Experience with Scientology?

[ladyamylynn]

So I have a co-worker I recently found out is a Scientologist.  She is quite strange. Nice on the surface but quick to make cutting personal remarks. Does anyone else here have experience with Scientologists? I would love to hear your stories!

[Hane]

Yup! One of my daughter’s friends and high school classmates converted to Co$. This young woman was very driven from the start—she became an occupational therapist, established her career in her early 20s, and bought her own home shortly thereafter.

With the Scientology came a hard veneer of “Look how successful I am—and you can be a winner like me!” She was the neighbor of a couple who attends my UU church, and emailed us wanting to lead a service.  We of the worship committee respectfully declined.

So then, one Sunday, she showed up unannounced. During our “sharing of joys and concerns,” she got up and spoke at length of her program, “The Road to Happiness,” and told a ridiculous story about how it had flown into the jungles of Colombia and air-dropped anti-drug pamphlets that caused the warlords and narcotraficantes to march out of the jungle and lay down their weapons. (A few of my sweet, naive fellow congregants actually applauded.) 

I didn’t attend that particular service, so I borrowed the CD recording of it. I could hear the pastor trying to cut her short. At the end of the service, she got up and announced that she and her friends had materials available in the lobby.  One of our trustees went up to her immediately after the service and asked her and her friends to leave and take their stuff with them. He said she stood there with a blank stare and creepy grin, as if she were trying to wear him down.

Fortunately, she got married and moved to Clearwater, Florida. She and my daughter haven’t been close for quite a while, ever since she tried to proselytize her.

In for a penny, in for a pound: In high school, in her still-Catholic days, she had a boyfriend and they were madly in love. For reasons no one has ever been able to figure out (because at the time she was just a nice, smart, hardworking kid), his whack job of a mother loathed her with the fire of a thousand suns and worked tirelessly to break them up. It worked, and he went away and joined the Marines.  Look up the Haditha Massacre on Wikipedia—he figured prominently in it and made international news.

To this day, I can’t help wondering whether, if his nut of a mother hadn’t left them alone, they’d be happily married and that Scientology and Haditha hadn’t collided with them.

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

When I was 12 I found a  Scientology  "reading room" 2 blocks from home.  I thought this is great as I loved to read.  So I went in and asked if I could stop in and read after school .  Well of course the young man said Yes, welcome welcome welcome!

when I told my Mom she said I had to stay away from that place!

Thanks Mom!

 

[IntrinsicallyDisordered]

I've engaged with a few online (as much as one can engage with a Scientologist) but my only IRL encounter was with an intense but seemingly nice enough guy selling us a tv and media player.  I was using a cane at the time and when we finished choosing a player he turned to me with this HUGE plastered on smile and asked if had health problems.  I said yes and he said that he wanted to help me and I could be free of physical and mental disability.  Had I ever heard of a book called Dianetics?  I forced a smile of my own, lied that I hadn't and promised I'd look into it, and hustled my husband out of there.

Edited March 1, 2018 by IntrinsicallyDisordered
Can't type

[GeoBQn]

10 hours ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

When I was 12 I found a  Scientology  "reading room" 2 blocks from home.  I thought this is great as I loved to read.  So I went in and asked if I could stop in and read after school .  Well of course the young man said Yes, welcome welcome welcome!

when I told my Mom she said I had to stay away from that place!

Thanks Mom!

 

Christian Scientists are the ones with reading rooms.

[scoutsadie]

10 hours ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

When I was 12 I found a  Scientology  "reading room" 2 blocks from home.  I thought this is great as I loved to read.  So I went in and asked if I could stop in and read after school .  Well of course the young man said Yes, welcome welcome welcome!

when I told my Mom she said I had to stay away from that place!

Thanks Mom!

 

I believe you're thinking of a different denomination, the Christian Scientists. (Official name is Church of Christ, Scientist). They are the ones with Reading Rooms. Theologically, they're more Christian than the Church of Scientology (which ultimate teaches that all gods and other religions are fake "implants" placed in our brains by our alien overlords), but Christian Scientists are still out of the mainstream (and similar to CoS) in that they often eschew tradition medical practices in favor of faith healings.

And if you guys haven't already, check out the FJ thread about Leah Remini's exposé of the Church of Scientology (as well as her show itself); it's fascinating and horrifying.

