What Is Wrong With Scientology?
The Scientology Reformation
Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior
What a Wonderful World
Archives
Search this site:
-
Recent Posts:
Categories
- A Course In Miracles
- acknowledgments
- alaska
- anonymous
- Arizona
- australia
- Author Services Inc (ASI)
- black dianetics
- Buddha
- Budha
- canada
- Casablanca
- celebrities
- cover up
- David Miscavige
- David R. Hawkins
- Debbie Cook
- Deconstructing Scientology
- disconnection
- east grinstead
- ethics
- events
- FLAG
- france
- freewinds
- Fritjof Capra
- germany
- golden age of tech
- Graduating from Scientology
- haiti
- harassment
- healing
- Hinduism
- ias
- independents
- int base
- Integral Theory
- Israel
- italy
- jason beghe
- Jesus
- John Travolta
- justice
- Ken Wilber
- l. ron hubbard
- las vegas
- Lawrence Wright
- Leah Remini
- legal threats
- los angeles
- malcolm x
- Mark Rathbun
- martin luther king
- Marty Rathbun
- Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior
- mexico
- miscavige crimes
- miscavige lawyers
- missions
- Monique Banks Rathbun
- monique rathbun
- Mosey Rathbun
- naconon
- narconon
- nazanin boniadi
- office of special affairs
- Orange County
- Orgs
- ot 8
- ot ambassadors
- Paul Haggis
- philosophy
- PI reports
- policy
- politics
- propaganda
- psychs
- quotations
- regging
- Scientology
- squirreling
- Super Ponzi
- Taiwan
- Tao Te Ching
- tech
- tech alterations
- texas
- The Enemy Formula
- the future
- the Reformation
- The Tao Of Physics
- the world
- Tom Cruise
- Toronto
- training
- UK
- Uncategorized
- Viktor Frankl
- What Is Wrong With Scientology?
- wins
- Zen
statcounter
Meta
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Well, that’s interesting. I had thought at the beginning of your videos that Karen de la C. would be one of the troika. I don’t know her, but from what I’ve read elsewhere , I had thought that Now I’m wondering who is/are using the troika and pulling their strings?
Uh, Marty, what you are saying about the ASC is EXACTLY AND PRECISELY what the Church of Scientology does to anybody who speaks out about abuses in the Church. Or have you forgotten the 400+ days the Squirrel Busters made your and Mosey’s life a living nightmare? Come on, man, this is not a good look for you.
I hadn’t thought of that, Val. Why does there necessarily have to be someone using them and pulling their strings?
He already explained that (without naming names). Follow the money. It’s the same with all media. And politics. Honest journalists and politicians are a rare breed, if not extinct.
Very good to know how the money now flows in the anti-Scientology world. When I joined in 1972, I never thought I would be watching about the current situation. My own money flowed INTO Scientology for a very long time.
dankoon: “Uh, Marty, what you are saying about the ASC is EXACTLY AND PRECISELY what the Church of Scientology does to anybody who speaks out about abuses in the Church.”
But we know that the church lies about people who speak out, such as claiming they were kicked out rather than blew or left at their own request. As far as I can see, Marty is making true statements about the ASC. If you disagree, can you be more specific?
Correction: “true” should be “explicit.” I have no way of knowing if these things are true or not, but they are explicit enough to dispute, as opposed to their being generalities.
I named the Troika — to myself. As soon as I heard Mark say it.
Sadly, all three are unable to see themselves, as themselves.
Following a buddhist line of thought with a history dating back to the meditation master Atisha circa 900 CE. There is a series of 59 mind training slogans which are useful in their brevity to remember yet exceptionally difficult to actualize and can take a lifetime.
Number 44 comes to mind with the troika.
“Train in the three difficulties.
1) To recognize your neurosis as neurosis
2) then not to do the habitual thing, but to do something different to interrupt the neurotic habit, and
3) to make this practice a way of life.”
Something I’ve found a great deal easier to think about and to type about than to practice. BUT I keep working on it.
Sadly, I know many people personally from early days who’ve lost loved ones for a myriad of reasons. There is always SOME truth in tabloid reporting. Always. The troika feeds on this.
