A Midwest Journal

I was scammed, then out of it, and then I worked to help others get out of their scams.

Then they got me again, but finally I finally got out – for good.

Because the real lesson here is that they never, ever learn. They are built to scam from sometime in childhood and it’s a hardwired mental deficiency.

But you can and should learn from your mistakes.

The only other option is to become a scammer yourself, which is never a good thing.

Let me explain:

Now, this is all I’m going to tell you about my specifics. Suffice to say – I’ve been there, done that. Wrote a book about it. And now I’ve moved on. For good.

Scammers can’t do anything but scam. They live a damned existence in fact.

Because they are chronic liars. They literally “can’t handle the truth.” They lie to the people they sell to, they lie to each other, they lie to their families. And they are in hiding all the time from everyone. Money they get burns through their fingers and they never actually build any wealth. And they hate it when people talk about them, regardless whether it’s true or not.

I’ve done by now a couple of years of research on these guys and can tell you that’s the way it is.

They are, statistically, a very small minority group of white-collar hard-core criminals. And they don’t reform unless forced to – which is only temporary (they only keep running as long as you keep chasing.)

It’s the Bell Curve distribution of our society at work. Just as there are a very small handful of people who are the extremely uber-rich geniuses, so there are this very small set of genius criminals who are constantly doing themselves in – along with everyone around them.

The typical scammer sees a business plan as “how to get around some regulation or law.” So their idea of how things work is simply to get a lot of people to give them money and then “fulfill their contractual obligations.” Meaning that most people never see a dime of their own investments back. It’s the only way these guys want to work. A straight-up job, saving and investing for the long-haul just isn’t exciting for these characters.

And that very small minority makes it rough on the rest of us. Because, especially due to their collusion with lawyers, they have required special laws to be made to try to catch every loophole that can be found. So the rest of us have to deal with very stupid laws and regulations so that the 20% of us which are constantly stupid enough to be repetitively scammed through life – that this slightly larger minority make sure the rest of us are legally required to have all sorts of safety equipment on our homes, businesses, cars, and even in the way we do business with each other.

The heart of it is the chronic scammer at work. But until you spot them, you won’t be able to do anything about it. Life will be a constant, sorry and sordid mystery where you just can’t seem to get ahead.

To help solve this, I created an anti-scam checklist so you can spot scammers in your life.

Once you spot them – get off their lines and get them off yours. Quit dealing with people who chronically lie. Period. You can do the “right thing” and still be nice to them. But make no agreements, never ever give them any money or anything valuable of yours. Watch them closely until you are sure they have left. Because until you do get these guys off your lines, they are going to lie, cheat, and steal just as much as they can get away with it.

With this article, I’m even leaving the whole subject of scamming. Enough is enough. But I couldn’t leave without telling you this last piece of advice: Find them and root them out and then leave them completely and utteryly alone.

You’ll be relieved and glad you did. And life will be a lot more pleasantly profitable.

- – - -

And with that, I’m done with writing about scams. You can get my “Get Your Self Scam Free Book” and use the anti-scam checklist to solve your life. But I’m done with these guys for good.

The rest of my time is going to raising grass fed beef near Columbia, Mo (and this includes Fulton, and Jefferson City…)

But look for some humorous parody cartoons to start up shortly. I’ve got a lifetime of these to share…

Had to learn an old lesson all over again.

Once you get away from really self-centered, destructive people – stay far, far away.

You know they aren’t up to any good. You know you’ve been burnt before. You know it just irritates you all over the place.

So just get away and stay away.

They aren’t going to change by your doing anything to or for them. They are actually and factually already living in the worst sort of hell imaginable.

My solution: Get Your Self Scam Free.

When you know what Cialdini, Levenson, and Maslow wrote in these areas, you don’t have to be a dupe, patsy, or victim to criminal scammers anymore.

You can re-learn a great life for yourself and be free from here on out.

The only good thing about tar-babies is that it feels so good when you quit…

(And you can still release on anything leftover.)

Try it for yourself and see – this link: release technique.

It’s not all that ridiculous for a big corporate scam to be taking place. But if the HSUS were the Red Cross – and the animals had an actual voice – you’d see that there would be some quick changes happening.

