(Section 1 of Part 4 – My Final Days)
As I said, there was a point where I had decided to really confront what I was really perceiving as the truth and cut through all the emotion and make a decision.
When I say “emotion” I am talking about a lot of mixed feelings, not the least of which was going to be the shock I was probably going to be delivering to my staff and public friends. I will explain a little later how I resolved that for myself.
Anyway, most of what I came up with in my doubt formula was pretty much what I have given above as my reasons for leaving.
I had actually considered the idea of finishing up my staff contract, which had one year and four months left. I felt maybe I could still help people by supervising the courseroom. Even though I wasn’t making auditors I could at least still help people duplicate and understand the basic books and lectures better than if they studied on their own.
But then I took a look at what it would be like to go back to being a staff member now being able to see what I was able to see. Every day I would come onto post knowing about the severe human rights abuses that I was supporting by aiding what had now become David Miscavige’s organization. I would have fundamental disagreements with every major program that was being run in the church (for example, fund raising for the off-policy “Ideal Org” program, the repeated bypassing of the org structure by the IAS to raise millions of dollars for David Miscavige’s lush lifestyle and expensive harassment activities, the running of a so-called “Academy” on pure theory courses which do not lead to the viability of the org but camouflage the hole by counting them as major services on a false Paid Completions stat, etc.)
It would not be honest to just pretend to remain in agreement with all that just to finish a contract, which is something that I signed thinking that part of the agreement was to implement LRH policy and Keep Scientology Working.
The only honest thing to do, if I were to remain on staff, would be to refuse to implement any of it, constantly write reports on all of Scientology including David Miscavige and to get hit back with continual flack for it. It would be such a distraction that I would not be able to do my job anyway.
The HAS had taken me off my post on the day Sindy and I went into the org and expressed our disagreements to her. I doubt that I could have gotten back onto post without some kind of “handling”, the “End Phenomena” of which would have been for me to “cognite” how right the church and David Miscavige are for the programs they are implementing and how “foolish” I was to “go into agreement” with the “SPs” who were saying otherwise.
Could I honestly see myself announcing to my students at a Saturday after-course muster at 6:00 pm: “Tonight there is an IAS event at 7:30. Food will be served in advance. I strongly recommend that you don’t attend the event because the fund-raising that is being done is off-policy. Here is a quote from HCO PL bla bla bla, the reference which is being violated by the existence of tonight’s event: ‘bla bla bla’. And I don’t think it’s right that you should pay tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars so that David Miscavige can eat three gourmet meals a day and work in a $70,000,000 mansion while most of his juniors have to sleep on the floor in their offices for nights on end because they can’t make his suppressive targets and quotas.”
That may sound funny but you know, if I would have stayed on staff, there would have been no other way to be honest than to do something like that. And you know where that would have led if I had done that. It would have led to the same result as what actually did end up happening. I would have been banned from the org, I would have been declared and all church members would have cut their communication with me.
Next…Doubt Formula Debate
dave fagen 
“But then I took a look at what it would be like to go back to being a staff member now being able to see what I was able to see. Every day I would come onto post knowing about the severe human rights abuses that I was supporting by aiding what had now become David Miscavige’s organization.”
O.K., so you had some integrity. That is exactly what happened to me and exactly why I left. I did not want to contribute to the FRAUD.
“It would not be honest to just pretend to remain in agreement with all that just to finish a contract, which is something that I signed thinking that part of the agreement was to implement LRH policy and Keep Scientology Working.”
My sentiments exactly. But the truth is, over 25 years there was a bait and switch. You were lured in with Hubbard and expected to Migrate to Miscavige. That is bait and switch. Further, you were lied to by Int Management. You were mislead by Miscavige and signed a contract based upon false presentations. That right away makes any contract you signed with NULL and VOID. They promised you a KSW working arrangement and then changed the carpet. That is breech of contract on their part.
I am glad you chose to live with the truth. That is what attracts most of us to Scientology to begin with.
Excellent, Dave. I didn’t go into the org for ‘handling’, after filling in the puzzle pieces for the exact same reason. My consideration was that there wasn’t really a Church of Scientology to go into for ‘handling’ anyway. The place with the big S and double triangle on the door was a complete fraud, and was NOT the organization I joined nearly 40 years ago.
That church is long gone from the official church locations. It now only exists in the Independent field.
Since the time I left the Church, I think back upon my last days there with emphasis on any type of Reg cycle, whether it be for the IAS, Ideal org donations, library fund etc. You could tell that a lot of the staff hated being a part of it and that the public who agreed to attend such events did so reluctantly (knowing full well what kind of hard regging they were going to have to endure as the price of admission).
When I first started going to the Columbus Org around 1990, IAS reg cycles were infrequent. Most hard regging was rightly for donations to further one’s Bridge progress.
Today’s church reg cycles are almost daily onslaughts and are for things where no exchange is given. Islands of sanity indeed! Is it any wonder why it is difficult to get people into orgs anymore with the almost immediate attack from the “vulture culture” there?