Good news never sells papers nor fills a colosseum.
None of this is new. We haven’t been a very gentile, kind or honest species — our evolution didn’t allow for that eons ago.
We now have that opportunity, I believe.
Which is why I never give up. Ever. Why I have lots of young friends who have vast visions AND are putting their visions into the world.
I also refuse to engage with those who would drag my own spiritual life down.
Make no mistake. The troika is not interested in your spiritual life – whatever it might be. They have their own self-serving interests first and foremost. I know. Two of the three showed me who their were years ago.
Windhorse
Who, and why, is anyone putting up the money?
I’ve asked Mike a couple times about money. He’s said he ‘Doesn’t make a dime from his blog’, or similar statements. I didn’t understand why he would do the same thing on his blog, every day for years. I felt that type of behavior was consistent with someone who is being paid to do something.
Also, a “troika” is a carriage pulled by 3 horses. A driver holds the reins.
Ditto. On the one hand, there are a number of folks in the ex community (not necessarily in the ASC) who are churned up and are sure you sold out. On the other hand, and this is the view I take, you didn’t sell out, but you have a bug up your butt about this and feel the need to vent – but I really don’t know why. I honestly can’t see you joining forces with Miscavige again – and anyway, if you were, this site and your books would be taken off-line. But everything is still here.
You said flat-out that you would never sell out.
You also said flat-out that the church was dead.
You also said flat-out that you would not recommend people study Scn, after evolving away from being Independent in 2010-ish.
Much of what you are distilling here jibes with your take all along – Tony, the fact that we shouldn’t depend on the Feds to correct the church (which I believe was around the FBI interview period).
But I am really concerned about airing confidences or private conversations. Haggis, Rinder, Remini, others.
Why does it have to be a cussing war, man? Who cares what stories people tell, really? One thing I learned through this process of being out myself is that Scientology attracted the fringe of society, except for the kids who were born into it. You have to already have a screw loose, or have a wildly different point of view to even take up Scientology in the first place, unless you were using it to forward your career, maybe, as in the Arts, or as a tool chest with the deeper aspects of it, such as Whole Track, ignored. But basically, everyone I knew and was friends with in Scientology and found a spiritual home there were there because they did _not_ find answers in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or the other “mainstream” schools of thought. So, by definition, they were and are odd – odd men and women out. And what they experienced in Scientology was very different from other members depending on where they were and which route they took (public, staff, SO) when they were in. Therefore, there is no _one_ correct narrative of Scientology.
Now, I agree with you there is an Anti-Scientology Cult. It’s outcroppings are at the Bunker, esmb, and various Facebook groups. Personally, each time I visit and comment about anything positive about _any_ aspect of Scientology (on esmb and the bunker, anyway) two things happen: I am shouted down and ridiculed, along with the ad hominems that come with that, and I am also automatically labeled OSA or a shill for the church. The Facebook groups are different because people know me there – but they do not cotton to _any_ positive comments about Scientology regardless. But I don’t care – because I know them and their stories, for the most part, and I know that they, like all of us, are on their own journeys. These people have lost people – a mother’s son died while in custody of church members, others have had family disconnect from them just because they disagree with the church, let alone Scientology as a subject. Others were locked in chain lockers or were “gang-bang” sec checked. Etc, etc. And many of them, like you, contributed to the insanity that was the church when they were in, so there’s guilt, most unresolved, that lies underneath their pain. Fringe people, with legitimate pain. Of course they are bitter, and of course many of them will be vocal about the pain, and many will reject ALL of the experience and Scientology, even though, in my opinion, the complete rejection is unwarranted. But their experience is greater than the whole, in their world, and so they reject rather than try to glean truth from BS. It all becomes BS.
I have many good friends I have made since leaving the church, and frankly, none of them care at all about Scientology and the goings on about it, other than as a momentary curiosity about this little weird cult. They just don’t care, not because they are not caring people, but because in the overall scheme of things, it is just an eddy in the stream of life, and one that is out-of-the-way and completely unrelated to their experiences.
