What price are you willing to pay for the promise of "Total Freedom"? Only the promise. No one actually has this "Total Freedom". No one shows any evidence of even being close. All Scientology gives you is a promise that sometime, far in the future, you will attain something L. Ron Hubbard called "Total Freedom".
And it's a rather vague promise at that. Exactly what someone is supposed to attain, and exactly when they are supposed to attain it is very undefined. It obviously isn't available now. No one has it. Let's face it, none of the OT VIIIs are showing anything special -- and if they don't have "Total Freedom", no one does.
All anyone has is a "promise" of Total Freedom. Some day.
And for that, you pay. And pay.
Not just money, although that is substantial. The most significant payments that Scientologists make are much more than just money.
You, basically, pay with your life.
- You certainly give to the Church of Scientology more money than you can afford, and then go deeply into debt. And that certainly affects your whole life, but that is only the beginning.
- You give the Church of Scientology all your time. You work long hours, even overtime, at your job, in the struggle to make enough money. You volunteer at the Church of Scientology to help with various church projects, OT Committee projects and Volunteer Minister activities. You sell books -- or at least try to. Any "spare moment" must be used in doing something for Scientology. Your time is not your own.
- You give the Church of Scientology your family and friends. You've tried to bring all your family members and friends into Scientology, but that didn't go over very well. Even those who did get involved usually dropped out again. And the church won't let you stay in contact with friends and family who know and think and say negative things about Scientology. And so you've lost your family and friends.
- You give the Church of Scientology all your attention, hopes, plans. Scientology is your life. Everything you say, everything you think, everything you read, everything you listen to, it's all Scientology. When you plan for your future, it is "your future on the Bridge". You have invested everything in the Church of Scientology.
But that isn't enough. David Miscavige keeps telling you that you must give more. You simply are not giving enough and you must find a way to give even more.
For this promise.
Unfortunately for you, and all Scientologists, David Miscavige has never been very good on keeping his promises.
Where are all the "Saint Hill-sized Orgs"? That was a huge promise years ago. What happened to that promise? It was huge, it was vital -- and it disappeared when Miscavige failed to do his job.
Where is SuperPower? You probably gave a ton of money for that "very important project" that he promised. Turns out Miscavige collected four times what the SuperPower building cost. What happened? You paid, but Miscavige never delivered on his promise.
Miscavige keeps promising that he'll do everything he's supposed to do if only you give him your money and your time. So you gave more money, you gave more time, but Miscavige never delivered on his side of that bargain. It's his job to deliver a "Scientology boom" and that never happened. Miscavige failed to deliver what he promised, Scientology is collapsing -- and he just keeps demanding more from you.
Now he's pushing the "Ideal Orgs" project, requiring more and more money from you. But those buildings Scientologists worked so hard to buy are standing empty and all the churches are struggling to survive. Again, Miscavige promises that if you give and give and give, then he will produce that Scientology expansion. You do the giving, but Miscavige never delivers what he promises.
You've paid and paid and paid, but you're not getting "Total Freedom"; you're not getting Scientology expansion. You are only getting more demands, and more promises, from Miscavige.
It's time to stop paying Miscavige for his endless empty promises.
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Posts
Brilliant, as usual!
ReplyDeleteThanks Milly!
ReplyDeleteEvery time you said 'fails to deliver' I immediately got the 'Anonymous delivers' image in my head.
ReplyDeleteThis is the basic problem.
ReplyDeleteOne of the key problems with my own dissem efforts, and perhaps was one of the key straws to break this camel's back, was that I, as a Scientologist, was not some shining example of Scientology working.
Working for a mission, I was hardly an example of why someone should want to join Scientology. "Come join this group that routinely turns well meaning people into self-abasing drones!" Not exactly a major selling point.
It's one thing to be in a position of genuinely having achieved a great deal of success and being able to point to Scientology and saying this or that was key to my success, but this certainly was not the case for me. Yeah, I had wins, and I'm better off for them, but I'm still just a human being.
And I wasn't an OT. The OT's I met were either outstanding in their own right before joining Scientology (so who's to say if their success was due to Scientology or because they were driven to be successful in the first place), or they were manifesting some very strange problems (say, with their bodies, injuries, sickness, whatever) that shouldn't have been there based on what we were promised.
Scientology's value should be evident by simple example. Sadly, it's not.
I really appreciate all your posts, Bill. I would really love to see you write about "Freeloader's Debt" and how ridiculous it is for Scientology to call it that, when the people on staff work 40, 50, 60+ hours a week all while being paid pennies, and when they can't pay their rent and car payment they're expected to get a second job to pay their bills. Then, on their ONE DAY OFF, they're expected to go on course. It's madness. No wonder some many scn are chain smokers and coffee fiends. They're stressed the hell out!
ReplyDeleteIf anything, the church is the freeloader.