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Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath 2


DaisyD

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We lately have been getting a lot of Mormons knocking on our doors. Never had any JWs. I always see the JWs camping out on busy street corners. I think the Mormons are having a Me Too movement right now in their church. I’ve also been told by ex members that the church has become more “mainstream” to hide its painful history but also because they have a lot of powerful people in society and the church has tons of money (I think the most money only 2nd to the Catholic Church).

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I'm a mandated reporter. I kind of wish these things were more black and white. They don't come to my door anymore but it was never children. And you never know if the teenager is 15 or 18. In NYS, you're allowed to volunteer and have have a job at 14. Can't prove someone is brainwashed when they keep saying it's what they want. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did anyone see the special on the emotional aftermath with Leah and Mike's families?  It was more their own experiences on exiting the cult.  There was a moment when Leah's mom said "maybe I still need deprogramming" - and she sat stunned through the rest of the conversation.  It made me cry for how many years they lost as a family - and in Mike's case - how many they still are losing because of the brainwashing.

Season 3 officially begins this week - after the episode I just watched, I am once again hooked.

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1 hour ago, AuntKrazy said:

Did anyone see the special on the emotional aftermath with Leah and Mike's families?  It was more their own experiences on exiting the cult.  There was a moment when Leah's mom said "maybe I still need deprogramming" - and she sat stunned through the rest of the conversation.  It made me cry for how many years they lost as a family - and in Mike's case - how many they still are losing because of the brainwashing.

Season 3 officially begins this week - after the episode I just watched, I am once again hooked.

I missed the first 1/3 of the episode so I need to rewatch it. I did see the part where her mom said she still needs deprogramming. Also the producers (who were asking questions to all of them) kept pushing Leah for a more introspective answer. I agree with the producer she gave a programmed, external answer not an introspective answer. I can't remember the question the producer asked but it was close to the end.

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@quiversR4hunting

I liked that the producer pushed her (nicely - and just once) for a more personal answer.  It was about her own emotional aftermath - what the ongoing emotional aftermath is for her.

I thought that her answer pointed to Scientology being a choice to disconnect from one's self rather than one's family.  

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3 minutes ago, AuntKrazy said:

@quiversR4hunting

I liked that the producer pushed her (nicely - and just once) for a more personal answer.  It was about her own emotional aftermath - what the ongoing emotional aftermath is for her.

I thought that her answer pointed to Scientology being a choice to disconnect from one's self rather than one's family.  

You said it much better than I did! I agree, the producer pushed her nicely.

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The new episode with Valerie is great. Sad but very enlightening. She only left in 2016, I wonder if something can be done with her eyewitness accounts of "Gold". 

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I am really surprised the government and FBI haven’t done anything yet. I am hooked on this show. This cult is so damaging to families. 

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The only way the government and FBI will do anything is if IRS gets involved first. It's happened before and it's usually how to bring down organizations. All those medicaid fraud cases last year in the US, they started investigating because IRS noticed Instagram posts of shoes, bags and vacations that people posted but definitely didn't show on the tax forms yearly. So they got suspicious where they got all that money. 

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My husband is hooked on the show now too, along with me.  It has become a catalyst for many deep conversations in our family despite us not ever being involved in Scientology.  

It's interesting to me how such disparate extremes (worship of family over everything else in QVF) and complete negation of family ties in Scientology result in the same loss of identity.  It's just a choice of which groupthink controls/overrides one's own agency.   I have begun to believe that this is the essence of spiritual abuse - the complete negation of another person's agency. . . 

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1 hour ago, OyToTheVey said:

The only way the government and FBI will do anything is if IRS gets involved first. It's happened before and it's usually how to bring down organizations. All those medicaid fraud cases last year in the US, they started investigating because IRS noticed Instagram posts of shoes, bags and vacations that people posted but definitely didn't show on the tax forms yearly. So they got suspicious where they got all that money. 

I assume the IRS has enough evidence to show that they are not a church the bad thing is that CO$ has very deep pockets. I wonder if the FBI will get involved if Valarie has some sort of evidence of people being held against their will at Gold and/or the physical abuse going on.

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Back to JW for a minute. I worked with a JW woman for years and she was extremely open to questions. She said she welcomed them because it made her examine her beliefs and she would bring them to her bible study group for discussion. Maybe her particular group were unusual but I worked with her for years and she was always sweet, kind and a good colleague.

We asked about door knocking and how many people she had ever managed to convert. She immediately said that it isn’t done for that purpose in her circles. She referred to it as “witnessing” and said it is done for the purpose of demonstrating how much you love God and to display this to him (ie you do it so that he can witness your dedication.) For her it was an act of worship and devotion.

