Critical Thinking on Cults & AntiCults
The cult recovery paradigm of Ex-Scientology sets up a whole bunch of things you think you need to “recover” from because you were in Scientology. This is a dysfunctional view. Paradigms are insidious things. They … Read more
Social scientists like Eileen Barker traveled to Moonie recruitment seminars where brainwashing & mind control was claimed to be in use. They found that more than 90% of the people in those “brainwashing” seminars did not sign up to be a Moonie, and all were gone from the Moonies within 2 years.
Marty Rathbun wrote a post last September that is more relevant than ever, thanks to Indy OSA turning intelligence into Black PR.
Leah tells her powerful story about what happened to her in the Church which led to her leave Scientology – the only religion she knew for 34 years.
I am very grateful to Arnaldo for his courage in getting that website up in the early days of the Internet, keeping it up, and enduring the legal actions and fair game that the Church of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs.
Social scientists who study minority religions have observed that the main activity of the anti-cult movement is to create a moral panic around a targeted minority religion strong enough to make governments react. Members of … Read more
Tony Ortega is one of the most valuable critics of Scientology ever. But is he so biased that, over time, you can start to live in a delusional world about Scientology? I think so.
Robert Vaughn Young (RVY) was Mike Rinder’s predecessor for many years. He woke up from the spell of Scientology in the 1990’s and contributed some of the best critical writing on Scientology that exists. He died of cancer in 2003.
Jon Atack and Steven Hassan have been the Jimmy Swaggart and Billy Graham of the Anti-Cult Movement for well neigh 40 years now, and I hear they’re just about ready to get some science to … Read more
This documentary contains a very good discussion of the limits of power that people have over those who make religious and spiritual choices that others don’t like.
There are a lot of things about Scientology scriptures and OT levels that we would not have access to today on the Internet without the help of Dennis Erlich.
Angry Gay Pope tells an Ex-Scientologist what to think about their time in Scientology. This time with a major cognitive distortion.
Trying to get a sociopath like Mike Rinder to care about the violent consequences of his rhetoric is a futile exercise, as I learned, once again, the hard way.
Everyone should know the story of Gerry Armstrong. Because if it was not for Gerry Armstrong, LRH, Marty, Mike and Dave might have gotten away with the whole thing.
This is the first in a series of videos by Gerry Armstrong, the most fair-gamed person in Scientology history, to Mike Rinder. This one is dated February 18th, 2018. Here’s the 2nd, dated Feb 18th, … Read more
If you’ll read the posts below, you’ll see that many leading Ex-Scientologists and critics of the Church of Scientology, myself included, do not approve of fair game in any form. But for Mike Rinder’s minions, … Read more
Worldviews are fragile things. Don’t look at them too closely – they may collapse on you. Ex-Cult members know this better than you do.
This is the level of thought that is acceptable by those who believe in the AntiCult Movement’s ideology about minority religions. This is not critical thinking – it’s the sociological equivalent of an AntiVaxer rant.
Is Chris Shelton The Critical Thinker at Large the Stuart Smalley of Celebrity Anti-Scientology?
An ideologue is so certain of the ideology he has adopted, and the rightness of how he sees the world, that he can sneer at people, knowing how superior he is. It is a lazy way to go through life, intellectually, but if you surround yourself with people who also never question their assumptions, either, it’s easier to live that way. One of the best examples is Tony Ortega.
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.
The 19th century German philosopher Max Scheler said that an apostate was ‘engaged in a continuous chain of acts of revenge against his own spiritual past’. American sociologist Lewis Coser defined an apostate as not … Read more
There’s a point in your evolution as an Ex which is exactly like when you woke up from all the untrue things in Scientology: As an Ex, it’s that point when you wake up from all the untrue things in Anti-Scientology, as well.
The more power that you assign to subversive techniques such as “mind control” the easier it is for Ex-members to explain their membership and participation in minority religious groups after they’ve re-entered the mainstream.
Is Fair Game better when it’s applied to Scientology? Can there be an immoral equivalence when what Scientology does is then done back at them? Either you are against hypocrisy, cruelty and abuse, or you are not – no matter who does it.
To dismiss that part of your life, to wall it off under labels of “delusional Scientologist” or “weak” or “crazy loon” is to remain in a dissociative state – to continue living a fractured life with some of the best parts of you buried underneath a wall of self-hatred and shame.
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.
The human mind has certain biases which routinely, and falsely, color the perceptions of people called cognitive biases. One of the most important for a former cult member to know about is called the “hindsight bias”, or the “I knew it all along” effect.
Sociologists who study the issues surrounding minority religions have identified 3 types of stories that form a socially-constructed narrative of a leave-taker’s experience inside their former group. These types of stories are not unique to Ex-Scientology. They have been found to occur as common coins passed around by those who leave, assuming a role which sociologists call “the apostate role”.
When you look at the cosmology of Scientology from the viewpoint of social science – its rituals such as auditing, training, dissemination, and its clearly religious teachings on the thetan, the mind, and even Xenu – it is inescapable that Scientology is a religion.
If Leah Remini and Mike Rinder can help get one criminal conviction on the Church of Scientology through their “Scientology and The Aftermath” reality series, or help one lawsuit succeed against them for real injustices, … Read more