From just cursory investigation, I’ve found that:

1. HSUS spends less than .5 percent of what their online and television ads rake in on actually supporting shelters.
2. The bulk of it goes to lobbyists, political campaign funds, and fat executive bonuses with benefits.
3. There is an apparent organized mob connection.
4. They are under a RICO lawsuit for conspiring with other radical activist groups to do harm.

And it’s not surprising that farmers in Missouri are now concerned that their sponsorship of a puppy-mill bill (which is argued to be unnecessary, since existing laws already cover what they are proposing) is just a foot in the door to start regulating the Animal Husbandry industry. At least once source reports that they are radical activist vegans who are trying to get everyone to quit eating meat:

In Animal Rights and Human Obligations, the published proceedings of this conference, HSUS stated unequivocally that “there is no rational basis for maintaining a moral distinction between the treatment of humans and other animals.” It’s no surprise, then, that a 2003 HSUS fundraising mailer boasted that the group has been working toward “putting an end to killing animals for nearly half a century.”

And that is exactly why I’m taking a break from my work at a whitepaper on how to raise environmentally-responsible, heart-healthy grassfed beef cattle – just to tell you that there are some nuts loose among the squirrels.

So today I bring you a video and some links to share. Hope these bring you some food for thought.

This  may be best discussed as a complete theoretical concept – figuring that the people who read this will find it intuitively, all buried in some stretched mathematics. They’ll skip down to the best part – and others who aren’t ready won’t see it at all, but just think I’m over the edge… Which I am, after all.

And this essay is also kept overlong on purpose – just to show the point that most people won’t actually use the data. The vast bulk of Internet users live on instant gratification and won’t bother. Those who are willing to suspend disbelief and do the hard work of research to follow their heart – those are the ones who have that very tiny chance of making it.

It’s not any government who is going to help you find your freedom. Nor any particular belief-system. Just you…

Natural Distribution, the Bell Curve, and Life

This is a natural distribution which you see in nearly everything around you. It tends to pull order from chaos if you can line up the data with the right comparative. (Told you this would get thick real quick…)

Now, any of these distributions has the 20/80 Pareto Principle in it, which then breaks down again around 2-4% on each extreme edge (20% of 20%).

The problem with philosophy and enlightenment is actually their continually reducing results, as these 2% limits continue to interact all the way along. These chain-react all the way up the line. Naturally.

Consider this natural distribution as showing how each level toward attainment works – only a very small handful in every “level” will actually achieve what they are seeking.

Levels of Enlightenment based on natural distribution

What is easily observable is that only a handful of people actually are successful in life. Earl Nightingale laid this out in his Strangest Secret – only 5% in that study were actually able to make a success out of life. Everyone else wound up either just “scratching by” or on the Welfare dole. Of course, these statistics were out of the 1050’s, but these have been examined later and found to be the same percentages.

Between 2-5% actually make a successful life.  (.02 chance)

Now, taking this on up, you’ll then see that the really, extremely and outrageously successful people are just 2% (or so ) of those. The very rich are just about 1 in 10,000 – or close to 2% of 2%. (.0004 chance)

On up from that are the very, very successful, or the uber-rich. These are about 1 in 100,000 or so.  (.000008 chance)

And if you want to wind up on the richest person on the planet list, you are going to have to apply another 2% to that – about 1 in 10 million. (Giving you a .00000016 chance.)

This is what drives scams along. I was just talking with a former scam-coach (he found out he was working for scammers after he had been there for awhile and discovered their actual statistics.) He pointed out their business model actually consisted of finding and selling dupes a bill of goods which had them build their own ecommerce site. Only about 2-3% of these finished building their site. Another 2-3% of those actually made their original investment back. And out of that tiny amount, only about 2-3$ of those then made a real “killing” from whatever they chose. This last bunch are then interviewed in the infomercials (long with scantily-dressed, buxom “hostesses”.

This is also then the same control and approval methods which various companies use to get you buying their products and continuing to support their services. This is the phenomenon which makes “consumers” – which are literally “people who use it up” and customers, which are “creatures of habit”.  (But that is all covered in my lesson series on how to scam proof your life.)

The deal is that they hype these “actual examples” to get you sold on the idea that you could do it. However, the FTC had to crack down on these, which would then tell you that the average results are in fact that you just lose money with these deals. Some to the tune of over $30,000…

Natural distribution and spiritual enlightenment

Same goes for making “saints” out of “sinners.” While both of those terms are inaccurate, they really give us the same points of digression people follow who are going to make their way out of this mess we call humankind existence.

