Hey, take a look at the article on Mary Jo, Sherry, Geir and Jack, http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1062092.ece
I guess this about a lot of the folks who frequent this blog. What a wonderful service to humanity – separating out Scientology from Mestology in the public mind. My hat is off to all of you.
Martyrathbun09's Blog 
Wow! Another HUGE blow to the enemy! I’m actually sort of speechless right now. However, I am no conceptualess. I’ll come back later when all these particles settle out a bit.
Geir, Mary Jo, Sherry and Jack – VWD! And thak you so much for coming forward. What a way to enter the new year!
I’m looking forward to what you have to say Patrick.
Again St. Pete’s you guy’s rock!
I’d say you guy deserve a Pulitzer for this series.
Gier, Mary Jo, Sherry and Jack, those were great interviews. Y’all did us proud.
As they from Marty’s neck of the South or there abouts 🙂
That is gold. I hope the cover page makes it onto a lot of protest signs.
Gier, Mary Jo, Sherry and Jack!
Thank you guys! This is a great start into year 2010!
Thank you for sharing this news with us Marty! 🙂
Here’s a thought: I, as perhaps many others do that post or read here, receive a daily barage of emails from various orgs. It occured to me we could copy/paste the headlines and first couple of paragraphs with the link to the article and send this comm back as a reply to the orgs’ emails.
The opening statement could be something like, “What in the Hell is the meaning of this?!!”
The next gradient would be for us each to email SPT a brief (or not) history of our connection to the church followed by our declaration of independence. And, to help vallidate our declaration, include a personal photo.
What do you imagine would be the impact created if a thousand or so independents did just this within the next 72 hrs?
Whadda ya think?
P Henry,
I think it would be amazing. If each guy doing it is willing to assume the status of full cause over all efforts and counter-efforts on the cycle, it would certainly be something to behold. I’d do it, but I’ve already done it.
Sounds like a plan, P. Henry. I suggest something like this be included just to put it on record, in writing:
“Tommy Davis has unequivocally stated to the press that disconnection doesn’t exist in any way, shape or form. Therefore, I expect no interference whatsoever with my familial, social or business relationships.”
Very good. I’ve written the two reporters to contact me. I want my story on the front page too.
That would be absolutely brilliant, Ignazio. Your testimony is powerful and would really “impinge”.
Thanks to Geir, Mary Jo, Sherry and Jack for stepping forward and speaking out to the SP Times.
What you have done is going to have a ripple effect and is what DM fears most – OT VIIIs and other public Scientologists finding out the truth like you did by reading, processing the information and making a decision to help create change.
I second that Mark.
It´s a big, big flap for the CofS status Quo.
Times must change.
People like Mary, Sherry, Jack and Geir are changing them!
Kudos to the St. Petersburg Times. Excellent journalism. That paper is making history with their integrity in reporting, and they deserve awards for not buckling under pressure, coercion, blackmail or the Wrath of Tom.
This article is a fair, objective (if high controversial) piece of writing that speaks for itself and sticks to the 4 holy W’s of journalism: Who, What, Where & When.
The part in the article that reports Cof$ Tommy Davis’s reaction to these new reports of abuse coming out didn’t describe his pinched, angry face — but I couldn’t help imagine it as he machine-guns off those contrived, indignant “criticisms” of anyone who says “Ouch!” I could see his contorting isage as I read the quote. Maybe from the videos where I’ve seen his trance-like, spitting (literally) “attack any critic” schtick.
Thank you Sherry, Mary Jo, Geir and Jack for delivering an effective blow to the squirrels who have usurped a technology, using it toward the exact opposite purpose for which it was created and intended.
Thank you for the justice, for the truth, for the hope. What a way to ring in the New Year…
Unless one has seen and experienced first hand the insidious violations of dignity — not to mention the law — that are carried out cloaked with “do-good” disguise, it’s a difficult thing to grasp because it’s so incredible.
Well, isn’t that the common denominator of crimes we see in the news …absolutely incredible. Sometimes the first reaction to reading or witnessing evil is being incredulous, we even exclaim “that’s incredible.” But if we really look and really listen, we can recognize it being perpetrated against decent human beings, and it often has a banal, stupid face as it extracts the life force out of good people.
