My stepping stones™ to total freedom from scientology

[Miss]

I've got something to say about INV, it may come as a surprise.

See, an EO somewhere out in the sticks still has other things to do than mess with other people's subconscious, fear, shame and self-deception. But at INV that's 24/7.

You spend your whole time either looking at the ethics folders, the Pc folders, the archives or you sec-check, intimidate or just flat out choke people with their own guilt and lies.

An INV interrogation is a bit like most other sec-checks, but it is also a weird form of Scientology mental aikido. It drags on often for hours upon tag-team hours. You work hard to get into the mind of the accountable unit, connect dots scattered across decades of their ethics folders, across their love lives, careers, family lives... Then you combine it with all their inconsistencies, stupid smiles, evasive answers, non-cooperation. And you always need to manage their anxiety, their fear - to stay in the goldielocks zone. Not too much, not too little. You do freeform, you ask questions that are not on any list. You tell them that their needle did things it never did. They lie, you lie back at them. Trade for trade, blow for blow, step by step.

At some point it all starts to click into place. You get to know all the demons that they've got. You collect all their lies, hopes, delusions and most of all the fear, guilt and shame. Guilt, fear and shame always weigh the most. Then you pass all that heavy stuff back to them and watch them get crushed under the weight.

The perfect INV interrogation ends with the accountable unit lovingly cooperating with anything that you do. The victim will appreciate the mauling they just went through and will genuinely be glad that you put them through it.

That's what scientology does: It is not satisfied with putting people in thralldom, it makes them cherish their chains and love their torturers, makes them savour every teeth-gnashing moment.

The dynamic between the investigator and the accountable unit... there's something out of BDSM and Stockholm syndrome there, with a good dose of trauma bonding. That's where all the bullbait tools come home to roost. Inches away from their face, you can smell the anxiety under the sweat. Except unlike with bullbait, this is no longer a game. No this is "very serious business" as Ron would say - life or death. Declares, lower conditions... oh and there's other people that can be dragged into it too! "Come on sweetie, tell me about all the others! We need more accountable units, more wood for the fire!"

I do not know a single person who doesn't sometimes get a rush from being in such a position of power and control. Some people would never make good gators, because they get addicted to that feeling. What was just-once turned into once-in-a-while, then turned into once-every-cycle-or-more. These people become ethics-process-junkies. Waiting blank-eyed for their next prey item, their next fix.

Junkies never make good gators.

So who makes a good investigator? The person that makes this a rinse-and-repeat process. Doesn't make it personal. Uses their own emotions as tools and puts them away as soon as they aren't needed. In the end everyone in scientology is a "means to an end". A tool used for a specific purpose a cog in a huge machine.

For me that's what it came to: A machine process, a machine fed with ethics folders and living people. But a machine nevertheless and we were just mechanics keeping the machine fed with the words of the living and the folders of the dead.

I recall many faces, but very few names. They all blended into one long flow of entries in an excel folder. Impersonal lack of compassion was the order of the day (sympathy is low on the tone scale!). The name didn't matter, what mattered was the "status" column. "Decommitted". "Trashed". "Closed". "Committed" (the most dreaded of them all).

I do not remember the names, nor did I try. I had my excel tracker and the mainframe and the folders in the archives. They did the remembering part for me.

I couldn't remember. I was too tired of being tired to remember.








... darn that was a dark post. I shouldn't write these stream-of-consciousness reminiscences after midnight. Gets creepy.,

what was committed and why was it dreaded?

 

[Karakorum]

what was committed and why was it dreaded?

Committed status meant that the investigation is ongoing and not closed. Which means it is a job that is left uncompleted.

That was my main stat: Cases closed on time. The more I had committed cases that were left "hanging" and the longer they remained in that state, the worse my stats were.

 

[Miss]

Committed status meant that the investigation is ongoing and not closed. Which means it is a job that is left uncompleted.

That was my main stat: Cases closed on time. The more I had committed cases that were left "hanging" and the longer they remained in that state, the worse my stats were.

oh

thats good then for the victim
since the poor thing
had yet to 'fold' ?

 

[Miss]

At this point there are lots of committed cases

lol

everyone who rejected them ?

 

[Karakorum]

oh

thats good then for the victim
since the poor thing
had yet to 'fold' ?

Well, yes and no. Really would depend on the case. Sometimes people hated being stuck in ethics admin limbo as much as we hated having these aged cases ruining our stats. In some cases people knew what was coming and they were just waiting for the axe to fall. But there were also investigations where we closed them by reaching a conclusion that the original accusation was groundless. Or it was a malicious reporter to begin with that tried to have someone framed for one way or the other.

