"Getting out of a 'cult' is not something that you recover from, it is something you are strengthened by." -- Alanzo
On Episode 2 of Scientology and the Aftermath, we are taken through the tragic story of Taylor Tweed’s suicide. We are shown the “handlings” that Taylor’s mom tried to perform to try to “get Taylor’s ethics in”, and which now can be seen to be clearly, tragically, catastrophically, the wrong thing to do for Taylor, […]
Mike Rinder should use Season 2 of Scientology and The Aftermath to provide a Truth and Reconciliation commission on the people he has fair-gamed as the head of OSA. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
And they deserve closure. No person who is loyal and sycophantic to those who refuse to provide the information necessary to help people who have been harmed by Scientology are likely to be a credible journalistic source for those scrambling to make a buck at Scientology reporting. That’s a long sentence, but if you read […]
This is an excerpt from sociology professor Eileen Barker at the London School of Economics. A link to the full pdf is provided below. I post it because it is a different view of ‘cults’ than we are given in the standard anti-cult movement’s narrative. I think this different, more objective view is healthier for […]
The “Father of Deprogramming” Ted Patrick was a devoted Christian who believed he was doing God’s work by kidnapping people & holding them in a room & browbeating them until they denounced their faith. In 1980, he served 1 year in prison and paid a $5000 fine for kidnapping and false imprisonment. Share AlanzosBlog Far […]
2 cult stereotypes: bereft of individuality, unable to think their own thoughts, following their leaders blindly and robotically. It’s strange for an Ex to accept these stereotypes about who they used to be. Yet Exes seem to do it – almost unthinkingly & obediently. When will they begin questioning these stereotypes of minority religions? Share […]
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. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
The key characteristic of a pseudo-skeptic of Scientology is the furious and dedicated certainty of their position, and their squinting suspicion that anyone who would question them must be an OSA agent. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
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. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
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 Ehrlich. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
The Great Scientology Dissipation will continue. From the Church of Scientology to Indie Scientology to Anti-Scientology to Post Ex-Scientology, the continuing diaspora will disperse and evaporate at ever-diminishing intensities. Still no criminal activity will be reported on the Church of Scientology, as has been the case for over 30 years. David Miscavige will continue to […]
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. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
1.043 million viewers tuned in to see Season 2, Episode 7 of Leah Remini’s Scientology and the Aftermath on the A&E Network at 10pm on Tuesday night, per TV BY the Numbers. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
Is Leah preparing to jump the shark? After two missed episodes in the middle of a season, leaving the A&E Network’s Tuesday night 8pm slot with re-runs 2 weeks in a row, Aftermath returns with what appears to be more acting than ever. Leah’s hamming acting here actually does a disservice to the people she […]
As you can see, viewers for the first night viewing for Season 2 Episode 8 of Leah Remini’s Scientology and the Aftermath dropped by another 70,000 for “Lifetime of Healing”. If we are to get the federal investigation that Leah said she wanted out of Season 2, we can’t just sit around with old friends […]
Most Exes have heard about the thought-stopping cliches that kept them thinking inside a cult mindset. But do thought-stopping cliches only exist in cultic thinking? Could thought-stopping cliches be keeping you trapped in any mindset at all? Anti-Scientology has its own thought-stopping cliches. Here are the top 5. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
Truth changes. If there is anything that the experience of having gone through Scientology should teach an Ex-Scientologist, it’s that. If they quit being your friend/family just because the truth changed, then were they really your friend/family to begin with? Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
I’ve reached out to Tony Ortega via email for a comment about what kind of hatred of Christians was going through his mind, or if there was anything they did or said in the real world that set him off. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
One of the most hysterical and unscientific beliefs of the Anti-Cult movement is that “brainwashing” and “Mind Control” is at work whenever anyone becomes a member of a “cult”. These ideas are assumed and unquestioned by members of the anti-Cult Movement. They’re the basis of their anti-cult beliefs. But when asked for any study that […]
