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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.
Many people say they seek the truth. I think some genuinely do. But the real test comes when you find a truth you don’t like. Your choices and behavior afterwards defines who you are. Are you willing to accept uncomfortable truths or live in the safety of denial?
Excellent comment, Mercy.
All of the Ex-Scientologists you see on the Internet were faced with this moral dilemma that you described. They all had family, friends, business contacts – a life they’d built as a Scientologist. Then they were presented with a truth they didn’t like. They knew this truth would destroy their lives.
They were faced with a test of their character.
And the Exes you see with youtube channels, etc all passed that test of character, in my opinion.
But, the problem is that “the hits just keep on comin” as Tom Cruise would say. That test of character of truths you don’t like just keeps coming at you – especially in the world of Cults & AntiCults, Scientology & Anti-Scientology.
I’ve found that a lot of Exes just want a group of friends again. They’ve already destroyed their lives once and they aren’t gonna do it again.
Alanzo
Understandable.
I have never been in a religious cult. While I have had my own difficulties I can’t know what the experience is really like no matter how sympathetic I’d like to be. I would like to believe most of the never-ins have good intentions. However, innate human behavior can override the best of intentions.
Also, the need to have a tribe can cancel out common sense and basic humanity.
I have had the experience of having my life completely torn apart more than once by a truth bomb. Rebuilding is not for the faint if heart, particularly when it involves reliving trauma.
My concern is this drama being viewed as entertainment, with people choosing teams while those in need are caught in the crossfires.
I don’t think I can do much to help. And I don’t know if watching former scientologists’ videos or reading their books is helping or contributing to an increasingly disturbing fandom.
And I don’t know if watching former scientologists’ videos or reading their books is helping or contributing to an increasingly disturbing fandom.
I can tell you that, as an Ex-Scientologist, when you are interested in clicks and views and superchats from your YouTube channel, you get stuck.
You can’t keep learning. You have stay right where your audience wants you, and keep delivering the red meat they tune in for.
Should you realize that every scientific study ever done on ‘brainwashing’, since the late 1940’s, have all concluded that there is no “Cult Leader’s Playbook” of techniques that can be applied to make you believe something you don’t want to believe – and you want to tell the truth – your YouTube show goes to hell.
Plenty of people believe in brainwashing, just as plenty of people believe in witchcraft. But when science studies the POWER of all those spells and incantations, they find nothing changed.
Same with brainwashing.
People want to be creeped out by a “cult”. They want an explanation for all the kooky beliefs people have in minority religions. They want to know why believe people differently than they do. So they believe in the universal superstition of brainwashing.
But for an Ex, if you tell yourself that the reasons you made the decisions you made was because you were “brainwashed”, it’s incredibly damaging.
Then, when you put that on a Youtube channel where you get sympathy for this excuse of yours, you’re fucked. You’re like a little circus animal parading around getting peanuts and popcorn thrown at them, covered in sympathy by the gushing crowd.
People choose to join minority religions. They choose to stay in a minority religion. And then they choose to leave when they decide it is no longer working for them.
That truth makes for a REALLY BORING YouTube channel.
So as an Ex with a Youtube channel, you can’t ever go there.
Alanzo