Wow, thank you to that newspaper that knows good reporting. GREAT TRIUMPH!!
Happy New Year!!
Thanks for the support. And thanks to Marty for setting some big wheels into motion.
And Happy New Year!
Mary Jo, Sherry, Geir and Jack, VWD and thank you very much.
It’s time OTs stood up for true Scientology.
An OT cannot stay an OT in a universe which is MAD.
We need to unite our powers as OTs! You are opening up the way for more OT VIIIs to come out and speak up!! I was declared for insisting on Standard Tech !!? Now, you share the experience with us!
Marty, it’s amazing that in half a year you have managed to put management and OTs (the leading powers in Scientology)to the right perspective.
Now is the time for the whole Sea Org as a body of truly dedicated thetans to the legacy of LRH to Mankind, to do their thing:
Put ethics in on the planet… and the… Universe (OK, the latter we can take it up later, the former we are doing it, for the first time in such a scale).
No wonder you have kept the top Ethics post in the church. LOL
Thank you Sir, have a Happy New Year!
We’re with you Theo
Theo, I need your help. janthonylavoie@gmail.com
Hi Antoine, thetamag@yahoo.gr is my e-mail address you can write to me. Happy New Year!
You know what I think…
Ship ahoy!!
This article really ROCKS!!! What a perfect example of what an OT should be doing to take responsibility for the planet. WOW!
In it’s traditional fashion the church is trying to discredit the source, St Petersburg Times, in their Freedom Mag. I checked the links (which is getting very few hits)and various forums connected to it and they are not getting much visibility at all, no one seems to be interested in the church spin. Also, the validity of the church’s response regarding their statistics in Human Right’s activities is being challenged as well.
“You, Joe Childs in particular, actively seek out only those individuals who have something negative to say about the Church; if they do not fit your agenda then you attempt to coach them and coax them into doing so by “educating” them about Scientology until you have “adjusted” their viewpoint accordingly and when that does not work you simply put words in their mouth.”
This slick maneuver by Tommy actually works against him as any OT is going to spot that OTVIIIs would never allow someone to put words in their mouth…or to make them up completely. Clearly another ineffective attempt to discredit SP Times while lending more credit to the actual stories.
Mary Jo, Sherry, Geir and Jack… you did an awesome job!!! I think about all the people, including myself, who were enlightened as a result of The Truth Rundown and the incredible impact that today’s story will have, especially for those at the upper end of the grade chart. Despite indocrination, people will look at these articles as they really do seek the truth.
One of my biggest overts as a staff member was my failure to apply KSW, internally. Being part of this group has allowed me to correct this. I am proud to be part of this group of tremendously courageous and ethical beings.
What an absolutely fantastic way to begin the new year. I could hardly sleep last night I was so excited!
Thought Provoking: “Also, the validity of the church’s response regarding their statistics in Human Right’s activities is being challenged as well.”
Exactly!! When I read from Tommy’s letter in response the below bullet points….
• Through the anti-drug and drug abuse education programs we sponsor, every 15 seconds someone pledges to be drug free.
• Through the human rights education programs we support, every second of every day, 26 people learn about their human rights.
• And across all of our sponsored programs, every 25 seconds someone volunteers in their community.
….I wondered what broad sweeping instrumentation, response/recording devices, data capturing apparatuses that measure in “humans per ______seconds”, allows one to obtain this kind of info with such specificity. How dooo they do that??
Kudos to those who produced this article. I predict more staff blows from Flag in the coming weeks. With the new overpriced ACC release, the staff are going to be made to work day and night selling these to an increasingly disaffected public who are already sick of being fleeced. As the staff fail to make their quotas, they will not be allowed to sleep and will be made to work “on the decks” after post time. Study time will go out the window. And with this article coming out, the staff will be told they have to overcome the “suppression” by “flourishing and prospering” and get this release into the hands of every single public person. The pressure must be so intense by now. Although I feel for the staff, the abuses will wake up some of them up to the true nature of current management. They will leave and hopefully find out for themselves exactly how DM has perverted Scientology.