A valued contributor to this blog, Richard, said something that made me realize a whole bunch of things about Tony Ortega and his Underground Bunker, ESMB, and all the other outlets of the Anti-Scientology Mafia Network (ASMN) Richard wrote: “Classifying all people participating on the Underground Bunker as cultists seemed to have a shock effect, […]
There are some very common ways that you can become a hypocrite as an anti-Scientologist. After being an anti-Scientologist myself for so long, I have identified a few of those ways of thinking so that you can avoid being a hypocrite as an Anti-Scientologist. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
If you came upon an article on the Internet about psychiatry which made some of the same outrageous claims that the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights made, it would be an important critical thinking point to know whether the author was a Scientologist. Knowing whether the author was a Scientologist would allow you to know […]
How gullible can some Ex-Scientologists get? Jon Atack wrote a post on Tony Ortega’s blog, accusing everyone who was ever involved in Scientology of being gullible. I commented about Jon’s broad-brushed generality of anyone who ever called themselves a Scientologist. It gave me the chance to use the word “hootenanny” (twice), and I have been […]
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. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
Yesterday, Tony Ortega continued his assertions that L Ron Hubbard & Scientology endorses pedophilia. He used Sunny Pereira and Nora Crest experience in Scientology to do it. But, it turns out, Nora Crest had something to say about Tony’s exploitation of her standing in the Ex community to continue his belligerent, and false, narrative. Here’s […]
There is a claim made by many anti-Scientologists, such as Tony Ortega, Mike Rinder, Chris Shelton and others, that the Church of Scientology paid social scientists and other academics in the field of religion to alter their research and to write articles favorable to Scientology. Since objective scientific research is important to critical thinking about […]
Do you remember when you finally awoke to find yourself thinking with the Scientology mindset? You were horrified to wake up and realize that your thought patterns and emotional habits followed the Scientology ideology. And do you remember all the work you needed to do to un-condition yourself from that? And do you remember all […]
I came across this post in an on-line venue controlled by Ex & Anti-Scientologists. It pretty much stopped everyone in their tracks. I think it is well-written, extremely insightful, and deliciously heretical. Blasphemous, even. It gives a very important perspective on one aspect of what we are doing here on the Post-Scientology Internet. ********************************************** When […]
I think it is important to document the new trend among anti-Scientologists, started by Mike Rinder of Scientology and the Aftermath, of calling all Scientologists “vermin”. After doing their best to keep Scientology from opening a new organization in Ireland, and failing miserably – but stirring up a lot of hatred for Scientology there – […]
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 […]
Yesterday, in the comments section of my blog, I provided the link to a post that Marty Rathbun wrote in December of 2009 about his wordpress blog account being hacked. That post was written four months after Marty and “collero’s” email exchanges. And if Marty’s wordpress.com blog was hacked, that means the hackers got his […]
This comment appeared on Mike’s blog yesterday: Mike Rinder wrote: “So you and everyone else knows — next week is NOT a new show. Nor the week after. The next NEW SHOW IS 10 OCTOBER and it is one that is very hard to watch. There needs to be a couple of weeks respite (according […]
The video above – a tweet that is presently pinned to the top of Freedom Media and Ethics Twitter profile – features an edited snippet, taken out of context, where Marty Rathbun is discussing what went on behind the scenes with Paul Haggis, Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney and others in producing Going Clear, the book […]
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Marty brings up the promise of legal action by Mike and Leah at the end of Season 1 of Scientology & the Aftermath. Marty claims that he and Mike went to a top-tier legal firm just like Leah and Mike did in the last episode of the show. Marty says that the legal firm told […]
I’ve re-joined the fray on Twitter over the last couple of weeks. Tony Ortega is on Twitter answering questions to people about Scientology in his extremely biased way. I mean really, even Tony Ortega has to admit that he has a bias, and he writes with a bias on Scientology everyday on his blog. No […]
Here, Marty is describing a scene that appears to be an impromptu discussion in a car between Mike Rinder and Leah Remini in the final episode of Season 1 of Scientology and the Aftermath. But Marty is claiming here that it was actually a discussion in a car between Marty and Mike, in reality, 8 […]
