Scientology

[Andrew]

@Sneakgab

No, Atlanta Georgia is in the USA. In the previous two protests they had riot police out in full force. Last time they arrested a couple people for protesting.

[Dunenewt]

From that list I'd say plymouth is the closest to where I think Dunenewt lives. But I thought he lived in Teignmouth.

Teignmouth is where Muse come from, not me ;)  Yes the Plymouth one is my local one.

[Wolf]

Ah, so it's Teginmouth's fault.

In any case, glad to hear that protests are happening now apart from the dates set by Anonymous. It may mean that normal people are taking matters into their own hands.

[Khan]

Teignmouth it where Muse come from, not me ;)  Yes the Plymouth one is my local one.

Drats I thought you were from the same place.

Did you end up going to the protest in the end? Was there a riot in the streets of plymouth?

[Andrew]

Ah, so it's Teginmouth's fault.

In any case, glad to hear that protests are happening now apart from the dates set by Anonymous. It may mean that normal people are taking matters into their own hands.

No, this last protest was organized by anon as well. :)

There is a new protest scheduled for May 10.

[Andrew]

Scientology warns wikileaks about hosting documents. Wikileaks responds by releasing thousands of pages of documents

wikinews article

Looks like wikileaks website is down at the moment. Probably CoS DDoS them.

[Dunenewt]

Drats I thought you were from the same place.

Did you end up going to the protest in the end? Was there a riot in the streets of plymouth?

No rioting, although there were people following their stress test wagon into town.

The story of an Ex-Scientology staff worker at the Plymouth org

I was a Scientology staff member from September 2003 to October 2004 and it was the toughest year of my life. My story is very long but I will just tell you the worst bits I can remember.

Scientologists will squeeze more stuff into your day than any real employer so my year there was the equivalent to about 5 years. It feels like more.

It all started when I left school at 18 and went to Plymouth to study Psychology. When I got to Plymouth my mum introduced me to Scientology with the best intentions. She was new to it and had just joined because she was looking for a job and had seen the "Staff Wanted" sign in the window.

Anyway, so I went to the Org (Scientologists have their own language and use a lot of abbreviations; Org is short for Organisation) and the ED (Excecutive Director) Dick Jones showed me around the place and convinced me to join staff there instead of studying Psychology. He told me Scientology is more effective at healing people and if I'm a staff member my courses are free. He told me it's a much better career choice as I will be trained there on the job and I will be helping others instantly.

The first couple of days were ok, I was given a warm greeting by everybody (who by the way were really loving) except the Senior C/S (Case Supervisor; in charge of reviewing the files of everyone undergoing Scientology counselling in that particular Org) She seemed to instantly dislike me. I was put through the Basic Study Manual Course and given an important-sounding job title. Just 18 and I was a Secretary! My job was the equivalent to that of Human Resources Manager but I had even more duties than that. That week's pay was less than 3 pounds sterling. My working days started getting longer and the study time (my personal improvement time) was already getting shorter. Suddenly I was working 9am-10:30pm Mon-Fri and 9am-6pm on Sundays.

Those working hours lasted a few months during which time my colleagues brainwashed me with DVDs and courses on how great it is to be a scientologist. When I became a real scientologist (when I actually believed the hype) my days were much longer and I didn't get Saturday off anymore.

I was used as a lure to get young men into the org. The Senior C/S actually told me to flutter my eyelashes at the men (others just hinted that I should use my feminine wiles).

I was introduced to Assists (a type of strange massage that's supposed to heal anything; it's done fully clothed). One of the first Assists I got was from a repulsive old man called Dudley who actually touched me all over, literally. I was so uncomfortable with a man touching me in a place nobody had ever run their hands but I figured Scientology must've somehow made him immune to the normal effects of sexual contact so it meant nothing. I did however voice my concerns to the course supervisor afterwards but she just acknowledged my complaint and told me she'd have a word with him, she'd never ask him to give me an Assist again. I later learned my Assist was not a normal one but the harm was already done.

