The following is from a special guest who is sitting in limbo within the corporate Scientology community. Scientologist X provides a bird’s eye, real time view of what is like to begin questioning the contradictions within.
WHAT I KNOW
I’m a third generation Scientologist. I am not ready to “come out”.
I don’t want to abandon my religion. I want to heal it. Because of
that I’ve asked Marty to leave out my identifying details.
At the age of fifteen I was a Golden Age of Tech trained Class V
Auditor. I completed my entire Basics B+L series in record time
immediately following their release. My parents have been in
Scientology from its most formative stages. My sister is OT _____,
_____ C/S. My brother has been a staff member since he was fourteen.
He personally helped establish the __________ and has manned it ever
since, working in various capacities as a ____, ____, ____, etc. As
my personal EO, he is probably at his wit’s end right now, reading
this. This letter is going to rip his heart in half. Before I rush
headlong any further down this terrifying path, I want to take a
minute to say to everyone in my family: I love you. Please don’t stop
loving me. :’ (
I’m writing because I have noticed some changes in the church’s
methods of operation, and these changes make me very uncertain and
uncomfortable. I don’t know and can’t say who or what is responsible
for these changes. I’m not going to say it’s David Miscavage because
I’ve never even met the guy. I’ve only seen him once: on the
Freewinds in 2001 when he walked around a corner and almost ran into
me. He was surrounded by a team of juniors so it’s actually more
accurate to say that seven or eight people almost walked into me. It
wasn’t their fault, it was mine. I was reading while walking through
the A deck hallways and didn’t hear or see them approaching. At the
time I remember being impressed with COB, both with his enormous
presence and energy, and his short stature. I never worked at Int,
and I never had friends who were uplines that high. So I don’t have
any concrete evidence either for or against the charges of him being a
raving lunatic who beats his subordinates. Since I don’t have any
evidence about that stuff, let’s just set it aside. Here’s what I
want to talk about: what I do know. What I do know is that I
personally have witnessed changes, and I’m talking about things I’ve
seen with my own eyes, and I am not being allowed to inquire about
these changes.
I’m an auditor. I don’t like being told not to communicate.
So I guess this is an exploratory letter to “the other side” to
attempt to gain some clarity, since the “good side” refuses to answer
any of my burning questions. I’m just going to try to tackle these
“things that shouldn’t be” one at a time.
WHO IS CREATING INSTABILITY WITH BLANKET ISSUES OF “NOT CLEAR”?
It started as a trickle and swelled to a waterfall. I watched as over
the course of a year, then two, then three, nearly every adult role
model in my life went pale with dread and said they were being called
to Flag to get a “review”–which always, inevitably, ended in them
being told they were not actually Clear the first time (or in MANY
CASES, second, or third times). They then had to stay for financially
devastating, emotionally harrowing weeks of high, gleeful ups and
excruciating downs. These reviews and re-auditing actions were very
expensive (plane tickets, accomos, multiple meals a day, not working
and earning money while being away) such that upon returning, rather
than looking glowing and shiny, they looked (to me) rather anxious.
They would be defeatist and defeatED over finances for months
afterward, just trying to recover. The very worst part of all of this
is that on separate occasions, two of these adult mentors confided to
me that after everything, they had been told after a long period of
re-auditing that **actually** their Clear cancellations had been a
mistake–that they WERE Clear the whole time. This created enormous
ridges. Who is creating ridges?
WHO IS STRIPPING ORGS OF THE RIGHT TO DELIVER?
CCRD: who has the rights to deliver it? The Bridge says one thing,
and obviously we aren’t doing what it says. Look at the Grade Chart.
I have asked supes multiple times, pointing my finger and banging on
the Grade Chart that is posted in every single Academy: why don’t we
do THAT? “We don’t have the resources to deliver CCRD”?? WHY don’t
we? When I was five or six our org had a CCRD delivery team. It was
a glorious time. I remember we used to have huge parties and
celebrations when the Org made a Clear. We would all come out and
hear a speech and it was an extremely loving event. Why wouldn’t it
be? A member of our congregation has achieved a major milestone in
their path to enlightenment! Tears, cake, hugs all around: THETA.
Even today, these memories are joyous and bright. (Remember in AP&A?
Theta can’t be taken away 🙂 Pain can be erased. Pleasure can’t!)
Why haven’t we had one of those awesome parties in years? Why can’t
our org make Clears? Are we not allowed to verify Clear because we’ll
just “mess it up”? Why is that? Is there something about the
training of our tech team that is so shoddy that we’ll never be able
to know who or what is actually Clear??
If we are so horrible at recognizing Clears, wouldn’t it be best to
correct us in Qual rather than changing LRH policy about who delivers
CCRDs? Saying that nobody on Earth can make a Clear except Flag is a
*huge* enemy line. It suggests that they have a room full of hidden
data lines about the state of Clear that no other org will ever be
able to access. Ron would never strip a Class V org of their power to
destimulate their fields by producing beautiful, bright, shiny Clears.
So why is Flag doing it?
