How I got out of the COS

[Galileo]

I was a staff member at the Denver COS in the early 80s. I went to Big Blue to do Key to Life (what a cluster). While I was out there I noticed what I had only glimpsed when an SO person visited our local org - abuses of staff and covering up the problems of the COS when celebrities visited Big Blue. Priscilla Presley's niece did Key to Life and we were told NOT to talk to her in any way. I was like, "Fuck you," and greeted her so she wouldn't feel left out. She was twinned with an SO higher up.

The more I saw the more I realized that my intuition about the church was correct - it was an abusive organization. At that time I still believed in the "tech."

When I returned I was only back on staff long enough to look at it with fresh eyes, and I stopped going in. My wife at the time had moved out and started divorce proceedings - she was also on staff but the divorce had nothing to do with Scn. or disconnection. As I understand, she is "on lines" at the Nashville org. She was a body router!!! A really good person with great confront and a good heart, but still in the cult. Sad.

I connected with Survival Services in Denver and started doing my OT levels in the Freezone. It wasn't long before I realized that the "tech" was also something I intuitively understood to be incorrect in many ways.

About this time James Randi had a TV program designed to debunk pseudo-science and crazy beliefs like astrology. This was a big turning point in my life as my Mom had often said I was gullible, and I had to finally admit she was right all along. I spent the next few years becoming a skeptic and clearing the Scn. and other junk out of my head. Posting and reading on OCMB was a big part of that process.

I realized while doing the lower OT levels that the Incidents described were not as they seemed, although I thought Hubbard had actually stumbled on something valid. For those who are familiar, my intuition told me that Incident 2 was the "genetic dump," in which the sperm dumped its genetic material into the egg. Take a look at the steps of that incident and see the parallels between the steps and the process of reproduction and it will make a lot of sense.

Shortly after I left I took up Focusing, a self help technique. Between the use of Focusing and my rejection of Scientology, I decided to start my own research, based on a skeptical attitude and a scientific approach. I have been working on this research for the last 30 years, one reason I stopped posting on OCMB - I was too busy trying to find something as an alternative to Dianetics/Scientology, or simply a good self-help technique that one didn't have to pay for with exorbitant amounts of money. Not surprisingly my findings have nothing to do with spirituality, BTs, past lives, thetans or anything supernatural. None of these have ever come up during my research, although I have been open to any possibilities.

The only reason I am posting again is that I have taken a leave of absence from my work at a grocery store. I am 69 and have Type 2 diabetes and I thought it would be stupid to have that much contact with the public, so I am hunkering at home and now have some time on my hands.

I was lucky in that I was not born into the Sea Org, nor did I ever join it. When I went from the relative sanity of a local org to the insanity of Big Blue the contrasts woke me up. I was only "in" for 3 1/2 years, until 1984, a very short time compared to many others who lived in that indoctrination for so long.

I seldom think about the COS and I am not a big critic of Tom Cruise or anyone else still "in." That is not my role and they have to follow their own paths. I have thoroughly enjoyed Leah Remini's show about Scientology and have watched every single episode. I feel that Scientology will collapse under the weight of its cover-ups and abuses, but don't hold your breath - they have tons of money still and can survive a long time. The best anyone can do is defang the COS so that their reach is inhibited. I don't see the COS as a major player in any way in the future, but we shouldn't be complacent either. Complacency has got many of us into awful political situations with leaders who only govern for a small percentage of the people - in many countries.

In my experience one of the things that got me hooked into the cult was my suspension of disbelief. I often felt intuitively that certain things in the "tech" and policy were off, wrong, abusive or manipulative, but I didn't come to a full understanding until I left and started evaluating these things.

To me the worst manipulation was the word clearing "tech." It is actually helpful to look up words, but the way it is done in the COS gives you a little shot of euphoria that can influence you to believe what you are reading, when normally you would not. Much of Scn. does not make sense, but clearing words does not cause those things to make more sense, it just makes you feel it makes more sense.

That is my story - sorry it was a long post and thanks for reading.