The Executive Director took a real liking to me and used to take me into the film room (alone) for friendly chats and we would speak about my happiness (where I would tell him I wasn't happy and he would convince me that I am therefore not really experiencing Scientology because Scientology is happy and I must do this course or write up my overts (basically do a confession but on paper). Then he would ask me about my personal life and I would tell him everything (nothing much at the time). Afterwards he would give me a prolonged cuddle and kiss me on the forehead. Eventually the forehead was swapped for the cheek. Then for that bit of cheek right next to the lips. I was still naive enough to believe this was not sexual. Until one day during one of our chats I told him "you're so understanding, I wish my own Dad was more like you" and his face turned to thunder and he sent me out of the room. Things were never the same again. If you think that means they improved, they didn't. I went from being the boss's imaginary mistress to his imaginary maid. He would give me all sorts of chores and I was a servant. Whether it was to photocopy some random piece of paper or make some random person a cup of tea. Ok so PA's do this all the time but L Ron Hubbard (founder of scientology) said to take orders from your direct senior only, not random staff members. My direct senior was somebody else.

I was constantly on loan to the PES (public excecutive secretary) to "body route" (get people into the org from the street) and sell books. I was given impossible targets of booksales (sometimes 1000 a week, I'm still not sure if they were serious) and if I didn't meet the targets I had to work overtime for being "downstat". Scientologists judge their work with statistics and if your stats aren't high, you personally are a "downstat". I couldn't even sell 1 book a week most of the time.

I spent many hours sobbing at the injustice of it. The 2 bosses (the ED and his wife the Senior C/S) always went home at dinner time for much longer than the allocated 45 minutes. Sometimes they didn't even bother coming back after dinner at all! Nobody said a word because they were too scared. Yet it was up to me to get everybody in on time and do roll-call. I could not enforce the rules the ED and his wife wouldn't abide by. Only the students came back on time after dinner. Others would be late by 15mins and I had to write this down and show it to the ED the next day. Who would get the telling off? I would, because I didn't "make it go right". Scientologists love this phrase, when an executive gives a staff member an impossible task, they say "make it go right" (presumably because nothing is impossible).

As I was never paid for all my hard work I was evicted from the shelter I lived in for not paying my rent and went to a council house with a bunch of other staff members. Life got more and more harsh. I could not afford luxuries like fruit or cereal. My meals were tiny items I could buy in the nearby Spar shop. A lovely friend at the org usually bought me a chocolate bar which would supplement the pepperami's I ate for breakfast lunch and dinner. My mother gave me what she could the few times I found a chance to see her. Those were the times I would eat well albeit quickly (at one point she sold her flat and slowly spent that money on essentials and donations to the "church".

I eventually struck gold in one of the recruitment projects. I was used as bait for a particularly interesting young man and we fell for each other. Our relationship advanced very quickly as we were put on the Purification Rundown together. The Purification Rundown (Purif for short) is the first step on Scientology's "Bridge" to spiritual freedom. The Purif is supposed to get rid of all your toxins i.e. recreational and medicinal drugs you may have taken in the past, toxins from the environment etc. It consists of a little excercise coupled with lots of vitamin supplements and time in the sauna, lasts about 4-6 hours a day, everyday until you're fixed (normally about a week but can go for many weeks). So, my purif partner and I got to know each other very well. Well, after facing the irrational wrath of the (supposedly Clear; Clear=sane) ED when he found out, we were accepted as a couple and moved in together. We had our own flat because he had a real job, a full-time job outside of Scientology and he just aboout managed to pay our bills. We nearly never got to see each other though. We shared a bed for about 3 hours every night but were so exhausted we had no time to carry on getting to know each other. His paid job was 7am-3:30pm and the rest of the time he worked at the org but the ED made a point of keeping us apart. We were both unhappy but were not allowed to discuss scientology to each other, only to the Ethics Officer. Things got tense between us but deep down we knew it was not the other's fault and we stuck together.

