One more Speaks Out!

From: "Magoo" <Magoo44@charter.net>
Subject: One more Speaks Out!
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 00:15:51 -0800

One more person offers their story, and says it's Ok to post it. Thank you to all who help here, exposing the abuses, discussing, telling your side or opinion.

More and more stories are coming out, and this is good

Here ya go:

"Hi, Thank you for your courage and efforts in speaking out against Scientology. I've been reading on the net recently about the cult and your posts on the newsgroup alt.religion.scien... You stood out from the rest. I like your bright attitude.

I'm a __ yr old male. I was in the____ mission in ___to____. Went staff, _____ I just walked out, after putting a note in the ethics officers mailbox about why I was leaving. I thought the tech was cool, but then the mission went nuts trying to squeeze the public for money. Maybe their numbers were lies, but I remember in staff meetings that they were pulling in $100,000 to 150,000 a week. There were only 75-100 public people coming somewhat regularly. During the couple weeks before I left, the leaders of the staff had us work longer hours and held more meetings with the public, pushing very hard for more money. I started to see good people, who really cared about the organization, being sent to Ethics for bogus reasons. They weren't rah rah enough, I think. Then I got sent to Ethics for not being enthusiastic enough about talking public people into borrowing money from relatives or selling their possessions to give more to the church. I moved away right after leaving..

I mostly felt stupid for getting involved with them, have rarely spoken to anyone about it and ignored dwelling on it even though it was an intense time of my life. For the last couple of weeks I've been reading massive amounts about how they are on the net: Clambake and it's many links. Mostly I think it's wrong that their philosophy is prejudiced against people who are not with them. The evil they perpetrate on outsiders seems like what our current pop culture would classify as terrorism.

Oh, and after getting some distance from it, I don't think their tech is too cool anymore. It's really pretty boring, having to do things over and over and then not being able to discuss the ideas. I was attracted to the organization because I really wanted to help mankind and wanted to believe their junk procedures could help us.

Your writings and others have helped me not feel so gullible. If smart people like you can get sucked in, I figure, I don't feel so bad.

So thanks for telling your story and trying to make it safe for others to also. It helps.

I was prompted to write to you after you posted for the woman who helped her daughter with non-scientology ways. {recently}. She sounds like a great Mom.

Feel free to share my e-mail if you want. It's been long enough since leaving that I don't think it really matters.

Thank you so much for making your presence and position known to others", ((Name withheld to protect the innocent))

magoo44@Charter.net
(818) 588-3044
Burbank, CA