The vast bulk of the people have no clue what’s really going on. They live average lives going to work most of the week and paying out their income to support an average lifestyle, buying and paying off stuff that makes them feel secure. The government takes a huge chunk, as does their union (if they are in that shrinking minority), and more than half of what is left of what they make are sent to the black holes of insurance and finance companies. The average hard-working American, due to credit cards, usually has nearly nothing left to show for their life’s work – which is the exact design of advertisers, finance companies, and any government.

Now, about 2-4% figure out that they can actually improve their lives. These are the people who buy self-help, spiritual, and personal development books/tapes/seminars. The bulk of everyone else gets by with going to church on a regular basis. (The reverse minority are nihilists, who just consider life’s all a loss and that it is basically pain.)

Out of those 2-4% who know there’s a way out, only 2% of those will actually work out what their path needs to be in order to “go free” and “make it”.

And only about 2% of those will then stick to it and follow that path.

But of those finalists, only 2% will actually get enlightened in a given lifetime. Or about 1 in 10 million. Most of these keep it quiet, so you don’t hear much about them. (Follow the Christ’s works and you’ll see the problems he had with charismatic popularity and word-of-mouth advertising.)

That gives us a scale of:

• The mundane “Muggles”
• The Perceptive
• The Genius
• The Skywalkers

Now, the scale doesn’t really quit there, but the levels above enlightenment can’t be described in our words – they can only be intuited or imagined.

Churches, Self-Help Guru’s, and Money

Now, this also explains why there isn’t any money in philosophy and why real spiritual extremists (the guys who made it all the way out like Lao Tse (wrote Tao Te Ching), Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ) – none of these cared a hoot about money or even civilized society as it existed.

They were at or above that 4th level.

So in order to “do” anything with this metaphysical/spiritual stuff on a wide model – society wide – you have to have a lot of people working at the lower levels to keep people involved in it. Not that this either makes or prevents people from achieving actual enlightenment – but it’s a key point of having support groups for those who are between the 1st and 4th levels.

Any government, loosely defined, is a support group. Mostly devoted to the darker side of survival – but still, it supports those contributing to it (particularly those in power).

In all these, people pay their dues and follow along as best they can. They all know that if they keep to what they are seeking, they will find it.

Now, additionally, you won’t find the uber-rich being the enlightened, either. They are still looking for themselves (or looking out for themselves.)

You see, once you get into the third level (Genius), money doesn’t matter. You’ve got all you really need. And most of the reasons people have for keeping this fiction called Money going no longer apply to living – at least Genius’ see it that way. If they need it, it’s there. Otherwise, skip it – not worth investing the energy into it. Look up the lives of Sun Tzu, the Christ, and Siddhartha and you’ll see they just skipped the whole idea of money and what it “can buy”.

Genius live in the intuitional – everything gets provided at that level. But there’s a curious caveat as well. Levenson pointed this out in the beginning of his “Fireside Chat” series, which Larry Crane published. When a person is getting everything handed to them, they have to keep going and move above that level. Or catastrophe happens. We saw this recently in one famed self-help guru who was in the middle of a process where he was pulling in around $400,000 – and some people died. Now he’s charged with manslaughter.

You have to move beyond money or anything it buys, or any identification with a body – and that puts you into that next level, of real enlightenment (Skywalkers).

But there are people around these Geniuses who can “make money” off their existence and actions. And many who know that they have to keep this going in order for them to finish finding their own route to salvation, so they have to build churches and maintain followings in order to support their lifestyle. This doesn’t say anything is bad about this, it’s just a fact of life that “things” cost money. Especially if you don’t get that you actually do make things show up around you – the money aspect is just a frivolous additional exercise. Like Wallace Wattles – what you need will show up for you along the existing lines of trade and manufacturing.

The trick to beating the natural distribution and achieving Enlightenment

The trick is that while there is a small minority of truly brilliant, there is also a minority of the equally-brilliant-but-criminally-destructive.  And these two balance each other out. It’s that old yin-yang thing. The middle route (quite Zen) is the way which actually wins out.  The criminal are those who are really keeping this planet down. It’s their offset which makes this distribution model the way it ends up.  If there were no offset, we’d simply all go free in short order. And it’s the fact that criminals simply can’t get it, so are always lop-sided and off-balance. Their base is destruction; they are always self-destructive to themselves and everyone around them.

