Because of various problems with Blogger, I've copied everything as of November 26, 2012 over to WordPress. The new location is Ask the Scientologist. I am not deleting this blog and will still accept comments and answer questions here too, but any new articles will appear at the WordPress location. I apologize if this causes any problems.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Happy New Year 2011

I would like to wish all of you a wonderful New Year 2011.  I appreciate all your support and your comments, questions and suggestions.

I would also like to thank all those Scientologists who have argued with me.  I do learn a lot from the arguments.  As my understanding has been changed over the years by some of those who have argued with me, so I hope I have been able to change some of your understanding as well.

As it is traditional at New Years to look back and look forward, I have been thinking about all that has happened in the few years this blog has been in existence.

First, a look back.

Shortly after I started Ask the Scientologist, the infamous Tom Cruise video was leaked in January of 2008.  At that time, no one knew how that would affect Scientology.  It changed everything.

I don't need to rehash that in any detail, but from the efforts of the Church of Scientology to suppress the video came Anonymous' Project Chanology and from that came the collapse of the Church of Scientology.

In light of David Miscavige's recent announcement of his "victory over Anonymous", I want to point out exactly what Anonymous and the Internet did.

Before Anonymous, the Church of Scientology was, essentially, untouchable.  Major media had learned its lesson from Time Magazine -- if you said anything negative about the Church of Scientology, even when completely true and proven in court, it would cost you millions and millions.  No major media would risk that, so the church's crimes, lies, fraud and abuse were universally ignored.

Before Anonymous, critics and whistle-blowers were viciously fair-gamed, attacked, slandered and libelled.  Once again, the Church of Scientology's million-dollar lawyers made it virtually impossible for the whistle-blowers to defend themselves.

Now it is true that the Church of Scientology was shrinking and had been for three decades, but this was primarily because of Miscavige's incompetence, poor leadership and stupidity, not because of any external force.  It was a train wreck in slow motion.

Then came Anonymous.

Turns out it was the perfect way to attack and expose the Church of Scientology's crimes, lies, abuse and fraud.  Every single weapon the church possessed was completely nullified.  The attack had no leaders, no organization, no faces, no names, just information -- pure, verifiable information.

Almost immediately, many more people became involved in this fight.  Suddenly the treasure trove of information collected by critics and whistle-blowers over fifty years, plus tons of new leaks, documents, affidavits, court records, confidential church issues and so much more, exploded over the Internet.  The church's crimes, lies, abuse and fraud were exposed for all to see.  And the Church of Scientology could do nothing to stop it.

The truth has always been Scientology's Achilles heel, and they could do nothing about these leaks and their ineffective attempts to do so just fuelled the flames.

Today, the environment is completely different for the church.  Major media can and does report regularly on the church's crimes, lies, fraud and abuse.  Virtually no one outside of the Church of Scientology has a good opinion of the church.  The information about Scientology that was once so carefully hidden is now available for all to see -- and millions have seen it.

Very notably, in all this media coverage was the incredible exposés of the St. Petersburg Times by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin.  Their series, The Truth Rundown, was incredible -- and they aren't stopping.

And let us not forget Anderson Cooper's series, Scientology: A History of Violence.  David Miscavige's incredibly stupid and incompetent rebuttals were more damaging than anything Anderson revealed.

And there were a lot more major media reports and exposés, all over the world.  No one is afraid of the Church of Scientology any more.

Far from there being any "victory" here for Miscavige, the Internet has defeated the Church of Scientology at every turn.  As the saying goes, the Church of Scientology can't afford any more "victories" like that.

As we come up on the third year anniversary of the protests, we see that, while the protests are often smaller and are no longer appearing at all the smaller orgs, they are still continuing.  This is both impressive and important.  The crimes, lies, abuses and fraud of the Church of Scientology continue to this day.  That must not be forgotten.

This year we also saw the Headley case dismissed.  That was disappointing, but not unexpected.  However, the great part was, after evidence was presented in court, the Church of Scientology had to admit it was all true.  Yes, they do abuse their staff. Yes, they don't give them any time off. Yes, they pay them next to nothing. Yes, they feed staff table-scraps and force them to sleep under their desks. Yes, yes, yes. But, they said, we're allowed to do that, we're a cult!

And the court agreed. Didn't like it but had to agree. Yes, they can abuse their staff.   This is now public record.  This was not the "victory" that the church claimed, was it?

Several new books have come out this year exposing Scientology's evils.  No longer does the church have any power to stop them.  This year we've seen:
I don't want to neglect the books that came earlier.  In 2009 we saw:
In 2008 we saw:
The Church of Scientology is powerless to stop anything.  Scientology's mythical power has been exposed as a flimsy paper tiger.

In 2010, Scientologists continued to leave the church, Miscavige continued to make huge mistakes and fail miserably, and the Church of Scientology continued to collapse.  Overall, it was a good year.

Please let me know if I've forgotten any significant events of 2010.

Next: What about the future?
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Monday, December 20, 2010

"Real, live OTs!"

Well, this is certainly good news.  An Independent Scientologist has announced that he is producing "real, live OTs".

Isn't that wonderful?

In addition, can we also assume he is producing "real, live Releases" and "real, live Clears"?

Think about it, even L. Ron Hubbard, in all his years, never produced real, live Releases, Clears or OTs.  Hubbard himself was not Clear and was not OT.  We now know that when Hubbard died, he was quite sick, in pain, hiding from the law and ultimately betrayed by those he trusted.  Hubbard could not produce the miraculous results he promised, even on himself.

No, there is no verified evidence that anyone ever fully gained the promised, miraculous Abilities Gained from Scientology's Grade Chart -- not via Hubbard's personal auditing, not via Church of Scientology auditing and not via any outside Scientology practitioner's auditing.  It never happened.

But now we find, after decades of Scientology failing to produce any of the promised, miraculous results, this Independent Scientologist has finally succeeded!

"Holy cats!  Real, live OTs!"
...

Of course, if you look for specifics, if you look for any evidence that someone he audited is actually "cause over matter, energy, space, time, life and thought", you won't find any.

Now, I don't mind someone believing whatever they want to believe.  That's their business.  And I do know that Scientology can make some people temporarily feel wonderful.

What I object to is the trap.

Scientology traps people because they promise and promise and promise these miraculous results.  I know of people who, even today, continue to tolerate the most horrible abuses and who ruin themselves to pay and pay and pay -- all because of this one specific promise:  They believe that some day they would be cause over matter, energy, space, time, life and thought.

It's a lie and it is there only to trap people.

I object, as strongly as I can, to anyone who continues to promise this lie in order to trap people within Scientology.

Dear Scientology practitioner:

If you promise "OT" but only deliver a temporary "I feel wonderful" feeling, you trick people into coming back again and again (and paying again and again), believing you will eventually actually deliver on your promise.  It's a trick, and it only works until the person wakes up to the fact that you can't deliver what you promised and that a temporary "I feel wonderful" is as good as it gets.

And since you know you've never delivered "OT", your continuing to "promise" that is fraud.

Stop claiming you can produce the results promised for "Release", "Clear" and "OT" -- because you haven't, no one has!
Tell the truth about what you actually do produce so you are not committing fraud.
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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Contact Me

After years of procrastination, I've finally added a Contact Me form for anyone who wishes to contact me privately rather than post a comment.

I'm using Kontactr, we'll see how that goes.  So far it seems acceptable.  It does append an ad to the email, but since that only goes to me, I can live with it.

The form requires that you enter an email address, but it does not have to be a real one.  If you don't want to include your email, use something like "bogus@gmail.com".
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