The longer we stayed at the org, the worse we were treated. Suddenly the punishment for not selling books or Hubbard CD lectures was not just a proverbial slap on the wrist. We were declined days off, then declined nights off. Yes, we were forced to stay behind doing written work and/or manual labour (decorating) well into the early hours of the morning. Eventually I was treated like scum by the senior members of staff, because of my poor stats and my unhappiness I was relieved of my usual duties. I was working for the Ethics department just cleaning and building. Yes, building. I was taught to mix cement, demolish bad walls, and build saunas. I stopped having the strength to wake up in the mornings and was literally dragged in most days if they couldn't wake me with phonecalls. When I arrived late (everyday) the senior c/s and Deputy/ED rolled their eyes, and make sly and viscious remarks, then refused to address me directly because I was "poisonous". One day my direct senior was sent to collect me from home as usual but I refused to open the door. She would not give up and came back with one or two reinforcements. I did not give in. She sent me threats of declaring me a Suppressive Person but I said yes please. When a Scientologist is declared a "Suppressive Person"; SP for short, they are disconnected from Scientology and all Scientologists, including their family and friends. The attempts to get me out went on and on until finally they gave up patrolling my front door. My boyfriend stayed by my side and also refused to go into the org.

That was practically the end of our ordeal. I had to go back a few times to keep the peace so they would not disconnect me from the rest of my family. They gave me "word clearing" because they believed misunderstood words were the reason I became unhappy. I had to re-read all the courses I'd read and looking up the definitions of the words I supposedly didn't fully understand.

Thank goodness my whole family is out of there now. As soon as my boyfriend and I disconnected ourselves from Scientology our relationship was back on track. We're now happily married and work normal hours in real jobs.

If you're wondering, the Purif did not work. I had to pretend it did, just so I could end the sauna and vitamin torture...

From the website of the Plymouth branch of Anonymous.

[Egeides]

This explains what fuels these demonstrations, no wonder. Reading this, I wouldn't be surprised to see "rights" groups getting in (women's rights in this case).

[Wolf]

The most amazing thing to me is that these "staffs" don't just periodically rise up in rebellion. I mean, if the bosses are all away at dinner, and everyone is slaving away, and everyone hates their jobs, isn't it inevitable? Edric, help me out here.

[Dunenewt]

If they grind these people down enough, they will not rise up though.  Some of these people are so utterly crushed, they can't see a way out.

[Edric O]

No, that's not it. The reason why the victims of Scientology do not rebel (at least, not in large numbers) is because they are paying so much money and putting so much effort into Scientology.

It's a common feature of human psychology - I'm sure we have all experienced it before: Sometimes, you know that you're going down the wrong path, but you have invested so much time and effort (and in this case money) into that path that you cannot bring yourself to admit you were wrong; you cannot bring yourself to admit it was all a waste. To rebel against Scientology is to admit that you have thrown away tons of money and years of your life on a sham and a lie. Many people cannot live with the guilt of having made such a terrible mistake; so they deny the mistake and remain trapped.

Paradoxically, if Scientology did not ask for so much of your money and time, it would be easier for people to give it up, because they would not feel like they've invested so much into it that there is no turning back. The more Scientology takes away from its victims, the harder it becomes for them to escape. I suspect the heads of Scientology know this, and I suspect this is precisely the reason why they push their victims so hard.

[Wolf]

The classical economic fallacy: failure to ignore sunk cost. You cannot recover it, ergo, quit while you're "ahead."

[Andrew]

Just a heads up that worldwide protest is occurring tomorrow (May 10).

They are already planning June 14 protest.

[Dunenewt]

I might go find myself a 'V' mask tomorrow then!

[Egeides]

It's a small world. Kevin J. Anderson has co-written with L. Ron Hubbard :O

You heard me straight, I saw that on Amazon.

So after that, I googled KJA+Hubbard out of great amusement (rather cynical amusement, that is). I found that one of the big scifi series KJA got the sequel contract for (ie.Slan Hunter, 2007) is also from a (long-time disgraced) friend of Hubbard who had promoted Dianetics: A.E. van Vogt (Washington Post source).

