[Originally posted in three parts] Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: WHY I LEFT FACTNET From: Kim Baker Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 07:43:38 GMT There are several factors which contributed to my decision to leave FACTNET, so please bear with me, as I need to give the context in a way that can hopefully lead you to understand the issues with some clarity, even if you don't agree with my decision and my conclusions. I have, after some very serious reflection and consideration, decided that I will not re-join FACTNET. I do feel, after taking such a vocal position, that I owe everyone an explanation. THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT The catalyst for my resignation originated here in South Africa. Both Malcolm and I KNOW that that bomb threat was not an OSA set-up. That's all I can say. We just KNOW. Subsequent to that, Malcolm and I had a raging argument, and a fall-out. It was not unexpected, as I had never "connected" with the local critics in the same way that I did the Americans, and the Europeans. The reason for this, and that's why I said that it's a uniquely South African thing, and additional dimension to the conflict between Scientology and its critics here, is that the critics in South Africa generally tended to be of the "old political order", made racist comments from time to time, etc. I have always had difficulty relating to other white South Africans who hold these views, because I have always, since being a kid, been adamently opposed to discrimination on any physical, racial, genetic, gender, sexual orienatation, etc, etc, grounds. I have seen and experienced the effects and the utter emotional and spiritual cruelty of racism on the Blacks here in South Africa, and I'm not a sappy, "pink-liberal" type. I am, however, soft. Too soft, as Malcolm told me. So, the alliance between myself and the local critics in South Africa was an uneasy one, at the best of times. The bomb threat had nothing to do with FACTNET, but it came at a time when I was feeling very uneasy at the amount of utter hatred and bile that was continuing on a.r.s. There were other reasons for the resignation which had been brewing, but which I wasn't in any shape to expand upon at the time - I really needed time to step back, and look at it all, and get my head straight. Which I have now done. I am now certain in all the things that I say here. All along, after I wrote my story, after I came back into the conflict after an absence of some months, I was not satisfied that I had reached the truth of my experiences in Scientology, and of what was going on in this forum. I now know, with confidence, that I have satisfied myself as to the truth. Please note, that all the way through, I am not speaking for anyone else, saying that they are wrong in their opinion, etc - all I am, and all I can do, is tell it to you as I see it, finally confident that I have sifted through and reached the truth. MIND CONTROL In any conflict, you often have well-intentioned individuals, who oppose each other on various issues, but there is always a fundamental, basic issue, or opinion, where they differ. In sifting through to the very basic issue here, I found that the fundamental issue is whether Scientology uses mind control, or not. Clearly, where we *all* agree, is that mind control is an evil thing. So, those who accept that Scientology uses mind control will oppose it on that basis, because they are opposing an evil thing. I believe the Church misunderstands that the basic intention of their critics, is a GOOD one - fighting the evil of mind control. They don't see this, of course, because they do not believe that Scientology uses mind control. And so, the most important thing to establish, is whether Scientology uses mind control, or not. I have come to believe, based on my personal experience, only, that they do NOT. This will jar many people, because I have been advocating that they do, for so long. And so, I need to jump back in time, to when I wrote "My Story". MY STORY I arrived on the Internet in a state of considerable emotional turmoil, resulting from the traumatic marriage, and break-up thereof, to my ex. I read all the stories and affidavits put out by many of the old timers, and I had never had access to information like this before. Many of you watched me waver back and forth as I struggled to break from Scientology. I approached people in the Church with some of the affidavits, and demanded an explanation. All I got, was an ethics handling, a suggestion "not to worry about a handful of liars and lunatics", and an order, as per my ethics handling, to "disconnect" from the "entheta". Which just was not good enough for me. I kept asking for information that would explain the affidavits to me, give me more information, so that I could make a balanced decision, and I received none. Which led me to conclude that something was wrong, otherwise why not just provide information to explain the allegations? And so, I started to believe all the mind- control theories, all the affidavits, and I accepted that Scientology *was* an evil, mind control organisation, with a hidden agenda. I wrote my story in this context, and all of the events, sequentially, were accurate, except for two things. The one was my encounter with my friend "H", whom I believed had been put