|
Post by Ginger on Sept 8, 2017 16:42:44 GMT -4
I think Jason Beghe said he reached OT-whatever where he should have had control over time and space, and then he got into a car accident. I think that was his lightbulb moment when he realized what a waste it all was.
I think the roundtable episode is really good as a standalone episode if anybody wants to know what Scientology is all about. I might watch it again. Very well done. Mike Rinder looked nuts when he was on TV denying Xenu.
|
|
|
Post by kostgard on Sept 8, 2017 18:09:27 GMT -4
I think a big part of why some people don't walk away is the Sunk Cost Fallacy, they've invested all this time and money into it and are incredibly reluctant to give it up or admit it's bullshit. Plus there's the threat of being cut off from all your loved ones. I do remember way back when Jason Beghe walked away and he did that interview on YouTube, he was livid about getting ripped off and was actively trying to get his money back. He manged to get his wife's money back for her but I don't know if he ever got his back. And he was lucky like Leah, his family left with him. He said his wife was never all that into it and I think the same is true for Leah's husband. I get the Sunk Cost thing...sort of. I mean, I'm a completest and end up finishing stuff that is a waste of time and energy just to finish it, but I've never maxed out credit cards just to complete something. I guess I just don't get how people are sucked into the program in the first place. They don't spring the "super powers" thing on you later after you've bought in - that's one of the few things they will tell people is possible relatively early on (That's why Tom Cruise was able to talk about how Scientology cured his sinus infections in an interview with Diane Sawyer). I mean, it sounds like such BS from the start that I have a hard time seeing how people get so far in that they feel they have to keep going. I recommend again the episodes of the "Oh No, Ross and Carrie!" podcast where they join Scientology. It is obviously bananas from the start. And the thing that really got me was Ross signed up for a couple classes and the WTF-ery started immediately. In the first class, they told him one thing (I can't remember what, exactly, so let's just say they told him 123=ABC). Then he took the next class in the series, and they told him that 123=XYZ. And when Ross was all, "Hey, the first class I took told me 123=ABC, now you're saying that 123=XYZ. What gives?" they responded with "Oh, well, you weren't ready to hear the truth in the first class. After completing it and enrolling in the second class, you are." Even if he wasn't ready to hear the truth, why did they lie in the first class? Why bring up "123" at all until someone is ready? If I were truly trying this thing on for size, that would absolutely be the point when I would have been all, "That's it. I'm out." and I think Ross had spent maybe a couple hundred dollars at that point (they discovered who Ross was shortly after and gave him the boot, so who knows what "123" would have meant in the next class). Maybe my cynical and paranoid nature makes me naturally want to avoid people like that. My freshman year in college my roommate briefly got involved with a cult-like Christian group on campus. I'm sure she joined up because they were all super-friendly and it was her first year in college and she was lonely. When I met them, they immediately set off all my alarms when I saw the way they love-bombed her, but then I'm someone who would respond with "Huh? Okay, what do you want from me?" if a new friend told me she loved me (this is what they did - always greeted and parted with a hug and an "I love you" and the "I love you" was always on voicemails, etc). I probably miss out on connecting with a lot of good people because of this, but I guess it keeps me out of cults, too. My roommate thought I was just being a turd when I told her that "I love you" stuff was weird. She started to pick up on it though after one time they wanted to go out and get pizza and she begged off because she was tired (they told her she was being selfish for doing her own thing and not what the group wanted - again, like CoS, it's always something wrong with you, not the group) and then got SUPER uncomfortable when they had everyone do, like, a group confession session where they asked her to admit all the bad things she'd done (not unlike auditing), up to and including everything in her sexual history, to the group. All under the guise of "helping" her. That's when she finally split. Now the "if you leave, you'll lose your family" thing I understand. That would be incredibly difficult and I admire the people who can do it. Leah is indeed very lucky that her husband wasn't really into it and when she was ready to go, so were her other family members.
