Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape QUOTES

1 " Scientology always has been a game of power and control. L. Ron Hubbard was the ultimate con man, and it's hard to figure out how much of Scientology was an experiment in brainwashing and controlling people, and how much of it was truly intended to help people. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

2 " I know now that people who have been abandoned feel the need to test people in their lives by seeing what they will do, seeing if they will abandon them like everyone else if pushed hard enough. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

3 " When I look back and consider why I didn’t rebel, the reality was that doing so would have just made life harder. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

4 " information. Scientology always has been a game of power and control. L. Ron Hubbard was the ultimate con man, and it’s hard to figure out how much of Scientology was an experiment in brainwashing and controlling people, and how much of it was truly intended to help "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

5 " parents, who were very busy with their work. “Enturbulating” was a Scientology word for disrupting or upsetting. So, in addition to not being allowed to complain at the Ranch out loud, we couldn’t complain about it in letters, either. Friday "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

6 " Simply getting time off required an incredible level of accountability. If I ever wanted time off—if, for example, my mom was visiting Int—then I had to request it in a formatted proposal that required me to find replacements for each of my various responsibilities. We would only be granted permission if the requests were every other week, if our statistics were up, and if we were not in Lower Conditions. If all those things were in order, then my proposal would have to be approved by no fewer than four people. The list of duties and procedures went on endlessly, and the result of all this process, paperwork, and regulation was that there were no children at the Ranch—only little adults. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

7 " At special events, we were dressed up in cute outfits and paraded in front of our parents and Int crew to make it seem as though Scientology was creating a normal and joyful childhood, when in fact we were all being robbed of it. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

8 " The problem is that Scientology is a system that makes it nearly impossible for you to think for yourself. People "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

9 " This realization was the beginning of personal integrity, when, instead of dismissing my feelings or my intuition, I found myself following them, even if they led me to a place that Scientology said was wrong. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

10 " I knew without a doubt that I was a good person, and, no matter what anyone else thought or said about me, no matter who they were or how important, I didn’t care. When I realized this, down to the moment, the clouds opened up. This realization was the beginning of personal integrity, when, instead of dismissing my feelings or my intuition, I found myself following them, even if they led me to a place that Scientology said was wrong. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

11 " I came to see that all of these people telling me that I was bad were just a bunch of hypocrites. They claimed to care about other people but, in reality, their selfishness was quite transparent. All you had to do was look for it and trust yourself. I knew I’d done things wrong, but I also knew that my transgressions, despite what people around me were saying, were not evil. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

12 " If I felt anything else, then surely the problem was with me. As a result, I doubted myself constantly. I doubted whether I was a good person; I doubted whether the people around me were good people; I doubted whether my emotions were appropriate—all "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

13 " Now, for the first time, I was able to see myself for what I was: Someone who made mistakes and was trying to make up for them. I might not have made great decisions, but that didn’t make me bad and it certainly didn’t make me evil. “Evil” was where they made their mistake—I might have had doubts, but I came to recognize that I was not evil. If there was one thing I was certain of, it’s that I cared about other people. I cared about my friends tremendously and would have put them before myself at any moment. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

14 " Zawsze kończyliśmy kurs w ten sam sposób: wydając trzy okrzyki na cześć L. Rona Hubbarda. Okrzyki te zaczynano wznosić, kiedy wszyscy stawaliśmy przed jego portretem wiszącym na ścianie. Choć LRH opuścił swoje ciało, wszyscy nadal postrzegali go jako bohatera, człowieka, któremu tak bardzo zależało na ludziach, że pomógł im, użyczając swej mądrości i wynalezionych przez siebie technik. Nie miało znaczenia, w której byliśmy sali – portret LRH wisiał w każdej, łącznie z sypialniami. Było to dziwaczne i miałam wrażenie, jakby LRH zawsze mnie obserwował. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

15 " I knew without a doubt that I was a good person, and, no matter what anyone else thought or said about me, no matter who they were or how important, I didn’t care. When I realized this, down to the moment, the clouds opened up. This realization was the beginning of personal integrity, when, instead of dismissing my feelings or my intuition, I found myself following them, "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

16 " One of my duties was to give the mail that had been sent from relatives of people in the CMO to Olivia and Julia, who served as the screeners. In CMO, they had passed around a slip that we were required to sign, allowing our mail to be opened and inspected. Every piece of mail had to be read before it was distributed. If there was any sign of anti-Scientology sentiment, the letter was not passed on. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

17 " Even if we’d been allowed to travel into the outside world, it wouldn’t have mattered much. Few of us possessed curiosity about life beyond our borders, because we had been led to believe the outside world was filled with ignorant people whom we called Wogs, short for “Well and Orderly Gentlemen.” From what we were taught, WOGS were completely unenlightened; after we’d been trained in auditing and Scientology, it would be our job to “clear” them. Wogs were to be avoided because they were unaware of what was really going on, and their unawareness was reflected in their shallow priorities. Wogs liked to ask a lot of questions. We were led to believe that they would find our lifestyle alarming, so we had to be careful that, when speaking to them, we spoke in terms they could understand. "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

18 " they were young, seemed cool, and were nice to us, although they often made fun of my dresses. Not long after we arrived, we met Joe Conte, or Mr. C, for short. He was introduced as the head adult at the Ranch. There was also a rotating security guard and a woman by the name of Karen Fassler, or Mr. F, "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

19 " levels, "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

20 " to our "

― , Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape