Critical Q&A

The weekly show where I take up and answer questions people have left for me in the comments of my Q&A videos. The questions I take up this week are:

(1) Could you elaborate on touch assists? I do not hear it mentioned often but to my understanding it is actually one of the more unbelievable bits of hogwash the church tries to sell you on.

(2) Hi Chris thanks for all the information you have presented so far. I was curious about some of the OT material and found that LRH handwritten material hard to read (very poor handwriting). My question: For the lower level up to Clear, does he have a lot of handwritten material for the courses? If so how does anyone understand that horrid handwriting?

(3) It’s maybe not fair of me to say the following, since I’ve never been in a cult and have a background in science rather than anything like religion, but what I see a lot as I watch online videos goes something like this: High level Scientologist acts like an evil piece of trash. Then he blows. Starts criticizing Scientology. He seems to feel no remorse for what he did, no need to apologize, and all the critics seem to place the blame entirely on Scientology the Cult. Isn’t there a place for taking personal responsibility here?

It seems like Miscavige and the dead LRH are blamed, but everyone else is just a cult victim. It’s like blaming all of WWII on Hitler, and none on the people who carried out the evil. I understand that there’s pressure not to leave the church, but with no guns stopping people, it’s hard for me as an outsider to have that much sympathy for people who have clearly done evil. And if people
truly have so little capacity to act and think for themselves — to even log onto a library computer in the corner to see what the opposition is saying about them — what does that say about us as a species, our potential, our future? Are you an optimist about the species?

(4) I’m in the middle of Jenna Miscavige’s memoir and I keep coming back to this central question: what is the deal with the E-Meter? Many times I’ve heard people describe their sec-checks and say that their answers were only secondary to what the needle was saying. I understand that most, if not all, Scientologists fully believe in the E-meter’s accuracy but in your experience how accurate is it really? Are you able to trick it? Did there ever come a time when you were being audited and the E-meter was objectively giving a false reading? If that does happen how does the church explain it? Bad auditor? Faulty tech?

(5) I just now finished watching the HBO documentary Going Clear (I had read the book about a month ago) and I cried for all the individuals who have fled yet talked of the shame of being so taken with the cult. The sadness of those who can’t communicate with those who remained in the cult just broke my heart. My question to you is did you as well experience that shame and hurt? You seem so together and confident now and I’m so pleased that you weren’t “ruined” as a person because of your experience with the cult. You’ve turned a bad thing into something positive that teaches others. Do you still have moments of “pain” caused by the cult?

(6) Great channel, I’ve recently become a never-in, self-declared SP. I’m a bit of an entheta junkie. Do you know if there are any movie plans in the works? I’d love to see Blown for Good written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Jason Beghe as David Miscavige. If Tom Cruise blows in time maybe he could be cast as Marc Headley. Also, I’m really curious to know your take on Tommy Davis? Did he blow or route out? My guess is that he routed out and will never risk being declared an SP and being disconnected from his parents and in-laws.

(7) Chris, when I was in Scientology, I knew that the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) was a program that “bad” Sea Org members were sent to, but I always assumed it was something that lasted a few weeks to a few months. I didn’t find out until years after I left Scientology that people spent years on the RPF! I’ve known some Scientologists who said there were parts of the RPF that they felt they really benefited from. Sometimes, people actually do their whole Bridge up to OT V, other times, they do the False Purpose Rundown. One ex-Scientologist told me that the RPF was like BDSM without a safety word, in that while you are dominated and degraded and forced to be submissive, there were potentially good things you get out of it. In the BDSM community, some people are willing to pay $150 an hour to be dominated and degraded, and it’s all for fun; but on the RPF, you really are a slave and degraded, there is no safety word for when things get too intense and you need to stop, it can get too heavy, and it can be hard to get out of. Was there any part of the RPF you enjoyed or you felt you benefited from? And do you agree with the BDSM analogy?

The post Critical Q&A #17 appeared first on Chris Shelton - Critical Thinker at Large.