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From: Kim Baker <KIM@uctlib.uct.ac.za>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: WHY I LEFT FACTNET - 1
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 07:43:38 GMT
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There are several factors which contributed to my decision to leave
FACTNET, so please bear with me, as I need to give the context in a
way that can hopefully lead you to understand the issues with some
clarity, even if you don't agree with my decision and my conclusions.
I have, after some very serious reflection and consideration, decided
that I will not re-join FACTNET. I do feel, after taking such a vocal
position, that I owe everyone an explanation.
THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT
The catalyst for my resignation originated here in South Africa. Both
Malcolm and I KNOW that that bomb threat was not an OSA set-up.
That's all I can say. We just KNOW. Subsequent to that, Malcolm and I
had a raging argument, and a fall-out. It was not unexpected, as I
had never "connected" with the local critics in the same way that I
did the Americans, and the Europeans. The reason for this, and that's
why I said that it's a uniquely South African thing, and additional
dimension to the conflict between Scientology and its critics here,
is that the critics in South Africa generally tended to be of the
"old political order", made racist comments from time to time, etc. I
have always had difficulty relating to other white South Africans who
hold these views, because I have always, since being a kid, been
adamently opposed to discrimination on any physical, racial, genetic,
gender, sexual orienatation, etc, etc, grounds. I have seen and
experienced the effects and the utter emotional and spiritual cruelty
of racism on the Blacks here in South Africa, and I'm not a sappy,
"pink-liberal" type. I am, however, soft. Too soft, as Malcolm told
me. So, the alliance between myself and the local critics in South
Africa was an uneasy one, at the best of times.
The bomb threat had nothing to do with FACTNET, but it came at a time
when I was feeling very uneasy at the amount of utter hatred and bile
that was continuing on a.r.s. There were other reasons for the
resignation which had been brewing, but which I wasn't in any shape
to expand upon at the time - I really needed time to step back, and
look at it all, and get my head straight. Which I have now done. I am
now certain in all the things that I say here. All along, after I
wrote my story, after I came back into the conflict after an absence
of some months, I was not satisfied that I had reached the truth of
my experiences in Scientology, and of what was going on in this
forum. I now know, with confidence, that I have satisfied myself as
to the truth. Please note, that all the way through, I am not
speaking for anyone else, saying that they are wrong in their
opinion, etc - all I am, and all I can do, is tell it to you as I see
it, finally confident that I have sifted through and reached the
truth.
MIND CONTROL
In any conflict, you often have well-intentioned individuals, who
oppose each other on various issues, but there is always a
fundamental, basic issue, or opinion, where they differ. In sifting
through to the very basic issue here, I found that the fundamental
issue is whether Scientology uses mind control, or not. Clearly,
where we *all* agree, is that mind control is an evil thing. So,
those who accept that Scientology uses mind control will oppose it on
that basis, because they are opposing an evil thing. I believe the
Church misunderstands that the basic intention of their critics, is a
GOOD one - fighting the evil of mind control. They don't see this, of
course, because they do not believe that Scientology uses mind
control.
And so, the most important thing to establish, is whether Scientology
uses mind control, or not. I have come to believe, based on my
personal experience, only, that they do NOT. This will jar many
people, because I have been advocating that they do, for so long. And
so, I need to jump back in time, to when I wrote "My Story".
MY STORY
I arrived on the Internet in a state of considerable emotional
turmoil, resulting from the traumatic marriage, and break-up thereof,
to my ex. I read all the stories and affidavits put out by many of
the old timers, and I had never had access to information like this
before. Many of you watched me waver back and forth as I struggled to
break from Scientology. I approached people in the Church with some
of the affidavits, and demanded an explanation. All I got, was an
ethics handling, a suggestion "not to worry about a handful of liars
and lunatics", and an order, as per my ethics handling, to
"disconnect" from the "entheta". Which just was not good enough for
me. I kept asking for information that would explain the affidavits
to me, give me more information, so that I could make a balanced
decision, and I received none. Which led me to conclude that
something was wrong, otherwise why not just provide information to
explain the allegations? And so, I started to believe all the mind-
control theories, all the affidavits, and I accepted that Scientology
*was* an evil, mind control organisation, with a hidden agenda.
I wrote my story in this context, and all of the events,
sequentially, were accurate, except for two things. The one was my
encounter with my friend "H", whom I believed had been put up to
contacting me, and pulling my emotional strings, for OSA. In fact,
OSA had not contacted her at all, and she did not even know the
context of my break with the Church. As an individual, as my friend,
she was extremely distressed at the thought of "losing" me to the
"enemy", and she could not just accept that I had left - she wanted
to know WHY, and I interpreted this as a desire to get information
for OSA.
The other part of my story that was not true, was the part where I
said that OSA had swooped on me. This is the part that I said I was
not willing to talk about in my story. I told some of you, in
private, that I had been subjected to some extreme measures by OSA.
