Protest at the Celebrity Center Gala

I went to the Celebrity Center Gala to protest. As expected the entire thing was shrouded in tarps. This is where the Church of Scientology wrestles as much money as they can from famous people. I wish more protesters were there. But Smurf and I had fun anyway!

My First Protest and the Ask an Ex Campaign

People don't know much about Scientology's PAC (Pacific Area Command) Base on L. Ron Hubbard Way. For starters I'll give you a list of the buildings and what function they serve:

Scientology: It Still Hurts

Today I stray from my usual style of posting, which focuses on Scientology in a general aspect. This post is much more personal to me.

I was ousted from the Church of Scientology on April 12th, 2012. A year later and I had not spoken to anyone in my family. Somewhere during that year I opened an e-mail account--separate from my normal one--and e-mailed my mother. I sent her a short message just to say, "I miss you." Her response was curt. She stated simply that she could not speak to me.

Edit to add: It is not a lot of money. Just a small sum. I was tempted to refuse it because I thought it was coming directly from my father, but I have the contact information for the agency.

Scientology and Emotion

I recorded a video and posted it to my YouTube account recently talking about some of the things Scientologists like to avoid discussing. One of the many things is that Scientologists tend to do awful things in the name of Scientology.

A common question that non-Scientologists ask and I am sure many ex-Scientologists ask themselves is: how could someone do such horrible things?

Scientology is built on a culture of fear. You spend your days in fear of being snitched on or caught doing something human. In the Sea Org this is especially true, because you are surrounded by other hardcore Scientologists. If you are caught saying or doing anything out of line you are immediately reported to the thought police.

Leah Remini Leaving Scientology

Hi Leah,

I wanted to write you a letter in the hopes that I might attract your attention.

I worked in the sales area of the Advanced Organization of Los Angeles during 2001-4 when you were attending services there. I remember very well when you came through with baskets of super delicious chocolate covered strawberries. You looked at me and you spoke to me with kindness and respect.

During the years that I was in the Sea Org, you were the only person who treated me so well. In the 20 minutes that you were in the room, I had never felt so loved. Not even by my own parents.

I have been to hell and back, but that moment when I met you, and the other times when we passed each other and you smiled at me, you made me feel warm inside.

This is not a love letter (I'm sure you can tell by my blog I'm not into women), but I just wanted to tell you: I hope you have left Scientology. You're too nice to be in that awful place. It's better out here.

I would love to speak to you again if you are interested.

I've been on Tony Ortega's blog (www.tonyortega.org) reading about the possibility that you might have left the church. Please, please do a favor for me and all the other children suffering at the hands of the Church of Scientology: speak out against the church, openly and publicly. We need support from people like you and Paul Haggis.

Sincerely,

Derek

An Open Letter to the Church of Scientology

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Derek Bloch. I was raised as a member of your organization from a very young age. I joined the Sea Org at age 15, and left shortly after my 18th birthday. I was sentenced to spend my 18th birthday cut off from contact with my parents while working in the basement tunnels underneath L. Ron Hubbard Way in Hollywood, CA.

The world has become aware of your antics in recent years. Your credibility has been ruined and your church is slowly falling to pieces. The final blow will come when someone finally challenges the tax exempt status of your empire of extortion and you lose it. The current leader of your organization has not only condoned, but perpetuated and himself committed the abuse of members at all levels of your organization.

I think the world as a whole understands that life can be difficult and that we all look for an escape. This is the purpose of entertainment --a very prolific market these days. However, the danger of escaping from life comes when it is not a momentary escape, but essentially a permanent detachment from real life as a whole. This is Scientology, for every single person involved.

Auditing is only a way for you to submerge yourself into your imagination and pretend that the world you see around you is an illusion while your imagination is real. Everyone has various reasons for finding such an escape liberating, and even addicting. The founder of your religion knew exactly what he was doing. He used your own mind against you to collect embarrassing truths and incriminating evidence to extort you and anyone else that has been touched by Scientology.

