Critical Thinking on Cults & AntiCults
Alanzo first began writing about Scientology in the mid-1980’s on the Religions & Ethics section of the GEnie Bulletin Board using a 2400 baud modem. He’s been writing about Scientology, both in and out of the subject, since then.
When Alanzo left Scientology in 1999 and became a critic of them on the Internet, Scientology sought to redefine him as a “Suppressive Person” and an overall low-life scumbag.
Since waking up a few years ago, from the tribal environment of Anti-Scientology and applying critical thinking to that, too, AntiScientologists have sought to do the same.
Alanzo has seen the tribalism that makes Scientology a cult in Anti-Scientology, too – simply at a less intense volume.
Because of his long experience both in Scientology and in Anti-Scientology, Alanzo feels a somewhat lonely & quixotic duty to be an asshole in these matters.
The following posts have been published on AlanzosBlog, and have biographical information in them.
Adopting the beliefs of the anti-cult movement dramatically changes the views and attitudes of those who experience a loss of faith. Those changes have a profound effect on how Exes make sense of their own past. So we must ask: How helpful is the ideology of the anti cult movement in making sense of your life?
I recorded my thoughts on the treatment I observed Aaron Smith-Levin getting from his Anti-Scientologist friends. From the ideologue Chris Shelton, to Tony Ortega’s demagoguery, to Leah Remini’s need to create a moral panic around Scientology – can Aaron’s intellectual honesty survive?
Alanzo has been accused of an incredible array of sins, including being an OSA Agent. But anyone who knows Allen Alanzo Stanfield knows different. Right?
Hubbard used this nocebo on Scientologists. Think about the terror this produces, the ways a person’s inner thoughts are controlled by it.
What if being a Scientologist was never a really a disease in the first place that you needed to “recover from”? What if it was just one part of your own much longer spiritual journey that taught you many important lessons, and from which you emerged stronger and wiser than ever?
How would you know?
I used to think that as long as I was not in the cult of Scientology, I would never fall into the unquestioning, partisan mindset I’d adopted when I was a Scientologist.
When I first heard Scientology stories of abuse, I became very angry. I let that anger permeate my thinking & even my self-identity. Many Exes experience this.
Allen Stanfield on Ethercat’s “Through The Door” Friday, 27th September, 2002 08:39:19pm Name or Alias: Allen Stanfield Training and/or processing level: Clear, Exec Status One, GAT Ethics Specialist, Data Series Evaluator Org or location: N/A … Read more
Leah Remini and Mike Rinder have tried to say anyone who criticizes them is a Scientologist. Because who else could criticize the holy work that they are doing?
Sitting there in that locked room, with two Scientology salespeople, I said, “Wait a minute, Tim. I got into Scientology to win at life, not to lose at it. Declaring bankruptcy is losing at life.”
Marty Rathbun wrote a post last September that is more relevant than ever, thanks to Indy OSA turning intelligence into Black PR.
As an Ex-Scientologist for 22yrs, I’ve identified the top 5 things that, over time, become the most toxic and corrosive things about being an Ex of any cult.
Max Scheler said that an apostate was ‘engaged in a continuous chain of acts of revenge against his own spiritual past’. Can you be an anti-apostate Apostate?
To dismiss that part of your life, to wall it off as “delusional” or “crazy”, is to remain in a dissociative state – to continue living a fractured life.
A Post-Ex has integrated the arguments, and “truths”, he made as a Scientologist with the arguments, and “truths”, he made as an Ex/Anti-Scientologist. He has seen the disconnects and the contradictions there, and repaired them. He no longer walks around with an opposite self inside him, with which he is at war.