Galileo/Squirrel

 

[programmer_guy]

@Galileo

Just curious: What was your "Clear Cognition" when you were doing Scientology auditing?

 

[Galileo]

That is a very funny story. I had heard on the grapevine about this clear cog, but it was very hard to get anyone to say anything about it.
My wife never said anything about being "natural clear" but she said she didn't think she ever mocked up a reactive mind. (She had not attested to clear.) That made a lot of sense to me and felt right to me as well - of course I never did mock up a reactive mind, nor do I think any such mind exists.

I was doing endless TRs and had a big huge win of being able to just be there and confront without thinking anymore. This was amazing to me and when I told the examiner they sent me to an auditor to tell what had happened. I told her that my yakkey yak of thinking had stopped and I could keep it that way, and the auditor kept listening until I said I never thought I had a reactive mind in the first place, and had never needed one or mocked one up. She asked if I would like to attest to Clear, so I did. I would have never volunteered that clear cog without getting it from my wife. BTW, technically I was not a "natural" clear as they considered I had gone clear from doing TRs, something Hubbard said was possible. Of course I speculated that my wife had gone clear or was a natural clear, and it was difficult to keep from telling her about this, once I figured out what the clear cog had to be.

There was a spate of declarations to "Natural Clear" that year. I wonder how many of those people picked up the clear cog from each other. I always wondered if my wife had gotten that idea of not mocking up a reactive mind from someone else, or came up with it herself.

Of course this clear cog supposedly came from Incident 2 of the Pilot saying, "He's mocking it up." IMO if that is anything at all, it is about the sperm - "he" - mocking up the genetic data to "implant" into the ovum.

It is so funny thinking about all of this so many years later. It is like re-reading a bad fantasy novel.

 

[Dotey OT]

Just wow on this story. That's me as an old tech guy, but a story I used to hear about the olden days.

 

[Galileo]

Something I just thought of during TRs that was funny. During bullbaiting one of the course sups pretended he had had throat cancer and had to talk with a buzzer thingy. OMG I laughed my ass off and just couldn't stop for a long time.

Its like smoking dope - I had great fun doing it sometimes, but I wouldn't want to do it anymore.

BTW, who ever used the word "mocking" in real life before Scientology, except mocking someone to make fun of them? The clear cog is an awfully weird phrase to use if you've never used the word that way before Scn. I think the clear cog demonstrates only that you have cleared the word "mock" as LRH used it, well enough to use the word your self. Maybe its the word clear cog?

 

[Zertel]

That is a very funny story. I had heard on the grapevine about this clear cog, but it was very hard to get anyone to say anything about it.
My wife never said anything about being "natural clear" but she said she didn't think she ever mocked up a reactive mind. (She had not attested to clear.) That made a lot of sense to me and felt right to me as well - of course I never did mock up a reactive mind, nor do I think any such mind exists.

I was doing endless TRs and had a big huge win of being able to just be there and confront without thinking anymore. This was amazing to me and when I told the examiner they sent me to an auditor to tell what had happened. I told her that my yakkey yak of thinking had stopped and I could keep it that way, and the auditor kept listening until I said I never thought I had a reactive mind in the first place, and had never needed one or mocked one up. She asked if I would like to attest to Clear, so I did. I would have never volunteered that clear cog without getting it from my wife. BTW, technically I was not a "natural" clear as they considered I had gone clear from doing TRs, something Hubbard said was possible. Of course I speculated that my wife had gone clear or was a natural clear, and it was difficult to keep from telling her about this, once I figured out what the clear cog had to be.

There was a spate of declarations to "Natural Clear" that year. I wonder how many of those people picked up the clear cog from each other. I always wondered if my wife had gotten that idea of not mocking up a reactive mind from someone else, or came up with it herself.

Of course this clear cog supposedly came from Incident 2 of the Pilot saying, "He's mocking it up." IMO if that is anything at all, it is about the sperm - "he" - mocking up the genetic data to "implant" into the ovum.

