanzosBlog is targeted for Never Ins – to get you to think, to get you to argue, to get you to criticize. To get you to examine the claims you’ve accepted, to inspect your own assumptions, to explore the emotional reasons you hold the beliefs you have, and to break up any fixed or habitual thought patterns which come from any ideologies you’ve swallowed which have begun to do all your thinking for you in the area of Scientology.

So, ya know, Don Quixote’s got nothin on me.

Trash me in the comments if you feel like it. Everyone else does.

To All Never Ins: Welcome to AlanzosBlog.