up to contacting me, and pulling my emotional strings, for OSA. In fact, OSA had not contacted her at all, and she did not even know the context of my break with the Church. As an individual, as my friend, she was extremely distressed at the thought of "losing" me to the "enemy", and she could not just accept that I had left - she wanted to know WHY, and I interpreted this as a desire to get information for OSA. The other part of my story that was not true, was the part where I said that OSA had swooped on me. This is the part that I said I was not willing to talk about in my story. I told some of you, in private, that I had been subjected to some extreme measures by OSA. This was not true. I lied. I *did* have an ethics handling, I was questioned about people like Old Timer, Homer, and Dennis, but not in any co-ercive manner. At this stage, I was operating in fear and paranoia, interpreting every statement and utterance by anyone in the Church as having sinister implications. I did go after Dennis, and it was not on the instruction of anyone in the Church. I took the ethics policy "strike an effective blow to the enemy", and applied it as *I* saw fit. It was at that point that I lost it. I went after Dennis with hatred in my heart, and the ugliest, blackest side of me emerged. I couldn't really deal with what I had done, I couldn't believe, really, that that side of me WAS me, and so it really suited me to believe that I had done it because I was under mind control. I wrote my story, using things like semantic control, and extracts of policies, to justify my point that it was mind control. People in the Church *do* use jargon, some more than others - it depends on the individual. But again, if I looked at the broader context of the way groups operate, in the world as a whole, several groups use a language to re-inforce them, so that one learns a language to be "in" on the group - like the "Rave" culture, Gothic punks, Rappers, Rastas, the S&M community, New Agers, etc, etc. Even here on the Net, we have an emerging language, using terms such as "FAQ", "netiquette", "Sysop" etc, etc, and new people who barge in without understanding all this get "flamed" for being "newbies". It's a whole culture. And so, the knowledge of this culture can also alienate and exclude one from interaction with others who don't understand it - my personal example was to try and explain the Internet to the South African critics - they just didn't understand what I was talking about, what I had been doing, and just did not relate to, or see that part of me like you all did. After I was Declared a Suppressive Person by the Church, and over the course of this past year, I came to believe in a Supreme Being, God, whatever you want to call it. It was this that gave me the strength to face up to and really look at those parts of myself. You see, I was always on a quest for Truth, and the annoying part about that is that that means that if your enemy has a point, or is right about something, then you need to admit that. The people in the Church saw me as the ultimate traitor, and many of them said "what did YOU do, what were YOUR crimes", etc. I ignored all that until very recently. And then I decided to have a look at myself, to see if there was any truth in what they were saying. And I found that the "lust for power" that had emerged within me, while doing Scientology courses was ME. It was MY response to the courses. Many other people who did those courses did NOT respond like that at all. The stats-pushes that went on, pressuring people to buy courses so the org could pay its rent *did* occur, but that was the result of a small group of people interpeting the policy in their own way and acting on it. They didn't give a damn about the people they were selling courses to, all they wanted was the rent money. They simply did not care about their public. And I was silent about that, I went along with it, because it was the dominant culture of the group. Hard-sell does exist in Scientology - as it does with an over- enthusiastic car-salesman, as it does wherever any group of people get together and have a group culture, and our basic desire to be "in" is often the thing that keeps us quiet, when we privately disagree with things. So, was it mind-control, or peer group pressure? My personal conclusion is that it was not mind control, it was a group culture that emerged, that I didn't like, but simply did not have the strength of my convictions to stay in the group, stand up to them, and say "Hey, I disagree with this - you're supposed to be genuinely helping people, not just getting the rent money out of them". Yes, they were wrong, and so was I, because I DID NOTHING ABOUT IT. No- where in the policy does it say that you sell people courses in order to get the rent money. OK, so that leaves the Tech. Contained within the tech, is the auditing side. Mind control advocates say they are hypnotic processes, and have to be done exactly as it says, no deviations are allowed, etc. I am not in a position to speak with any authority on the Upper Levels, or even what it's like to BE audited, as I never received any auditing myself. For some reason, the Case Supervisor had decided that my first auditing could only happen at an Advanced Organisation, which meant I had to go overseas, pay an exhorbitant exchange rate, etc. Which