In the meantime, there are people like me, who didn't fit into the fold. I refused to accept that Scientology was the truth, and that the "past lives" that I was audited through as a child were real. I decided that I wanted to move on with my life and for that I was shunned by my family. It has been just over a year since I have spoken to them.

I am angry, and possibly even a little hateful for the turn of events which has severed me from my family. The programming they received while under the control of your organization has destroyed the bond I had with my mother, father, brother and sister. In turn, my parents severed their ties with their brothers and sisters and parents.

The bond between mother and child is supposed to be one of the strongest bonds in nature. Scientology is capable of not only weakening that bond, but destroying it entirely. I cannot imagine for a moment what else besides a cult like Scientology would be capable of such an evil act.

Like other cults, your cult encourages bigotry and gives members a feeling of superiority over the rest of society. My parents believe that by refusing to speak to me in the name of your organization that they are actually doing me a favor. They are blinded by the enhanced ego your cult programming has instilled in them. The same ego that Tom Cruise demonstrates when he feels he can advise people on seeking proper mental health care.

There are no words to express the abuse I suffered at the hands of every member of the Sea Organization during my three years there. I was a child and I did not deserve to be treated that way. I was coerced, against my own protests, to leave my family and fly 3,000 miles away, to the state of Florida, at the age of 16. I did not want to be so far from them, but if I had not agreed I would have had to endure confessionals at the hands of one of your "Ethics Officers".

Ethics officers are the epitome of psychological torture. As a child who was hiding his homosexuality from his parents, I suffered greatly at the hands of your evil organization. I spent all those years seeking to hide it as long as I could, until finally, while at your organization in Clearwater, FL I could no longer.

After being discovered I was harassed endlessly. I was threatened with the loss of my family, which, at such a young age, would have been devastating. I was made to feel evil for daring to have homosexual urges. It wasn't until long after I overcame my suicidal urges as a young man and started to build a life outside of Scientology that I would find that my homosexuality is not a character flaw.

However the confessionals I endured at age 17, which delved deep into my psyche to uncover all of my homosexual acts and fantasies as a young boy and which I confessed to someone easily two and a half times my age, drove me to the brink of self-destruction. The damage which has been done to me has caused me unimaginable pain and discomfort throughout my life.

I am lucky to have been able to hold a steady job or two and maintain my personal relationships with my friends throughout this time.

Luck is on your side that I do not possess the resources and have probably passed the statue of limitations to file a lawsuit against you, however I still have the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which allows me to speak about my experiences inside of your insidious organization. It sickens me that you are capable of shielding your criminal empire with something which was intended for the greater good.

I have been watching the media and the end of your days is coming. Your group is growing ever smaller and your power is ever-weakening. You continue to claim that you are expanding in size and at some point that illusion is going to come crashing down on you. Your abuse must come to an end, most importantly the abuse of children. It disgusts me the way you treat children: you deny them their childhood and threaten them with the loss of their families. They live in a culture of fear, and are forced into a state of constant anxiety.

Until the first time I took prescribed medications, I had no idea what normality was. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I didn't have to be in constant angst and worried about things out of my control.

My question to you is: Is living in your fantasy world of spaceships and Xenu really worth what you are doing to the people around you? Hubbard is no longer running the empire. It is running on its own. You are doing this to yourselves because of your false belief in the words of a sociopath who has been dead as long as I have been alive.

Is your mission of world domination really worth what you are doing to all these children? Ruining their lives one-by-one. Denying them proper education and ruining their family bonds.

Think about your ethics practices which involve intense invasion of privacy and Draconian control mechanisms. Do you really want to propagate these on a worldwide scale? Do you really want to live your life in constant fear of being found guilty of being human?

You believe you are better than the rest of us, when the truth really is that our species is evolving and people like you, with your hate and bigotry are holding us back.