Then when she was pregnant we asked about the blood transfusion issue. She referred to a section in the bible (I’m an atheist so I have no idea about this)  that says that you should not ingest the blood of others. We pointed out that “ingest” usually means “eat” but they interpret it as putting it into your body in any way at all.

As for the no artistic pursuits, she was one of the most creative people I have ever met, and it wasn’t for profit. She loved making hand made cards and gifts for people. She took great pride in her appearance and was always shopping for gorgeous homewares etc.

She was, however, black and white about some things. If you are gay you are shunned, no exceptions. I asked about what would happen if, say, a close family member announced that they were gay. Would they still be part of her life? She just shook her head and said “no, they couldn’t be”. It was the only thing that she flatly refused to discuss in detail.

Anyway, tldr but her particular brand of JW was apparently different.

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4 minutes ago, Blahblah said:

Back to JW for a minute. I worked with a JW woman for years and she was extremely open to questions. She said she welcomed them because it made her examine her beliefs and she would bring them to her bible study group for discussion. Maybe her particular group were unusual but I worked with her for years and she was always sweet, kind and a good colleague.

We asked about door knocking and how many people she had ever managed to convert. She immediately said that it isn’t done for that purpose in her circles. She referred to it as “witnessing” and said it is done for the purpose of demonstrating how much you love God and to display this to him (ie you do it so that he can witness your dedication.) For her it was an act of worship and devotion.

Then when she was pregnant we asked about the blood transfusion issue. She referred to a section in the bible (I’m an atheist so I have no idea about this)  that says that you should not ingest the blood of others. We pointed out that “ingest” usually means “eat” but they interpret it as putting it into your body in any way at all.

As for the no artistic pursuits, she was one of the most creative people I have ever met, and it wasn’t for profit. She loved making hand made cards and gifts for people. She took great pride in her appearance and was always shopping for gorgeous homewares etc.

She was, however, black and white about some things. If you are gay you are shunned, no exceptions. I asked about what would happen if, say, a close family member announced that they were gay. Would they still be part of her life? She just shook her head and said “no, they couldn’t be”. It was the only thing that she flatly refused to discuss in detail.

Anyway, tldr but her particular brand of JW was apparently different.

Interesting as they do eat meat. 

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33 minutes ago, Blahblah said:

Back to JW for a minute. I worked with a JW woman for years and she was extremely open to questions. She said she welcomed them because it made her examine her beliefs and she would bring them to her bible study group for discussion. Maybe her particular group were unusual but I worked with her for years and she was always sweet, kind and a good colleague.

We asked about door knocking and how many people she had ever managed to convert. She immediately said that it isn’t done for that purpose in her circles. She referred to it as “witnessing” and said it is done for the purpose of demonstrating how much you love God and to display this to him (ie you do it so that he can witness your dedication.) For her it was an act of worship and devotion.

Then when she was pregnant we asked about the blood transfusion issue. She referred to a section in the bible (I’m an atheist so I have no idea about this)  that says that you should not ingest the blood of others. We pointed out that “ingest” usually means “eat” but they interpret it as putting it into your body in any way at all.

As for the no artistic pursuits, she was one of the most creative people I have ever met, and it wasn’t for profit. She loved making hand made cards and gifts for people. She took great pride in her appearance and was always shopping for gorgeous homewares etc.

She was, however, black and white about some things. If you are gay you are shunned, no exceptions. I asked about what would happen if, say, a close family member announced that they were gay. Would they still be part of her life? She just shook her head and said “no, they couldn’t be”. It was the only thing that she flatly refused to discuss in detail.

Anyway, tldr but her particular brand of JW was apparently different.

The bringing it to the group discussion is super common and what I heard too. Some one who left told me, its because you basically are told the answer or are referred to the right Watchtower or what ever that tells you the answer. They rarely process actual answers but instead regurgitate what they are told. Not uncommon for religious people in deep, but still in line with more cult thinking. 

There are nice JW out there, those are the ones who tend to actually get people to join. But most still look down on you and would not consider you worthwhile if it came down too it, because you still are not saved.

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1 hour ago, quiversR4hunting said:

I assume the IRS has enough evidence to show that they are not a church the bad thing is that CO$ has very deep pockets. I wonder if the FBI will get involved if Valarie has some sort of evidence of people being held against their will at Gold and/or the physical abuse going on.

The FBI has investigated CO$ many times starting with Operation Snow White.  They have major problems getting things to stick.  I also suspect that CO$ has high ranking people on their payrolls - as in the LA police dept. investigations that strangely went nowhere as files were mysteriously lost.

