I am an ex-Scientologist. (LONG read)

nvm

It was just a little side thought. I'm proud to be in the dump with you all. 5 minutes in the heavies gives me a headache. lol

WAR the dump!
 
willhaven720 said:
The funny thing is, now that I have told you all my real name and the position I used to hold in the Sea Org... The place I worked at wasn't considered as part of the church. Bridge Publications Inc, at the time I worked for them, was just a publishing house. I don't know if that does anything for the status of this thread being religious. Maybe I could write another thread called "I used to work for Bridge Publications Inc (The publishing house of L Ron Hubbard works)". A long but effective title.

What do you all think about that?
Click to expand...

imo any effort you go to to circumvent mods, forum rules, etc will be wasted. the information is already readily available here as well as several other places on the internet. anyone who is looking will find it, and anyone who isnt looking will sooner or later get wind of this nonsense and stumble on the wealth of information thats been assembled over the last two or so years.

ironically, the dump is exactly where this belongs. people will find out the truth when they are ready and as you know, you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink.

if anything, be grateful that sherdog has archived this in a safe place for the time being. good to see you are still around, i actually remember your AV/name from posts well prior to this.
 
I whole heartedly support WillHaven720's cause and have been in contact with him from the beginning. What is the obsession with this thread being somewhere other than the dump? The dump is the very first forum that I access when I log onto sherdog. Sure, you don't get credit for the post count, but who gives a flying fuck about post count. Everyone of you that have posted in this thread have found it in the dump, and many more have read it, judging by the number of views. One of the benefits of having a thread in a forum with a disabled post count, is that you get less fuck tards that come in with their plus juans and general trolling garbage. There are perhaps 5 specific threads that I keep a personal watch on because I enjoy their content, and this is one of those threads. Why taint the openness and fellowship that has accompanied this thread by throwing it in the war room or the OT just for the sake of a post count?
 
This thread was very fascinating... the only problem is I can't shake this nagging feeling that something isn't right here.

I dunno what it is. I don't want to call anyone a liar or call conspiracy.... but the whole way this unfolded... with the extreme and intimate details Will has of Scientology's inner workings (which I would have thought to be above his level of privy) along with the convenient timing of Randy and the untimely passing of Bob Maracle... I feel like I just read a test-run of an upcoming book where people posting in this thread were playing characters.

Again, I am not calling conspiracy or even suggesting that none of this is true... I just have a weird feeling about it. This thread did not unfold as I would have expected a normal thread to unfold. Something about it seems fabricated. I have no evidence of this nor do I care enough to launch an investigation, I am just voicing the skeptic in me.
 
Zeke's Chaingun said:
with the extreme and intimate details Will has of Scientology's inner workings
Click to expand...

in his defense, much of what hes talking about is readily available online. after nearly 2 years of tomfoolery there is very little that is unknown about scientology and, of course, if one of us knows then all of us know. his account is legit in the sense that his description of the org and its practices is accurate.

as for him personally, he has not yet produced any dox where it would be most appropriate, so theres no reason yet to vouch for him personally. best to wait and see.

have you googled any of the things hes discussed? even if he were somehow faking, theres a slew of verifiable stories from survivors of Co$. if you are interested there is more than enough information available for you to draw the fairly obvious conclusions. things like operation snow white and the charges filed in california re: human trafficking and child labor are matters of the public record. there is no need to take an individuals word for it.

my 2 cents anyway.

edit: just wanted to add that its BEST not to take any individuals account at face value. information is free. go find it!
 
Zeke's Chaingun said:
This thread was very fascinating... the only problem is I can't shake this nagging feeling that something isn't right here.

I dunno what it is. I don't want to call anyone a liar or call conspiracy.... but the whole way this unfolded... with the extreme and intimate details Will has of Scientology's inner workings (which I would have thought to be above his level of privy) along with the convenient timing of Randy and the untimely passing of Bob Maracle... I feel like I just read a test-run of an upcoming book where people posting in this thread were playing characters.

