leaving the SO - points of view

I've been doing some thinking about how my own point of view has changed over the years.

It would take quite a lot to explain to someone how one goes from total supporter/nearly fanatical proponent of something, to being its enemy. (Yes, I said enemy. I don't use that word lightly.) I'm not going to try and talk about that here, I'm just going to assume that most of you have an idea what I'm talking about.

When I left the Sea Org, I was not against Scientology. In fact, I wasn't even against the SO yet. I hadn't had the time and space to consider what had really gone on there. I still thought that it was all my fault, that I was the bad one. I still believed in Scientology tech, and the OT levels, and all of that. As a little time went on, I admitted to myself that the SO was totally messed up as an organization. But I still believed in Scn.

So what this means is that I left the SO, and Scientology as a whole, thinking that I was giving up my ETERNAL FREEDOM. I cried all night sometimes because I knew I would never reach OT, that I would be trapped in this MEST universe and cycle of reincarnation forever. It hurt. The thing was, Scientology hurt MORE.

My mom and various other people looked at me in disbelief and asked "What about total spiritual freedom? Don't you want that for the planet? For yourself? How can you give up OT?" I didn't know how to answer them and didn't try. But the answer is that, at the time, I was in so much agony from these groups (SO and Scn) that I could not continue, even at the cost of my own immortal happiness. Yes, I would rather continue being a stupid homo sapiens forever than EVER go in session again, ever deal with the org again, ever grovel my way back into their good graces again.

Wow that's a big statement. If I could have articulated it at the time, perhaps SOMEONE would have understood the state of mind I was in. That's a lot of pain and suffering, to get to that point, isn't it?

I wonder just what it will take others. I want to ask certain pro-Scn people "How much is it going to take? How far will you let it go before you speak up?" Apparently it's pretty far! Many people are willing to cover up things they know are bad or wrong, because they don't want to jeopardise their own OT levels or the availablility of OT as a whole. I guess they think it's worth a bit of injustice, a bit of dying.

Now, as time has gone on I have come to believe that I was not in fact giving up immortal spiritual freedom and the OT powers of God. I don't believe in that anymore. (My mom says that's basically sour grapes. It's not.) My point of view is very different because I have come to believe Scn is a whole lot of bull. That's a different conversation though, because I find it hard to explain what I do and don't believe and why. It's complicated.

What I am wondering is, how did the rest of you feel at the time when you left the Sea Org? Or if you weren't in, when you left Scientology? Did you know it was all crap? Did you still believe in the tech but dislike the org? Has your point of view changed between then and now? What did you think you were giving up?

I think it's interesting how my own opinion has changed so many times and so drastically over the last decade. I think that is sort of the key part to our story. Especially when it comes to communicating with active Scientologists. They can't grok where we are at. But most of us didn't arrive here overnight! (At least, I think so.) It was a long, strange trip for me, with a lot of stops.

DoubleVee,

Very nice post - articulate. You say a lot.

When I left the CofS, I still wanted the tech, just not the version the CofS is currently using. I hooked up with the FreeZone/Ron's Org for about 1 year. After some difficulties with the main person (won't go into it), I was very disenchanted. That was 7/07. In January '08 I signed onto ESMB and started getting more data. By March '08 someone posted about LRH in the late 1950's (last life time) and my entire viewpoint changed. I didn't want ANYTHING to do with LRH, or anything Scn-wise.

It's a long process, in my opinion. Viewpoints shift, realities change. But we all go thru it at our own pace and in our own time and in our own way. Some still want the tech outside of the CofS (as my husband does). Others are like me - don't even want to use the damn words - even if Dev-T is easier to say than "that's just a waste of my time, what you're asking me to do".

But we all come to our own truth. And to me, that's all that really matters.

Excellent points all around. To speak to the matter directly, I would have to say that Scientology prompted me to leave the SO and later SCN as a whole. I was only in the SO for a few years before I was sent to the RPF, where I spent twice as much time. I didn't think that there was anything right about my RPF assignment, in fact I had already been comm-eved twice for the things I was sent to the RPF for. I had more than one Board of Review, one which canceled my assignment but itself was then canceled by a higher authority. After I had exhausted all routes of recourse, I knew that I had to come to terms with my assignment and confront something about it that I hadn't seen before. So I gathered up all the Board of Review findings, the canceled Comm-Evs, my RPF assignment and all other documents I could (KR's ethics conditions and such) and before I reviewed them, I wrote down the details of all the events that led to my assignment to the RPF. Then I read the Ethics book cover to cover as well as pertinent Flag Orders and Policy Letters, and finally, I read the stack of documents pertaining to my assignment and recourse actions.

My conclusion was that my situation was a HUGE violation of ethics policy and otherwise totally batshit crazy. I won't get into details but at this point, I had already been on the RPF for some time and decided that it was not likely that I would ever finish considering the progress I had made to to that point. I clearly and carefully explained that the RPF was actually non-productive for me as a Scientologist. Years later, with the time to reflect on the bigger picture, I became disgusted when my friends would quote Hubbard as an "answer" to a problem or as part of a debate, because the pertinent quote wasn't actually an answer. It was a statement of an absolute, which is impossible in SCN as there are no absolutes. The contradiction in justice and then later the inability for many to think outside of the narrow confines of SCN. The walls came down completely when an old friend who was still in the SO contacted me online and we exchanged numbers. We talked about various things but eventually she came around to the issue of the "New" Basic Books.

So, now SCN is not only butchering their own justice system (which does have some merits on its own), but now they moved passed minor editing of HCO B's and PL's and outright flaunting that they are changing the basic texts under the pretext of "eliminating MU phenomena." I almost lost it right then and there and was very close to just outright saying that somebody wasn't stirring the kool-aid. I could hear that my friend didn't believe even half the shit she was saying... but I didn't want to ruin a mostly good conversation.

Every so often, I look around at things and a new layer of crap peels off and I see things newly again and it only reinforces that distancing myself from SCN was the best thing I have ever done for myself.

I felt the asame exact way minus the whole OT thing. It was never all that big of a deal for me. I would have done them had the SO let me but even when I left a didn't care all that much about going OT.

It takes a while to start to see why things there are wrong. I'm not sure why. Maybe becaue being part of it makes it all ok.

I don't put a lot of responsibiity on public Scientologists for not doing something about the wrongs because they are basically brainwashed and aren't even interested in finding out the truth about what the church has done and is doing.

hi double v - your Mom is using the false dichotomy and argument from ignorance logical fallacies on you.

Scientology is hubbard's invention or 'discovery". Stuff that is from elsewhere (such as" treat others as you would wish them to treat you") is therefore NOT scientology. Doesn't matter if Hubbard included it in his dreck. He did not invent it - therefore it is not scientology.

Scientology is total crap from top to bottom. How could it be otherwise? Hubbard did not know what he was talking about - he was trying to spin a small talent for manipulation into a religion. It is not going to work.

His ARC triangle ?- total hogwash which a moment's thought will prove to anyone.

"Clear" he lied about research, he lied about creating one and he lied about hat they could do. Anything based on that is building on shifting sand (another biblical reference).

As I like to say - Scientology is good and original. Unfortunately that which is good is not original and that which is original is not good.