This was not true. I lied. I *did* have an ethics handling, I was
questioned about people like Old Timer, Homer, and Dennis, but not in
any co-ercive manner. At this stage, I was operating in fear and
paranoia, interpreting every statement and utterance by anyone in the
Church as having sinister implications.
I did go after Dennis, and it was not on the instruction of anyone in
the Church. I took the ethics policy "strike an effective blow to the
enemy", and applied it as *I* saw fit. It was at that point that I
lost it. I went after Dennis with hatred in my heart, and the
ugliest, blackest side of me emerged. I couldn't really deal with
what I had done, I couldn't believe, really, that that side of me WAS
me, and so it really suited me to believe that I had done it because
I was under mind control.
I wrote my story, using things like semantic control, and extracts of
policies, to justify my point that it was mind control. People in the
Church *do* use jargon, some more than others - it depends on the
individual. But again, if I looked at the broader context of the way
groups operate, in the world as a whole, several groups use a
language to re-inforce them, so that one learns a language to be "in"
on the group - like the "Rave" culture, Gothic punks, Rappers, Rastas,
the S&M community, New Agers, etc, etc. Even here on the Net, we have
an emerging language, using terms such as "FAQ", "netiquette",
"Sysop" etc, etc, and new people who barge in without understanding
all this get "flamed" for being "newbies". It's a whole culture. And
so, the knowledge of this culture can also alienate and exclude one
from interaction with others who don't understand it - my personal
example was to try and explain the Internet to the South African
critics - they just didn't understand what I was talking about, what
I had been doing, and just did not relate to, or see that part of me
like you all did.
After I was Declared a Suppressive Person by the Church, and over the
course of this past year, I came to believe in a Supreme Being, God,
whatever you want to call it. It was this that gave me the strength
to face up to and really look at those parts of myself. You see, I
was always on a quest for Truth, and the annoying part about that is
that that means that if your enemy has a point, or is right about
something, then you need to admit that. The people in the Church saw
me as the ultimate traitor, and many of them said "what did YOU do,
what were YOUR crimes", etc. I ignored all that until very recently.
And then I decided to have a look at myself, to see if there was any
truth in what they were saying.
And I found that the "lust for power" that had emerged within me,
while doing Scientology courses was ME. It was MY response to the
courses. Many other people who did those courses did NOT respond like
that at all. The stats-pushes that went on, pressuring people to buy
courses so the org could pay its rent *did* occur, but that was the
result of a small group of people interpeting the policy in their own
way and acting on it. They didn't give a damn about the people they
were selling courses to, all they wanted was the rent money. They
simply did not care about their public. And I was silent about that,
I went along with it, because it was the dominant culture of the
group. Hard-sell does exist in Scientology - as it does with an over-
enthusiastic car-salesman, as it does wherever any group of people
get together and have a group culture, and our basic desire to be "in"
is often the thing that keeps us quiet, when we privately disagree
with things.
So, was it mind-control, or peer group pressure? My personal
conclusion is that it was not mind control, it was a group culture
that emerged, that I didn't like, but simply did not have the
strength of my convictions to stay in the group, stand up to them,
and say "Hey, I disagree with this - you're supposed to be genuinely
helping people, not just getting the rent money out of them". Yes,
they were wrong, and so was I, because I DID NOTHING ABOUT IT. No-
where in the policy does it say that you sell people courses in order
to get the rent money.
OK, so that leaves the Tech. Contained within the tech, is the
auditing side. Mind control advocates say they are hypnotic
processes, and have to be done exactly as it says, no deviations are
allowed, etc. I am not in a position to speak with any authority on
the Upper Levels, or even what it's like to BE audited, as I never
received any auditing myself. For some reason, the Case Supervisor
had decided that my first auditing could only happen at an Advanced
Organisation, which meant I had to go overseas, pay an exhorbitant
exchange rate, etc. Which effectively stopped me from receiving any
auditing for a long, long time. And at the time, I was as PISSED as
a SNAKE about this. I had entered Scientology in fairly good shape,
as in, I did not have a "ruin". After a couple of years married to my
ex, I damn well had a ruin, a BIG one, and I couldn't get any help
with it. To me, it was like having someone dangle a glass of water in
front of you, when you are parched in a desert, and then as soon as
you reach for it, they take it away.
Despite this, I still went ahead with training to be an auditor, as I
have always, since being a kid, had an impulse to help and heal
people. I have a knack of being able to calm upset animals, kids and
people, etc. To those who don't believe in a spiritual realm, this
won't make any sense, but I'm telling it any way. My basic drive in
life is to be a spiritual healer. And so I really enjoyed learning
about the auditing, and I really enjoyed doing it. I could see people
REALLY feel good, get better, in real life, when they had auditing.
Not all the time - some auditors were not good ones, and people
didn't really get anything out of it. Those people then drifted out
of the Org, and never came back. Here at the local Org, I know of
several people who went in, didn't like it, and left after a few
courses and some auditing. So, how come they didn't stay because of
the mind-control? Why is it that they were able to escape the mind
control, and I was not?
Continued in Part 2
ÿÿ