happyoutside

Good question. A lot of people like me who have left look back now and wonder how we stayed so long and ignored things we saw that were wrong. A good analogy is a toad in a pot of water that slowly starts boiling. You don't notice the heat rising if it's done so incrementally. Plus, as I referenced in another post, you are considered to be responsible for anything bad happening to you, so it becomes, 'well, such and such a person had this happen to them, but it's their fault, so I don't feel sorry for them; they must be doing something out-ethics'. In Scientology terms, it's called 'pulling something in'.

As far as abuses, the RPF certainly. I talked about this elsewhere.

I saw children as young as 12 working 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. No school for kids. I was a few weeks shy of my 16th birthday when I went in and never went to another day of school again. I was happy with that arrangement because I wanted to be treated like an adult, so I bought into the whole idea they have that 'children are adults in small bodies', but now I see how horrible that was. Some of these kids were virtually illiterate. It was so sad and I hoped it would be corrected, but it wasn't.

I do have some extended family and friends who are in the church. I haven't been expelled so I can still contact them. If it were known that I was doing something like this, though, I would certainly be instantly cut off from anyone I know there. The sad thing is that everyone I know would unquestioningly cut me out of their lives and believe I was a bad person.

I haven't. I was mostly in the LA area. Funny thing about that -- the location was supposed to be a big secret and no one ever talked about where it was. Seemed pretty silly to me at the time, but they were dead serious about keeping the location a secret.

I haven't left publicly, but a few people know that I no longer consider myself a Scientologist. If I left publicly, they would certainly would never speak to me again because I would essentially be considered a traitor.

I think that some of the basic tenets of Scientology are good and have helped people. Why else would so many people get involved? Contrary to what people might think, most of the Scientologists I knew were very normal people who just wanted to improve their lives and help others. They are good people.

Do I think it can be constructed if practiced in moderation? Maybe. The organization is really corrupt and I would fear that an independent movement would fall into similar traps. I've seen some of the same mentalities crop up in the current independent movement, although to a much lesser degree.

One of the big problems, I think, is the way the concept of 'responsibility' is used in Scientology. I'm all for personal responsibility, but they use this concept against people. It becomes, 'you are responsible for everything that happens to you, including bad things and accidents' and turns into a trap that's hard to break free from.

edit: oh, the South Park episode was disappointing. I was hoping they would delve more into the subject rather than just focus on Xenu and the possibility of Tom Cruise being gay.

I just saw him on the Colbert Report, which is one of the reasons I was inspired to finally do this ama (some people had asked me to do it months ago!).

1) I believe he's a megalomaniac and narcissist. I met him once and he's nice enough if you're just being introduced. He has a great reputation inside the Church because there is a lot of PR done on him. I thought he lived very simply and wasn't leeching off the church. Since leaving though, I found out that he has an array of personal assistants, chefs, expensive cars, suits, etc. I've read enough creditable accounts from people I either peripherally knew or had been friends with now to know that he was violent and beat people. He seems to control the church with an iron fist.

2) I always considered it more of a philosophy than a religion. As for being a business, almost no one working for the church is making money off of it; it's only a very few and that is not known within the church. Most work themselves to the bone for almost no remuneration because they think they are helping mankind.

3) Lots. Actually, I always ignored the 'don't read negative things' and so read a lot of negative stuff while I was still in. But a lot of what I read didn't match my experiences and I just didn't believe the more outlandish things. When a bunch of former members came out a few years ago with allegations of abuse, I really started reading. They were more creditable to me at the time because many still believed in Scientology itself but were exposing corruptions within the organization. And it brought about realizations in myself that a lot of the stuff I saw and experienced that was negative weren't 'isolated incidents'.

4) I got a bill for about $65,000 when I stopped working for the church. It was ridiculous, but you become conditioned to believe that you 'owe' the church. They've had to change their policy on that a bit in the last few years because of the hordes of people leaving and exposing abuses. I've heard of people making deals to no longer have the 'debt' in exchange for their silence.

5) Apparently it depends on what OT level they are...