I will find great pleasure in watching the criminal acts of your organization being exposed in the worldwide media. I will find great pleasure in collapse of your organization.

None of it will reduce the pain I have suffered at the hands of your organization.

Scientology is evil.

Sincerely,

Derek Bloch

Life After Scientology

I write a lot of negative things about Scientology on my blog. Primarily because one of the major things that contributed to my exiting the cult was my pent up anger against injustices I experienced.

Being in Scientology is much like being in an abusive relationship. Except instead of it being one on one, it's more like you are in a abusive relationship with Scientology itself. There are some good things and some bad things which come out of your relationship. At least it seems like there are some good things. The entire cycle runs in ups and downs.

The only way out of such a relationship is to do what seems almost unnatural to all of us. You have to focus on the negatives of the relationship. When you are at one of many of the peaks, instead of looking up at the sky and thinking that things will get better, you focus on that valley and remind yourself that this is going to turn bad very quickly.

Scientology and Charity

Scientology often makes the claim that it is a "humanitarian" organization and that it is trying to help in the areas of education, human rights and criminality among many other things. The truth of the matter is that there is something in the Scientology called the "doctrine of exchange".

According to Scientology there are four levels of exchange. Level 1 would be receiving something for nothing and level 2 is giving back less than what you received. Those two levels are considered criminal exchange. Then there is level 3 which is giving back only what you have been given and level 4 is giving back more than what you received and is considered the highest and best form of exchange.

Hungry woman wants free food for her children? Countries without adequate medical care want help? Forget it, if you give it to them for free they are criminals!

The Truly Dark Side of Scientology

A common sentiment in Scientology is the idea that, "You pulled it in." What this statement, in all it's infinite simplicity, means is that everything that happens to you in your life is your fault. If you get sick, contract cancer, are born mentally challenged or are mentally ill it is said to be your fault.

Scientologists lack compassion for anyone who suffers in this life. Any suffering is automatically deemed to be the fault of the individual, regardless of circumstance. They believe that you made a choice when you were born, to which family you would be born and that the state of your body at birth depends entirely upon the deeds which you committed during your previous life.

Working in the Sea Org

After finishing the EPF a new recruit is quickly put to work. It is at this transition that you find out your job is much less "world saving" and much more "clerical". Most of the "posts" (what they call a job in the Sea Org) are average jobs: clerical, file keeping, accounting, sales, sales assistants, even janitorial and car mechanics.

These employees are paid at the most $50 a week, most of the time I was there I was making $20 or less.

This is the Advanced Organization of Los Angeles (AOLA for short). This is where I worked

A lot of the cases that the Church of Scientology has won in court have been based on the idea of a "ministerial exemption". This means that because the work in the Sea Org is religious in nature they don't have to follow wage and hour and child labor laws like the rest of the civilized world. This is because the US court system is apparently so afraid to take a peek inside a religion, that they fail to recognize that only 10% of any of the laborers in the Sea Org are working on something religious in nature.

The Estates Project Force

Please be sure to scroll to the end if you don't read the whole thing. I have included a video from a protester in Clearwater, FL. This Scientology organization is essentially the same in management structure as the one here in LA. I have included some screen shots of some EPFers for you from the video so you can see an example of the EPF.

The Estates Project Force (referred to as the EPF in the never-ending, acronym filled language of Scientology) is the boot camp that brings you into the Sea Org. It is supposed to prepare you for the paramilitary life of the Sea Org. You are not considered a "member" of this elite force until you graduate the EPF.

Typically the EPF is not supposed to take more than 30 days to do. They study a series of courses that teach you everything from Scientology policy to how to brush your teeth and tie a tie. The other half of the day is spend doing manual labor which includes cleaning restrooms, the streets, moving furniture, landscaping and so on. The morning consists of first cleaning your communal quarters until it can pass a white glove inspection, practicing close order drills, rolling and unrolling a fire hose for fire drills and receiving your projects for the day.