Edited March 1, 2018 by scoutsadie
typo

[scoutsadie]

Here's the FJ forum about Scientology: http://www.freejinger.org/forum/344-scientologist-scientology/

There's also a blog called The Underground Bunker that serves as a watchdog of the group.

I've read a great deal over many years about the organization, its founder, and people who have left the org. I think it's a horrible, abusive group that takes advantage of people. That's not to say that no one gets anything of value from it or its teachings, but by and large, it's a money-making scheme at its core, and overall has a terrible impact on people and their families. 

Be very wary - you coworker has been pressured and trained to bring people in, sometimes through innocuous-sounding events. I'd recommend saying no to any invite, and do not provide your personal contact info or you will likely end up hearing from them.

Edited March 1, 2018 by scoutsadie
riffles

[Hane]

One day in downtown New Haven, a couple of students were passing by a Christian Science Reading Room and one of them mistook it for Scientology. I quickly disabused them of this notion.

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

3 hours ago, GeoBQn said:

Christian Scientists are the ones with reading rooms.

Thanks everyone all these years I was wrong.  I have learned a lot from fg. Love ya'll guys!

[GenerationCedarchip]

I have to admit that I honestly thought Scientology was a joke for years until I encountered people who had actually had dealings with it. When I was in law school, I met a woman at a Bible study who had come out of Scientology. Her stories were really horrific  - cult members pressuring people to leave their families behind so they wouldn't be "weighed down" as they progressed through different levels of the faith, lots of marriages being broken up, lots of emphasis on people with money being the only ones worthy of respect and so on. 

I've since encountered a few Scientology folks proselytizing here and there. The public face of the religion sounds like propertity gospel nonsense on steroids but otherwise innocuous - scary when you hear about what is lurking beneath the surface there.

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, GenerationCedarchip said:

I've since encountered a few Scientology folks proselytizing here and there. The public face of the religion sounds like propertity gospel nonsense on steroids but otherwise innocuous - scary when you hear about what is lurking beneath the surface there.

It's a very bad cult.

Ages ago, when they had storefront near my workplace, some of their minions used to stand at the door & try to get passersby to come in and learn about Scientology. A friend engaged one of these folks in conversation which eventually worked around to the fact that you have to pay (and pay and pay and pay) to "progress" in the CoS. At this point, the friend asked eagerly about getting scholarships because otherwise she couldn't afford their courses. The CoS minion ended the conversation.

[tankgirl]

I knew some one, professionally, who gave their life to Co$, they had a treatable cancer, but stuck to the training and the crap, and dropped loads to go off to Clearwater to basically die  The family was quite involved with the church so they had no one to discourage them either

I know a few others who have been involved at different levels and they all have odd angles and weirdness in their lives. Some just wasted money on the program and others gave up their lives to move to Clearwater and got sucked in more. It is a ugly cult.

 

[Briefly]

My daughter went to an event in Seattle in December, she said that they walked by a Scientology center of some sort. She was going to take a picture of it for me (we look for strange things like that when we sight see) but she said that they had someone guarding the door who gave her a dirty look as soon as they saw the camera so she didn't take the picture. I wonder if a person would even get in the door of the place if they don't look "right"?  They are a seriously bad group.

[ladyamylynn]

We live very close to a fancy Scientology boarding school and I know another woman who is considering it for her kids and it just blows my mind! We don't have a lot in the way of private schools around here but my god how would a rational person even consider it?

[luv2laugh]

These sound like the Mormons that keep visiting and calling and won’t leave me alone

[ViolaSebastian]

My heart just breaks in two for the Scientologists who suffer from mental illness. Medication and therapy can be so effective, but they’re so rabidly anti-psychiatry that those poor people just have to suffer. I think Scientology has blood on its hands from the way they approach mental illness. Horrible. 

[FloraKitty35]

The nearest Church of Scientology location from my house is in Philadelphia.  One of them gave me pamphlet to see a movie about L. Ron Hubbard.  

[applejack]

Once upon a time, long before protests or anything else that I knew of, I worked for Jeff Jacobson's dad at his chain of video stores in Sioux Falls, SD. Scientologists used those video stores as a smear campaign against Jeff, because yeah, his dad rented out porn videos in his stores (as well as Disney and basically everything else). But of course, Scientologists move logic aside to build bridges out of bullshit, so they said Jeff was the "Porno King." They even called his dad's cell phone once to get him to to get Jeff to stop. 