So yeah... really would depend on the case. We tried to get to the bottom of things, to get to the truth. We believed that we are taking the guilty to task, while protecting the innocent from being framed or being mistakenly made to suffer consequences of things that they didn't do.

The system demanded ruthless, dispassionate investigators and the system itself was crooked to begin with. However we honestly tried to do the right thing and be the good cops. But we were in the wrong police force.

everyone who rejected them ?

Well, there was 3 forms in which you could 'reject' a case so to speak. 3 separate statuses:

1. 'Closed'. This means we concluded the investigation and we felt we got to a conclusion, that there is nothing more to do. But closed does not necessarily mean that the accountable unit was found to be guilty. There were cases where we decided that nothing wrong had taken place. Or that the initial suspicions were justified at first, but after a very thorough investigation and sec-checking a lot of people the original suspicion didn't pan out.
2. 'Decommitted'. This means we decided the originating report (KR, TTSNB etc) was pretty much dev-t in its current state. That the information was too vague, or that critical data was missing (like date or names of people etc) or that for some other reason it was so to speak 'un-investigable' before being fixed.
In short it meant: "We will not do anything about it in its current form. Maybe we will investigate it you fix whatever is wrong with it and re-submit it as a new case".
3. 'Trashed'. We introduced it as a new status specifically to differentiate between malicious fake reports and those that were done in good will, just didn't pan out. If something was 'trashed' it means we believed it to be deliberate bs from the start. Enough trashed cases would get the malicious reporter having an inv case opened on them instead. Sometimes a single particularly egregious instance would alone make us open a case.
We didn't take kindly to people trying to frame others, trying to deceive us or waste our time. Malicious reporters did not have a fun time dealing with us, rest assured.

 

[Miss]

how do you disengage from those points of view now, or, rather, how do you deal with justice in life after all that? (now you being on the other end) ?

 

[Miss]

by reject I meant *more than that ... also that many left scientology to some degree and reject its ideas of justice about what a sin or crime is.

so in essence you were a confessor or inquisitor... in a modern way.
concerning sins.

so for example, to me prisoners
cannot sin in an absolute way
given they are prisoners.

in their state of mind
they might admit to anything
to please the captor.

 

[Miss]

so everyone who left, for scientology is a sort of open case... by their expulsion?

they are still considered prisoners, bound by that church's rules... but are not physically available to question. (because secular laws prevent it).

now if scientology suddenly was the planet ruler, by that countermanding all secular law, would then all these escapees including you now be hauled in , no?

 

[Miss]

so for example if one is taken prisoner (unjustly so)
and shipped to a prison planet
(eg., a scientology base lol)
and stripped even of their memory...
whatever they do in that state
of mind would be as a prisoner.

whatever verdicts were reached
against one for failing to comply
to the prison would be null and void
to the prisoner... who remains sinless..

yet enforced by the confessor
of that regime since they have physical
custody of the prisoner and proceed
as if they have rights to the victim
and his space.

 

[Miss]

can a prisoner make contracts? i do not know.

i doubt a prisoner can even say
i am upstat, i'm an sp, i am a scientologist.

Lots of questions came to me, and I was thinking them out loud... but I don't know.

any thoughts ?

 

[Miss]

From an ethics department standpoint does scientology believe it still has authority over those who left its control? but they feel suppressed from enforcing their ruling?

 

[Karakorum]

so in essence you were a confessor or inquisitor... in a modern way.

Inquisitor would be too big of a word in my opinion. "Cop" fits it better imho. I came to believe that it was just like being a cop in an authoritarian regime like Syria or Myanmar or Cuba. Even if you tried to do the right thing, you still ended up causing harm because the very system itself was crooked and wrong.

how do you disengage from those points of view now, or, rather, how do you deal with justice in life after all that? (now you being on the other end) ?

Good question.

I generally learned that no matter what I do now, nothing will repair, fix, correct or undo the harmful effects of all that I did while in scientology. The past is the past, there's nothing to be done except speak out and admit that it was a cruel, crazy, cynical and evil machine and that I'm sorry for ever contributing anything to that machine's efficient functioning.
Which sounds rather bleak, but the inverse is also true: Nothing that I did inside CoS can taint all the good and normal things I did after I left.

As for me dealing with scientology justice it really wasn't much of a story. I defected from the Sea Org, got declared because of that and people disconnected from me. So I did not really have to go through much of an actual ethics process like sec-checks, A to E etc. When I defected I knew I would be declared and I had no intention whatsoever to be in the CoS good graces.

