KIDS AGAIN 1/2

[dennis....@support.com]

9/12/94

Sent to the inFormer.

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To the Editor:

Few occasions of child abuse and other violation of persons
committed by scientology are unambiguous or dramatic
enough to make good press. The sheer difficulty of
understanding and describing what happened contributes to the
silence of ex-members which leaves the cult free to go on
harming others.

I offer here a very ordinary story in which ex-members may
recognize some part of how one goes about being a
scientologist.

As a public person, not on staff, I once took my son of junior
high age to the local mission for a few introductory courses.
He hated it, despised the coercive environment, and had
nothing more to do with scientology.

In retrospect, what I find interesting are my own
self-deceptions and rationalizations around those events. On
some level I must have known quite well that scientology was
no fit place for a kid.

I had been to LA and seen the Cadet Org - unattended babies
crawling on urine-soaked carpets - and heard the
rationalizations. I knew many parents who considered
themselves "responsible" because they "did scientology" but in
fact had no real relation with their kids (or spouse).

Rather than face the reality of my son's very sane perceptions
and response, I found within-the-system ways to rationalize
what was happening: my son didn't like it "because the course
supervisor violated policy and changed the checksheet during
the course.

Bullshit.

He didn't like it because it was a manipulative,
suppressive environment of lies. My complicity interposed a
barrier of falseness between us and held it there for several
years. The group-think suggested other things for me to think,
easy ways to avoid facing the obvious truth. At the same
time, I was trying to make it work with my wife who had
become a gung-ho scientologist. I was insufficiently "on
purpose" (always), and getting my son on course was a
response to those pressures. While trying so earnestly and
inadequately to be a legitimate group member, I did not want
to understand what my son was experiencing. It did not fit
with what I wanted to believe.

This is but one example of a "truth vs certainty" situation
which, in this case, left my son out in the cold. Countless
such situations over the years made it equally impossible to
understand or deal with issues in my marriage. I can only give
one side of that story, but in my opinion there was a mental
health problem, initially not severe, a manic-depressive
tendency manipulated and exacerbated by scientologists in the
course of entrapping my wife in the cult - as she used the
cult's delusions to evade facing her own situation.

The manic tendencies found support and approval - provided
they were voiced in a group-submissive manner (fanaticism). In
the same devil's bargain, her submission purchased cajolery,
flattery, and distraction through the depressive times which
always remained the terror that kept her facing straight ahead
and quiet.

Thus, the real problems were never faced and what she might
have achieved in life was distracted and lost.

There was no way for either of us to honestly face what was
happening because everything had to be understood in terms
of the shallow self-serving 'answers" of scientology. The only
solution to any problem somehow always involved giving
money to the cult - a "solution' that led nowhere but deeper
into the trap.

I became more and more incompetent and vicious in this
environment where nothing was real but I was supposed to
believe that it was. Inarticulately lashing out against this
paralysis of what abilities I actually possessed, I did things to
myself and others which, today, I cringe to recall. From this
experience, I can well believe that scientology was Hubbard's
revenge on a world which he saw as his enemy.

I believe much of the harm done by scientology is of this sort -
not high drama, but long-term distraction and impairment of
ability to relate to others in a real way. There *is* harm in the
things one must do within oneself to avoid seeing the lies, to
úÿ [ Continued In Next Message... ]