This week, I go into rules about TV in the Sea Org, go deep into what happened at Abu Graibe and how that relates to cultic behavior, discuss ghosts in Scientology and a lot more. Enjoy!
(1) Are some leisure activities for enjoyment acceptable in Scientology? Are you allowed to watch TV as a Scientologist? If so, what are the “rules?” For example, can you watch a NBA game in the evenings after a day of work? Are you even allowed to have your own TVs or is there a communal TV?
(2) Do Scientologists tend to report the same kinds of paranormal experiences that people in mainstream culture do? I’m thinking of things like seeing ghosts, or after-death communications. It seems like those kinds of experiences would be inconsistent with Scientology’s views on life after death.
(3) Chris, have you ever covered or looked into the cult like environment that seemed to lead to the Iraq war torture of prisoners at Abu Graibe? Perhaps it was something covered in your academic work on high control groups? It seems like there was a charismatic leader situation behind how out of control and horrific that whole situation became.
(4) The Insider revealed that after the Chase Wave, certain staff were threatened by the org that they should keep quiet or else they would be turned into law enforcement. This has the effect of increasing the hold of the org over these people.
This reminds me of the database of abusers kept by the JWs. After an internal (sex) abuse investigation with all the two witness rule conflicts and other bias issues, the case is hidden from the public and law enforcement but stored away in the database. This type of thing is a way of making super loyal soldiers for the org out of the abusers.
Alexandra Stein alludes to people in cults being turned into deployable assets in that these people are so loyal to the org that they can be used for tasks strongly against the individual’s own interest. Presumably some of these cases involve blooding with guilt of some form, akin to a new gang member having to commit a crime to get in.
The question here is whether anybody studies this aspect of coercive control and destructive orgs in general. It seems that looking across all the orgs we know about and studying this as an aspect of control in all its various forms would be interesting. Who might do such a thing?
This is one area where these orgs do seem to show some legal exposure, and showing that it is pervasive across orgs would help try to deal with them at the societal level.
(5) I have a question regarding the structure of the (RTC) Religious Technology Center.
As far as I understand after reading about RTC on Wikipedia, the board consists of the Chairman of the board, David Miscavage.(DM) and other members, although I can’t find who the other members are. Are there authority laws that the board must follow and accounts that must be reported to the authorities about their annual meetings? Can the members of the board or members of the Church of Scientology legally vote to replace DM as Chairman of the Board? Or is the only option that a larger number of sea org members and board members join together so they outnumber DM’s entourage of bodyguards so they can “help” DM to “voluntarily” be escorted to a car that takes him to Gold Base? Once there he is “escorted” (or carried if necessary) and thrown into a locked windowless room with a desk and a simple bed where a small inscription carved into the wall above the bed is visible that reads: “SHELLY WAS HERE”
(6) In the United States military there is a policy where you are allowed to disobey an unlawful order. Does anything exist like this in Scientology? If a superior is violent at you why can’t you defend yourself and retaliate? I know there’s the suppressive person thing but if you knock the guy out even though he’s in command why can’t you call him a suppressive person? The leadership breaks Hubbard’s rules all the time.
(7) Thanks for all your videos and output on the subject of Scientology and other cults. One thing I am curious about: when a departing sea org member is charged a ‘freeloader debt’ can they not retort by asking for back-paid wages? It seems as though if the church is going to retrospectively treat them as a paying customer, could they in turn treat the church as an employer who has failed to pay them for all their work?
(8) Have you ever witnessed a low ranking Sea Org member blow up at a high ranking senior? What happened? When you were in charge, did anyone blow up at you?
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