Wisdumb: I like your approach. Particularly if you do it on my YouTube channel as that will get me money.

I find this especially satisfying when the banner ad appears next to an anti-religious or anti-CoS post. For example, my religion category on my blog invariably has a CoS ad on it — in case you have a hard time finding one.

…Right?

It’s hard to tell, now that they have a higher level of secrecy. They’re also gaining a higher level of “normalcy” simply by becoming more common, largely in part to the media around Tom Cruise and the spreading influence among his celebrity friends.

I’m scared.

Matt: they are indeed cheap, nasty, little charlatans, who have scant regard for the psychological wellbeing of their converts

Gap: sharing is a positive thing – your experiences can help other people.

The next several months they stuck me in an office and told me to work through all the files there. Those files were stacked up to the ceilings. They were customer files and my job was to make contact, collect any money due, resolve any customer service issues and then write a little report daily on what transpired.

They told me I was allowed to use the phone for personal business and encouraged it in fact. I didn’t think that odd at all, so I used their phone (I was young).

For the next 3 months they attempted to convert me, using every last detail of my personal life. Despite that fact their testing me showed a high aptitude, it never occurred to me how utterly stupid it was to use their phones to discuss my life. The woman in charge of converting me was just a few years younger. She came across as a sweet lil Christian girl and innocent as could be. I believe in a lot of ways most of the young people there were pretty oblivious to the depth of manipulation going on. That or they enjoyed it. Before long half the company was on my tail trying to get me to come to their after hour meetings. I politely said no. The more I declined, the more bizzare their tactics became – and I started to detect a bit of hostility toward me…I let that go. I wasn’t interested in what they thought. It was a sort of game, until one day they sent the innocent lil Christian type to corner me by using every last detail I had stupidly shared via their company phone. She began to interrogate me, preach morality and share that she was sincerely concerned for the outcome of my life.

Now I release sharing this story makes me seem like an idiot – which I suppose I was at the time what with my blabber phone mouth. During the last several weeks of my employ with these people the conversion tactics became so hard to deal with that I almost considered quitting on my own – but instead I hunkered down and tried dodging each manipulation.

One day while working their customer files I came upon this one strange looking file that looked like a raging lawsuit. I read it over completely and thoroughly and then walked it into the boss lady’s office to let her know it probably had been placed in my office by mistake.

Soon after this I began getting mouthy and more than politely declined invitation to their after hours meetings. I told them point blank that I wasn’t interested, would never be, and to please drop it, but let them know I appreciated their efforts.

Within a week I was told that I’d done such a great job that I’d worked myself right out of a position. I knew this was utter bullshit and so I approached the boss lady and told her I understood exactly what was going on. The once very kind, compassionate seeming woman now glared at me as if she were going to gut me. On the way out I bluffed her and let her know that I’d made photo copies of that strange looking file because I thought it very interesting reading.

And wouldn’t you know, the next week, they were advertising that very same job under a different job title.

The whole experience was foreboding and left a bad taste in my mouth. But whatever psychological vulnerability they originally sought in me wasn’t enough, apparently, to allow myself to be drawn into their darkness. The scary part was that maybe just a few years earlier in my life and it would have been enough.

I’m not sure. Simply invalidating anything that a person might believe that runs contrary to the interests of the Church is a simple trick. It’s trivial to batter somebody down, in this way. But that’s not what the Church claims to do – it claims to be some kind of path to enlightenment. Why is it necessary to lead people into the light (whatever the fuck that might be) via coercion, or forced choice (ie, in order to not be invalidated, anymore, a person simply gives up and follows the belief system that they’re told to believe)?

I’ve never met any Scientologists, as far as I know, but if this is what they do, then they’re cheap, nasty, little charlatans, who appear to have scant regard for the psychological wellbeing of their converts.

Matt

Still, there are related rhetorics in the Bible, concerning disconnection from the relatives (war against them, even), concerning giving up all your belongings, and some other funny stuff. Not even mentioning all the atrocities committed by the very same Catholic Church in its earlier days…

TT: They’re playing nice lately, they seem to have backed away from threatening people online.

Matt: They know all the tricks for wearing down resistance

Tom: They have far bigger fish to fry than me

Unmasked: Yeah, they’re not particularly subtle. But they don’t have to be when they are targeting people’s vulnerabilities

Noni: I just thought it was worth sharing my experience

Darth: I don’t think you’ve heard the story of what they get up to at sea!