Again, I am not calling conspiracy or even suggesting that none of this is true... I just have a weird feeling about it. This thread did not unfold as I would have expected a normal thread to unfold. Something about it seems fabricated. I have no evidence of this nor do I care enough to launch an investigation, I am just voicing the skeptic in me.
Click to expand...

Alot of it does seem pretty dramatic, but the TS did state he was writing a book, he seems to be a good writer who had been thinking how to broach this thread topic for awhile. He probably just thought out his posts a bit.
 
Scruff Dog said:
have you googled any of the things hes discussed? even if he were somehow faking, theres a slew of verifiable stories from survivors of Co$. if you are interested there is more than enough information available for you to draw the fairly obvious conclusions. things like operation snow white and the charges filed in california re: human trafficking and child labor are matters of the public record. there is no need to take an individuals word for it.

my 2 cents anyway.

edit: just wanted to add that its BEST not to take any individuals account at face value. information is free. go find it!
Click to expand...


You misunderstand. I am not suggesting that the details are fake or that the Co$ isn't a farce... it's just how this all played out raises my suspicions for some reason.
 
chknhawk said:
I whole heartedly support WillHaven720's cause and have been in contact with him from the beginning. What is the obsession with this thread being somewhere other than the dump? The dump is the very first forum that I access when I log onto sherdog. Sure, you don't get credit for the post count, but who gives a flying fuck about post count. Everyone of you that have posted in this thread have found it in the dump, and many more have read it, judging by the number of views. One of the benefits of having a thread in a forum with a disabled post count, is that you get less fuck tards that come in with their plus juans and general trolling garbage. There are perhaps 5 specific threads that I keep a personal watch on because I enjoy their content, and this is one of those threads. Why taint the openness and fellowship that has accompanied this thread by throwing it in the war room or the OT just for the sake of a post count?
Click to expand...

I think its all about exposure. The War Room is perfect for this thread. I don't even know how to access The Dump without using Google or clicking a thread that has recently been moved here.
 
It's all good, guys. The dump has been more than fine. No need to pressure the mods anymore.

As for thinking about the coincidence of everything... I cannot explain it. I'm not selling anything. No books. No lecture tour. I'm going through all this and have been my entire life. I wish it were fiction. I guess that's why they call it "stranger than fiction."

I don't know what to say besides... Is there anything else you'd like to know?

I have been posting on whyweprotest.net. That has sort of turned into a mess in itself. The thread that the guy started about me after he read this, it's gotten a lot of attention in the past few weeks. Someone from OSA has also posted in there to reply to me. It's nuts.

But I'm just living my life. I went to the movies today to watch Avatar. It was awesome. Though, some dude was trying to start shit in the lobby. Scientology bull-baiting 101.

Any of you are more than welcome to come to Santa Maria and check me out. I have nothing to hide from anyone.

I have a new spin on life. And I'm doing just fine. Better than I have been since before I joined the Sea Org. Despite the MASSIVE attention from the church, I feel a great deal of inner peace. Most of the trauma I have felt has been dealing with family issues. Which, as you can imagine, is pretty significant.

And I would never think of sherdog as a place to test a book idea. WAY too many trolls here (those beautiful bastards). I was so shocked to see such an interest. Even before my uncle passed, the conversation between Randy and I became epic pretty fast. But I can assure you, I have never met that man in my entire life.

And it's not like I'm someone special. I'm just a blackjack dealer. That's what I do.

I like writing. But I have no structure. Just a High School education. I wouldn't know the first thing about writing a book. I mostly read poker books if anything. I couldn't tell you the last novel I read. The Da Vinci Code, maybe? It's been years. Besides MMA, this is the most I have written about anything.

Maybe I could take some classes one day and learn to write for real. But right now, I think I need to work on the next phase of my personal healing. I need some therapy in a big way. And I'm not afraid of psychology anymore.

