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 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

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.

My First Friend

Well the time has come and passed to enjoy being so full it's uncomfortable to move, hard to breathe and your back hurts. Alternatively, you can spend your Thanksgiving evening waiting in line to buy electronics or stab someone or other madness for Black Friday.

I have too much to be thankful for; so much that words could never express it. I have been helped along my way and continue to be helped by so many people, to whom I am very grateful.

I figured I would share one story about one of the first people I met, outside of the world of Scientology that changed my life forever.

The Lure of Scientology

As a child who was raised in Scientology, I myself was not lured in through usual tactics. Scientology was basically all I knew. My parents were victims of these tactics and I was privy to many of the common ones that are used.

Scientology was designed by L. Ron Hubbard to infiltrate and dictate every aspect of a person's life. As you can imagine, if you were to present any problem  you were having in your life to a Scientologist, they can open a book and show you what Hubbard said to do about that particular problem.

On the outside Scientology seems to have all the answers. For example, when you are stressed at work, Scientology tells you to "take a walk". When you are having trouble with a business Scientology gives you a series of steps to follow that is supposed to correct the area in which you are having trouble. This aspect of Scientology really is just glorified common sense.

Shame

I was introduced to this video on a message board that I visit often. I had started a thread questioning the efficacy of drug based therapy treatments. Someone thought this video was appropriate in relation to how the community on that board feels.

It is very appropriate because in Scientology your number one fear is disconnection just as she mentions in this video. Carrying around shame with themselves is something Scientologists do on a day to day basis. You constantly live under the threat of losing people you love and care about simply because you did something disagreeable.

Trying to Find Myself

I have been through a whole hell of a lot of social and behavioral conditioning. Right now at this moment, now that I have been almost entirely removed from that environment for several months I feel lost. For two decades I had solid, if unsound, structure in my life. I was forcibly ejected from that environment and away from my immediate family when I had gone online to seek out help with the questions I had about the religion in which I had been raised.

I was taught how to do everything, from how to properly eat food to how to tie my shoes and brush my teeth and even how to speak to people. The difference between my childhood and others is: I was not taught any of this by my parents. I was taught by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology and the writer of the book Dianetics.