If there is one thing to remember about Tony Ortega, it’s that even he doesn’t consider himself an unbiased, objective journalist on the subject of Scientology. This is what he says about himself: Because Tony Ortega does not label his blog properly, as all columnists would be labeled on the opinion pages of a newspaper, […]
In a recent article about ideological influences on wikipedia, Hassan writes: “The Unification Church page then disparages critics, such as myself, as incorrectly stating that the group brainwashes members. Yet, I was a member and experienced this firsthand. Sociologist Eileen Barker is a cult apologist and made her career stating the Moonies do not do […]
There is a point at which this metaphor becomes an exercise in thought-stopping: A person accepts it as an explanation for why Scientologists do what they do in the way that Larry and other anti-Scientologists describe, and that’s all you need to know. It seems to explain everything when, in fact, it explains very little. […]
Was Barney Fife an Anti-Scientologist? He sure could have been, if you listen carefully to some of the whacked-out things that some Anti-Scientologists say about Scientology when they get themselves all worked up into a lather like Barney did. Here’s just a few recent quotes from Anti-Scientologists on the subject of Scientology: “They believe a […]
For anyone not intimately familiar with Hubbard’s writing and the early history of Scientology, you should know that almost every word that Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd speaks in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is either a direct quote or a paraphrase from L Ron Hubbard. You should also know that the sequence of scenes in this […]
Eileen Vartan Barker OBE, (born 21 April 1938, Edinburgh, UK) is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution’s Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has […]
I learned that after I took down my site, I received more attempts to hack my site than I ever had in its whole existence. In fact, one hacking attempt actually worked for about an hour. It was accomplished by using confidential information that HelluvaHoax! posted on ESMB. I’m not saying HelluvaHoax!, or anyone else […]
No way, right? Ex-Scientologists Aaron Smith-Levin and Chris Shelton present information Chris gathered on his recent trip to Australia about supposed new ways that SO orgs are being run – the greatest sources of abuse in Scientology by far. Chris doesn’t say where his information comes from but it’s interesting information to think about, nonetheless. […]
If you’ve written enough screenplays, you learn that the main difference between the good guy and the bad guy in a movie is that for one, you know his motives for the actions he takes in the story, and for the other, you don’t. Good guys can kill people, blow up cars and bridges – […]
As an hysterical anti-Scientology troll, Tony Ortega is loving the present environment. It’s an environment where, once any accusation has been made, it must be true. Even the position of “I don’t know – I wasn’t there” means you are violating the accuser and raping them again. So, in this environment, Tony’s business of creating […]
For the second time in many months, I personally, and politely, asked Marty Rathbun how that email ended up in the hands of Scientology attorneys, and in court against Dani Lemberger. I told him that if I only knew the answer to this, that I could assist him in getting his answer out to others, […]
This happened this morning: RandomSP • 2 hours ago O/T but speaking of the right to be forgotten… Or, more correctly, “the right to forget”… I am taking my leave of the Bunker and of all things Scientology. I am exercising my right to forget Scientology as regards reading about it, following the doings, etc. […]
Despite his obvious and often unhinged bias against Scientology, Tony Ortega sometimes displays enough intellectual honesty to redeem himself as a journalist who wants to be taken seriously. I’ve been reading and re-reading his recent series of articles on the unlicensed mental care facility set up by Scientologists in the back woods of Tennessee. And […]
This begins a new weekly feature here on AlanzosBlog. Heresy, means “to choose”. Labeling certain ideas as heresy has been going on for a couple of thousand years now. What’s so great about heresy is that it forces scrutiny of assumptions that too often remain hidden and unexamined. The consideration of heresy and heretical questions was what […]
Tony Ortega’s charge, that the Church of Scientology has so much political power that it can shut down a FBI probe into human trafficking at its international headquarters, is quite a claim. It’s a claim that Ortega makes over and over, and it gets repeated by his followers over and over, as well. But I […]
Here’s the text of her post: “Hi- Rachel Bernstein here. None of that is true. If you ever have questions about anyway that I practice, or what I charge, or if I take insurance, just contact me. I have been doing this work for 26 years and there is no way that I would have […]
Place any Escape stories, Capture stories, or Atrocity stories you have heard or told yourself and others about Scientology in the comments below. Share AlanzosBlog Far and Wide
Alanzo was a Scientologist for 16 years.