I just want to get my shit together. I want to clean and not hoard. I want to become a social person again and not couch-lock my way through a wasted life. I have already turned off my cable. So that was a big step there.

I want to let people in my life be themselves and not try to enforce some subconscious, scientology protocol upon them. When you manage sales in the church, you are molded into a control freak in order to micro manage the salesmen. You are taught to BE big brother with plenty of your own big brothers watching. It's not healthy at all. Scientology sales tactics put Kirby vacuum salesmen to shame. I should know. That was how I got started in sales at 17.

There, I was in the minor leagues of high-pressure sales and hated every second of it. I didn't join the church to sell for BPI. I joined because I thought that dedicating my life to helping people would be better than living in materialism. But when they heard about my experience, I was promoted before I even finished basic training (EPF). And I wish I never gave up the job at Zingerman's deli in my hometown of Ann Arbor. I was making sandwiches for minimum wage. I was very poor but much happier not to be fucking people out of their money.

Kirby put a trick add in the paper for a "manufacturing" job (or some shit like that), that was supposed to pay ten bucks and hour. And I took it. It was bullshit. They were just recruiting door-to-door salesman. I didn't sell a vacuum for an entire month and made zero dollars. But my persistence in succeeding made me a pretty decent salesman by the time I left.

Zingerman's is awesome, by the way. They have a great mail order service. I highly recommend it.

But my entire life has been a series of mistakes steaming from my family's choice to be involved in the church. There, we were all taught that there is nothing more important in life than scientology. So I was neglected in the time when I needed some actual guidance. My parents were gone from being at the church non-stop. I had to raise myself for the most part. And no kid is very good at that. So I just learned to live with my misery.

But a bad education leads to bad jobs and more misery. And then one day there are these super nice people flying you out to Hollywood and flattering you with how "cool" they think you are. And telling me just how much I would love it. And how much they would LOVE to have you with them. That love lasts about a day. Then it's "GET THE FUCKING PRODUCT!!!"

And when that "product" is money, your life is total nightmare. If the gross income drops, the entire organization is up in arms about finding out what crimes have been committed by you or whoever is responsible for the money dropping off that week.

Witch hunts with e-meters. Shit Sleep. Shit food. Shit relationships. Shit friends, who would throw you under the bus in a heartbeat, if it would help raise their production or get them out of trouble.

And it's so obvious how miserable the Sea Org members are to be there.

But do you have any idea how happy the ones following me are??? They get to live out here. Eat out here. Gamble at my casino. Watch a movie when I do. They're not stuck in some basement, cold calling scientologists all day and night to buy book packages. In my defiance, I have actually given a few folks a vacation.

"Vacation". That's another joke. When I got married in the Sea Org, we had the wedding on Christmas eve. That was so we would have a day or two guaranteed for the honeymoon. I asked for something like 5 days off (during the slowest week of the year). But I was only given 2 days off, like most in BPI that year.

The reason they denied me any more time off was only because my stats were down and they didn't want to reward me. It's against LRH policy to reward a "downstat". Thanks for that one, psycho.

In fact, I was pulled away from the reception by the ethics officer after the ceremony. Just to get yelled at about money.

I could go on like this for a month.

I'll just say to you all, thanks for listening.
 
willhaven720 said:
It's all good, guys. The dump has been more than fine. No need to pressure the mods anymore.

As for thinking about the coincidence of everything... I cannot explain it. I'm not selling anything. No books. No lecture tour. I'm going through all this and have been my entire life. I wish it were fiction. I guess that's why they call it "stranger than fiction."

I don't know what to say besides... Is there anything else you'd like to know?

I have been posting on whyweprotest.net. That has sort of turned into a mess in itself. The thread that the guy started about me after he read this, it's gotten a lot of attention in the past few weeks. Someone from OSA has also posted in there to reply to me. It's nuts.

But I'm just living my life. I went to the movies today to watch Avatar. It was awesome. Though, some dude was trying to start shit in the lobby. Scientology bull-baiting 101.

