From: Kim Baker Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Re: WHY KIM LEFT FACTNET Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 09:53:11 GMT Martin Poulter wrote: > Thank you, Kim for your lengthy explanation. > > As you can imagine, your post is among the most significant ever posted to > this newsgroup. The scieno's will of course seize on things that you have > said as vindicating them and bolstering their theory that their opponents > are compulsive liars. I want to discuss how I think the net-critics' case is > affected by what you have said. OK. > Since I haven't said this before, can I just say that I am one of the many > people who has followed your posts very closely and has been inspired by > your obvious personal strength. Like many others, I have used the Web to > introduce your story to more people. I hope you do not feel separated > from us by the differences that have now surfaced. Remember that all of us on > a.r.s are different and the opinion of a "hateful" minority does not tell > how all of us think. Fair enough. We're all different, we grow, we change. Change of opinion, in a rational environment, shouldn't lead to differences. I don't want everyone to feel that they have to agree with me in order to talk to me. Hell, if I wanted that, I'd go back to the Church! ;) > You deny that Scientology is a mind-control organisation. All that > indicates to me is that what you mean by "mind control" is different from > from I mean. I will accept that people cannot be programmed like robots. I > will accept that a group having a specialised language is not necessarily > pathological. What appears to be involved (I'm an outsider) is social > pressure. You may say that this takes Scn out of the category of > "mind-control group": isn't everybody subject to social pressure in one way > or another? No, it's not the same. L Ron Hubbard devised a way to drive > social pressure to extremes, convincing people that the tech can solve *all* > their problems and that any problem that they are having with the tech *must* > be their own fault. There is no way you can compare that to any pressure > that you or I are experiencing now. You want to BET? I'm standing up against a whole accepted opinion here, a majority, and disagreeing. Tis not easy. I'm saying, I don't agree that it's mind control, I think it's social pressure. And I'm not going to defend or explain the religion, it's not my religion. And if Hubbard devised it so that people would be more inclined to agree ( I *did* write the Basic Coercive tactics series), since he figured he knew what was best for everyone, then, to the degree that we fall for it, to the degree that we *let* him or anyone do that to us, we are naive, rather than mind-controlled. And the way out of that is education, and making people aware of the techniques. I support free speech and opinion. I support the existence of this forum. I just wish there was less talk about "clams", less chomping and shredding of Scientologists who post here, and more rational debate. If the person's lying, so what, why get angry, the integrity of the research and documents will determine the truth in the end. The other trap I see here is now that *anything* any Scientologist says is immediately taken to be a lie, and people set out to prove it so. Which immediately makes them defensive, less willing to look at what you might be saying, etc. > The really horrendous Sea Org practices that we have been hearing about;- > locking someone in a dark basement until they confess to whatever crimes > their superiors want and so on -constitute brain-washing in the classical > sense. It would be amazing if such procedures *didn't* cause deep reform in > people's ways of thinking. Surely. If it was true. And it might be. It might be one instance, or ten instances. Inexusable for happening. Does it still happen, exactly like that? I don't know. Who else around here has been in the Sea Org since, say, 1994? If it did happen, on several occasions, when did it happen? What dates? Why are there so few people speaking out against these atrocities now? (I'm not talking about the Church's handling of critics, I'm talking about locking people up, chaining them up, etc). > We are not combatting "mind control" on this newsgroup. We are combatting > *lies*. Fair enough. I *fully* support an objective, research-based initiative to sift the truth from the lies, as long as it is a FAIR one, which means - conceeding where the Church may be right about something, if they are. > L Ron LIED when he claimed to have scientific research to back up > all his theories. He LIED when he described himself as a war hero, > a PhD and an explorer. OK. People are doing more research on this, I know. > The church LIES when it claims that Scientology is compatible with > Christianity or other religions. Hmmm. I'm suspending any comment or opinion until I see a court transcript which confirms that it is a copyrighted document, part of the OT Levels. > Scientology LIES when it offers its followers supernatural powers. Indeed - over-enthusiatic promotion is a painful part of this world - Scientology is a paradigm, which is considered to be a means to get to the truth, supernatural powers, etc. Some people find and believe that it does. Others don't, and leave. For those who do - do we have any right to take their belief, their means of defining reality, away from them because we think they are wrong? We're on dangerous ground here, because then, if we have the right to do that, it means one group, or one opinion, will get to say what reality is. The *very* thing we're opposing. > "Fact vs Fiction" LIED about the 2 million South African children. No, I live here, this is one thing I *can* tell you about. They didn't provide statistics to support the figure. At worst, it was a distortion. They have run "study tech" courses, via Education Alive, which *is* a registered non-profit corporation. I doubt two million, but certainly, over