By Martin Hunt more
29 December 1997
Reference:
http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/scn/why/martinh.txt
I was
in Scientology for two years in the late 1980s, and took a total
of 18 courses to become a supervisor, that is, a teacher of
Scientology and a minor executive in the Vancouver organization,
the Director of Public Services. I had my "training" at ASHO,
the American Saint Hill Organization, and ITO, the International
Training Organization, both in the large blue Cedars of Lebanon
complex Scientology owns in Los Angeles.
Scientology is, as I know it to be based on my experience, an
empty organization, devoid of spirituality, cold, and utterly
ruthless. I was ordered to disconnect from my family, which I
refused to do. I was ordered to stay at my post and work through
Christmas, which I also refused to do. I began to see that the
organization did not live up to its many promises of improvement
of people; I myself was not improved, and neither was anyone
else I saw in the organization. I asked Scientology's elite,
Operating Thetans, to show to me some of the powers they claimed
to have, and they failed miserably at this small task. Most "OTs",
as they are called, were elderly, sick, feeble, dying of cancer,
wore thick glasses, and were unimpressive to me, mentally,
physically, and spiritually. If the top of Scientology's "Bridge
to Total Freedom" looked so shabby, there was little hope for
myself or anyone else in the organization. In addition, my
superiors were, one and all, unremarkable people, given to fits
of rage, bouts of depression, and other behaviour that did not
fit in with L. Ron Hubbard's claims for his so-called
"technology" and the wunderkind it was meant to produce.
These facts and many other small things which did not fit led to
my departure from Scientology, after which I was declared a
"suppressive person", i.e., someone who won't toe the party line
in the cult and submit to command intention with complete
obedience to the cult's weltanschauung.
I left Scientology and read voraciously in the library any and
all material I could find about the cult, which opened my eyes
to the true nature of what I had been involved with. Over a
space of five years I recovered from the cult's pernicious
influence on my mind. I kept a journal in which I wrote down
influences, such as the paranoid feelings and thoughts almost
all Scientologists have about psychiatrists and others in the
mental healing profession. In this journal, I also wrote down
typical Scientological thoughts and terminology, and rid my mind
of them one by one, removing the semantic basis for cult hood.
Scientology redefines hundreds of key English words such as
"thinking", "critical thought", "reason", "cognition",
"perception", "reality", "communication", "open mindedness",
"rationality", and many others in such a way as to alter the
thinking patterns of its members with a truly
Orwellian
methodology. In addition, numerous drills are done for long
hours that have an effect on the rationality of its members. If
these fail, Scientology has arrogated to itself its own penal
system, complete with Ethics Officers, Masters at Arms, prison
camps (called RPFs, Rehabilitation Project Forces),
Courts of
Ethics, and Committees of Evidence. Sleep deprivation and
dietary restrictions enhance this controlling effect leading to
partially unaware or unconscious people, acting without
thinking, fanatical in their obedience, and uniform in their
thinking, dress, and behaviour.
In addition to these altered means of thought, Scientology also
introduces thousands of neologisms which add to the impact of
the semantic disturbance the cult produces in its victim's
minds. These I also tackled in my journal, carefully noting down
when I used them, and resolving with each one to never
unconsciously use them again. After getting out of Scientology,
I had trouble thinking clearly and logically, but this was
overcome by the time I discovered the internet in early 1994. I
found a list of newsgroups, searched for "scientology", and came
across alt.religion.scientology, ars,
where I immediately wrote up a short post of what I knew to be
the nature of Scientology encouraging other ex-Scientologists to
come on and speak their minds, regardless of the harassment that
was sure to follow this exercise of free speech. This article,
entitled What is
Scientology, has been reposted many times, translated into
German, French and Russian, and has been placed up on the World
Wide Web. Ars at that time was a backwater Usenet newsgroup,
with only a handful of posts per day and no one on it at that
time appeared to be very knowledgeable about the subject.
I have continued to post on ars, write FAQs (frequently asked
questions lists with their answers) for ARS, including a
booklist, a dictionary, a
who's who list, and a general faq),
and have contributed more posts to that newsgroup than any other
single person. I see it as my civic duty to tell people what
Scientology is really like underneath the shiny PR image that
the cult carefully maintains. Scientology has been,
historically, underreported in the mainstream media due to
"libel chill", that is, their efforts to sue and harass anyone
with the temerity to write about them or their (now dead)
leader, L. Ron Hubbard. Authors of books on the cult have been
uniformly harassed, sued, and attacked for speaking out. Their
books have been stolen from libraries, defaced and destroyed.
Newspapers have been sued, magazines have been silenced, but the
internet cannot be silenced.
I fight Scientology not for personal reasons, but because I see
it as the good fight and the right thing to do. I got people
into Scientology, people who's lives will never be the same,
people who have disconnected from the family and loved ones
under Scientology's disgusting
disconnection policy.
What Scientologists believe, they have a right to. They do not have
a right to break the law and apply the cult's notorious
Fair Game
law to their critics or ex-members. They do not have the right
to lock people up, to forcefully interrogate people, to pry into
people's privacy, to break up families and destroy people's
minds. They do not have the right to engage in fraud and to
impoverish their victims. They do not have the right to lie, and
Scientology is a big lie from top to bottom. Many of the people
in it are victims of the system themselves, and cannot be blamed
for their position. Nevertheless, the world has to know about
the cult's true nature and the nature of its founder,
L. Ron
Hubbard, who was a con man, a common criminal, a self-confessed
drug addict, a virtually pathological liar, a paranoid, a
follower of Aleister Crowley, and an abusive personality — abusive to his wives, his children, and his loyal followers.
I will continue to work to expose Scientology, as that will give
fair warning to anyone who might get sucked into the
organization. Scientology is socially destructive and
disruptive, and is a wholly negative influence on society by its
attacks on free speech and human rights, and its assault on the
truth with its revisionist leanings.
Alt.religion.scientology is
the main forum for discussion of this topic and posting of
information about Scientology; in addition, there are hundreds
of web pages about Scientology. For more of my views about this
cult, please see:
Just the FAQs: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~av282/
Scientology in Canada:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/1332/
The Scientology Library:
http://www.anthrax.net/cos/library/index.htm
ARSCC Photo Gallery:
http://www.islandnet.com/~martinh/arscc.htm
--
Cogito, ergo sum. FAQs:
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~av282/
"But regardless how hard the going is for us critics in the face
of entrenched evil, as Winston Churchill said once that these
are not the dark days, but rather the great days. They are great
because the cult is giving each of us an opportunity to find out
the depth of our love of freedom." — Grady Ward.
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