Any of you are more than welcome to come to Santa Maria and check me out. I have nothing to hide from anyone.

I have a new spin on life. And I'm doing just fine. Better than I have been since before I joined the Sea Org. Despite the MASSIVE attention from the church, I feel a great deal of inner peace. Most of the trauma I have felt has been dealing with family issues. Which, as you can imagine, is pretty significant.

And I would never think of sherdog as a place to test a book idea. WAY too many trolls here (those beautiful bastards). I was so shocked to see such an interest. Even before my uncle passed, the conversation between Randy and I became epic pretty fast. But I can assure you, I have never met that man in my entire life.

And it's not like I'm someone special. I'm just a blackjack dealer. That's what I do.

I like writing. But I have no structure. Just a High School education. I wouldn't know the first thing about writing a book. I mostly read poker books if anything. I couldn't tell you the last novel I read. The Da Vinci Code, maybe? It's been years. Besides MMA, this is the most I have written about anything.

Maybe I could take some classes one day and learn to write for real. But right now, I think I need to work on the next phase of my personal healing. I need some therapy in a big way. And I'm not afraid of psychology anymore.

I just want to get my shit together. I want to clean and not hoard. I want to become a social person again and not couch-lock my way through a wasted life. I have already turned off my cable. So that was a big step there.

I want to let people in my life be themselves and not try to enforce some subconscious, scientology protocol upon them. When you manage sales in the church, you are molded into a control freak in order to micro manage the salesmen. You are taught to BE big brother with plenty of your own big brothers watching. It's not healthy at all. Scientology sales tactics put Kirby vacuum salesmen to shame. I should know. That was how I got started in sales at 17.

There, I was in the minor leagues of high-pressure sales and hated every second of it. I didn't join the church to sell for BPI. I joined because I thought that dedicating my life to helping people would be better than living in materialism. But when they heard about my experience, I was promoted before I even finished basic training (EPF). And I wish I never gave up the job at Zingerman's deli in my hometown of Ann Arbor. I was making sandwiches for minimum wage. I was very poor but much happier not to be fucking people out of their money.

Kirby put a trick add in the paper for a "manufacturing" job (or some shit like that), that was supposed to pay ten bucks and hour. And I took it. It was bullshit. They were just recruiting door-to-door salesman. I didn't sell a vacuum for an entire month and made zero dollars. But my persistence in succeeding made me a pretty decent salesman by the time I left.

Zingerman's is awesome, by the way. They have a great mail order service. I highly recommend it.

But my entire life has been a series of mistakes steaming from my family's choice to be involved in the church. There, we were all taught that there is nothing more important in life than scientology. So I was neglected in the time when I needed some actual guidance. My parents were gone from being at the church non-stop. I had to raise myself for the most part. And no kid is very good at that. So I just learned to live with my misery.

But a bad education leads to bad jobs and more misery. And then one day there are these super nice people flying you out to Hollywood and flattering you with how "cool" they think you are. And telling me just how much I would love it. And how much they would LOVE to have you with them. That love lasts about a day. Then it's "GET THE FUCKING PRODUCT!!!"

And when that "product" is money, your life is total nightmare. If the gross income drops, the entire organization is up in arms about finding out what crimes have been committed by you or whoever is responsible for the money dropping off that week.

Witch hunts with e-meters. Shit Sleep. Shit food. Shit relationships. Shit friends, who would throw you under the bus in a heartbeat, if it would help raise their production or get them out of trouble.

And it's so obvious how miserable the Sea Org members are to be there.

But do you have any idea how happy the ones following me are??? They get to live out here. Eat out here. Gamble at my casino. Watch a movie when I do. They're not stuck in some basement, cold calling scientologists all day and night to buy book packages. In my defiance, I have actually given a few folks a vacation.

"Vacation". That's another joke. When I got married in the Sea Org, we had the wedding on Christmas eve. That was so we would have a day or two guaranteed for the honeymoon. I asked for something like 5 days off (during the slowest week of the year). But I was only given 2 days off, like most in BPI that year.

