I’m sure this is obvious to many of you, but from where I stand, one of the primary forces keeping people in is the disconnection policy. Two of my children work for or operate companies that are owned by or staffed largely with Scientologists. If they were to leave the church, they would likely lose their jobs.
They may not even be actively involved in Scientology anymore, but it functions as the glue holding their professional and social worlds together. So they maintain appearances, whether or not they still believe—or ever truly believed—that the technology works.
And for those who own businesses staffed by Scientologists, church policies can also serve as a means of maintaining control over employees.
Sure. The point of exposing Scientology through personal stories is to use the media to expose its abusive nature, which is not obvious at the beginning. Perhaps some people have thought that enough exposure would be enough to somehow get someone in authority to take action and prosecute Scientology for its crimes or go after Miscavige for innurement or something like that. But none of those stories have accomplished that. What they have accomplished is word of mouth that Scientology is not just quirky or weird, but is actually dangerous and even deadly when it comes to things like Narconon. And that is one of the main reasons why people do not go into a Church of Scientology for help anymore. There's zero question about the effectiveness of the PR war against Scientology. But it is true that the product of that was never going to be Scientology dismantled or deconstructed legally. However, I don't see that following this path of somehow exposing Scientology's corporate malfeasance or lack of public benefit is going to do much either. I mean, look around in the world today. No one cares. The US government and the IRS literally could not care less about an abusive pipsqueak cult like Scientology and are not going to lift a finger to take any action against it no matter what legal tactics or exposure tactics are used. We are in an environment where the abusive predatory elements of our society are having their Golden Age. I think we should be very realistic in the fact that taking Scientology apart from the outside is simply not something that anyone is going to accomplish anytime soon. There are ways that David Miscavige could accomplish it from the inside, and there are even ways that people at the highest levels of Scientology could take it apart. What we do on the outside as ex-members is we educate and inform the public so that they don't walk in the front door of the churches in the first place. And that is by far the most effective thing that has been done to fight Scientology all of these years going all the way back to the beginning. My two cents. I'd love to see that I'm wrong, but I don't think that I am.
I agree with you completely, Chris. Scientology looms large to those of us who lived inside it, but to the agencies that could actually act, it barely registers as a blip. For now, exposure from every angle is really all any of us can do externally. Keep up the good fight!
I’m sure this is obvious to many of you, but from where I stand, one of the primary forces keeping people in is the disconnection policy. Two of my children work for or operate companies that are owned by or staffed largely with Scientologists. If they were to leave the church, they would likely lose their jobs.
They may not even be actively involved in Scientology anymore, but it functions as the glue holding their professional and social worlds together. So they maintain appearances, whether or not they still believe—or ever truly believed—that the technology works.
And for those who own businesses staffed by Scientologists, church policies can also serve as a means of maintaining control over employees.
Sure. The point of exposing Scientology through personal stories is to use the media to expose its abusive nature, which is not obvious at the beginning. Perhaps some people have thought that enough exposure would be enough to somehow get someone in authority to take action and prosecute Scientology for its crimes or go after Miscavige for innurement or something like that. But none of those stories have accomplished that. What they have accomplished is word of mouth that Scientology is not just quirky or weird, but is actually dangerous and even deadly when it comes to things like Narconon. And that is one of the main reasons why people do not go into a Church of Scientology for help anymore. There's zero question about the effectiveness of the PR war against Scientology. But it is true that the product of that was never going to be Scientology dismantled or deconstructed legally. However, I don't see that following this path of somehow exposing Scientology's corporate malfeasance or lack of public benefit is going to do much either. I mean, look around in the world today. No one cares. The US government and the IRS literally could not care less about an abusive pipsqueak cult like Scientology and are not going to lift a finger to take any action against it no matter what legal tactics or exposure tactics are used. We are in an environment where the abusive predatory elements of our society are having their Golden Age. I think we should be very realistic in the fact that taking Scientology apart from the outside is simply not something that anyone is going to accomplish anytime soon. There are ways that David Miscavige could accomplish it from the inside, and there are even ways that people at the highest levels of Scientology could take it apart. What we do on the outside as ex-members is we educate and inform the public so that they don't walk in the front door of the churches in the first place. And that is by far the most effective thing that has been done to fight Scientology all of these years going all the way back to the beginning. My two cents. I'd love to see that I'm wrong, but I don't think that I am.
I agree with you completely, Chris. Scientology looms large to those of us who lived inside it, but to the agencies that could actually act, it barely registers as a blip. For now, exposure from every angle is really all any of us can do externally. Keep up the good fight!
Thanks. You too!!
True enough!
Scientology is not doing this.
The misuse of "Scientology" is the target.
As-is what we're dealing with!
Hear hear! Makes total sense.