effectively stopped me from receiving any auditing for a long, long time. And at the time, I was as PISSED as a SNAKE about this. I had entered Scientology in fairly good shape, as in, I did not have a "ruin". After a couple of years married to my ex, I damn well had a ruin, a BIG one, and I couldn't get any help with it. To me, it was like having someone dangle a glass of water in front of you, when you are parched in a desert, and then as soon as you reach for it, they take it away. Despite this, I still went ahead with training to be an auditor, as I have always, since being a kid, had an impulse to help and heal people. I have a knack of being able to calm upset animals, kids and people, etc. To those who don't believe in a spiritual realm, this won't make any sense, but I'm telling it any way. My basic drive in life is to be a spiritual healer. And so I really enjoyed learning about the auditing, and I really enjoyed doing it. I could see people REALLY feel good, get better, in real life, when they had auditing. Not all the time - some auditors were not good ones, and people didn't really get anything out of it. Those people then drifted out of the Org, and never came back. Here at the local Org, I know of several people who went in, didn't like it, and left after a few courses and some auditing. So, how come they didn't stay because of the mind-control? Why is it that they were able to escape the mind control, and I was not? This was the thing that didn't make sense to me. How come so many people were able to escape "mind control"? And I concluded, again, that it was ME as an INDIVIDUAL, I had to look at. What was it in MYSELF that made me stay, despite never having personally received any "wins" from auditing, since I had none? I stayed because my ex- husband made it a condition of our marriage that I be in Scientology. I stayed because I had enjoyed auditing to such a degree, that I loved it with a passion. I stayed, because I had decided that Scientology was my religion. Those were the reasons I stayed. I struggled to leave because I really loved auditing people. That's all. I struggled to leave, because I didn't want all the affidavits, and stories of Church crimes to be true. I was not able to gain access to any alternative information that would place these affidavits in context. I couldn't explain them away. And that is where the Chruch has erred - they have not really provided sufficient information to explain it all. And they need to do it, for if they don't, people, well-intentioned people, will continue to believe only the negative stories. What I missed before, was that a lot of those stories and documents come from the time of the Guardian's Office. At that time, the Church very definitely DID go off the rails. But I genuinely believe, based on my own experience here in South Africa (and I really cannot answer for America - I don't live there, and I'm therefore not in any position to adequately judge for myself), that they have corrected these unethical acts, to a large degree. Despite the fact that I took a story to the South African press, to a major national newspaper, alleging essentially that they had "infiltrated" our government, despite the incredible amount of harm that did them, despite the fact that in fact they were teaching courses in Business technology to a portion of our new government, and that was all, despite the fact that I was one of the few "new generation" people on a.r.s that supported all those old stories, and said it's still happening - despite all that, they never once, in actual fact, harmed, harassed or Fair Gamed me. All they did was declare me Suppressive, based on my actions, and that was it. I thought I had been fair gamed, once, based on something a local critic told me, relating to a sub judice case, which I am unable to speak about, for fear of violating sub judice. I flew off the handle. In fact, I later found that what I had been told was untrue. I can honestly swear to any court, submit to any polygraph, etc, to confirm that they have never Fair Gamed me. And yet, here I was, agreeing with what everyone here (on a.r.s) believes, despite the fact that my personal experience did not match it. So, back to mind control. Is auditing mind-control? I've done a bit more research around this, and I do not profess to be an expert on mind control. But I did form the opinion that mind-control can only occur when we as individuals have an increased suggestibility - and that almost always only occurs when one has been deprived of sleep, food, is physically uncomfortable, or in pain, or drugged, or has imbibed alcohol. All of these things reduce our mental alertness, and so, suggestions can take root more easily. If we are in a normal state of alertness, we cannot really be influenced by something hidden, unless we are unaware of it. So, we find ourselves maybe agreeing to advertising, buying products based on adverts, believing what our governments are up to based on the media stories they put out, believing things because we are not really examining the source of information. Or simply believing them because a majority does. Or the *apparence* of a majority does. Apartheid South Africa is a good example of this. In those days, while Security Police were breaking down people's doors, murdering people in cold blood, detaining without trail, torturing