the course of the years, thousands have had the courses. People just don't know that Education Alive is a branch of the Church of Scientology, here in South Africa, and even if they did, they wouldn't CARE. We got bigger problems, if you know what I mean. > Narconon LIES when it claims to have a safe, effective treatment > for drug addiction. Yeah, not qualified to give an opinion. > Scn's representatives on the 'net: Andy Milne, Helena Kobrin, > Leisa Goodman et al., have lied so many times we have all lost count. They have very little credibility in this forum, that is evident. > If Scientology is a workable tech that can make people happy, let it > present itself as such- by charging reasonable prices, for example. Let it > behave like a humanitarian organisation instead of a tin-pot dictatorship. > One way to achieve this is if Scientology loses the Bridge (control over > the OT documents). This would cause the public scientologists to turn > against the management, offering a real chance for change and a possible > end to the exploitation. This prospect is what motivates a lot of us on the > net. OK, I can understand that. I don't like the pricing myself. I think that the bad reputation from the past haunts them. I think that they do do good in some areas, but it gets overshadowed. I can tell you that what those Education Alive people have done here is awesome. You just don't KNOW how absolutely, heart-wrenchingly pathetic the education system was in the apartheid era. It's still a shambles, but its getting better now. Those people who taught the courses did GOOD. The workers who joined the NGO are mostly not Scientologists, and they are stunning people. They do GOOD. HOW can I oppose that? HOW? The person in charge of the initial program was Rena Weinberg, and she's now at LA (I think). Why not ask her, or write to her, asking for figures? > You think it likely that scientology has improved its ethics since the time > of the Guardian's Office. Your argument for this seems worryingly weak. I'm sorry about this, I'm at one hell of a disadvantage here. I can only speak for what I *know* of in South Africa. I really don't *know*, can't check out for myself, can't see in any other way than this forum, what occurs in the States, or elsewhere. > You mention that you have not been "fair gamed". Have you had time to read > my posts over the last few months? In my country, a family have had their > house picketed and their children intimidated. Another have had late-night > visits from a private detective. Last year Jon Atack had his house > picketed and his family "investigated". Many anonymous (but clearly > scn-authored) leaflets have been passed out libelling Atack, Bonnie Woods > and others. This is to say nothing of what has happened in the US. Yes. The Scientologists believe that if you attack their religion, they will fight back. And this is justified, because they (VERY sincerely) are defending spiritual freedom. I'm not saying they don't fight back. I'm saying that where I live, they don't fight back, unethically. Moslems have a policy of "Jihad" of "Holy War" when they feel their religion is in jeopardy - they're also not a "turn-the-other-cheek" religion. I don't like this. I don't agree with it. I believe that this means leads to an endless cycle of criticise-attack-more-criticise-more-attack, ad infinitum. It just doesn't solve the problem. It just makes it bigger and bigger. Tearing Scientologists to pieces (as I have SEEN, over and over again, on this forum) just alienates them even more - because everyone's so keen to prove them wrong. And when a majority has an opinion, there's very little an individual can generally do. Or is there? > You deny that suggestions are being implanted during auditing, and yet in > this newsgroup we have seen the Whole Track Sec Check. We have read Margery > Wakefield's account of how she "confessed" to crimes she was supposed to > have committed thousands of years ago. I personally have heard about one > individual who was convinced by his auditor that he had murdered thousands > of jews in a concentration camp in a previous life. He was so stricken with > guilt that he committed suicide. The processing described in Dianetics > quite obviously involves the implanting of "memories" of being a fetus or > a sperm. Good points. I still say they are NOT implanted. A good auditor only asks questions, and NEVER NEVER tells a person the answer. The answer is ENTIRELY up to the person. This is from my basic lower Tek knowledge. An auditor should never leave a person in a state of distress over some memory that they have had, and so, the person who audited the individual who committed suicide didn't finish auditing the person. If you don't audit properly, the consequences can be that tragic. I'm really, really sorry about that individual. Do you know the name of the person? > You deny that the repetitiveness of the tech is harmful. What about the > loss of humour and the empty stare that frequently accompanies these > processes? Dennis told you about his daughter, didn't he? Yes. To be honest, the only times I've seen that is when auditing didn't occur properly - in other words, the auditor botched. > You implore us not to attack the copyrights, saying that if we do so we are > hurting a lot of people for whom Scientology is a legitimate religion. > How can the dissemination of a religious text to non-scieno's be an attack > on scientologists? How does the scientologists' right not to be "attacked" > in this way override the rights of the general public not to be informed > about what Scn really involves? I'm sorry, but I'm unshakable on this one. The contents of a religious text can be discussed, without disseminating the actual, specified processes. People can be informed about the ideas of the religion, without the exact rituals being distributed around. The Free Masons, the Rosicrucians, the OTO, Eckankar, and here in Africa, the secret rituals passed down from