|
|
|
Post by Babycakes on Sept 8, 2017 19:39:14 GMT -4
Maybe my cynical and paranoid nature makes me naturally want to avoid people like that. My freshman year in college my roommate briefly got involved with a cult-like Christian group on campus. I'm sure she joined up because they were all super-friendly and it was her first year in college and she was lonely. When I met them, they immediately set off all my alarms when I saw the way they love-bombed her, but then I'm someone who would respond with "Huh? Okay, what do you want from me?" if a new friend told me she loved me (this is what they did - always greeted and parted with a hug and an "I love you" and the "I love you" was always on voicemails, etc). I probably miss out on connecting with a lot of good people because of this, but I guess it keeps me out of cults, too. Freshman year they tried to get me too. I was totally caught off guard. I'm a loner, and have RBF. So all of a sudden this sweet, docile asian girl starts popping up everywhere. She was being really nice, and since deep down under my rotten black heart, I was raised right, I accepted an offer to come to her club meeting. And it was all love bombs, and telling me how awesome I was. I was already uncomfortable by all the cheeriness and positivity, but love? WTF?! They didn't even know me. Needless to say, I never went back. And then they started calling. I had never given them my number. Then the girl started showing up to my dorm, and waiting for me outside of classes. I finally had to go full stereotypical Southside "ghetto girl" and told her what's what and to stay the fuck away from me. Topic? Cults are bad mmkay. ETA: Agape! That was the name of their center.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 29, 2024 8:31:23 GMT -4
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2017 20:27:18 GMT -4
Maybe my cynical and paranoid nature makes me naturally want to avoid people like that. My freshman year in college my roommate briefly got involved with a cult-like Christian group on campus. I'm sure she joined up because they were all super-friendly and it was her first year in college and she was lonely. When I met them, they immediately set off all my alarms when I saw the way they love-bombed her, but then I'm someone who would respond with "Huh? Okay, what do you want from me?" if a new friend told me she loved me (this is what they did - always greeted and parted with a hug and an "I love you" and the "I love you" was always on voicemails, etc). I probably miss out on connecting with a lot of good people because of this, but I guess it keeps me out of cults, too. Freshman year they tried to get me too. I was totally caught off guard. I'm a loner, and have RBF. So all of a sudden this sweet, docile asian girl starts popping up everywhere. She was being really nice, and since deep down under my rotten black heart, I was raised right, I accepted an offer to come to her club meeting. And it was all love bombs, and telling me how awesome I was. I was already uncomfortable by all the cheeriness and positivity, but love? WTF?! They didn't even know me. Needless to say, I never went back. And then they started calling. I had never given them my number. Then the girl started showing up to my dorm, and waiting for me outside of classes. I finally had to go full stereotypical Southside "ghetto girl" and told her what's what and to stay the fuck away from me. Topic? Cults are bad mmkay. ETA: Agape! That was the name of their center. Oh man, now I'm realizing I may have dodged a similar bullet. I belong to a movie MeetUp group and there was this one woman who I met once at an outing, we had a decent conversation and she seemed nice so I accepted her friend request on Facebook. Her posts were fairly innocuous at first but after a while she started PM-ing me a lot going way overboard with how much she liked me and how great of a person I was. When she started referring to me as her "best friend" I unfriended her creepy ass. She only ever went to the one outing and that was the only time I ever saw her. I grew up in a family full of cynical Irish-Catholics who express their love through mockery so I'm automatically suspicious of people who are too nice to me. I like to say that I know something is really wrong in my life or with my family if my brother is nice to me without being hassled into it by my mom. The last time he was nice to me was when our grandfather died two years ago.
