Hitchhiker's Guide to the Anon Galaxy: Auditing the Anons: Anonymous Interviews

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Auditing the Anons: Anonymous Interviews - Chapter 0

As the Anonymous protests round the bend towards their fifth global protest on June 14th, I thought it was time to take a moment to appreciate what Anons have to say for themselves in regards to their own personal reasons for why we protest and what motivated them personally to show up at their local raids & pickets to take a stand against the many controversies of organized scientology.

The following YouTube Playlist includes the first installment in a new ongoing series of Anonymous interviewing other Anons and fellow supporters. It is important to note that there is a vast range of issues that we find fault with in general as it all falls under the wide reach of abuses and corruption the organized crime syndicate of scientology is becoming notorious for. So it's important to understand that any one Anon may strike a particular chord with one or several of these reasons to protest this cult that they may latch onto for the motivation to keep going. Yet any one person's reason, words, or incentives is their own personal opinion and not necessary the mutual opinion of the collective as a whole.

Thus, the key thing to recognize here is that the diversity of opinions combined with a multitude of reasons, that has a lead to such a general consensus in a loosely knit group with murky roots and no leaders, speaks volumes. If thousands of people around the world can become informed and come to the same conclusion albeit by different paths, isn't it time you investigate the issues for yourself?

Auditing the Anons: Interviews with Anonymous - Chapter 0

For those who sit through the above series of clips, you'll notice the third video features what you may initially take to be a non-anonymous participant due to the lack of his mask. However, not all Project Chanology supporters take up the anonymous identity cloaking. Our ranks also include a mixture of Ex-scientologists, relatives who have lost track of family members still in the cult, former long-standing critics or "Old Guard", and concerned citizens. So whether or not you care to don a mask, as well as what form of participation you choose, has little-to-no impact on your support being able to help our ongoing efforts. Every little bit counts; global awareness needs to spread so that a deafening outcry of public opinion demanding answers can be raised, and there is a countless number of ways for any given person to lend a hand and help us spread the word.

As relayed in the letter below from an ex-scilon-anon seeking to aide the collective's understanding of what it takes to get somebody to start snapping out of the cult's influences, despite the variance in individual reasons for motivation and the different types of support that can be volunteered... All that truly matters when deciding whether or not to take some part in the ongoing efforts is that you have to have enough concern for the health & welfare of your fellow mankind to either take a stand or do something else to aide in the rally against the criminal activities and other atrocities of organized scientology.

Topic: ex-scilon-anon
(This thread [somewhat] depends on having read the on brainwashing (long) thread.)
The idea is this. You can't change someone's mind if they aren't willing to listen to you. CoS depends on its members remaining convinced that they need to continue covering their ears while yelling LALALALALALALA.
Anon protests would be orders of magnitude more effective (to borrow the little Nazi's phrase) if they were able to connect with the "membership".
I propose that ex-scientologists, like myself, write up what it took for them to sit up and take notice that something was grossly amiss, and they were both ignoring and justifying it to themselves.Here's what it took to "snap me out of it".
I was as gung ho a supporter of LRH and all things standard tech as anyone in the church. I left the CoS, and joined the Freezone without that having changed. I still completely supported LRH and the tech, but simply accepted that "It wasn't LRH or the tech at fault....it was that nasty, perverted church and that SP Miscavige".
I even hit all those anti-scientology/anti-LRH sites, but had the mental shit so thoroughly in place that I was able to disregard anything anti-LRH and Anti-tech, and focus on all the anti-church stuff. Bizarre shit, this brainwashing.
Here's what it took for me to break it.
I found a place where scientologists could hang around with ex-scientologists, and critics, and discuss anything related to SCN, LRH, Tech, CoS, etc.
That was Beliefnet. I went there thinking I could maybe convince a few scientologists that the church was fucked up and turned criminally SP, and that they should leave it and carry on supporting LRH and the Tech in the Freezone/independent field.
Well, to my complete shock, it was I that ended up getting handled. (chuckle)
I got chatting with some critics of scientology (including LRH, the tech, policy, etc.) and thought it might be a fun game to straighten them out on some of THEIR misconceptions about their criticisms. Like that it was really all the CoS and Miscavige, and not LRH and his tech that was responsible for all the shit they were seeing.
Man these guys came prepared with their facts straight!!! They would simply repeat succinct statements and questions inviting explanation. They would ask questions which simply could not be answered without concluding that an illogically justified premise was being held to, despite the facts of the matter being considered.
They had many examples of direct quotes from LRH where he contradicted himself completely 180 degrees, and asked how I could account for that. "Was LRH lying in the first statement, or was he lying in the second statement?" Man, they had me squirming. "Well...uh...that's not important in the overall scheme of things....uh....THE TECH WORKS.....I know it does..." And they'd just quietly take that apart at the seams until there was nothing left but the realization that there was a lot of contradictory bullshit that came straight out of LRH's mouth and from his typewriter. Left no room for doubt.
It was from one of those critics, where I first learned about cognitive dissonance. He just kept TR3ing (repeating) that I needed to go to wikipedia and look that up. Until I finally did, (so I could refute him), and my jaw dropped, because that was exactly what I had going on, and most others I knew as well. Wow. Here's some non LRH tech that precisely describes and explains a phenomenon I could see all around me. This was the truth and there was no denying it.
Questions just kept coming from the critics. "LRH said a clear would have a perfect memory and no aberrations. Have you ever met a Clear with a perfect memory, and no aberrations? Well have you? Seriously. If you've met one, I'd like to know about it. SHOW ME A FUCKING CLEAR!!!
It's not comfortable or easy, but eventually, you have to come to the conclusion that LRH just lied his ass off all the fucking time, and his thousands of statements that he was the only one who ever had an original thought and who could ever come up with anything available for sale that a person could use to improve themselves was just pure bullshit.
The key for me to break the brainwashing/indoctrination was simply a matter of some critics caring enough to keep rubbing my nose in the shit I'd accepted without examining it thoroughly. I took his word for it, and that's where it started. He talks a great game, that man.
So in looking at my example, what would be needed, are opportunities for the indoctrinated to come to the table with the unindoctrinated for discussion. There aren't many opportunities to do that, but perhaps some could be created?
Maybe by offering to be disabused of our false impressions? (disabused means simply "freed from deception or error".) If we offer to scientology members that we're willing to be corrected on our misapprehensions about them and their beliefs, they'd be willing to chat a bit, and then it's "game on".
Any other Ex-scilons have some insights into this? Or other ways in which their indoctrination was broken?
Simply "taking down" the church would leave a lot of damaged people with complete confusion in its wake. Besides the current management, starting with Miscavige and his cronies, the real enemy is the brainwashing, and provision for choosing to remain isolated from sources of the truth. In other words, Scilons willingly keep away from sources of "enturbulation" because they've been convinced that they must. If we can't find opportunities to talk to them, and have them become willing to listen somehow, then this could take some real time, and leave hundreds of thousands of confused individuals in the wake.
- goldenrodanon (continued...)