Thanks Geir, Mary Jo, Sherry and Jack for doing what you did. I think it is going to impinge a lot on local Clearwater Scientologists to see their peers on the front page.
Thanks also to the St. Pete Times for having the courage to persist in this cause.
And thanks to Marty who is the “King pin” for putting things right again!!
Happy New year to all of you out in Internet land!!
I really admire St. Pete Times for keeping the differentiation of the Church of Scientology vs. the subject of Scientology. It’s so rare, and very sane.
Did anyone see the church’s attack on St. Pete Times? I just don’t get it — talk about another foot bullet. The Church has completely lost any hope of maintaining any credibility. So sad.
I can’t wait for CNN or 20/20 to start really digging into this story, and I just hope that they can maintain that same differentiation that the St. Pete Times did.
Thanks very much to Mary Jo, Sherry, Geir and Jack for coming out on the St Pete Times.
This really puts a good ending note on 2009, which is the year of the truth rundown and the turning point for Mestology. Happier New Year’s will be the future for all!
Appreciation goes to Joe Childs and Tom Tobin for their usual, great jobs in reporting the story and truth rundown.
What is “Too gruesome training”?
found it:
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/andre.html
Marty, I am not posting this because your or other names are in it. In fact, I really think you are doing a great service. I just hope all words are accounted for…
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/andre.html
Getting ready to close the door on 2009 and step over the threshold into 2010. See all of you over there. These last few weeks of 09′ have been quite spectacular for me. Thank you one and all from the bottom of my heart.
P. Henry
P. Henry,
Yhat is the most beautiful rendition I have ever heard. Thank you for that moment!
My hope for 2010 is that all those held in thrall or in “The Hole” or “in duty” see release, physical, mental and spiritual, from the bonds that hold them now. I worry about Heber and Guillaume and all the others who have been systematically abused under the guise of rehabilitation. Let us all hope that 2010 sees the end of the “endless RPF”, the physical, spiritual, and mental abuses of Sea Org members as well as staff, and the end of the financial abuses of parishioners. The OT VIIIs who so courageously spoke to the SP Times will be considered instrumental in providing the impetus for DM’s downfall when this is reviewed in the future. Hats off to all of you! And thank you…you are awe inspiring!
Gaia
Gaia,
I share your hopes for all the staff. We have started a fire, now let’s turn it into a roaring blaze that can not be ignored.
Thank you OT VIIIs. This will also ripple here into Australia. NOTSaware I look forward to you being on the front page next.
Awesome picture of all 3 of you! Thank you for your courage & integrity! Many Scientologists must know you & think highly of you 3 considering the amount of times you’ve been to FLAG for “refreshers”. This will impinge big time. This is really a great application of “straightening the successfull actions”. The majority of people I know that have woken up (me included) were woken up by the “Truth Rundown”. That article & the videos really got me to start daring to look & think for myself. Continuing to re-enforce that line of communication will wake up more & more Scientologists. The more of us that wake up, SO members, Staff & Public, the more effective we can be at bringing reform. I’m proud to be Freetothink. I’m not quite Freetoact yet but soon to be 😉
I am concerned to read that Sherry had suicidal thoughts. I’m not sure what to think about that. It’s not really cause over life?
GraveDanger, Ekhert Tolle began his journey with suicidal ideation. Many a great mind has had them.
GD,
I’m sorry to say, but I think you may have missed something in Sherry’s statements: she most certainly did assume cause over life and ably demonstrated it. You will have to learn what life and cause are, someday. There are lots of both on this blog, in those articles you refer to and way more on the way. Join up. You’re drawn here aren’t you…
Sherry has described how she got in touch with Nancy Many, whom she hadn’t seen for a few years, and received a lot of welcome support. You can find it with a search on ESMB (Ex-Scientology message board).
Just curious if you can shed some light on the situation of all of the OTVlll’s being contacted and told they had to go back on to OTVll after they had completed OTVlll. Of all the news laid on the table this seems to be one very major event that is still shrouded in mystery. I haven’t read any details about it anywhere, but it was a major incident and a turning point in trust from the field. Do you know how this happened and why? There was a “Shore story” given to the public. The one I heard was that it was David Mayo’s fault. Although he had not been in the Church for ten years…..