|
|
|
Post by kostgard on Sept 8, 2017 20:56:42 GMT -4
Maybe my cynical and paranoid nature makes me naturally want to avoid people like that. My freshman year in college my roommate briefly got involved with a cult-like Christian group on campus. I'm sure she joined up because they were all super-friendly and it was her first year in college and she was lonely. When I met them, they immediately set off all my alarms when I saw the way they love-bombed her, but then I'm someone who would respond with "Huh? Okay, what do you want from me?" if a new friend told me she loved me (this is what they did - always greeted and parted with a hug and an "I love you" and the "I love you" was always on voicemails, etc). I probably miss out on connecting with a lot of good people because of this, but I guess it keeps me out of cults, too. Freshman year they tried to get me too. I was totally caught off guard. I'm a loner, and have RBF. So all of a sudden this sweet, docile asian girl starts popping up everywhere. She was being really nice, and since deep down under my rotten black heart, I was raised right, I accepted an offer to come to her club meeting. And it was all love bombs, and telling me how awesome I was. I was already uncomfortable by all the cheeriness and positivity, but love? WTF?! They didn't even know me. Needless to say, I never went back. And then they started calling. I had never given them my number. Then the girl started showing up to my dorm, and waiting for me outside of classes. I finally had to go full stereotypical Southside "ghetto girl" and told her what's what and to stay the fuck away from me. Topic? Cults are bad mmkay. ETA: Agape! That was the name of their center. Holy crap! That sounds more intense than the group going after my roommate. At least I'm pretty sure she actually gave them her phone number. And while they did pop up a lot, they managed to make it feel somewhat natural, and after she gave them the kiss-off they called for a couple weeks, but then gave up.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 8, 2017 21:02:37 GMT -4
I'm still pissed that when I went to the Scientology center in Times Square, they couldn't have been less interested in recruiting me. The greeter bitch ushered me and my friend into a room to watch the wack video from the 50s and then gave us a perfunctory glimpse of some Scientology book and indicated we could see ourselves to the door because she had better things to do. (Perhaps people who have friends aren't what they are looking for? Maybe it's like a used car business where you need to isolate the target so they won't have anybody to talk them out of it?)
I should have reported her. That bitch would be scrubbing toilets in a bunker in Clearwater right now.
|
|
|
Post by Brookie on Sept 8, 2017 21:40:25 GMT -4
I'm still pissed that when I went to the Scientology center in Times Square, they couldn't have been less interested in recruiting me. The greeter bitch ushered me and my friend into a room to watch the wack video from the 50s and then gave us a perfunctory glimpse of some Scientology book and indicated we could see ourselves to the door because she had better things to do. (Perhaps people who have friends aren't what they are looking for? Maybe it's like a used car business where you need to isolate the target so they won't have anybody to talk them out of it?) I should have reported her. That bitch would be scrubbing toilets in a bunker in Clearwater right now. Alongside Shelley Miscavige.
|
|
|
Post by Witchie on Sept 9, 2017 11:36:44 GMT -4
At DragonCon last week, there was a huge floor to ceiling cage with some creature from L Ron Hubbard's Sci-fi series. I and most people missed the sign and took a card for a free poster. When I stumbled across their booth, I saw the book & realized who they were, but I was trapped by my Southern manners and didn't run screaming from them. They wanted people to sign up to receive free offers and other stuff. I gave them a fake name & an old inactive email. I dodged a bullet, but I wonder how many didn't.
|
|
|
Post by kostgard on Sept 9, 2017 15:35:14 GMT -4
Mike Rinder looked nuts when he was on TV denying Xenu. I was so hoping they would ask him about that. I remember him commenting about some other TV appearance where he went nuts on a reporter and he looked like death warmed over, and he said he had just come off a month of scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush for being a bad Scieno and probably hadn't gotten any real sleep during that month. Also, dig the "We Stand Tall" video. Mike is behind Miscavige in the "choir" shots and he is waaaaaaaaay into the song. The video is also embarrassing due to the early 1990s fashion. Everyone is in hideous sweaters and mock turtlenecks.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 9, 2017 19:23:31 GMT -4
|
|