Mike Rinder had a rant about this, and how CO$ wriggles out, last year.  https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-lying-and-the-fbi/

He links to Tony Ortega's blog in that short post where there is a lot more info about the latest failed investigation.

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53 minutes ago, libgirl2 said:

Interesting as they do eat meat. 

We asked about that too and she said “others” only means humans.

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3 hours ago, Blahblah said:

Back to JW for a minute. I worked with a JW woman for years and she was extremely open to questions. She said she welcomed them because it made her examine her beliefs and she would bring them to her bible study group for discussion. Maybe her particular group were unusual but I worked with her for years and she was always sweet, kind and a good colleague.

We asked about door knocking and how many people she had ever managed to convert. She immediately said that it isn’t done for that purpose in her circles. She referred to it as “witnessing” and said it is done for the purpose of demonstrating how much you love God and to display this to him (ie you do it so that he can witness your dedication.) For her it was an act of worship and devotion.

Then when she was pregnant we asked about the blood transfusion issue. She referred to a section in the bible (I’m an atheist so I have no idea about this)  that says that you should not ingest the blood of others. We pointed out that “ingest” usually means “eat” but they interpret it as putting it into your body in any way at all.

As for the no artistic pursuits, she was one of the most creative people I have ever met, and it wasn’t for profit. She loved making hand made cards and gifts for people. She took great pride in her appearance and was always shopping for gorgeous homewares etc.

She was, however, black and white about some things. If you are gay you are shunned, no exceptions. I asked about what would happen if, say, a close family member announced that they were gay. Would they still be part of her life? She just shook her head and said “no, they couldn’t be”. It was the only thing that she flatly refused to discuss in detail.

Anyway, tldr but her particular brand of JW was apparently different. 

Different with you maybe, but not when she was with other JWs. That's not tolerated in the congregation. Most of the ones I met were indeed sweet and kind on the surface. But they will brutally shun with no regard for the psychological damage being done. Asking questions is OK if you will accept the Watchtower approved answer. She also could be in a questioning phase where she is starting to have doubts. I knew many stylish JW women.  I recommed the movie Apostate, made by a former long-time JW, for an authentic look at JW life.

Scientology commits so many human rights violations. So much misery and unhappiness. I wonder what would happen if someone was honest during their sham exit interview. David Miscavige is a sumbitch with a Napoleon complex. He needs his ass kicked.  I don't get being abused, for free. At least if you get abused at work you get paid for it! And the disappearance of Shelly? WTF? That's what precipitated Leah's exit, after she asked an innocent question when Shelly wasn't at one of Tom Cruise's weddings.

Riveting series, that's for sure. Brave people.

 

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I found out today that a friend at school is Jehovah's witness. Honestly he seems pretty normal, just openly religious, but he's very outgoing so that's not surprising. We had a speaker in class today about sexual orientations and he expressed how he's learned to be more open and accepting of variations. Different brands of JW?

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3 hours ago, sleepy_doggos said:

I found out today that a friend at school is Jehovah's witness. Honestly he seems pretty normal, just openly religious, but he's very outgoing so that's not surprising. We had a speaker in class today about sexual orientations and he expressed how he's learned to be more open and accepting of variations. Different brands of JW?

There are no different brands of JW, just one, which is dictated by the eight old men that make up the governing body of the Watchtower Society. He had better not bring an open and accepting stance toward non-heterosexual people into the Kingdom Hall. The Governing Body of the Watchtower Society tells the members what to think, and has dictated that all non-heterosexuality is a sin and incompatible with being a JW. There is nothing weird about their appearance or demeanor, but the brainwashing is thorough and deep. They sponsor a Theocratic Ministry School which actually teaches members how to be outgoing and talk to people, which is essential for field service.

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RE: Blood transfusions. If the verse talks about ingesting the blood of others, does that mean that a JW could still donate their blood to receive during/after surgery?

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21 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

RE: Blood transfusions. If the verse talks about ingesting the blood of others, does that mean that a JW could still donate their blood to receive during/after surgery?

Apparently not:

 

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There are no different brands of JW, just one, which is dictated by the eight old men that make up the governing body of the Watchtower Society. He had better not bring an open and accepting stance toward non-heterosexual people into the Kingdom Hall. The Governing Body of the Watchtower Society tells the members what to think, and has dictated that all non-heterosexuality is a sin and incompatible with being a JW. There is nothing weird about their appearance or demeanor, but the brainwashing is thorough and deep. They sponsor a Theocratic Ministry School which actually teaches members how to be outgoing and talk to people, which is essential for field service.
Interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out. Thanks!
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