One thing I have also learned about the ex community is that despite the differences of opinions and the differences of experiences while in, and the disagreements about what is and what is bad about Scientology, you can make and keep friends in this world. Just as I have friends who are born-again Christians who are sure I’m going to Hell, and friends who are atheists who feel it is _all_ a crock of shit.
Mark, you have friends, even if you don’t agree with each other. Cuss, man, no one believes what I believe, but I still get along with people who disagree. We really don’t have to be at war with them, especially a fringe of the fringe that is the ASC. The impact, I am afraid to say, is minimal, but even if it was great, we can still doff our caps to each other while we do what we do.
Frankly, I would love to see another video with you and Rinder fishing. This would be a great cap to all of this.
Wonderful, Windhorse. Are you familiar with “The Work” of Byron Katie? I think you might really dig her. She is married to Stephen Mitchell of Tao Te Ching and Bhagavad Gita translation fame. However, far from being a student of such things, she had a spontaneous enlightenment experience after really hitting a deep rock bottom of depression. What she calls The Work sprang from that. It is also called The 4 Questions. She has a great audiobook titled “Your Inner Awakening: 4 Questions that will transform your life”, and a book titled “Loving What Is”. She goes through step by step guiding people on using the 4 questions, in all her books.
Your description of the Buddhist Number 44 brought her to mind.
Highly recommended, IMHO.
Chris, like a certain POTUS, Mike is unlikely to post his tax returns for our inspection. This could indicate something to hide.
Apparently Mike Rinder has responded to Mark’s most recent video “Leah and Her Troublemakers”
Although lauded by those who post on his blog for taking the high road — I find he indeed took the road which is hardly the high road but an age old road of calling someone CRAZY.
More gentile words of course by Mike of course but the essence is the same. Mike mentions that Mark needs therapy for his delusions.
Many, by their own comments over the years on the blogs, have sought and found mental health therapy, including drugs. This apparently helped them with all manner of difficulties.
I am happy for them. Leaving a fixed mind-set is difficult, to the extreme. Re-wiring ones default mind-set is hard hard work.
I don’t dispute that psychotherapy or psychiatry might indeed have been extremely helpful. Anything that enables a person to sleep better, stop obsessing over the past and start being able to forge ahead is usually a good thing. Putting the pieces of a shattered life back together is a good thing — UNLESS it is forged with a pain of others.
That is never a good thing.
Calling someone delusional and crazy is never helpful nor a good thing. It’s a cheap shot.
The extreme name calling and projection and assumptions on all of the blogs is what drove me to silence and to stop reading them about a month ago.
And I stopped posting on Mike Rinder’s blog at least 6 months ago if not more.
I’ve never posted on Ortega’s blog.
I only went back to take a look at Ortega’s blog when someone called me asking what I thought of what is going on.
I said — don’t know. Can’t guess. I just know that Mark during an extremely hard time in my life a few years ago was kind and helpful and asked NOTHING in return. Nothing.
And I continued to say to the person who called me — there are a couple of folks that I’ve told you over the past 2 years I don’t trust. And voiced why.
We all have to discern and ultimately figure out things for ourselves with as much wisdom and compassion as we can muster.
I wish for all of you some peace and calmness in your own minds. And I wish the same for myself. I am not above any of you. Nor do I pretend to be. I’m making my way during a very confusing time for all of us on earth and pray IN MY OWN FASHION that I live to see tomorrow and a few more years after that. And the same for each of you.
Windhorse
It appears to me self-evident that the “asc” is a group that is promoting a particular narrative about scientology/the Church of Scientology, just as, for instance, the CoS promotes a certain narrative about Psychiatry. Can you somehow dispute that?
There are obvious kernels of truth and fact on all sides, the question is how they are spun. For example, I was working in psychiatry back in the 1970s, and at that time it was quite clear some of CCHR’s criticisms of psychiatry as an industry were spot on.
The problem usually is, in narratives, is they develop into narrow stories that exclude a lot in order to focus on furthering some agenda.
I think Marty is simply trying to point that out vis-a-vis “Going Clear”, nothing more.
Great Job Marty
I got the idea from the video that there are a lot of different people putting up the money. In any case, if someone in particular was behind it, what do you think their purpose would be?