It is so funny thinking about all of this so many years later. It is like re-reading a bad fantasy novel.

Galileo - Thanks for the interesting posts here and above.

Likewise with some time on my hands here's my contribution to the Clear Cog discussion. lol

Around 1980 after maybe 200 total hours of auditing, maybe 100 of it on Dianetics I was on what was called the Dianetic Drug Rundown. My co-auditor said, "Locate an incident of . . . . whatever it was." I looked and looked and then burst out laughing and said, "Joe - It's just a joke! There's nothing there!"

I guess that qualified as a Clear Cog since it was off to the Examiner and attesting to Clear. I think my number was in the mid 8000s. I blew soon thereafter so I didn't gain any OT Powerz. (joke)

 

[pineapple]

Galileo - Thanks for the interesting posts here and above.

Likewise with some time on my hands here's my contribution to the Clear Cog discussion. lol

Around 1980 after maybe 200 total hours of auditing, maybe 100 of it on Dianetics I was on what was called the Dianetic Drug Rundown. My co-auditor said, "Locate an incident of . . . . whatever it was." I looked and looked and then burst out laughing and said, "Joe - It's just a joke! There's nothing there!"

I guess that qualified as a Clear Cog since it was off to the Examiner and attesting to Clear. I think my number was in the mid 8000s. I blew soon thereafter so I didn't gain any OT Powerz. (joke)

I attested to Dn Clear in 1979 and my clear number was in the 15000's, so I'd be surprised if yours was only in the 8000's.

I just looked mine up, to be sure. I was surprised how easy it was to find. I googled "scientology" + my name. (Disclosure: My real name isn't pineapple.)

 

[pineapple]

BTW, technically I was not a "natural" clear as they considered I had gone clear from doing TRs, something Hubbard said was possible.

Out of curiosity, do you know where Hubbard said that?

 

[Zertel]

I attested to Dn Clear in 1979 and my clear number was in the 15000's, so I'd be surprised if yours was only in the 8000's.

I just looked mine up, to be sure. I was surprised how easy it was to find. I googled "scientology" + my name. (Disclosure: My real name isn't pineapple.)

(Disclosure: My real name isn't pineapple.) laughter
My real name isn't Zertel. He's my spirit guide. . . .(joke)

A fellow who posts regularly by his real name on Rinder's blog says his number was around 8100 in 1979. There was a flood of natural clears and dianetic clears around that time so maybe my timeline is off and I got in at the beginning. ISNOI News recently posted a picture of clear bracelet with a 79,000+ number on it.

The last thing I want to do is go to a scn site and inquire about something by my real name. I only get one or two letters a year from a mission which is now an org where I started out over forty years ago pitching the Purif!

 

[pineapple]

(Disclosure: My real name isn't pineapple.) laughter
My real name isn't Zertel. He's my spirit guide. . . .(joke)

A fellow who posts regularly by his real name on Rinder's blog says his number was around 8100 in 1979. There was a flood of natural clears and dianetic clears around that time so maybe my timeline is off and I got in at the beginning. ISNOI News recently posted a picture of clear bracelet with a 79,000+ number on it.

The last thing I want to do is go to a scn site and inquire about something by my real name. I only get one or two letters a year from a mission which is now an org where I started out over forty years ago pitching the Purif!

I see they were still in the 8000's in early '79, so yeah, it coulda been.

Lest anyone think I would be so foolish, I did NOT go to a scn site and enter my real name. Found it on Kristi Wachter's site. (CoS knows where I am but they stopped calling me years ago after I yelled at 'em enough times. An occasional e-mail from Flag -- where I've never been -- is all I get now.)

 

[Galileo]

Out of curiosity, do you know where Hubbard said that?

I am not sure, but I think it was in one of his writings regarding different ways to go clear. I don't think it was in any TRs stuff.

I still have a few Scn. books so maybe I will try to find it, but I think it was something recently written in the early 80s, so it wouldn't be in any books or in the tech dictionary.