But for all those people who are working as scammers and ignorant dicto-crats (North Korea, Uganda, anywhere people are being starved into submission) – mafia types which infiltrate (and run) governments – these are all equalized in the society as a whole, very effectively and at great expense, by honestly for-good-only organizations (Red Cross, among others) and everyone-wins, top-manager networks like CEO Space.

That’s the real reason for support groups like churches, social networks, and clubs like the Optimists. They need your help to keep the balance.

It’s our top minority (extremists) who are able to make it out in spite of. But you also see that the noise the lower end makes is what keeps the whole thing a mess – and so keeps this distribution pattern in place. So only the very few can make it out. (Now, eventually, it’s possible for everyone to make it out – but that’s a complete other story…)

[An interesting sidebar is that the "Middle Ground" is where the enlightened "skywalkers" find themselves. To these, there is no "evil" and "good", but just the whole Zen experience. From that viewpoint, this whole essay is completely an excess. Listening to Alan Watts explains why and how this is.]

How to get yourself enlightened is by NOT going after it

Essentially, you can’t get there from here.

Practically, the leap from Muggle to perceiving your own path out is as wide as perceiving there are geniuses and then becoming one.  And the gap between an operating genius and becoming an enlightened skywalker is even broader.

Again, there is a trick to this. This middle road can’t be described in any of our languages. It can’t be taught; it can’t be studied. It has to be experienced, which is the way of all truth. You can’t “work” at this, you can’t pay anyone to help you achieve it. You can’t stumble on this by accident (although there are plenty of synchronous serendipities to take advantage of — or not.) And when you know you’re there, you are.  Meanwhile, you simply know that something isn’t complete, and so you are still looking…

So don’t think I’m anything above being a genius. If I were, I wouldn’t be writing this – it would just be obvious and not needing the telling. I can only tell you the obvious steps you might or might not take to get up to the level you can then make your own “leap of faith”.

Route to a top end?

Intuition and your own Imagination are apparently the only effective skills you can develop in order to get up to that point.  At least the most effective known at this writing. You can derive such a path from studying as close as you can to what true Masters have said.  But you have to listen to these with your heart.

The trick is to get beyond having to “know” what is going on. You have to get beyond knowing, and find your own intuitional sense.

Of course, this goes beyond printed matter – but you won’t need it by this time, according to sources found to date. The Tao itself is a bit of a comic book, since it says that what can be spoken or written isn’t the Tao – and then continues on to tell all about it…

This starts to explain some of what we are running into in trying to discover this path – and why it’s so “hard” to do. Because you have to give up all the effort you’re expending to find everything you’ve been looking for. (This is as it’s really been there all along…)

Practically, you have to use whatever you are using to get enlightened to un-do their very fact and effectiveness of those exact tools. You won’t need them after that point, anyway. The impossible first becomes possible, and then they both become the same.

Again, words fail here as a description. But the reason for this is because you don’t need them any more. (And because this essay is of course supposed to be motivational, and get you to do something.)

You go to, and then beyond, the level of a Christ, a Buddha, a Master. There are obviously levels beyond just achieving the level of an enlightened being coexisting on this planet. Obvious.

- – - -

And we’re going to have to leave you with that. Nothing else needs to be said – or effectively could be.

Cheers.

What do these three have in common? Simple:

1. They have to threaten you to get what they want.
2. They are based on convenient fictions.
3. They need your money to survive.

Of course, they also are all government related, but they also prey on your basic needs. And they are all scams, but what else is new…

Global Warming does exist, but it runs in cycles, both on 30 years periods, and also 1500-year and even longer cycles. Al Gore and his fictions started out with bogus data inside a Powerpoint, which was compounded by scientists who falsified their data in order to get or preserve huge government subsidies. Gore himself profits by this with his personal company that makes money off selling “carbon credits”. …While he meanwhile lives in a huge mansion and flies jets around to accept his awards.

The IRS was originally voted into law on the basis that they would tax the “very rich” in order to pay for the Civil War. Of course, since then it has started picking all of our pockets. It’s a favorite boondoggle of politicians, who riddle the code with inconsistencies on behalf of various corporate lobbyists. And these same politicians – who never think in terms of saving money by cutting spending or a balanced budget – only proclaim that we would “lose money” if we cut taxes. (But practically, we have the evidence of actually raising revenue as well as providing more jobs in each instance where presidents cut them: Kennedy, Reagan, Bush.)