WHO IS MAKING SPIRITUAL FREEDOM UNAVAILABLE TO THE MASSES?
Our family always donated to the org. We did this via donations for
services and also donations for “causes” (things like helping ABLE,
WISE, WTH expansion programs). All of this we did happily, and we
were not under extreme financial stress due to these donations,
because we gave as we were able. Looking at the timeline of this, you
might say that I didn’t know the exact state of our finances and
everyone’s finances at the org because I was a child at that time.
But children are extremely perceptive. They place importance on
feelings and emotions in ways that adults don’t, and I know what I
felt–the org was a happy place. We were happy to go there. With
family, with friends, with non-Scientologists even! The scene today
is a billion miles away from that. Non-Scientologists won’t come near
Scientology with a ten-foot pole, newer Scientolgists are approaching
our religion with caution because everything they want to do in intro
services is outlandishly expensive, and the longest term
Scientologists, the ones who have been there for decades, are PAINED
at the thought of having to go into the org or to an event. They are
nervous about getting regged!
The IAS event was always a donation-centric event. But Auditor’s Day?
Never. We used to glorify our auditors on that day. May 9th?
Celebration of our most basic book. Our founder’s BIRTHDAY??? Giving
him his greatest wish. So when did these beautiful spiritual
occasions get lumped into one engramic series of reg cycles? Who
altered the purpose of international events?
I am embarrassed to say how many families I have watched go under due
to financial strain from regging. Basics, library donation campaigns,
all of the other IAS campaigns, then the Ideal Org campaigns, one
thing after the next. I am far too ashamed to relate experiences I’ve
observed first and second hand where successful, self-employed,
self-made business owners were being forced to take out second
mortgages on their houses just to try to get by, while their names
were on plaques and bricks that will someday go in the Ideal Org.
What gratitude do they have for their sacrifices? They receive
construction paper commendations from the IAS and watch as their
401Ks, then rainy day funds, then families, become emaciated. This
weirdo greed thing is totally new. Absolutely things were not always
this way. WHO implemented a pattern and a policy of coercion in
regging?
Another specific I want to tell is my experience with status-based
treatment at Flag. While routing in and around the base I was given
the “new” routing forms. These have large empty circles on the top of
them, underneath your name. In these circles the originator of the
routing form stamps your donation status–whether you have given the
church $100, $10,000, or $100,000,000. This stamp determines the
speed at which your cycle is handled. I was disgusted that people
would admit to this so openly at Flag. It was really a blase,
nonchalant thing, told to me offhand by several Flag staff members in
an of-course-that’s-how-it-is way. Totally bizzare! I have listened
to a lot more LRH than the average Joe and I never heard a single word
about this kind of status thing. Special rooms in orgs for donors,
special “capers” for them? And now plebians can’t take services at CC
Int? Yes, if you haven’t heard recently: you have to be a celebrity
to take services at the Celebrity Center now. It’s just President’s
Office, and people who are wondering how many butts they have to lick
to elbow their way into the President’s Office. It used to be you
could bring in any old regular friend and show them around, have them
meet with some Div 6 personnel, invite them to taste the beauty of our
religion…but someone doesn’t want these degenerates contaminating
the arena for wealthy potential donors. WHO is doing this?
WHO IS DECLARING AS SUPPRESSIVE SOME OF THE MOST STABLE TERMINALS IN INT?
It used to be easy to write to anyone in Int. They would write back
to you immediately and you felt their presence twinkling out of the
envelope, you knew it was them. These days, I just don’t know. I’ve
written to Int with many of my questions. Most of my letters have
gone unanswered. Who ISN’T writing back? Some of my letters are
answered in a weird way, a strange tone of comm way. Who IS writing
back? I feel like a robot is writing me back. I honestly, and this
is not exaggeration, wondered one time if an intake scanner at INT HCO
had scanned my letter for keyword content, used an algorithm to make
an assumption about what my question was, and composed a letter using
auto-formatting it had been taught. It was *that* weirdly worded. It
didn’t feel human.
I am begging for a human response. I don’t want to abandon my
religion. I LOVE my religion! Please, is there any human out there
who can answer my questions? Such as, where is President CSI Heber
Jentzsch? Where is the smiling, familiar face of Ed Int Guillame
Lesevre? I love that guy! And I definitely remember Mark Yager, I
even met him a few times and felt a strong bond with him immediately,
where is he? What really happened with Debbie Cook, and why were
things so bad that she felt like she had to email 10,000 of us? WHO
is creating conditions in Int that are so unstable that anyone could
just be declared at the drop of a hat in direct violation of HCO PLs
regarding ethics gradients?
WHO IS SLITTING THE VOCAL CHORDS OF THOSE WHO QUESTION?
I have never known a life outside of the spheres of Scientology. I
was raised both in the church and by the church, attending Scientology
schools, undertaking training and processing from a very young age,
and contributing as a staff member. I AM a member of this church.
Stop treating me like a piece of shit apostate just because I have
questions! I am NOT “quitting” Scientology! I am NOT “spreading
enemy lines”!! I am NOT “dangerously Googling”!
