- Topic
As I was watching the HBO documentary, "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief," I couldn't help but see the similarities between the Scientology members and the WMS members. As others have said in previous posts, it isn't as much about the "beliefs" of the group as it is about the behavior. There is a blue print that all cults adopt and you could easily substitute the bodies of these former members of Scientology with former members of WMS and the words would be the same. Please share your thoughts.
Lawrence Wright (Author of the book of the same name and co-producer of the film)
I've always been interested in religions and why people believe one idea rather than another. I've studied Jonestown, radical Islam – they're often times good hearted people, idealistic, but full of a kind of crushing certainty that eliminates doubt.
I was interested in intelligent and skeptical people who were drawn into a belief system and wind up acting on those beliefs in ways they never thought they would.
Yvonne (Spanky) Taylor
I got involved right out of high school. You thought you were doing something good to have a positive effect on all of mankind.
Hana Eltringham Whitfield
Everything that I took offense with, I rationalized almost immediately. I had to. I could not continue in this game of Scientology without explaining away what he (L. Ron Hubbard) was doing. It got to be a way of believing and everyone of us got into that. It was part of the mind control, it was part of the cultic manipulation. He was the master who did it to us and we took it on and then we did it to ourselves.
Mike Rinder
Because Scientology is perceived and conceived by Scientologists as being the salvation for mankind, you can have people that lie with a very straight face – if they believe what they are doing is protecting the church of scientology.
Paul Haggis
I heard senior members of the church were speaking, so I started to look; I started to read.
I figured people would judge me as really stupid, but then I was really stupid. I was apart of this for 30 years before I spoke out. I felt deeply ashamed. Why didn't I do it earlier? Why didn't I look earlier?
Sara Goldberg
People are so endoctrinated and have been in Scientology for a really long time, or they've grown up in it and they don't know anything else. So it's scary to them to have to start all over – and it takes a really strong person to stand up to them and say no.
They say, "don't go on the internet, don't read, don't go to these sites!"
Paul Haggis
From the time that I got in, for 30 years, I never read one critical thing about Scientology. When I finally decided to open my eyes and look, I was shocked! Just shocked!
Mike Rinder
My wife disconnected from me, my daughter, my son, my brother, my sister, my mother, all of my nieces and nephews – and that is the only family that I have.
Marty Rathburn
You label these people suppressive so that everybody automatically is discredited and you must disconnect from them. And that's how you keep people in a bubble. (I just have to add my comment here – this is what WMS did to Ron Ramos and Diane – they edited video clips, put them together and showed them to their churches in order to discredit them and have people "disconnect" from them)
Sara Goldberg
They don't believe they can get it anywhere else. It's like brainwashing (really simple). That's a scary word. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion that that's what occurred.
Tom De Vocht
And I think that's how I and other people got involved in and stuck through it for so long. Because when you're out, you look at it and go "What the crap was I thinking?"
Yvonne (Spanky) Taylor
It's such a hard thing when you do wake up and go "oh my god!" because you have this wave of regrets. I just started to think that maybe my entire life has been a lie.
Paul Haggis
You just don't see it happening to you. You justify so much. Cults – they prey on people, suggesting that you should be able to think for yourself and then tell you exactly how you have to think or get out. And if you get out, there will be consequences.
What I take away from it – is that we lock up a portion of our own mind. We willingly put cuffs on. We willingly avoid things that could cause us pain if we looked. If we can just believe something, then we don't have to really think for ourselves, do we?
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Dir. Alex Gibney. HBO, 2015. Film
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