The reason they denied me any more time off was only because my stats were down and they didn't want to reward me. It's against LRH policy to reward a "downstat". Thanks for that one, psycho.

In fact, I was pulled away from the reception by the ethics officer after the ceremony. Just to get yelled at about money.

I could go on like this for a month.

I'll just say to you all, thanks for listening.
Click to expand...

You were married? What happened to your wife?
 
TS the last book I read was "SuperHounds: The Ultimate Greyhound Betting System"
 
Denter said:
You were married? What happened to your wife?
Click to expand...

Not much to say there. We were just young and... well...

You have to understand that in the Sea Org, a REAL relationship is not possible without marriage. I have touched on this a little bit. But when Hubbard started the Sea Org, there were not that many people with him on his "Flagship Apollo". And I guess he had enough of the men fighting over the women, and soon made the rule that no one can have any sexual relations before marriage.

So it was only a month or so after we "dated" (meaning kissed and held hands for an hour or less after post some days). We liked each other a lot and were longing for the comforts of intimacy. It didn't take us long to "make it go right".

In fact, we were given our marriage license by a notary public in an IHOP restaurant. I still remember the woman's phone number... "1-800-I-MARRY-U". Just a nice old lady who got a lot of work thrown her way from Sea Org style, quickie weddings.

We had help with the ceremony from a very nice woman in the AOLA church (Advanced Organization of Los Angeles). We were married on a Thursday. I remember this because Thursday's are unforgettable in the Sea Org. After 2 pm (the end of the week in the church), I went back to my desk to tabulate my weekly stats. There, I was surrounded by scowls of "you ruined Christmas for all of us by not making enough money this week". I ignored these angry looks as much as one could. Then I went to my room and changed, only to be about an hour late to my own wedding.

We spent a nice couple of days in the Big Bear mountains, getting to know each other better. It was nice. A big relief for both of us in escaping the daily regimen of shit we took on post. Though, in her defense, she didn't have the same pressure to produce for the church. She held a post of little consequence to her org's money or new recruits, which are the two ways to ensure your newfound hell on earth in scientology.

We only saw one another at night. And with my misery being held inside (talking about this, even to your wife can only mean a one way ticket to the RPF), the relationship never had a chance. We were together almost two years. It never amounted to much more than a person you have bad (restricted) sex with. I remember trying to talk dirty a little in bed before she SANAPPED into attention by saying "I'M NOT A PORN STAR, WILL!" I think I said something to the effect of "Are you going to cum for me?" Something I never dared to say again.

We were divorced as one of my last steps before leaving the Sea Org. This is standard practice, as a Sea Org member must not be married to someone outside. That had been done in the past to disastrous consequences.

Last I had heard, she remarried and was still in. But that was years ago. So I have no idea where or what she's doing. But I will tell you this... She was one of the few I know who left the Sea Org as a child and came back later. And for many ex-SO, that would be our worst nightmare to be back in. So, I guess you could say she was a "rare breed".

I don't ever think about her or anything. My final conclusion about her was, in the real world, we would have probably dated for a few months and parted ways on good terms. We could have been friends rather than lovers. But that's how it was. And I respect her for who she is and have nothing bad to say about her.

I wish her all the best.
 
willhaven720 said:
Right on.

I know absolutely jack shit about betting on sports or animals. I never saw the future in it.
Click to expand...

Just joking, its from the Simpsons.

My granfather used to go to Vegas and play blackjack, back when they only used 9 decks (the 50s and 60s?) and he would make enough money to pay for him and grandma's hotel, then quit. It was actually possible to count cards back then if you were really sharp. He never got greedy and spent the rest of his trip losing small amounts of money here and there.

Im wondering if his story was total bullshit- can anyone actually count cards these days, because if I recall you guys use a new deck for like every game now, right?