political dissenters, etc, the TV media on the "white" channel (yes, we had a "white" channel") told news of the latest rugby results, showed pictures of the State president opening some new Afrikaner museum, or something, etc, etc. And many of the whites, when being confronted with the information of what was REALLY going on, didn't want to look, turned away from it, or really didn't believe it, because "our president would never lie to us". So, while you were all exposed to the pictures of the atrocities in the rest of the world, we never saw it, not on the official media. Eventually, that all crumbled, and the truth is all coming out now - truth after truth. Because you cannot squash the truth forever. So, what I am saying is that we are *all* suggestable, as humans, in our everyday lives, to the degree that we do not look or really examine what we are being told. If this is mind-control, then we are all under it. And so, I am certain that coercive mind-control can only take place under the conditions I described - the person has not had enough sleep, or is drugged, etc. In auditing, the PRE-REQUISTES before any session can occur, is that the person MUST have had enough sleep, MUST have eaten well, MUST not be physically uncomfortable in any way, MUST not have taken any drugs or alcohol. Yes, many of the processes run ARE repetitive. To make the person look at an area, over and over again, until they do not have any distress attached to it any more. The purpose is to make a person see something they may not have been aware of, before. They are not told what to see, they and only they can say what they see. So there are no suggestions being implanted. This is my opinion, based on my knowledge of the lower levels only. I am not qualified to give an opinion on the Upper Levels. I KNOW that many of you will not agree. But I am now satisfied that this is the truth. Now whether we think the theory behind this is a load of baloney, or not, there are many people, thousands of them, that CONSIDER that they have been helped by this. Remember Elizabeth McCoy, and Whippersnapper? Two Scientologists that were brave enough to stand their ground and post to a.r.s. about how they had been helped - Elizabeth, who received auditing to help her get through something, and to this she attributes a successful marriage - and Whippersnapper, who told, in a manner that no-one could dispute as anything other than sincere, how Scientology has helped him cope with his wife's death. I have spoken to several others, in private, on the net, who have told me of similar benefits, sincerely - not in some canned, robotic "success story" fashion, but the kind of real, genuine testimony that has the ring of truth to it. Maybe we think they are delusional mind-controlled brainwashed fools. But they have been helped, they have experienced benefit. This is NOT A BAD THING. What right do I have, then, to take that away from them? And THAT gets to the essence of where I am heading. There are a whole bunch of people out there, who have been helped by Scientology, who consider it their religion, who consider the OT levels sacred. There are a whole bunch of people who CHOOSE not to see them, until they feel they are ready. Now no matter how much anyone wants to mock the CONTENTS of the upper levels, no matter how much it may read like bad science fiction to many of us, the fact remains that those people CONSIDER it sacred to them. And it is their BASIC HUMAN RIGHT to practice their religion as they want to. NO-ONE has the right to take that away from them. NO-ONE. We may feel that this is not a religion, it's a scam, but those people feel it is their religion. That is the unshakable, indesputable fact - they CONSIDER it to be their religion. And this is the thing that has been gnawing away at me. These are people who won't even talk to me anymore, who are very angry at me, and who won't change their opinion of me until I do their Steps A - E. Well, I don't want to do Steps A - E, because that is a path back to the Church, and I don't want to go back to Scientology, for while it may have helped others, it did NOT help me, and I do most stubbornly INSIST on that as the Truth. I have, instead, hooked up with local traditional healers, and despite my white skin, I have found mentors here that are spiritually wise, kind, and warm beyond anything I have ever encountered in my own race group. These are my people. They were able to help me deal with my broken heart, they were able to help me understand it all, and they are the ones I take my guidance from, and learn from now, and help. And for Africa, this is appropriate - Africa needs her *own* people to heal her, not outsiders. But that's another, much more pleasant story. I have to get back to the unpleasant parts, now. I have to get to the hardest part. WHY I LEFT FACTNET I joined FACTNET because I wanted to research and learn more about co- ercive psychological tactics. I was talking to Bob and two days before the raid on FACTNET, I agreed to become a Director. This was based on the manifesto, which was submitted in the non-profit application. I was in full agreement with those principles expressed. I already knew about the raid on Arnie, and I was very angry at that. I remember when Arnie first posted the Fishman documents to the Internet, and wrote "Have a nice day, Miscavige", I