From: sol@rigel.cs.pdx.edu (chris s de voir)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Ex-scientologist
Summary: Questions and answers about entering and leaving Scientology
Keywords: Auditor
Date: 29 Dec 92 00:18:20 GMT


Quotes are from: schafmei@fraser.sfu.ca (Chris Schafmeister)

"Hidden crimes! Sheesh, that term always gets me heated up.
It is fear-mongering, plain and simple.
How does scientology define crime?"

I respond: I do not have the verbatim definition of any scientology word.
To get that I would recommend looking in the book mentioned earlier "Modern
Management Technology Defined."  I think the idea behind "hidden crimes" is
that when A has wronged B, A will continue to wrong B diminishing B and
therefore diminishing the significance of the wrong.  Of course when your
getting reamed and you deserve it, you will grab onto any rationalization
to protect yourself.  And getting wronged is in the eye of the beholder.
So probably the Scientologist getting it in this forum is scrabbling for
some strategy to win and they grab onto the Hubbard "datum" that if
someone is criticizing you they have done wrongs against you.  What is
missing from this reasoning is the fact they may deserve a little
criticism.  And yes I know, I have been using the word "deserved" which has
even more labyrinthine connotations in the old "Tech" dictionary but here
I'm using deserved in its English sense.  I am not avoiding giving you a
definition of crime, I'm just explaining the logic behind "hidden crime".
"Hidden Crime", "Withhold" (an undisclosed "overt") and "Overt" (an anti-
survival act) all follow some variation of the above logic.

"What caused you to leave the church?"

I respond:

From the beginning I studied Scientology, I wanted to organize its
principles.  The material in "Dianetics" (DMSMH) seemed useful but
disorganized.  I wanted to generate algorithms of its methods.  I wanted to
confront its contradictions in logic.  Because I believed that it was based
on scientific research, I wanted to do controlled studies of its methods to
satisfy at least myself as to its agreement with empirical methods.

But my supervisors would not allow this to happen.  I was constantly
badgered to progress in my training according to a pre-determined
"checksheet" or checklist of tapes to listen to, readings and practical
exercises.  Training and Auditing supervisors never let you stop and smell
the roses.  Never let you bask in the wonder of these new understandings.
Somebody is badgering them to bring more people in, get the services
delivered and sign them up for more services again just as soon as they
can.  The supervisors above them set "unreasonable" goals and if the middle
supervisors don't meet these goals they get assigned a lower ethics
condition.  You are not allowed to say, "Well the student just wanted to do
this little side trip, looking at the material this way and that way,
perhaps doing a little experiment down at the University".  No way.  And
the supervisor passes this right on down to the student.

Also, there were inconsistencies in what Hubbard described the various
stages of Clear and OT to be and my actual observations of these people as
they looked to me.  I had listened to one of Hubbard's tape recordings and
he referred to non-scientologists as Wogs.  Well one of Hubbard's goals is
to "clear the planet".  So one day I am talking to an OT IV and I ask him,
"Do you call non-scientologists Wogs?" and he said "Yes." and I said,"If
the goal is to clear the planet, then all men are our brothers right?"  and
he said, "Yes." and I said, "So if all men are truly our brothers, how can
you denigrate them by calling them Wogs?  How will it assist the clearing
of the planet to treat them with contempt?".  He very condescendingly told
me he hadn't thought of it that way and turned his mighty attention units
to something else.

Although, my concept for vector analysis of electrical events in the human
body didn't go very far in this forum, from the time I began studying the
use of the E-Meter, I have been wondering about its function and how to
make it jibe with my fundamental knowledge of Electronics and Physics and
Biology.  At the very least there was no ghost in the E-Meter and it had to
measure physical world things according to physical laws.  There were
things that didn't add up.  Although I was passing my checkouts and having
the expected result in auditing sessions, I remained doubtful of the E-
Meter's ability to do what we all read it was supposed to do.  A pat on the
head and command to return to the pre-determined material on my checksheet
just wasn't satisfactory enough.

My father had me read Stanley Milgram's "Obedience to Authority", George
Orwell's "1984" and B.F. Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" before I
was 13 years old.  By the time I entered Scn at the age of 25, I had read a
lot more.  I entered Scn knowing it was a dystopia and waded right on in up
to my eyeballs.

"Why did you stay so long and then finally leave?"

Well I only stayed as long as I had agreed to myself to stay.  The endpoint
was when I was being forced to say things I thought were untrue I had to
leave and when I completed Level IV training.  On my internship, I
basically was unsupervised due to some lapse in alertness and a drop in
staff.  I used this time to begin the organization of Scientology material
I mentioned earlier.  But someone looking over my shoulder told me that
copying down the material in a newly organized form was "Alteration of
Tech" and told me to stop it.  I did, however, relisten and reread every
tape and bulletin for all Levels at least three times.  I thought that
leaving when I felt unable to state truthfully were my perceptions even
when they differed with Scientology dogma was a good endpoint because I had
read Milgram's "Parallel Line" Experiment.  I knew that I was not a rock
and there would be a limit to how long I could hold out with my own
perspective against this intense indoctrination.

While I had a chance to restudy the Levels materials at leisure, I began to
notice something about Hubbard's method of borrowing material from others.
He either credited someone with a "good idea" and then proceeded to explain
why they had just missed the boat and Hubbard really understood the true
implications of the maundering of this poor fool.  Or Hubbard would pass
judgement on someone as a denizen to society of some sort and proceed to
use this pariah's method somewhere else in his policies.  For instance look
at Stalin's methods of having everybody spy on each other, then look at the
Scn policy of Knowledge Reports, (in the management dictionary, so is
"fairgame").  Hubbard bragged about how Stalin wanted his ideas and Hubbard
refused.

I began to develop this hunch about why Hubbard was putting people down and
then using their ideas.  Hidden you-know-whats.  Borrowing ideas without
properly crediting their source.


Another reason I planned on leaving after Level IV was that I consider it
immoral for something that calls itself a religion to charge anything at
all for this counseling of the spirit.  From the questions I asked, I
predicted that I would have to take some kind of remuneration for auditing
sometime during my Level IV internship.  I was able to leave before I would
have to do this.

"Do you still believe any of the material you were taught?"

'any?'  Yes.  All?  Absolutely not.  It's a very periscope view of the
world.  It actually teaches you to think in generalizations.  It of course
erodes your ability to think critically and trains you to respond to things
with "Tech" or "Policy" without argument.

"How did you start?"

The year I started training, my best friend of 15 years had been cruelly
murdered.  His killer went free on a technicality.  My mother died that
year and ended her very painful life and then three other significant
family members died.  I was already exterior from all that when I walked
into Scientology with the read Dianetics book in my hand.  I was already
feeling like a ghost myself.  I was intensely curious that behind the
appearance of something so malevolent as Scientology that there might lie
hidden some useful pieces of wisdom.

"I hope I'm not being too rude in asking.
You have mentioned your uncertainty in speaking before, I understand if
you don't want to answer, but I hope you will."

I do not consider your questions at all rudeness and thank you for your
encouragement to speak.