Scientology Reflections (11) 10 Years After Leaving-Schism of Scientology Critics

  Scientology Reflections (11) 10 Years After Leaving-Schism of Scientology Critics

This is the eleventh post in a series that I am publishing in 2024. The series is on the journey I have been on AFTER leaving Scientology and Dianetics and what my experiences were, and mistakes I made, and things that I learned, some shortly after leaving Scientology and others further along the way, even up to the present day. Some of this involves Scientology and Dianetics. Some involves the process of leaving a cult. Some is just knowledge that I could have benefited from knowing sooner, that may even be unrelated to the cultic topic entirely. 

For anyone who is unaware, I was in Scientology for twenty five years, between 1989 and 2014. I left in 2014 and discovered that Scientology is a harmful fraud and jam packed with lies and further it is composed of techniques plagiarized from other practices and sources. Ronald Hubbard had the ability to take a practice, file off the serial numbers and repackage it as his own in first Dianetics and later Scientology. 

Well, I might as well give a bit of my own take on the issue of the break in the Scientology critic community, seemingly everyone else under the sun has.

If you are unaware the people who create the most high profile and popular media regarding Scientology as critics have apparently divided into two main groups that are not getting along and one group has Aaron Smith-Levin and his supporters on one side and the other has a lot of people who have been lumped together, perhaps without their own consent regarding this and perhaps with their consent in some cases. You would really have to ask each individual person to know their own outlook.

Some of the people on the other side (allegedly) are Mike Rinder, Leah Remini, Jennifer Lopez (allegedly?), Jon Atack (note:  Jon Atack has released a video with Steve Hassan and commented that he is not taking sides), Chris Shelton, Marc and Claire Headley, the other remaining board members of The Aftermath Foundation, Tony Ortega, Karen De La Carriere, Jeffrey Augustine as examples.

I have not personally confirmed this with each person listed, so if I have mischaracterized you here, please accept my sincere apologies. 

Aaron Smith-Levin has his own supporters and they have a variety of platforms including several YouTube channels of their own. I am reluctant to list them. Several people have supported him but backed out over time, so I don't want to present a list that might be outdated before you see this. 

The fact that they have backed out is not meant to imply anything else in this context, it's just a fact. 

I really wish this hadn't happened, but such is life. 

Many years before I ended up in Scientology I had wished to have many great friends and that they all would get along naturally as good people and we would never have any falling out with each other or end to our friendship with each other.

It took me a very long time to accept that life just doesn't work that way very often, perhaps sometimes but not always.

I guess that is part of growing up.

I think that we all make less than perfect choices in our relationships and I certainly am no exception. Sometimes they result in losing friends and sometimes the choices by others result in friendships ending. Not all endings are amicable.

You can support or not support anyone you choose. I am not going to list the "crimes" of people on either side here. That's not the point of this post. I am not even saying that anyone has committed crimes in this post. 

I want to make two points. 

First, I want to point out the human tendency to put people into the categories of "in group" or "out group" and the very likely behavior of liking in group members and disliking out group members.

It's more than obvious, unfortunately, in politics quite often. 

We are somehow hard wired to see "us"es and "them"s in the people around us and to ONLY see good, when it suits our purposes, in "us"es and ONLY see bad in "them"s.

“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.”

― Voltaire

We all in my opinion are fools at times and none of us can fully escape our biases and prejudices.

So, as an example I try to discipline myself to see certain things. I have said before that a simple definition of evil is that if something is wrong if it's done to me, then it's wrong if it is done by me. 

To build on that I can say that if I would not want to be judged a certain way then it's wrong for me to judge others that way.

A simple example is the fact that you can read a rumor that a person is something or has done something. If you believe it, would you want to be treated that way?

I see people routinely believe statements about politicians or celebrities and they decide the truth or falsehood of the claim based on their political affiliation or the gender of the person. 

Well, that's a hasty generalization at best. People from every political party sometimes lie and sometimes tell the truth. They are sometimes guilty and sometimes innocent. The same is true regarding gender. 

If someone accuses, just as examples, Aaron Smith-Levin or Mike Rinder of doing something, good or bad, I don't want to automatically assume the claim is true or false, tempting as it might be. 

The fact is that I have never met or spoken to Mike Rinder or Aaron Smith-Levin and probably never will. 

Almost all claims that people present to me about both of them won't have enough evidence for me to confirm or deny them.

And the same is true for almost everyone else who can read this. I might accept claims that they were in The Sea Org for example because they admit it and a lot of other people support the claim with no one disagreeing that I am aware of.

But aside from broadly agreed on simple things like that, I simply don't know and I won't know.

I wouldn't want people to believe claims about me, especially negative ones, without strong evidence and a sincere effort to get the evidence for and against such claims. And even then the fact is that a claim can be false despite the evidence apparently supporting the claim. No one is omniscient and infallible. 

I think that as a practical matter we sometimes have to choose sides, but not always. And we can be agnostic when we are not compelled to pick. 

You are unlikely to be wrong if you say I don't know. 

Think of times when you knew it was right for people to doubt accusations against you, especially accusations against you that lacked real evidence. 

You are extremely likely to have experienced that in your past. It's quite frustrating at times. It has cost me friends and jobs in the past to have false accusations believed about me, accusations that lacked evidence. 

That's an obvious injustice.

It's recognizable as an injustice when it happens to you, I am sure.

You can show the same understanding you deserved to others and not make the same mistake that others have, you can do it to be considerate and a good person or you can do it to be right. I just encourage you to do it. 

I think the point is we shouldn't reject people because of accusations alone and we should not reject people who have been good in our estimation because they're not free from criticism. We all will face criticism and some is accurate and some is not. Now, I am not saying we should conveniently ignore evidence either. If a hundred people are saying they witnessed a person doing something wrong then it is extremely unlikely that they are all spontaneously lying. Most situations are not that clear cut.

It is a difficult and delicate thing to navigate. We have to use our own best judgement and we should not rush to condemn or exonerate people. 

Think of how you would want to be judged if a claim was made about you. Then think of how you would want to be listened to if a claim was made by you. 

I hope this is of some use. 

No one has been perfect. It's extremely unlikely that all of the criticism a person faces is fair or true. 

I hope that the split between the two sides doesn't discourage people from being active as Scientology critics, I hope it doesn't discourage people from finding out about Scientology, I hope it doesn't discourage people from speaking out about Scientology and I really hope it doesn't discourage people from leaving Scientology and recovering from Scientology. 

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Scientology Reflections (11) 10 Years After Leaving-Schism of Scientology Critics