Scientology threatens excommunication from friends and family if you don’t go along with their demands and keep supporting their financial causes. They got their IRS exemption as a “church” by actually suing and threatening the IRS and its officials itself. And the Anonymous protests continue due to the C of S denied-but-practiced policy of enforced disconnection. Of course, no one can trace where all those millions which their parishioners spend (mostly tax-free) with them goes. Or how hard it is to get it back, even when you are a celebrity. (And of course, these facts have to be documented, while the other two are more common knowledge.)

How to stop their bullying

All is not sad, however. Tracking back these commonalities also show us how to get free from their effects.

It has to do with people not wanting to return the way they came into this world – helpless, penniless, dependent. Essentially, they continue learning to thrive by exploiting the Lester Levenson buttons of control, approval, and security. If you learn to accept (or welcome) these and let them go (or release), you don’t have to stay effect of any of these. (Of course getting scam-free has been laid out “Get Your Self Scam Free”…)

And the other point is to learn to do with less government in your life. Because none of these would continue to exist if you didn’t give away so many of your rights to others.

Now, these all may seem far too simple. But these simple solutions work. It just takes a lot of people applying them personally. The only real side effect is that you get more personal Freedom, Happiness, and Peace of Mind showing up in your life.

A far cry from how government officials and their flunkies sleep at night.

Here’s wishing you a scam-free life.

How to figure out if a company or product is a scam.

Also, how you can see it you are scamming in your own life – or if you simply want to improve how people view you or your business.

If you’ve read “Get Your Self Scam Free” or the lessons from that book, you’re already well ahead of the game. You already know how to get your own freedom and happiness back.

In that book, I tell you that Cialdini, Maslow, and Lester Levenson have the key points you need to find and get scams out of your life. Those same key principles can be used as a checklist to rate the products and services in your life to see how much of a scam they are. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an Internet scam, online fraud, or someone selling at your doorstep.

I’ve made a little checklist below. You just check off what you find they are using (or misusing) to get you to do what they say or to buy their products and services. The total number of checked-off items tells you their “Scam Free Rating“. The higher the number, the  more likely they are scammers.

Scam Free Checklist and Rating Guide

_____ 1. Reciprocation - are they giving you a “free” gift in return for your email, phone, or (worse yet) your credit card number. Do they want you to pay for “shipping only”?

_____ 2. Commitment and consistency – Do they just want you to “try the first lesson free” and then pay for the rest on a monthly basis (with your credit card, again)? Monthly books, fruit baskets, or “try it and you’ll be amazed“? Rediculous money-back guarantee you hear about over and over in a 30-second ad?

_____ 3. Social proof – Is this a fad? Is “everyone” doing it? Do they tell you “don’t be the last on your block”? Are they trying to get you to be a lemming and jump off because everyone else is doing it? Does it have a fan club?

_____ 4. Liking - Are the models they use incredibly gorgeous (and well-proportioned)? Have they hired a spokesperson who is “just like you”? Is the sound of the voice and mannerisms such that you would really like to just sit and chat with such a person for hours? (Not that ugly models ever sell products, but there is the reverse of this used in advertising sometimes as well – someone so honestly homely that you begin to feel can trust them with your charge-card implicitly…)

_____ 5. Authority - Are they using a well-known celebrity who you used to watch on TV when you were growing up? Or someone in a doctor’s garb, dressed up like a chef, or maybe a minister – but these people don’t have clients or a congregation and are only actors? Is the government mentioned? IRS? Or some executive of a well-known business?

_____ 6. Scarcity - Are there only a limited number of these? Is the offer only good for a limited time? Are you one of a select few which have been specially chosen to receive this pre-release version? Is the price going up shortly?

_____ 7. Control - Does this product help you control others or get out of being controlled? Does having this product (or voting a certain way) take control away from others? Will this make you free from some sort of nasty situation – like the IRS garnishing your wages? Does this help you “get what you deserve” (favorite of laywers)?

_____ 8. Approval - Will this make people like you? Will this get you noticed? Will this help you have more friends? Does their ads have huge crowds gathered to cheer you (or someone) on?

_____ 9. Security - Does this make your life more secure in some fashion? Will you sleep better at night once you buy one of these or have it installed? Will this politician keep your neighborhood, state, or country safer?