Much later, after I moved from South Dakota, I went to a few of the Anonymous protests outside of Scientology centers, armed with my Guy Fawkes mask and a sign that said "Google Lisa McPherson." I never personally had any interactions with any cult members outside - they stayed well enough away, but close enough to film us ( big brave Scientologists there) - but some folks I know weren't as careful and got Fair Gamed, they said they saw them taking pictures of their license plates. (This is why I took the bus...)

Edited March 2, 2018 by applejack
accientally a whole half of a sentence

[FloraDoraDolly]

The $cientologists used to have a headquarters in my hometown. This was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was a teen/young adult. They would hang around downtown and ask random people if they wanted to take a personality test. It got to be a joke among my friends, but at the same time we were all creeped out by these people. (Except for the one friend who was gullible enough to go in there and take the test.) Looking back it's clear that the $cientologists were deliberately targeting underage kids. I was about 15 the first time one of them tried to get me to take a personality test, and I looked A LOT younger than I really was. There's no way they mistook me or most of my friends for adults, not even young adults. They knew we were kids. They knew where our high school was. They knew what time we got out. And they knew we had to walk past their headquarters to get to the record store.

[IntrinsicallyDisordered]

5 hours ago, FloraDoraDolly said:

The $cientologists used to have a headquarters in my hometown. This was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was a teen/young adult. They would hang around downtown and ask random people if they wanted to take a personality test. It got to be a joke among my friends, but at the same time we were all creeped out by these people. (Except for the one friend who was gullible enough to go in there and take the test.) Looking back it's clear that the $cientologists were deliberately targeting underage kids. I was about 15 the first time one of them tried to get me to take a personality test, and I looked A LOT younger than I really was. There's no way they mistook me or most of my friends for adults, not even young adults. They knew we were kids. They knew where our high school was. They knew what time we got out. And they knew we had to walk past their headquarters to get to the record store.

Scientologists don't believe in the concept of children or childhood, they believe kids are adults in tiny bodies and should be treated as such (including sex - among other horrors, Hubbard wrote that if a child rejects a "passionate kiss" from an adult there's something wrong with the child that needs to be rooted out).  Non compliant children are sent to camps or compounds where they are starved, worked to the bone, and abused, just like the adults are.

@ladyamylynn the woman you know considering the school either knows nothing about scientology or she isn't rational.  See if she'll check out Leah Remini's series, even just the parts of S2 which specifically deal with how children (even the "good" ones that do everything "right") are treated by them. 

[tankgirl]

13 hours ago, applejack said:

Once upon a time, long before protests or anything else that I knew of, I worked for Jeff Jacobson's dad at his chain of video stores in Sioux Falls, SD. Scientologists used those video stores as a smear campaign against Jeff, because yeah, his dad rented out porn videos in his stores (as well as Disney and basically everything else). But of course, Scientologists move logic aside to build bridges out of bullshit, so they said Jeff was the "Porno King." They even called his dad's cell phone once to get him to to get Jeff to stop. 

Much later, after I moved from South Dakota, I went to a few of the Anonymous protests outside of Scientology centers, armed with my Guy Fawkes mask and a sign that said "Google Lisa McPherson." I never personally had any interactions with any cult members outside - they stayed well enough away, but close enough to film us ( big brave Scientologists there) - but some folks I know weren't as careful and got Fair Gamed, they said they saw them taking pictures of their license plates. (This is why I took the bus...)

These guys are creepy as fuck about how they stalk, and knock dissenters. 

We knew again from business, not friendship, a second generation Scientologist that was a programmer and good with computers and he was very active hitting sites that disagreed with Co$, and we suspect he was cyber stalking and attacking people who called out the Church as well. They had loads and loads of people like him, who know how to work computers that will dig up crap on you, attack your sites, google bury you and so much more to try and shut up dissenters. It is super creepy.

[seattlechic]

17 hours ago, luv2laugh said:

These sound like the Mormons that keep visiting and calling and won’t leave me alone

You should answer the door topless. Worked for me. True story - they never came back. 

[BabyBottlePop]

My father answered the door to some Jehovah's Witnesses while wearing only a towel around his waist, and we didn't get bothered by them again for at least 3 years!  

[Blahblah]

No thanks!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-05/scientology-campaign-to-push-educational-materials-in-schools/11069666?smid=Page: ABC News-Facebook_Organic&WT.tsrc=Facebook_Organic&sf212150942=1

 

[Inky]

Very sneaky.