Thank-you for all your support.

Don and Paul,

Yes, thank you to everyone, even the people at home just nodding their heads and not daring to post. Without this forum, I might have gone back. Just to have friends again who understand the lingo/craziness I was raised with. If I decided to pay a counselor, just to have someone to listen to me, it would take thousands of hours of EXPLAINING so much before I could even communicate what was happening!

Who else would understand Thursday at 2pm, emergencies to pay org rent, writing out lower conditions that we didn't really believe were deserved, and on and on.

I'm with you Paul and reading everything you post. I do understand. And there are THOUSANDS of others out there who left who weren't as lucky as we are to have someone to listen.
Lucky

I have two or three Ron Hubbard books. One of them is THE CREATION OF HUMAN ABILITY, another is HANDBOOK FOR PRECLEARS and the third is SELF ANALYSIS which I can't find around the the house. I look at them now and then and flip through the pages. It takes a lot of work to write a book and he wrote lots of books. How did he do it?

It's weird. All these pages filled with useless words. Even to do that must have taken a lot of work and I wonder just how he did it. I'm sure there was some research involved even if it was just to get the right spelling of all the names he loved to drop such as: Krishna, Veda, Dharma, etc. I'm beginning to think that apart from all the intentional bullshit, tall tales, cruel jokes, racism, and cons, that what he was doing was unloading his mind on to the paper and what you are reading in a Scientology book is a list of all his crazy hang-ups. All the processes were his attempt to straighten himself out and the reason why some of his books were so long was due to the fact that he loved the sound of his own voice. For those who want to know what Ron Hubbard was really like; then maybe these books could reveal a lot more than previously thought. Maybe they are not entirely useless.

Paul,
This is exactly the viewpoint that makes the most sense to me - that Hubbard was really trying to fix himself, but like some severely disturbed people could not see the difference between his own internal world and the world around him.

Have you read his "admissions", his very revealing attempts at self hypnosis from 1947? These were recently posted to the net by Gerry Armstrong who originally read them when working as Ron's personal archivist in about 1980. I think you can see some similarities to processes and stuff he later wrote.
http://holysmoke.org/ga/ga07.htm

Paul,

I talked earlier about how he read parts of Will and Ariel Durant's "Story of Civilization." That series is as easy to read as a novel or a magazine article. He had the energy to read voraciously, picking out bits and making them his own.

I have read his "historical" paragraphs and they are poorly written, oversimplified, and frequently flat out wrong.

It doesn't take a genius to bullsh*t about religion and philosophy. Many college kids signed up for courses like "Buddhist thought" or "Eastern philosophy," spent about three hours reading the books, and managed to fool the professor into getting a B- on the final exam. I would have flunked Elron for his poor historical analysis.

Catarina, Don Carlo

I agree with all of the above. Most of what I wrote was not original and that is because I have read a lot of critical books on Hubbard and I do remember reading something about Ron and his attempts at self-improvement circa 1947. But it is interesting when you start realizing some of this stuff for yourself by just casually filpping through his books.

Paul

Thanks for taking the trouble to send quotations and answer my question.
I really thought you would reply that you had looked forward to having your Saturdays to yourself, go to a ball game, spend a whole day idly browsing in a library, read every newspaper you could find, but you are just glad to be free. In a free country that really condemns scientology.

Sparrow:

I did look forward to all those things that you mentioned. I looked forward to my freedom all the time when I was on staff. If they had put me on an e-meter and asked me if I looked forward to leaving I sure it would have shown up. They knew anyway but staff members are hard to find and they needed anyone and all they could get so they had to put up with me. There was a big colorfull world out there as opposed to the drab two-tone world of Scientology. I knew THAT much because I could see it out of my cell, I mean, office window and I couldn't wait.
I don't remember the very instant that I was free or what I felt but I do remember the feeling of those first days. It is hard to describe and is a mixture of feelings. It wasn't pure joy or anything like that but there was something inside of me that was gnawing away at me and now it was gone, sorta like a sense of relief. Total Freedom? No, because I knew sooner or later I would have to deal with staff members trying to get their stats up bugging me for money or trying to get me on course or back on staff. I've got a lot more to say about that too, but some other time. But it was wonderful in a way; I even tried to re-make myself a bit in the sense that I wanted to be a good Scientologist but what I thought a good Scientologist should be not what the Sea Org/Church of Scientology of California/GO clones thought I should be.
Total freedom from Scientology only came when I realized that I had been conned all those years.
But this is getting a little too long. Like I said, "Later."

The Tone Scale

I don't just mean THE TONE SCALE. I also mean the chart that one sees posted on the walls of every Scientology reception area, class-room, office, and maybe on some follower's bedroom walls.
You may first see it in the reception room of an org and it may even be the first thing you see. It's so crafty and it plays a powerful mind game with you if you let it .
With me, before I even knew what a tone scale was I recognized myself as being in fear or covert hostility. If the chart is positioned just right the fear or covert hostility may be the first thing your eyes focus on. I really feel that this is natural because it plays on our own fears, hangups, and guilt as to whether we are any good or not.
A new Scientologist once asked me where on the tone scale I thought I was. Without even thinking I replied that I was probably in fear or cover hostility. This surprised the newbie quite a bit. I knew what he was thinking anyway. They all seem to think that they are in Conservatism at first. From that day forward the behaviour of this person changed and he was much more confrontational. Stupid ass is probably a better description though. Antagonism. Yes, anything but fear. Anything but covert hostility. One cannot admit to weaknesses like those, right?
Some go one better. Some throw temper tantrums. Anger. Lower than Antagonism but still considered high on the tone scale. A little more humble approach I guess. David Miscavage it would seem is the leader of the pack in that regard.
It is so predictable.