He reached the state of "Clear" and was on staff as an Executive Director and Course Supervisor in Scientology missions in the Midwest and Los Angeles.
When Alanzo had experienced enough in Scientology to see the extent to which he had been deceived, he left and immediately began speaking out on the Internet to expose its lies and abuse. Alanzo first began speaking out against Scientology on the Internet as "Poopsy Charmichael" in the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup in the late 1990's.
As the main Internet battleground between the Church and its critics, ARS soon became too negative and so Alanzo moved to Beliefnet.com and elsewhere on the Internet to engage with actual Scientologists, providing them with the information they needed to make informed decisions about their own involvement in Scientology. He spent many years in the early to mid 2000s presenting Scientologists with LRH's real biography & other information that the Church had been hiding from them. Alanzo saw many Scientologists "wake up" around the Internet, after finally getting the information they needed.
In January/February of 2007, Alanzo then moved to the brand new Ex-Scientologists Message Board (ESMB), where Exes were gathering to tell their stories in Scientology. From there, Alanzo witnessed the rise of Anonymous, and was in attendance when Marty Rathbun, in the summer of 2009, kicked the hornet's nest with his announcement that he had started up his new website, and thus the great 2nd Exodus of Independents had begun.
Alanzo found more Scientologists to engage on Marty's website in the Independent movement. Also, Alanzo spent a few years at Geir Isene's blog, where he engaged many very intelligent and free thinking Scientologists and Exes who had retained constructive and positive views of their time in Scientology. This influenced Alanzo greatly by reminding him of things that he had conveniently forgotten about himself and his time in Scientology while becoming an "Anti-Scientology critic".
Then, an unknown critic emerged onto the scene from the Village Voice, Tony Ortega. Alanzo posted often to the Underground Bunker and was one of its most frequently upvoted Anti-Scientology critics there.
That's where Alanzo was exposed to more "never-in" critics of Scientology he'd seen yet on the Internet. And with its mix of the cruelty of Anonymous and the disrespect and disgust for Scientologists, Alanzo began to see tribal behavior that was very reminiscent of the worst of the Sea Org. When Tony Ortega repeatedly went after a woman, a Scientologist whose daughter had committed suicide, he saw the cruelty that all those anti-Scientologsts whipped up in each other. This caused Alanzo to have yet another turning point.
He realized that the deeper he became involved in the Anti-Cult/Anti-Scientology Movement, the more he began to notice very similar tribal behavior to the most fanatical of Scientologists. Alanzo saw a rise of some of the same tribalism from Anti-Scientologists that he was trying to escape by getting himself out of Scientology.
It was like being stuck in a nightmare, and after finally wrenching yourself awake, you're relieved to have escaped that nightmare - only to realize that the nightmare is still going on! ☺
That's when Alanzo began applying the same critical thinking skills to the underlying beliefs of Anti-Scientology that he had earlier applied to Scientology. And that's when his anti-Scientology mindset collapsed on Alanzo, just like his Scientology mindset had collapsed on him so long ago.
And this is where Alanzo is today - applying basic skepticism to both Scientology and anti-Scientology beliefs. He has come to realize that this position of skepticism toward both Scientology & Anti-Scientology is the only sustainable view.
Alanzo's experience of the previous 18 years has led him to conclude that, as long as you continue to think critically and you remain loyal to the truth instead of any person or group, getting out of a 'cult' is not something that you recover from, it is something that you are strengthened by.Alanzo's purpose is to provide the information necessary for people to make informed decisions about Scientology & Anti-Scientology.