I feel sorry for Mike Rinder.
He seems so lost, always standing in the shadow of someone else. He copies others. His blog is a copy of Ortega’s. Ortega: Sunday funnies, Rinder: Thursday funnies.
A nobody who looks for guidance.
Thank you. I am very familiar with Stephen Mitchell but not at all familiar with his wife – Bryon Katie. I will definitely look her up. Fast google search shows she has quite a lot to offer.
Windhorse
If Rinder doesn’t make a dime, why not taking his begging for donations off?
Grasshopper: “Why does it have to be a cussing war, man? Who cares what stories people tell, really?”
I’ll repeat what I wrote on Mike’s blog today, in reply to one thing he said in his blog post: “And I still don’t have any information that sheds light on WHY he is doing what he is doing.”
Leaving aside for the moment what Marty got right or wrong with regard to facts, what I get as the reason for what he’s doing is that he sees anti-Scientologists as adhering to a narrative of only forwarding the negative, and even embellishing it, while discounting any positive – and that he feels the media and documentaries in general also forward a particular narrative. The latter has been Marty’s theme for a number of blog posts over at least the past year, and I think his ultimate purpose is to shine light on that, rather than on Scientology in particular, which he uses as a clear example of it.
Hello,Marildi.
Seems you’re working on your Karma and you want peace as Alonzo wants it too….:)
To help build up a Monster and while taking down the Monster, you inadvertently helped to build a new “Monster”, that you want to take down now.
I can’t fully agree about the way you do it. But what do I know ?
I’m pretty sure you have this in mind and will finally succeed.. If ist not as I see it, I’ll call myself the “biggest fool” on planet Earth.
All those People should Focus onto the real Problem there is in our civilization with “Religious Freedoms”, many organisations are misusing those freedoms and are making lots of Money with it.
Keep up your reading. I so wish the top leaders of Scientology had been sent back to college/universities, as part of their “staff hatting” and gotten more educated.
Your main contributions in your decades in the movement, ought be laid out in sequence, and you could easily write more books on the highlights and explain in more detail, like an ex Scientology official memoir.
I feel like a fortune cookie, sorry. But even review your own books again and the years since you left.
Not everyone was in your position and did what you did, so for posterity, neaten it up, summarize what you think would be the all time lessons from your life, and read more.
Or just enjoy life for a stretch, take a break.
You don’t have to control any misconceptions you think are swirling around.
I am a fortune cookie, sorry. But your life was pretty unusual and unique, so see how that ought be written up for posterity.
Further, if any rich observers of this whole Scientology saga are willing, some sort of university grant ought be set up, for further education/writing periods from ex long term leaders and people in the movement, so they can do some adult education and then write anything from their long careers in the movement.
Or if anyone reading this knows of that path of getting university grants, so those willing movement people can go do some study and writing.
“Mike mentions that Mark needs therapy for his delusions.”
Mr. Hubbard has probably been diagnosed on the blogs at some time with every possible clinical diagnosis from aberrated to xenophobic. (I don’t know if there is a diagnosis starting with Z – lol)
Marty is probably catching up. He’s probably used to it by now.
Hi marildi, I saw your post on Mike’s blog. What impressed me is how quickly they circled the ad hom wagons as soon as you appeared. Mike actually sounded angry that you were even posting there. It was really sounding like Ortega’s blog, with many of the same characters posting. They sure draw the lines very distinctly – “You’re either fer us, or agin’ us!” Just to make sure, someone throws in a slur at Oracle, etc.
Andy Noltch has a new (to me) video out. I thought about posting the link on Mike’s blog, but haven’t done so yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01HFypUOf24&feature=youtu.be
Mike not only sounded angry that I was posting there but that I had said something that might give some understanding of Marty’s purposes – which wasn’t how Mike wants Marty’s purposes to be seen.
This morning I tried to respond to one of the posters who had piled on and it was moderated out. Even if Mike sincerely wants to help people who have lost family members, he is going about it in all the ways he criticizes the church for. Here’s what was moderated out:
marildi says
June 21, 2017 at 1:42 pm
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
ThetaClear: “Rathbun is not only betraying his friends, he is betraying the Human Rights. He is betraying those families that had suffered so much due to their connection to Scn. He is betraying the basic goodness of men and women.”
