I am on a business trip right now but wanted to post this because I
just got the news from home that John and I have been expelled.  I
will not be in regular email or usenet conversation mode, however, for
at least several days if not longer.

The expulsion was on the grounds of leaving Scn publicly and
connection to SPs. I don't yet have a copy of the expell/declare.

Really, as I know from having been expelled one other time and talking
to so many others, what it boils down to is that no one gets expelled
unless the church is angry at them. Whether the grounds for anger be
real or imagined, trumped up or legitimate is another issue. But
basically, piss them off enough, run afoul of some politicking, and an
expell-declare is likely.

I have not publicly departed Scn. I have stated I was inactive with
CofS and that it largely had much to do with certain communications I
had with them. This fact.

When I first discovered this ng I thought everyone here was stark
raving bonkers.  Evil. Up To No Good. In great excitement I called up
the Org, was connected with the DSA, Ann Ruble (nka Ann Pearce) and
asked her if she knew about this terrible thing I just found on the
internet. She told me it's poison, stay away from it, yadda yadda.

After a couple more months of lurking (hard to tear myself away) I
started posting. Gingerly at first, then jumped in with both feet. I
was quite party line in those days because I figured that what I'd
always been told was true. I then saw that the ex CofS members, Free
Zoners, and the more sane critics (and even some of the not so sane
ones!) was true, that they weren't lying. As I mentioned before, I
then decided that these were anomalies. After a time, I found that
these occurrences/abuses, etc, were not anomalies and weren't rare.
But I still hung in there, hoping for reform, hoping to work within
the system.

My first disappearance from the group was due to a somewhat friendly
meeting with the DSA, Ann, and another executive of the Org who was a
very close family friend.  Ann said OSA wanted to know whose side I
was on, even though I'd been posting all pro- CofS stuff. And she said
she wanted me to do what was true for me. She was really nice until
she called me "disingenuous" which is something people on ars like to
say sometimes, too. I started wondering if it was the new word for the
week! Anyway, I agreed to stop posting for my own good and Ann said if
I ever wanted to know the REAL DEAL, the TRUTH, I could ask her and
she'd be happy to tell me. Even then, I thought to myself "I doubt
this!".

It didn't feel right to be stifled like that, so after a year or so I
started to post again. This time, after just a few weeks, OSA
contacted the Org again. My friend was contacted. We had a shouting
match in my living room with my friend saying "JUST STAY AWAY FROM
THEM!" and leaving.

I started up again after a couple weeks, and was called by my friend.
I did some fast talking and got him off my case. Told him I'd deal
with OSA directly, which I did. I got an email address for someone
there who's on this particular situation, and sent some emails
announcing my intent to post again. I got no reply and then indicated
by another email that I'd take this silence as assent.

Then I got called in to the Org for a briefing. The DSA had my friend
give me all these references to read about anti social personalities
and so forth. Most of you will know or know of the ones. I then handed
my friend a stack of LRH references about free communication, etc.

Then I heard nothing for a couple months.

August 20, 2001, I was told to come in and have a nice meeting of the
minds. It was not nice. And there was no meeting of the minds. My
friend and another man, Justin Smith from HCO were there. Justin did
most of the talking and had apparently been briefed as to what to say.
He brought up my civil rights and how the Org would not want to see
them infringed and this was irrelevant. Religions have nothing to do
with rights granted or withheld by the government of the land in which
one lives unless one lives in a theocracy. This was just PR and
something he'd been briefed to say, I believe. He started to get
sarcastic and rude. I passed out my LRH quotes again and they fell to
the floor. So I started reading them aloud. They said "This is the
reference we are going by" - indicating the reference on adherence to
suppressive groups.

So it ground on a bit. (or should that be "grinded"? Probably not.) No
one getting anywhere. My friend was yelling,sort of like my husband
when he thinks I've done something spectacularly weird. THAT kind of
yelling.  Justin Smith continued to be rude and snide.

They then gave me an ultimatum to decide, leave ars or get expelled. I
said I'd need several days. Justin said that proved I was in "doubt"
and gave me one day. Then we talked some more, and then he said,
"Well, you know, you have to call by 6:30 tonight (it was about 2 pm
already). " and I said "what about the one day?" He indicated that he
just now changed it. Because he could, I suppose.

It was then that I realized there was no hope. They'd continue to ask
for/demand my money and time all the while treating me with contempt.
Strictness is one thing, contempt's another. I decided to walk away.

I was contacted by my friend asked to come in and get a meter check. I
was not nice about it. I refused.

I waited to post for a bit, only doing some askme.com stuff as
Voltaire's Child.  Then I jumped back in, billing myself as inactive.
I decided that if the church views me as an ex member, that they would
have to officially make that determination, that I wasn't going to
just hand it to them.  I then decided to stop self censoring (I'd been
doing so less and less, before that, decrying the culling of pc
folders, etc, but I'd still done so, a bit.) altogether.

I then started writing exactly what I thought, and knew, sometimes
taking CofS sanctioned (I assume they are, anyway.) contributors to
task on things.

A number of critics still saw me as a member of the group, calling it
"my cult" and so on. This made no sense, but then again, this black
and white thinking is just as prevalent in CofS, if not more so, as it
EVER was here.

Then in late April, the church sent DSA Gwen Barnard from Portland to
see me. I refused to see her without an appointment. So she had to
make 2 300 mile round trips. We talked for a long time, she was very
sweet. But I wasn't buying it. She offered me a job writing puff
pieces on social issues for her. I nicely declined. The idea was to
distract me from ARS. I told her the church should honor its creed.

We talked probably for 2 or 3 hours.

Anyway, we ended off and I heard nothing more except that I was on a
list of people not to call for events, which was on HCO color flash
paper (goldenrod) which is what Jana (ladayla) was referring to a
couple weeks or so ago.

At that time, J &I weren't expelled, but we are now.

More later.