From an ethics department standpoint does scientology believe it still has authority over those who left its control? but they feel suppressed from enforcing their ruling?
(...)

so everyone who left, for scientology is a sort of open case... by their expulsion?

they are still considered prisoners, bound by that church's rules... but are not physically available to question. (because secular laws prevent it).

From an OSA perspective that is what it would look like I guess.

We at inv dealt only with people inside the CoS. Once someone defected or got declared it became OSA's responsibility. We were the ones out looking for "internal threats", OSA was for "external threats".

Example: Let's say we had an investigation case opened with Mr.Z as the accountable unit. The case is still not closed and we learn that Mr.Z had defected. In such a situation we would decommitt the case and we would pass all the info we gathered to OSA. We did it with some glee in the form of: "Here's what we have on him so far. Now he's your responsibility - you go deal with this."
(Side note: Be mindful that we were constantly overworked, sleep deprived and working 14+ hours a day. So any event that would allow us to get rid of some tasks or push them onto someone else was a cause for celebration at inv.)

I'm pretty sure that OSA must have had some sort of list or tracker for these things and Mike Rinder already confirmed to me that OSA had their own archives that were separated from the general ones. So I know they created a lot of their specific documentation, but I have no knowledge on how they did it or what were their record keeping practices.
You would need to ask someone who was at OSA to find out. I *think* Mike Rinder is the only ex-OSA SeaOrg member that defected and started speaking out, so he'd be the only one outside to know these sort of minutia. Tory Magoo worked with OSA, but just as a volunteer, so she wouldn't have the knowledge of their administrative systems etc.

so for example, to me prisoners
cannot sin in an absolute way
given they are prisoners.

in their state of mind
they might admit to anything
to please the captor.

Oh that was actually the one thing that was very well known inside and we at inv were trained to spot the signs of such behavior and avoid these situations. Because under no circumstances did we want a person to send us on a long and worktime-wasting wild goose chase after imaginary crimes that did not happen.

I wrote about it in depth some time ago, let me quote myself:

See, within an investigation everything is a tool geared towards controlling the environment to go towards a solution ("There must be a victory!"). One of the most important factors to control is the anxiety of the accountable unit. If there's too little anxiety, then the person will feel "high and mighty" and probably not cooperate as much as you want. That's obvious.

What is not obvious is that too much anxiety (what you called "hitting someone too hard" ) is equally bad, if not more so. An inexperienced MAA often thinks "the more anxiety and fear the better" and goes way, way too far. Too much anxiety results in one of two possible states:

1. "Cornered rat mode". The accountable unit will decide they have nothing to lose and lash out, decline to cooperate, decline to say anything (or just say: "Fuck this, fuck you, fuck your investigation!" etc). Sure, that person is then in deep trouble, but the investigation is stopped. Good luck getting any good info from that person.
2. "Panic mode" (Spanish inquisition galore). The person will be so scared that they will try very hard to tell you whatever they think you want to hear. They will admit to crimes they have not committed. They will make up imaginary crimes, implicate innocent people... say every dumb and crazy thing to get out. And that's a problem, because then you end up with a mix of lies and truths you have to sort out. Good luck going on all the wild goose chases the panicked person sent you on. Oh and if you are found wasting time looking into false stuff, YOU get blamed because "obviously the meter is infallible, so you fucked up when you ran them through the fucking list"

Thus the accountable unit needs to be kept in the "goldielocks zone" - not too hot, not too cold. The fear level has to be "just right". And for each individual that zone is somewhere else. You need to learn when to be nice and lower anxiety and when to play hardball. None of this is part of the tech, all of it is part of experience. And they don't teach that at the local orgs.

Hope that answers it

now if scientology suddenly was the planet ruler, by that countermanding all secular law, would then all these escapees including you now be hauled in , no?

Who knows what they would do. Davey probably never made plans for such grandiose hypothetical scenarios. I think he 100% is aware of the fact that scientology is shrinking and that he won't take over the world anytime soon.

yet enforced by the confessor
of that regime since they have physical
custody of the prisoner and proceed
as if they have rights to the victim
and his space.

Absolutely. Scientology believes it has the right to the contents of everyone's minds. There's no such thing as private space. Especially in the Sea Org. They will absolutely interrogate you about the details of some alcohol-fueled sex party you had during the Vietnam war era when Hendrix was still alive and flared disco pants were still considered cool.

There's nothing too personal or too old for Scientology to drag out of the recesses of your memory.

can a prisoner make contracts? i do not know.

I'm no lawyer. But for sure a lot of what people sign inside should be considered to be signed under duress. Cause "you don't have to do it. It's just that if you do not, then you will lose all your family and all your friends and you'll be kicked out onto the street with no job, no life skills and very little money. But it is your choice what to do!"