I don't know what the book is like, although I don't see why Hubbard would have promoted otherwise than Scientology's ideas, as it was published just ten years ago.

But sure, it doesn't tell much of KJA or Hubbard as both are "success"-minded authors, but that makes one thing they have in common for mutual promotion. It's not making an ad for KJA's great ethical sense anyway.

[SandChigger]

Actually, Hubbard was dead and long gone when Kevin wrote that book. I assume he used materials given to him by the "Church".

Kevin works best with dead collaborators (Hubbard, van Vogt, Frank Herbert) or brain-dead ones (Brian Herbert): they're less likely to get stroppy halfway through. ;)

[gunner154]

Kevin works best with dead collaborators (Hubbard, van Vogt, Frank Herbert) or brain-dead ones (Brian Herbert): they're less likely to get stroppy halfway through. ;)

That comment should earn you a huge jar of cookies. ;D

[Tatar Khan]

Yesterday at night I saw commercial for dianetics on History Channel in US. Reports are that such commercials were popping up on Discovery Channel, and A&E. Another interesting thing that some of the programs were made by scientologists or their organisations.

[SandChigger]

Ach, Discovery Channel...they're such sluts sometimes. >:(

[gunner154]

I wonder how much $$$ was involved...

The under-the-table bit, that is.

[SandChigger]

OK...definitely time to take a break from the computer screen now: read that first dollar sign as an 'a' and thought, "Oh...never crossed my mind that THAT was the currency involved!"  :O

[Andrew]

Massive Takedown of Anti-Scientology Videos on YouTube

Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology.

I wonder how this will end. Last time youtube took down a video it caused massive protests.

[Sneakgab]

Copy right infringements? What, did somebody copyright criticizing scientology? Are these you-videos cutting into their profits selling their criticisms?  ;D

Well, I suppose the infringements are based on the news reports used. Those reports might be said to belong to the station that ''made'' (filmed,e.t.c) them. Other than that, I don't see anything in the link that seems like it could be even vaguely related to copyright infringements.

So does that mean that if anyone uses any film from anyone with copyrighted material (even if the copyright was meant to protect a movie or something [for example] in it's entirety with the intended purpose of said copyright not really having anything to do with the person using a short clip or whatever) the person who copyrighted the material now has free reign to destroy any work involving the video?

The article is very vague on the number of videos actually removed (and accounts banned) though.

''I wonder how this will end. Last time youtube took down a video it caused massive protests.''

Lol, the last time I remember youtube removing videos was their removal of various ''abridged'' (comedy summarized versions of episodes of TV series [normally popular and extremely stupid ones]. They are often hilarious) series which they seem to do about every 2 or three days. They always seem to be promptly replaced within a few hours though. Youtube's efforts hardly even seem noticeable, but maybe because they're not banning accounts for this matter for some reason.

Well, something that is clear is that the courts should take into mind that they should be tending to the SPIRIT of the law not the LETTER of the law. Honestly, didn't they read Merchant of Venice in high school? Though more likely what they need to read is anything providing the moral fiber required to NOT be corrupt @$$holes who will abuse anything they can in the law (when combined with their position's ability to proclaim a wide variety of sentencesdemands, that gives them quite a bit of power, especially when, for whatever reason, a jury is not involved leaving the issue of verdict to them as well (if that is how it works in the states, I know nothing of their legal procedures and to be honest know little of the matter in general).

I'm assuming that since these videos probably bore little questionable content within the realms of reasonable argument that there was no jury present on these matters. If the letter of the law is to be always be obeyed precisely in spite of reason then what do we need judges, jury, e.t.c for? They could mostly be dispensed with.

[Egeides]

Anonymous' hacker faces 10 years jail for attacking Scientology

And it seems Anonymous also gets into attacking politicos (ie. Palin's emails). Am I to make much sense of it? Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

News' excerpt:

The conflict between the group Anonymous and the Church of Scientology is a secret to no one, but secrecy of the group may have just been broken, after 18-year-old Dimitriy Guzner admitted to hacking the Church

[SandChigger]

Good on them. Clambake time! ;D