isangoma (traditional healer) to isangoma, are kept secret. In Africa (this is the subject I know most about), an initiate trains to become a healer. Their mentor gives them levels of knowledge as they are ready. This knowledge entails various rituals in contacting the ancestors, as well as various levels of understanding relating to the origins of the Universe. I have been given some of these secrets, by my wonderful, wise old mentor. He *entrusted* me not to reveal them, and I respect that, because the knowledge is regarded as sacred. He does not just give this knowledge to me freely - he does it because he says I have "the light", he does it because he expects me to give back to Africa what I have learned, and there is payment involved - usually, it takes the form of cattle, or an assegai (a spear) - in my case, I take food, and blankets for the kids, etc. In the West, payment tends to take the form of money. Following your rationale, you are saying that it would be OK for me to tell you all these ancient and tribal secrets in this forum, because no-one here practices an African Traditional Religion? What harm is there in that, you say? I'm sorry, there's just no WAY I would do that, not only because I gave him my word, but because it is part of the dignity and culture of Africa, it is her *right* to a kind of PRIVACY about it. And, interestingly enough - here in South Africa, the West has suddenly realised that our traditional healers may be on to something. Biochemists have set up labs at the major universities in the Cape, where I live, to study the chemical componenets of the herbs used in remedies - and finding that the chemicals *do* cure certain diseases. American pharmaceutical companies are starting to swoop like vultures to scoop up this knowledge, and make money out of it. Of course, the traditional healers are starting to wise up - they are applying to PATENT and COPYRIGHT their knowledge, to prevent this exploitation by the West. Surely that is their right? In other words, the deeper secrets are transferred orally (hah, is *that* ever turning out to be the best protection against prying eyes), and are not considered to be suitable for the general public. The lesser, more herbal-based remedies *are* made available, but are now being protected against exploitation by outsiders, who would profit from them, without giving any profit back to those who PROVIDED the knowledge. Now, much as no-one here likes it - Hubbard developed some stuff, and copyrighted it, and gave to the RTC for use after his death. If the stuff he developed is harmful, no good, etc, people would not continue to support it. You all disagree with me and say, that's only because they are under mind control, they are coerced and manipulated into staying. Could be. But I don't think so. [...] > Do you want to know what really turned me against scientology? The > affidavits from Jeff Jacobsen's ftp site made me realise that things were > going on within the "church" that should not be tolerated in a civilised > society, but what really affected me was meeting some of scientology's > "enemies". In real life I have met at least one PTS and a few major SP's. > This newsgroup has brought me into contact with many more, including > of course Dennis and yourself. These are all people, who according to Ron > and his followers, are criminals, inherently evil personalities, to the > detriment of all humanity etc. etc. etc. Do you know what? They are all > *really* nice people! Not the sort of people who should have to put up > with investigators coming to their house in the middle of the night or > picketers shouting abuse at them outside their homes. Yes. I really, really, don't like the SP and Disconnect policies. Another reason I would never go back. I don't like having *anyone* dictate to me to whom I may or may not speak to. The people in the Church choose to obey these rules - that's their choice. > Any organisation which labels such people "Potential Trouble Source" or > "Suppressive Person" must be truly insane. I dunno. In African Traditional Religions, people who practice witchcraft, which is considered to be black magic, magic in reverse, a perversion of the natural order, tend to get murdered for doing this. The danger in any kind of labelling is - WHO does the labelling, and are they totally certain it is just? Could not a person be manifesting an anti-social behaviour, but they are not essentially evil? And that the cause of the evil should be looked for, really, really well, before labelling a person so? Meaning they may be going on a rampage, but surely they should take the time to find out WHY? These are all part of the reasons I don't go back. > Your post has prompted us all to think about why we are confronting > Scientology. You haven't given me enough reason to change my position: I am > going to keep opposing the scientology organisation, although I do not > totally condone the wholesale posting of all their documents. SCAMIZDAT > has my support and I like to see The Crosstown Bus to Toad'l Freedum rolling. > > I suppose you have your way and we have ours. Please don't be too upset > just because we don't agree. I'm not upset at all. And I'm not trying to make anyone change their position, etc. I'm just honestly stating my views, and if these views make people look at, and examine this conflict a little more, because there is so little understanding of each other here, that'd be cool. But hey, I'm just one individual, with a stubborn streak and a big mouth. And a relentless drive to get to actual truths, rather than just accepting what seems to be so, on the surface, just because some nice people told me they were so. Kim > MARTIN L: Postgrad. studying "Probability and Belief" at Bristol University > POULTER : "My body is an energy antenna. Bask in my radiant effulgence!" > WWW Home Page & Scientology Critics' Scientology is a dangerous cult > stuff: http://mail.bris.ac.uk/~plmlp KoX -warn your family and friends. >