Critical Q&A #141

The weekly show where I answer viewer questions from the comments of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email at AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week, the questions I answer are:

(1) You’ve said this channel is about your recovery process and changes since leaving Scientology. What would you say was your best or biggest change in 2017?

(2) In authoritarian/hierarchical organizations, people below have a tendency to say only things they think people above want to hear. This is also known as the SNAFU principle. It leads to situations where the organization is rapidly disintegrating while its leaders think everything is just hunky dory. Does Scientology’s leadership, i.e. David Miscavige, realize just how dysfunctional the Church has become under his leadership?

(3) I’m finding it hard to maintain a consistent amount of sympathy and understanding for some of the stories I hear in the ex-Scientology world. Listening to you and others such as Leah Remini, Mike Rinder, Jason Beghe, Marc Headley, to name a few, I’ve noticed your stories have the same type of theme: that is you woke up to what the church was “doing” and felt it inconsistent with your morals, so you left (not to over simplify it, but in a nutshell).
The stories of those like Marty Rathbun & Skip Young seem to have a different tone, one that says they were perfectly fine with everything that was going on until the church turned on them. It seems that people who leave fall into three categories:
1) People who felt they had to leave because what the church was doing to others (going against their own moral code) such as Leah, Mike and yourself.
2) People who left because the church abused them personally such as Jason & Marc.
3) People who participated in the abuse and were perfectly fine with it until the church turned on them, such as Marty and Skip.
Do you notice this too? What are your thoughts about it?

(4) Hi Chris! I listened to your Ross and Carrie interview and really enjoyed it! I found the misreading of Xenu/Xemu interesting and was wondering if you knew of any Hubbard spelling errors that led to misunderstandings/confusion. Also, are there any public videos of him saying “Xemu?”

(5) I was raised in the Mormon church, and left in my early 20s and have been a skeptic for the last 10+ years. Comparisions between the LDS church and Scientology seem to be common place, despite the fact that reality is different (at least as I see it). There are certainly bulletpoint similarities of the foundational history of both, however I think that Mormons are much more family oriented (very few are ex-comunicated, family members are still allowed contact) and the church has non-member community services such as food/rent/bill assistance and they are behind ancestry.com. Athough members are encourged to make donations, not doing so will not result in financial investigations or severe pressure. They encourge community service and most congregations have Boy Scout troops and young women groups where anyone can join. That opinion could be seen as my own bias though. Scientology on the other hand, well you know, it’s all about the almighty dollar and the willingness to ignore or outright destroy anyone who gets in the way. So why are comparisons of the two so common? Is it simply long held stigmas maintained over time? I understand your knowledge about Mormons may be limited, but is there something I’m missing here? The comparison I use is the Nazis and the Boy Scouts: sure they both like to wear brown shirts, but by any really meaningful standard one group is clearly more selfish, evil, and detrimental to society than the other. Love your channel and keep up the good work!

(6) When you were in the Sea Org, did you resent having to give your fifty dollar pay check to David Miscavige for his Xmas present? Did you ever ask, since Christmas is a between-lives, alien-implanted engram, why are you still forced to buy your Dear Leader a Xmas present?

(7) Will the new Scientology TV station ever air anything?

(8) I have heard a lot about how much money Sea Org workers make, but was curious about what the average pay is for people on Staff at regular orgs or missions. Does it vary, according to their post or what type of contract they sign, and also do they get regular raises or rewarded with higher pay if they have been in for a long time, or is it always just dependent mostly on the stats they report every week?