Sorry about your wife, seems like she wasnt on your level anyhow.
 
Denter said:
Just joking, its from the Simpsons.

My granfather used to go to Vegas and play blackjack, back when they only used 9 decks (the 50s and 60s?) and he would make enough money to pay for him and grandma's hotel, then quit. It was actually possible to count cards back then if you were really sharp. He never got greedy and spent the rest of his trip losing small amounts of money here and there.

Im wondering if his story was total bullshit- can anyone actually count cards these days, because if I recall you guys use a new deck for like every game now, right?

Sorry about your wife, seems like she wasnt on your level anyhow.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I miss a lot of Simpson references. I never got into it like many did.


That's not how Blackjack works but "yes", it's much harder to count cards accurately and with any success in modern day casinos. The reasons for this are (A) casinos like mine mostly offer multi-deck shoes (6 decks or more), (B) we cut at least a deck off from the end of a shoe, so many cards are never seen (totally standard in casinos everywhere since the beginning), (C) some casinos have begun using "CSM's" (Continuous Shuffle Machines) to make it impossible to have an accurate count and (D) if you do count and bet correctly, you will stick out like a sore thumb to surveillance.

But, as many know these days, card counting isn't illegal. This strategy is only of method of calculating the ratio between the smaller and larger valued cards that have yet to be dealt, based simply on what cards have come out of the shoe so far.

It takes a lot of work to be efficient in doing this and is something I never plan on even trying to do. But I'm a poker player, so my talents lay elsewhere.

By simply using correct (basic) strategy, you give very little edge to the house in the long term. And you don't have to work NEARLY as hard to do so. They'll even let you bring a small "cheat sheet" to the table for reference. That way you can just relax and have fun playing.
Back in your grandpa's day, you could get a single deck game with better payouts and less restrictions in the rules. So any man with a brain and a full understanding of the card counting method could easily do so. That's only because it wasn't very common to have people doing this at a casino.

But it was a hell of a lot riskier then. So give gramps some credit. He never got greedy (the easiest way to expose yourself), and didn't have to deal with the old school mobsters running Vegas. Those dudes were bad news and didn't like anyone taking their money. Some were killed. Some were beaten to an inch of their lives. And your grandpa knew that too, I'm sure.

I salute him.
 
willhaven720 said:
Back in your grandpa's day, you could get a single deck game with better payouts and less restrictions in the rules. So any man with a brain and a full understanding of the card counting method could easily do so. That's only because it wasn't very common to have people doing this at a casino.

But it was a hell of a lot riskier then. So give gramps some credit. He never got greedy (the easiest way to expose yourself), and didn't have to deal with the old school mobsters running Vegas. Those dudes were bad news and didn't like anyone taking their money. Some were killed. Some were beaten to an inch of their lives. And your grandpa knew that too, I'm sure.

I salute him.
Click to expand...

I think that was his point- that he only made enough to comp his hotel and made sure he dropped more money in the casino than he won each time he visited. Gramps was a mean drunk, and he wasnt scared (WW2 vet) but he knew better than to mess with the types who ran Las Vegas back then.

It was my understanding that he had the high/low value system kinda figured out before people started writing books about it, he learned it from some Jews he worked with in the LA area.

Its wierd because I have absolutely zero interest in gambling, but I have definitely inherited his thirst for whiskey. :icon_chee
 
Denter said:
I think that was his point- that he only made enough to comp his hotel and made sure he dropped more money in the casino than he won each time he visited. Gramps was a mean drunk, and he wasnt scared (WW2 vet) but he knew better than to mess with the types who ran Las Vegas back then.

It was my understanding that he had the high/low value system kinda figured out before people started writing books about it, he learned it from some Jews he worked with in the LA area.

Its wierd because I have absolutely zero interest in gambling, but I have definitely inherited his thirst for whiskey. :icon_chee
Click to expand...

:icon_chee

Though I have avoided the bottle (for the most part) in these last few years, my Irish blood catches your meaning.
 
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