Disconnection and being kicked out without any support system - that was ALWAYS a threat hanging above the heads of sea org members. Especially 2nd and 3rd generation members who never had a life or a job outside scientology.

 

[Enthetan]

In short: He gave his whole life to the cult since the day he joined.

Roger had a health condition that we vaguely understood was getting worse. One day people told me to get hatted, because I'm supposed to take over his post, which I did. Roger never came back, I never saw him again. Maybe he passed away, or his health deteriorated to a point where the SO decided to offboard him somewhere and leave him for dead?
But the second Roger was gone, people stopped mentioning him.

Roger was instantly forgotten. As if this SO veteran of 20 years never existed.

I know it's an old post, but it brings up yet again something I've had a concern about for many years:

How easy it is to "disappear" someone who becomes inconvenient. Especially once they've been in for a while and have completely lost touch with non-Scientology friends and family.

 

[Enthetan]

All sorts of weird stuff happened over that last year. I came an inch to getting married to Star... just to get a room. And maybe, just maybe enough hours of sleep to be well rested once a week. The point when I realized I'm seriously considering marriage in exchange for a damn room, that was when I realized that I'm very likely going insane, with the whole org and all of SO joining me on this road to a world of insanity. A world of sleep deprived zombies void of hope.

I almost did the same, get married just to have a room and better sleep.

 

[Karakorum]

I know it's an old post, but it brings up yet again something I've had a concern about for many years:

How easy it is to "disappear" someone who becomes inconvenient. Especially once they've been in for a while and have completely lost touch with non-Scientology friends and family.

It is easy because people inside are conditioned not to get attached to other people, just stay task-oriented and focus on work.

Again: A guy works side by side with you day in and day out for 10+ f-ing years and the very second that he's gone everyone just moves on and behaves like he never existed. People wouldn't even mention him in conversation.
They wouldn't even say: "Roger is gone, we need to get a new person here". They would say: "We need a new person, because there's a vacant post.". That's how extremely task-oriented people become inside. That's cult-insanity, I've never seen anything quite like it in the big world.

 

[Karakorum]

It is easy because people inside are conditioned not to get attached to other people, just stay task-oriented and focus on work.

Again: A guy works side by side with you day in and day out for 10+ f-ing years and the very second that he's gone everyone just moves on and behaves like he never existed. People wouldn't even mention him in conversation.
They wouldn't even say: "Roger is gone, we need to get a new person here". They would say: "We need a new person, because there's a vacant post.". That's how extremely task-oriented people become inside. That's cult-insanity, I've never seen anything quite like it in the big world.

Addendum: And it felt insane to me even when I was there.

There were some things I considered normal when I was inside (even though they were not): Sec-checks, stat-obsession, all the space opera things, all the doublethink around ARC and tone 40 and being theety-tweety.


But this: "Instatntly forget a veteran of 20 years" thing... that felt batshit crazy to me even back then when I was a sleep-deprived scientology ethics zombie.

 

[Enthetan]

Disconnection and being kicked out without any support system - that was ALWAYS a threat hanging above the heads of sea org members. Especially 2nd and 3rd generation members who never had a life or a job outside scientology.

I was lucky to have only been in the SO for a couple of years. I still had my contacts in the outside.

That was my major determining factor in deciding to leave. I knew that the longer I stayed, the harder it would be to resume my old career. So if I was EVER going to leave I should leave NOW.

I was lucky. I had family on the outside to take me in. And my old boss was happy to have me back. I just told him "It was an adventure I wanted to try, but it turned out to not be my thing", he said OK and welcomed me back.

 

[Karakorum]

I was lucky. I had family on the outside to take me in.

I know the feeling. I had a family member outside that took me in and I could crash on the couch, 'decompress' for a bit, catch my balance and get my bearings before I dove into real life.

It really wasn't much objectively speaking now that I look back at it. But I really needed that small landing pad both psychologically and economically.

Defecting from the SO is like jumping off a moving train. First you need to build the courage to jump, but then more importantly you need to survive hitting the ground. Having family outside made it so much easier to make the jump.

 

[Mamie Glutz]

Hooray for those of us that made it out. However it happened. As odd as it seems, I do see an old friend, and find that old familiar turn of the stomach when I find he/she is still in and going for broke on the Escher-esk bridge to nowhere.

 

[Karakorum]

Hooray for those of us that made it out. However it happened. As odd as it seems, I do see an old friend, and find that old familiar turn of the stomach when I find he/she is still in and going for broke on the Escher-esk bridge to nowhere.

View attachment 22541

Oh it is a bridge to somewhere allright!

It is a bridge leading to Davey's coffers. Thing is - you are not on the bridge, just your money is.