Then why did you post this comment on the “Leah Remini and her Troublemakers” thread:
ThetaClear | June 20, 2017 at 7:38 pm | Reply
Great Job Marty
Understood – but Mark, while he is doing this – looks like he is trolling either us or them. The videos look like they could be OSA videos, which of course sets up the A=A=A and stokes the fires of “Traitor!” and “Flipped!” which is definitely being bandied about now in the ASC world. It has to be on purpose, right? But it would be nice if Mark just clarifies the reasoning.
Hello, Mark. Aren’t you going to weigh in?
Yes, I think you’re right Grasshopper. I think he is trolling them, or more specifically TO and his bunch, and possibly that goes back to they way went after him and Mosey when Mosey dropped the lawsuit. They acted as though he was betraying and insulting them by dropping the lawsuit! There’s not a one in the whole bunch that is willing to say “I don’t know” and live and let live. As a group, most of them are always on a sanctimonious high horse. I feel a bit sorry for Mike, he is pretty decent and sticks to what he sees and knows pretty much. He has that much integrity, unlike many of the others. I don’t know how he can stand to let some of them post on his blog. They are embarrassing. But I guess he figures it’s for the “greater good”.
Seems sensible so far. Need to listen to part 2. Been researching Mental Machinery, Entities and the GE for awhile. Big subject. They are directly related. Writing a couple if tech papers on it. Got a few guinea pigs helping to do the research. You doing well? Mark
I just looked at the youtube video on youtube to notice 121 thumbs down votes on the revelations about Tony Ortega’s history. Sadistic disregard for the victims of Backpage. If you want an accurate response to Tony Ortega’s history at the Village Voice, go to Twitter and search for @iamjanedoefilm to see the comments posted there. I have forwarded this video to several people working with Senator Portman and lawyers for the families. Legislation has swept across America in the last six months to address this cancer that has been unleashed upon society. At a cost of billions now to taxpayers. This is the usual reaction to the circumstances. Not a thumbs down vote. Repelling.
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/reports
http://sharedhope.org/what-we-do/bring-justice/
http://www.iamjanedoefilm.com
Windhorse, I’ve appreciated all your posts, here and the ones on the previous thread. I’m sure the transcendent approach is ultimately the best. At the same time, I can’t help but believe that it’s sometimes necessary to take more direct and immediate action. Even Jesus did so when he became furious with the moneylenders and got violent (at least with the furniture). Just a thought.
Grasshopper, I just recently had exactly that experience on Mike’s blog. I was piled on by 3 of the “MAAs” that spend some time commenting there, after I made a couple of pointed comments. They made me stand in a 50 gallon drum while they poured freezing cold water on me and denounced me as a “fundamentalist” and a “troll”. I will confess my crimes here – to a small extent I was trolling. But my post was addressed to Mike and he did respond more rationally, if a bit angrily that I was asking the question at all. I think someone is scripting his blog now, and he does not have full control anymore. It would appear that the asc, like the Soviet Union of the past, can be inferred to be doing what it accuses others of doing. Thus Marty is getting pilloried on those sites.
I can’t believe that you felt for it, Marildi. Someone was trying to post as me, but I ASSURE you that I never made that comment. I thought that you was smarter than this. What a shame, 😦
“Someone was trying to post as me…”
The term “theta clear” is well known to former Scientologists, and anybody could have thought of using it in some form without knowing it was being used by someone else on another blog. The form the poster here used was with a captial “C” (ThetaClear).
I already figured this out and said so on another thread, in an exchange with iamvalkov, but I’m not surprised that you haven’t. You choose to see things through the lens of the ASC narrative – just as you did in your comment about “Rathbun” that I quoted above. Simplistic ASC group think.
I no longer feel comfortable about the “ASC narrative”, but don’t interpret this as meaning that I necessarily agree 100% with your viewpoints or Rathbun’s. There might be some points of agreement, but there are also lots of points of disagreement.
Fair enough.
Thanks! 🙂
Scientology Elder Abuse Part 2 – The Escape