Mockingbird's Nest: Former Cult Member - What Would You Tell Yourself If You Could Go Back To Before The Cult?

The ex Scientologist who goes by the alias Veda at the Ex Scientologist Message Board and Ex Scientologist Message Board 2 ((ESMB and ESMB2) asked what would you tell yourself.

He was asking ex Scientologists this question, and I obviously was in Scientology for twenty five years and would want to get the younger version of me to avoid Scientology absolutely as much as possible.

Here is a description:

"ID called "VEDA" posted an interesting question on ESMB R

If it were possible to travel back in time, and you, could have talked with you [insert date when you were first becoming involved with Scientology] what would you have said? What questions would you have asked knowing what you know now...

Would the you - then - have listened to the you now?"

I would have told myself to stick with my family and talk to Jon Atack about the truth about Scientology. I would have read his articles on hypnosis and the occult in Scientology.

I would look at the information on critical thinking and the scientific method I have learned since leaving Scientology and realize that Scientology is a pseudoscience and fraud. I would look at the information on human predators and cultic relationships and realize that Scientology fits perfectly.

I would give myself a list of people who have good information on these topics, starting with Jon Atack and I would give myself first some basic things then progress to entire books on these subjects and explain to myself how things like rhetoric, propaganda analysis, logical fallacies and cognitive biases relate to Scientology and how I can use them beyond Scientology.

I would try to take everything I have learned over the last six years and break it down to the absolute most important parts in a digestible sized group of tiny bits and have them progress to bigger and bigger parts. Hopefully the small articles and videos I start with will make me curious enough to read the books.

I think it is useful to actually look at what helped, why and how.

There is no guarantee that anything that would help me (potentially) is the exact right fit for any particular person.

I would probably start with The Total Freedom Trap article by Jon Atack.

That is not extremely long and hits lots of important points on things like what judges have said about Scientology, the hypnosis Hubbard incorporated in Scientology covertly, Hubbard's misadventures and plagiarism involving the occult and his intention to make money off of Scientology.

I would probably go to the article Never Believe a Hypnotist by Jon Atack and the articles I used for my own post on hypnosis so I could get a rudimentary introduction to the subject. I would also include a collection of YouTube videos I have seen on hypnosis to help me understand the basic ideas in the subject. The list of videos on hypnosis is in the blog post Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden, Varied And Repeated To Control You As Hypnotic Implants.

I would share the collection of quotes called Twenty Things Judges Have Said About Scientology, because that many people describing Scientology in those terms might have been good enough of a warning by itself to get me to stay away from Scientology.

I have to emphasize that my objective in this hypothetical time travel scenario is to keep myself from joining Scientology or believing in Scientology, not necessarily to educate myself and transplant everything I know now to past me.

So, I would be far more concerned with being effective and rapidly getting myself to reject Scientology, so I would try for the shortest path to that outcome, not the most extensive.

If I (past me) learned everything I (current me) know outside of my personal experience then great but if I learn just enough to know I want nothing to do with Scientology then my primary objective would be achieved.

I would try to get my objective by using articles and short YouTube videos at first because the chance that I (or most people) would actually finish short free articles and short free videos is much, much higher than the chance that I would finish a stack of books or even a few or one book.

It's just human nature. I might have trouble finding a book or trouble getting a lot of hours free with enough sleep to absorb what I read or get bored with a book and set it down too early.

So, I would try to get the topics of plagiarized ideas from hypnosis (and a very, very basic understanding of hypnosis) in Scientology and Hubbard's extensive knowledge of hypnosis and the same thing regarding the occult conveyed.

I would try to get across the crimes Hubbard and the Guardian's Office committed across, including operation snow white and I would try to get across the cruelty and lack of compassion that Hubbard put into Scientology administration and ethics tech across.

I would try to expose the fact that Hubbard really wanted fame, money and power by going over the games maker tape (Philadelphia Doctorate Course tape 39) in which Hubbard described how he created Scientology to secretly enslave people, the Skipper letter to show that he was only out for himself and the affirmations to show that he was sincerely committed to the occult or desired it to be true and tried to enslave people via hypnosis and was profoundly self-centered and narcissistic.

I have a lot of blog posts that address these issues and think that they are effective at debunking Scientology for some people who have never been in Scientology and for some who have been in Scientology. Some people who have been in Scientology have read some of my posts then let me know that after reading them they have rejected Scientology. A few have done some Scientology courses, for example, then read my posts on Scientology indoctrination and told me they were on the fence regarding going back and decided to not go back ever after reading these posts. Obviously no one way is guaranteed to work with everyone. I think the less that someone has been indoctrinated in Scientology and bought into it the easier it is , on average, to warn them effectively and to disabuse them of any idea that Scientology is good or debunk any belief in Scientology as something positive. I would include a lot of quotes on the racism and religious discrimination of Hubbard because that alone might be enough to get me to run the other way.

I will list some of the posts that have the information I would give to "young me" to warn myself off. I hope this is of some use to someone. Now to just find that time travel device...

Thought Reform/Influence