thought to myself "THAT will hurt the bastards" - the bastards being Miscavige, the RTC, and Upper Church Management. At that stage, no-one knew that he was a Director of FACTNET. By the time I had joined FACTNET, I knew about the raid on Arnie, and was aware of all the implications, but did not anticipate the raid on FACTNET itself. That caught us all by surprise. I had been working on editing the Press Release, which was to be posted later that week, after Lawrence had approved it, when I suddenly got the word that FACTNET had been raided. I jumped in, feet first, and posted the release, and spoke out, loudly, at what I saw as an outrageous attack on Freedom of Speech. I could not understand why the Church had done it. When the information later came out that it was for copyright violations, which Lawrence alleges was merely a smoke screen as they wanted access to FACTNET's information, I started to have misgivings. But I said nothing, as I didn't want to hurt the Cause. So, I changed the focus onto other issues. This has now turned into a fight over the copyrights. FACTNET will be challenging their authenticity in the courts, as they have openly stated. They are fighting back, at the heart of the Church. I was instructed to do research on the secret, Nazi, Occult origins of the materials contained in the Fishman documents, and promote dialogue around the subject, and get others to do the same. Joe Harrington has also been doing this. I have examined the OT materials extensively, and I have talked to, and researched several sources on Black magic, and I have found nothing that is similar to the purpose, and formulation of the OT levels, as contained in the Fishman documents. I may have missed something, others may be able to find evidence of undisputed plagiarism on Hubbards part, but I have found none. Then, when the Church started posting allegations that FACTNET is a scam, etc, I thought "oh, well, that's easy enough - just post all our financial records openly, to the net." Even though I had agreed to become a Director, I had not yet seen any financial records, or asked for them, since I assumed they would just be available, and in good order. I asked, and asked, and received no satisfactory answer. People were sending contributions, and asking me for confirmation that they had been received, and I was unable to do this, as I couldn't get any answers from the people in the States. Yet I was a Director. This was making me distinctly uneasy, as by being a Director, I would be held accountable for this, even though I had no personal financial interest in this, and gave of my time and expertise freely. Up until the time I resigned, I still had not seen any records, or received any assurances that they were available - Lawrence eventually told me that they had "gone in the raid", and would have to be re-constructed by the Treasurer. I looked at the direction that this conflict is heading. It has turned into a war over the copyrights, with the intention of destroying them, and with them, the Church. Now, if one is coming from the point of view that this is an evil, mind-control organisation, such measures may seem justified. Since I do not believe, any more, that the Church uses mind-control, and since I cannot get out of my mind all of those people who practice Scientology as their religion, all those people who are being badly hurt by all this (never mind just the RTC and Miscavige), and since I really cannot stand the hatred that is being whipped up against Scientology and Scientologists through all this, and since FACTNETs only activity now is to fight Scientology on a full-time basis, and raise money to do this, as well as get Christians up in arms at Scientology, I have to do the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life - I have to stand up, against my friends, Lawrence and Arnie - and say NO! I don't agree with this! I cannot continue supporting it, or condoning it in any way. They will see this, and what I have said, as a betrayal of trust. I have been torn apart by all this, because I *know* that several people *have* been hurt by their experiences with Scientology. I say that with compassion and understanding. I know the hell that Lawrence lives in. But this is NOT the right way to deal with it. What FACTNET is doing is wrong, and what I was doing in supporting it was wrong. This is a different kind of violence we were advocating - attack the copyrights themselves, take away from them that which they hold sacred. An eye for an eye makes the world blind, and so, EVEN IF the Church is making a lot of money from them, EVEN if the Church has been provacative, THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT. I found for me personally, that the ONLY way to heal myself, was to take the power away from the Church, to take away that horrible feeling of having been a victim, grit my teeth, and really, really face up to those ugly parts of myself, the parts that made me writhe in shame and spiritual agony, the parts of me that contributed to my whole experience with Scientology. And having done THAT, I am at peace with myself. What remains then, is how can I just say it's all right to not worry about those who have been hurt? Surely, Scientology should be stopped, because some people have been hurt? Never mind all those who have been helped, what about those who