Oracle..it happened in June 1996 when the “Golden Age of Tech for OTs” was released. Every OTVll and Vlll had to return to Flag to do the “Solo Nots Certainty Course” and get back onto OTVll(or as was in my case) continue on OTVll after the course..as we were told that NO ONE had made it and NO ONE was making it as we hadn’t been auditing or hadn’t audited OTVll correctly. It was all part of DM’s brilliant “why” of “the blind leading the blind”. Major major inval for all OTVlls and Vllls.
Thanks for your info. I knew about this, but what went on internally is what I am curious about. To send hundreds of people at a minimum of 40,000.00 a pop, thank them, congratulate them, attest them done, then send out people to tell them they had not made it was about the biggest mind f$&* I have ever seen. The entire field where I was tok about six steps away from the Church. Many public just blew. There has to be more to this story. I have checked and nothing was ever sent around to the Sea Org staff inside about who was responsible for this enormous betrayal of trust. And from the outside looking in, this was the beginning of a whole lot of shrink. The Church was definately in treason condition back then. There has to be a huge story about this from the inside??? No?
By the way, this was not in 1996. It was in 1993. A seperate event from 1996 GAOT.
All four of you presented the info for clearwater public in the correct way. I think it’s a very on point detailed presentation, making clear that this isn’t natter or complaining about 1d concerns but that there’s a reform purpose behind it, getting the group back to LRH tech. Just what we needed.
In my long watchingness of the Scientology Culture, I have seen the Church really boom. Then I watched it fall, in about three chapters.
The first I (just me) saw, a massacre that resulted in a huge wipe out was when the mission network was wiped out by the finance police under DM’s rampage for dollars. The second fall from stability, was the mass exodus in the early 80’s when DM took charge and Hubbards closest were shut out. The third was this event with the OTVlll’s all being told they had not made it after all. I consider these events and results important to know as an interesting lesson in life. There have been minor set backs and ups and downs but these three major events pushed back decades of progress and work with seemingly a wave of someone’s wand. It has been fascinating to watch and know about. It’s a lesson in the importance of preservation. Preservation is something not mentioned all that frequently. One thing Hubbard wrote that really meant something to me, was about “Maximum creation and minimum destruction”. I have paid keen attention to that myself. But I have seen major destruction happen in the Church in the tiniest moments of time. And I watched it boom on backbreaking labor and sacrifice. It’s not enough to put something there. To keep something there, that is the real art. And that goes with people as well. I watched Sea org staff that gave decades out on the street in a moment’s staff meeting. And there is something very unholy about making someone’s create vanish without concern or importance at all. If we disregard all past contribution, estimation to put something back to where it was, cannot entered on a ledger and correct estimation of force falls off. The times I hav seen the Church backwards were when I saw Maximum desruction and minimum creation. It gets down a simple math equation. Right now, inside and out, it’s maximum destroy and minimum create. There are more hours spent attacking the CofS than hours of auditing being delivered.
It’s a tangled web that’s been woven with the Upper Levels.
Addition: And if you do not attack what is going on, you are contributing to it, even worse! And I know what DM is facing right now. He is trying to put it back. But he is lost in that arena. It took Hubbard 87 years, and the Church is in worse stead than it was in 1955 at this point in time. DM does not have time to do it. He cannot put it back. And nobody can take away what is left from his vanishing tricks. He’s got the dollars. But he does not have the manpower, support or good will. Sadam owned an entire country full of oil. You cannot pay someone to do the work of a Sea Org member or Scientologist. You can’t call a temp agency. All that he made to vanish on whim must be rebuilt with , decades of allegience and good will. But with the bad PR on it’s back and all of it’s mystery spread out onto the internet already. It’s over. Just remember how fragile that was. Next adventure, balance the force in a way that adds up. Best to all. T.O.