WHO IS ENCOURAGING STAFF TO SELL INDULGENCES?
In 1997, when I borrowed my brother’s key to an org door without
asking and lost it, I did conditions under the guidance of an EO. In
2003, when I lied to a family member in order to get money from her, I
did conditions under the guidance of an EO. My most recent ethics
cycles? 0% conditions, 100% indulgences. Paying money to get out of
ethics trouble. “Contributing” to the Ideal Org fund to “make up the
damage”, even when the damage I did is completely unrelated. Why is
my EO asking me to buy a set of Basics for a stranger, in order to
make up the damage for something bad I did to a friend of mine?
Why is my auditor regging me for donations? I don’t even want to
comment on how disgustingly inappropriate that is. More than anything
I want to try to convey how AWKWARD that is. For everyone involved.
Who is asking technical staff to produce on administrative lines and
thus giving a giant cross order?
WHO IS DEVALUING THE FAMILY UNIT?
I was really young when the SO 2D policies changed to SO members not
being able to have kids. I don’t remember how it was before, so I
can’t comment on that. I do know I’ve met the kids who grew up inside
that the policy change. They are some of the most fucked up kids I
have ever met. Illiterate, unloved, and VERY degraded. Completely
lacking basic social skills and unable to complete even the simplest
math problems.
Seems like the kids who came just before that policy change are fine,
most of them are uplines and highly trained. And there are no kids
who came after that policy change. I only have the evidence of the
20-30 children I have met in my lifetime who were at various stages of
their human development when all at once they were labeled as the
diseased pariahs of the Scientology world. How can you tell a kid
that they are unworthy of parental love? The lasting impact of this
disregard, this total lack of responsibility over their welfare, is
immeasurable. I can only measure it by counting the lines on their
anxiety-ridden faces. You know who I am talking about. Half of these
kids work in the underground kitchen at ASHO. Who is responsible for
this waste of human life?
I knew three women at CLO WUS and one at AOLA who were coerced into
having abortions. I can’t give more details than this because they
weren’t allowed to talk about it. Seems weird that we base our entire
system of beliefs on free and open communication but there are iron
curtains over entire subject matters. I know who DOESN’T have the
balls to talk about this. Who DOES? Who dares to lay down a set of
laws over the reproductive rights of the most able-bodied men and
women on Earth, the “upper tenth of the upper twentieth”?
WHO IS IMPLEMENTING MASS DISCONNECTIONS?
For years I had heard people whining about disconnection, but when I
read in ISE about it, Ron told me it’s something we should be very
careful not to overuse. Therefore I assumed it was something that
didn’t happen much anymore.
But as more and more people I knew and had grown up around got
declared, the evils of rampant disconnection orders REALLY hit home to
me. The biggest one was Luis Garcia. I knew him for years, worked
with him, knew his family. He was a big donor, got all types of
awards and special mentions. Yesterday this guy was the head of the
OT Committee. He spoke on stage at our events and gave us advice on
how to clear the planet faster. Today we’re not allowed to even
whisper his name? I received his email and of course I read it. Why
wouldn’t I? For all I knew he could have been emailing me about when
the next potluck was.
I got about 1/10 through it before I realized what was going on. Luis
was leaving the church? Why? I had never been so confused before.
When I came to my EO I was put in a locked room in Ethics and
interrogated as if I had done something terrible. “Did you read his
email?? Why did you read it?” Uh…because it came from someone I’ve
been taught to respect and listen to? “Why didn’t you delete it after
you started reading it and realized what it was about? How much of it
did you read? Can you show me the email in your inbox? Which
paragraph did you get to when you read it? Why did you decide to stop
there?” I mean, it was totally insane. I came in to get some
questions answered and was treated like a criminal. In the end, none
of my questions were answered. All I was told was that Luis had been
“bad all along” and that he had been “planning an evil attack of
Scientology the whole time”.
The worst was when I was told that Luis had “gotten into some bad
stuff” This guy is an OT VIII! Cause over life! What the HELL could
he have gotten into that could make him go completely insane and walk
out of the group he had dedicated his life to? Even if every single
thing I had been told about how Luis is evil had been true–I still
would have liked the chance to talk to him about his decision and
thank him for what he did for me while he was around. Instead I was
threatened within an inch of my life when I suggested talking to him
to say goodbye. How is that self-determined? What happened to
“what’s true for you is true”?
LRH says an SP is a PERSON–not a group. We are Scientologists. We
are not an SP group. SOMEONE is causing these changes. That’s why
I’m asking…WHO? I guess that sums up the majority of my questions.
I won’t be able to say I never saw it coming if I never hear from my
family again after this. My final question is if that’s what’s
deserved.
Growing up as a Scientologist was exhilarating and free! I was taught
“to have the courage to know and say what you have observed”. Reading
these words always thrilled me, made my heart race; I imagined myself
on a snowy steed, slicing through insanity with my long blade of
truth. I just never thought it would be like this.
– Scientologist X
To Scientologist X and others similarly situated:
Moving On Up a Little Higher 