have been hurt? And then again, what about people being hurt the world over - people who starve in Africa, people who fall foul of multi-national corporations, people who are raped, people who experience racism, or anti-Semitism, or insults based on their gender? What about ALL those people in the WORLD who have been hurt, who have been damaged by the evil that is choking this world to death? All I can say, is that ultimately, it all starts and ends with each and every one of us, as INDIVIDUALS. What we, personally, each do with our experiences, how we choose to use and interpret our experiences. I cannot tell others what to do about their pain. I can tell them that a good way of dealing with it is to face up to their own part in it. That is the only way to get re-empowered, to feel in control again. I DO feel that a naive 18-year old is no match for a stats-hungry staff member. Some naive 18-year olds were lucky, in Scientology, to encounter individuals who cared for them, who didn't push them beyond what they were ready for. Those are the ones that stayed, that were helped, that gained benefit. Others, were pushed too hard. That danger, a naive 18-year old faces ANYWHERE in the world - the WORLD is not a safe place, and I feel that this is the fault of parents, and our education systems, in our failure to equip our youngsters to deal with individuals or companies who would exploit their youth and naivette for their own purposes. Scientology HAS helped people. To the degree it helps people, they will continue to support it, and to the degree that it helps people, it DESERVES to expand. To the degree that it fails to help people, it will not expand, or get any support - my evidence is here at the Local Org, where they do not deliver a very good service - and so, they stay small. People drift in, and then drift out again. A very few stay, because at some stage, they were helped. But the majority move on. And so, if Scientology is not genuinely helping people, it won't expand. THAT is the safety-valve. The only justification for attacking the Church the way I and FACTNET have been is if they are using mind-control to expand, artificially. Based on my research, my personal knowledge, and a personal re-assessment of myself, I say they do NOT. I have put down my weapons against the Church. I am moving on with my life, and it doesn't bother me that I'm still a Declared SP, as it is a piece of paper that means nothing to me, now. I have removed the power from it. But for those here, who have never been in Scientology, and don't understand my behaviour, especially the part where I lied, I offer an extract from an alternative school of academic thought, which examines the phenonmenon of apostates: From Bryan Wilson, Reader Emeritus in Sociology at Oxford University: "In recent decades, given the emergence of so many new religious bodies which make strong demands on the loyalty of their members, instances of apostacy have become matters of considerable attention for the mass media. The apostate's story, in which he is usually presented as a victim, is seen as good news-copy for the media, particularly if he offers to 'reveal' aspects, perhaps secrets, of the movement to which he formerly belonged. In consequence, apostates receive perhaps an unwarrented amount of media attention, particularly when they are able to present their previous allegiance in terms of both their own vulnerability and the manipulation, deception, or coercion excersized by leaders and members of the movement into which they were recruited..... The disaffected and the apostate are in particular informants whose evidence has to be used with circumspection. The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to re-construct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly closest associates. Not uncommonly, the apostate learns to rehearse an 'atrocity' story to explain how, by manipulation, trickery, coercion or deceit, he was induced to join, or to remain within and organisation that he now forswears and condemns." (From: Wilson, Bryan - The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990). I do not speak for any other critic or ex-Scientologist here. I only speak for myself, and I found that my behaviour fitted this pattern. And facing that, has freed me. To all of those who are fighting the Church on the basis that they are an evil, mind-control organisation, who are going for the kill to spread around their Upper Levels, who are participating in any way in this spontaneous revolution, I urge you to re-assess what you are doing. You are hurting more people than you realise, because THEY consider it their religion. The raids WERE provoked by posting the Upper Levels. They could not have occured otherwise. Even if you don't like the Church, or Miscavige, or their methods of dealing with critics, this is NOT the way to do it. Attacking that which many, many people hold sacred IS violence - a spiritual violence. Remember, you cannot copyright an IDEA, only a documented form of it - so the PARADIGM is copyrighted, the ideas are not. Stop it now, I beg you from the bottom of my heart. Please re-consider what it is that we are all doing. Please copy any flames, questions, etc to my e-mail account, my newsfeed is three days behind - and indicate if you want a public or private reply. Kim Baker Cape Town, South Africa