I don't know for sure what the clear cog is, but I think it can take many forms. In talking to other people who had gone clear via dianetics they thought it was some form of the Pilot's phrase, but maybe not. Maybe its just that you don't have a reactive mind, never had one or it was now gone. I guess it would be weird if "mocking it up" or some form of that HAD to be part of the clear cog. I do recall telling my auditor that I never had a reactive mind.

I don't know what my clear number was. I thought it was around 7000. I know the clear numbers jumped dramatically with the advent of "natural clear." We are talking jumping into the double digits within a year or so. It seems the clear numbers were in the 3000s when I first joined, but I am probably misremembering that.

BTW I did hundreds of hours of TRs in training to be a course supervisor. I truly hated being a course sup, but I liked doing TRs and also CCHs. Since I was a staff member without much money, I had to co-audit, and was only able to do the survival rundown before I left the CoS. I also completed key to life, but that was mostly word clearing and just a bit of auditing. They had to remove some of the auditing from KTL because some people were in the non interference zone and the auditing kept touching on something in the upper levels. I myself couldn't sleep for about 3 days after doing this auditing, and I finally went back to normal after I did some transcendental meditation. Talk about mixing practices! You can bet I didn't reveal this to the KTL supervisors! Interestingly it didn't come up in the final Sec Check after the course.

I felt lucky I was able to attest to KTL and escape Big Blue without any bad consequences from the Sea Org. I found out later that many staff members "blew" within a year of getting back from doing KTL. Maybe it WAS the key to life!

 

[Zertel]

Maybe after a number of hours of introspection on the past someone decides that nothing in the past can affect him or her negatively in the present. So as David Mayo said in 1989, you're "Clearer" than you were before.

 

[marra]

Regarding the "Clear number" people were given after attesting to Clear, I think we had this discussion on the old ESMB and I seem to remember Paul Adams explaining that different orgs had their own batches of numbers.

 

[stratty]

Regarding the "Clear number" people were given after attesting to Clear, I think we had this discussion on the old ESMB and I seem to remember Paul Adams explaining that different orgs had their own batches of numbers.

Yes, and still no sign of him. I wish he'd show up.

 

[Galileo]

I have been trying to find any references to going clear on TRs and have been unable to so far. I really think it was in a tech bulletin about natural clear and such. Of course all of that stuff was invalidated when David Mayo was blamed for changing the definition of clear.

Is blaming others for your own mistakes an outstanding trait of narcissism?

 

[Galileo]

I just recalled that some old timers had clear bracelets with their numbers on them, and a few old timers in our org had very low numbers, under 100. That would make sense if these numbers were assigned locally rather than internationally.

 

[Galileo]

Something on narcissism -
11. Excuses are a narcissist’s best friend.
Narcissists tend to externalize blame, pinning the blame on everyone but themselves.

“They’re good at making excuses and not taking credit for mistakes they make,” Campbell said.

 

[Karakorum]

Something on narcissism -
11. Excuses are a narcissist’s best friend.
Narcissists tend to externalize blame, pinning the blame on everyone but themselves.

“They’re good at making excuses and not taking credit for mistakes they make,” Campbell said.

That is one of the few parts of the SO that is not narcissism-friendly. In the SO everything is your fault and whatever happens you need to take responsibility. If a piece of plaster falls off the ceiling and hits you on the head while you were sitting in front of your computer, then it just means you "pulled it in".

 

[pineapple]

Regarding the "Clear number" people were given after attesting to Clear, I think we had this discussion on the old ESMB and I seem to remember Paul Adams explaining that different orgs had their own batches of numbers.

Yes, I remember that. This is the post where he explains.

Regarding "Clear" list

If I have a "Clear No." of a friend from a 1979 news letter how would I go about finding what city she was in when she went through that process. I...

exscn.net

 

[Galileo]

This made me laugh out loud:

"What would happen if TWO ( or more ) people had the same clear # ?
Would one be declared a BT ? "

BTW, I was a staff member and was too poor to buy a clear bracelet. I needed my org income to buy Ramen, CalMag and Scn. books.