Hi Paul:

Speaking of strange thoughts and hanging Ron stuff on the wall.

My former husband had a tone scale hanging above his desk in our home along with a personal complimentary letter from L. Ron himself. Everytime I entered that room or cleaned it, my eyes would invaribly
land on those two items.

I knew exactly where I was on that tone scale, either apathy or covert hostility. (Behavior of a scieno spouse to a non-scieno spouse usually confirms where they think you fit on Ron's Tone Scale.) When I was in apathy and saw the tone scale, I would feel very sad and helpless. When I was in covert hostility, I felt like doing something violent.

One day, when in covert hostility, I took a match (from the match box used to light pipes), struck it and set that damn tone scale on fire. For several seconds, I watched it burn.
Then sanity returned and I put out the fire. Most of the tone scale was either destroyed or scorched. The piece of the wall behind it was also scorched. In a panic, I threw away the burned tone scale, searched for another, but could not find one. So I put a picture of a landscape over the scorched spot and waited for retribution.

To this day, I can not remember if I
got in trouble or he just ignored it and took it as proof that I was in the 2 per cent of the population who were criminally insane.

So Ron's Tech can elicit strange thoughts and behaviors in non-Scientologists too.

Tigger

Tigger:

Boy, I can't say I ever did that to the tone scale chart. To me it was the LAW and the funny thing was, even though I owned a copy of the chart I just couldn't bring myself to hang it up on any wall in my house. Must have been the closet Scientologist in me because I also thought that the idea of actually buying a photo of Ron Hubbard was pathetic and lame.

Well since this is called Flashback, Echos, etc; I thought I'd post this here. There is no point to this post but it does add to the overall picture of me the ex-Scientologist and maybe there is something in it for you.

My brush with Fame:

I remember finding myself in a loud noisy room with a certain artist who shall remain unknown. He was sitting down holding court with friends, fans, and the inevitable hangers-on. I walked up to him and he smiled. He obviously thought I was a fan and in fact I really wasn't. The first thing I said to him was "When did you leave Scientology?". The smile disappeared, he looked away and stared at the upper right corner of the room and said wearily, "I left Scientology in 19__."
I replied, "I left Scientology in 19__."
His smile came back and he shook my hand. After that I left because there were still more fans and hangers-on that he had to deal with.

Then there was Chick (don't call me South) Corea. My culture vulture friends had paid for my ticket and dragged me to see his new band. I really wasn't interested but here I was, off to see the wizard. I only liked that guy for a short period with the original RETURN TO FOREVER with Bill Anderson. After that, after all the DiMeola's and Stanley Clarke's and others, I really couldn't have cared less. Besides, I always resented him. While I was on staff slogging away, I noticed that he would never lower himself to visit our crappy little org when he came to perform in our city. A visit from him would have brightend the day of our staff but it just wasn't to be.
So anyway, here I was at the venue. I got a liitle lost trying to find my seat and took a wrong turn and wound up in a hallway and who should I see but Chick and his bandmates discussing something. This was my chance to tell him what an dupe I thought he was. I didn't though. I walked past all of them and ignored their very existence and eventually found my seat.
All through the concert I found I couldn't appreciate the music. The only thing I could think of was Scientology and I was just wishing the concert to be over. At the end the band received a standing ovation from all, except for me. By this time I was mad and I think I was trying to give him the 'evil eye'. Funny, he noticed me out there in the audience and we just stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Sorry Chick, you can't win 'em all.

My first PTS interview

The first week I was a new Scientologist I phoned the org and told them that I had come down with a flu virus. The person at the other end of the line became alarmed and told me to come down anyway. Like a fool I did and I got the standard interview everyone gets which is namely to read the bulletin about suppressive persons. I came up with a name of who I knew could be a suppressive person and instantly the symptoms vanished. My headache was gone, the soreness was gone, and so was my fever.
Later that night those symptoms came back in full force along with the chills. I thought I was going to die. Looking back I see now that what really cured my sickness was something called 'TIME'. What is amazing is the fact that Scientology staff do Ron's dirty work straight from the Policy Letters so well and they don't even know what unwitting accomplices they are.

Tigger: Just re-read your post to me and it has helped me quite a bit.

"(Behavior of a scieno spouse to a non-scieno spouse usually confirms where they think you fit on Ron's Tone Scale.)"

Now, those are your words and it is so true. Scientologists also do that to one another as well. It is done in the name of bringing others "uptone". A lot of stupid, even cruel things have been done in the name "good intentions" not to mention the cruel streak some OT's or staff members have but don't admit to. The AIMS OF SCIENTOLOGY seem to be 'emulate the Founder in as many aspects as possible'.

Paul

I wouldn't buy a photo of Ron either now that I've seen his pic on 'Bare Faced Messiah' on this website. There is an uncanny resemblance to a picture on the 'Hannibal' posters.