Oracle, your wisdom is worthy of your nom-de-plume. I see precisely those same watersheds in the decline of the CoS under DM, along with the accompanying parallel of brutalizing SO members.
The most important – for me – was the desecration of VIII.
(How very convenient, as an aside, to make Mayo the scapegoat for whatever goes awry on the rocky path that is the Upper Bridge)
I place this above the money grab because I’d have willingly mocked up a kings ransom in return for what was being promised.
It breaks my heart to discover that it’s all been about the money. It’s a sad and pathetic truth. I knew it all along, I suppose, – I tell people all the time, if nothing makes sense, follow the money – but I denied my own knowingness and my obnosis.
I think LRH meant what he said when he said that we sit here in a brief moment in history with a chance to break free of the dwindling spiral.
It was always a very small window in a very brief moment.
Huckleberry, It seems to me the magic of Scientology is not about the buildings or uniforms or street address’ or corporations. The magic of Scientology only prevails when explored at the top of the CDEI scale. If it is not approached at curious about, or desired, it simply does not work. All one has to do to have it there and working, is to be curious about it, or desire it. Then, the time and opportunity will follow. In the organized Church it has fallen down this scale into an enforcement, at it’s best. But for you, and me, and anyone else that wants to explore that magic, all one needs to do, is to be full of desire or curious. That desire or curiosity creates the window of opportunity. And that comes from within.
Wow, that is so well expressed, thank you Oracle!
And thanks to all for the wonderful acks and support from everyone on the blog. I do look forward to hearing the results of this latest beam of light on the current scene with Mestology. The more we differentiate, the more sanity we put there.
Love,
Mary Jo
Too true, Oracle, and well articulated.
I think of the Tone Scale as a ladder which can be climbed or descended and where each rung offers a different view of the same scene. In other words, what is there is what is there, it’s unchanging, but what you see depends on your viewpoint. Or, you could say, what you want to see.
Huckleberry, Thanks and thanks for that idea! It’s true! There is some level missing for me though on the existing tone scale. I like it best when I can see the comedy in everything. There is some kind of seriousness in all of the tones on the chart, even enthusiasm has a lot of seriousness attached to it. I just know when I am at a place where what I am looking at is very funny, I am in a good place. Especially when I can laugh at myself. Someday we’ll look back on all of this and it will all seem funny. It’s getting a bit funny to me now as I write this. Cheers for the New Year and may it bring you many pleasures and laughter!
This month marks the 7th anniversary my mom, stepfather and 5 siblings disconnected from me because my father, with whom I maintain a close relationship, is a declared SP from events which occurred over 30 years ago. My deep thanks to everyone with the courage to come forward with your experiences to expose the truth. Perhaps this will help usher in the change that will make it possible for my 3 young children to someday meet their grandparents, aunt, uncles, and cousins.
I hear you.
We are with you all the way long in this mourning.
For people like you is that we are fighting for.
Love
Roberto Sánchez Núñez
Spirit of play, Oracle. Stay true to it. The Maker of Games has no rules and abides by no rules. He can have the game or not have it. Laughter at the silliness of the Game keeps you in this band.
As for what’s going on now, let’s look at how to make pieces in the Game:
– Deny there is a game.
– Hide the rules.
– Allow only penalties and no wins.
– Remove all goals.
– Enforce playing.
– Inhibit enjoyment.
– Make pieces look like players but don’t ever allow them to be players, or:
“Look like God but can’t be God.”
To come full circle, “look like OT VIII but can’t be OT VIII”.
Sound familiar?
Wow– spot on Huckleberry!
The gamey description is very funny! Thanks for the laugh! You are very witty Huck, a beautiful mind! It’s all true too! What are your ideas for a new game? That should be very interesting!
Meanwhile, through all of my contacts planetwide, not one person has any notion of this flap, of sending all of these people for OTVlll, then, telling them all they have to go back onto OTVll. There seems to be no internal flap about his at all. Not one mention on a golden rod. Everyone looked the other way. WOW! I can only guess it was part of planning? It was not a mistake or error? Perhaps we just needed a little noise and excitment, a party? A PR event, the Maiden Voyage? Perhaps a fundraiser?