_____ 10. Self-actualization – Is this company actually out to help you on a continuing basis as one of their clients, or are they just wanting a customer (habitual buyer) or pitching a one-off product (in order to get your phone number and credit card so that telemarketers can call you incessantly?!?) Is this company actually interested in your well-being enough to stick with you regardless of how much you spend with them?

- – - -

This post is simply to lay out this checklist. Obviously, there is much more discussion and review of this.

Some examples of organizations which rate a “perfect 10″:

• Any program (and most people) from or representing any government – 10
• Any insurance company – 10
• Any company who uses telemarketers – 10
• Any and all advertising (but not all promotion) – 10
• Most organized religions (not their original scriptures or philosophies) – 10
• Any diet plan advertised on TV or other media – 10
• All media or any company which relies on advertising for all or most of their business income – 10
• Most “big label” Record companies and the RIAA/MPAA – 10

Some examples of products which rate a “perfect 0″:

• Any product you hear about from a neighbor or friend who has actually bought it and used it, and found it works (word of mouth) – 0
• Books or recordings you’ve read which actually help you improve your life, the ones you’ve tested for yourself – 0
• Some writers and companies who tell you not to believe what they say, but try it for yourself first - 0

(Now, I don’t rate a perfect 0 myself. So don’t think I’m not a scammer to some degree.)

But do try all this out for yourself and see if this works for you. If you have suggestions on how this could be improved, leave a comment. But don’t accept this until you’ve checked it out personally.

Just woke up from a nightmare involving Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. Which is weird, since it’s been years. Used to have them regularly. And practically, only my study of Huna as a comparative belief-system actually was able to get any sense of these (and make them quit).

Scientology is a closed system, a religion which doesn’t believe in any God, but rather emphasizes the spirituality of the individual.

It’s run by a corporate cult, in that in order to live and work and succeed around that organization, you have to believe and act in certain ways. A lot of that involves kowtowing (bowing deeply in subservience) to the existing corporate heads and to Hubbard in absentia.

From an outsiders’ view, simply look how North Korea acts and you’ll have some parallels.

Sure, I’m being critical here. Probably the last time I’ll bring this up.

But there’s a difference between the philosophy of Scientology and what Hubbard created as a management body to carry on after he left. Even Anonymous - on it’s two-year anniversary of protesting against this corporation – respects the beliefs of those followers and staff, but not the decisions the corporation makes and continues.

Philosophically, Scientology was taken off the rails right at a policy called Keeping Scientology Working, where Hubbard said that he alone created and distilled this body of work and that no one else was going to be permitted to help him with this after that point. Lots of contribution helped him get to where he was. And when you look over his work, you’ll find that he got all of his ideas (yes, every single one) from some earlier author. Everything can be traced back. Everything.

In order to sort out my own head after 20+ years as staff, I’ve had to do considerable amount of this back-tracking. I’ve described this scene graphically:

Imagine a basketball court whose floor is filled with ice cream sundaes. From side to side, right up to the bleachers which surround it. Scientology is the cherries picked off all those sundaes. The best part (and most filling) has been left on the floor. People are told who study this work that “that is all there is”. But frankly, they are missing the best part.

While Hubbard would tell people in his “Way to Happiness” to not be critical and to treat others according to the Golden Rule, he didn’t follow his own advice. His recorded lectures are intensely critical of many different subjects. You can find all of Hubbard’s recordings online now – check it out for yourself.

Essentially, he wanted to get rich and was successful in that. He also died mysteriously, on psychiatric drugs. No family or friends present, only a caretaker who was last heard about as hiding from corporate Scientology.

But you take Hubbard’s belief-system and compare it with Alan Watt’s description of Zen that he gave in a lecture once. He said Zen has no doctrine, no dogma, no belief-system you have to accept. It’s simply a way of life.

Now then, if one must try to say something about what Zen is, and I want to do this by way of introduction, I must make it emphatic that Zen, in its essence, is not a doctrine. There’s nothing you’re supposed to believe in. It’s not a philosophy in our sense, that is to say a set of ideas, an intellectual net in which one tries to catch the fish of reality.

Scientology is no way of life. It’s a dogmatic belief-system enforced by threat of excommunication and shunning. And even Hubbard agrees that Zen Buddhism civilized the bulk of this planet.

It’s actually easier to research Scientology than it is Alan Watts. My opinion on why this is so is that the corporate structure Hubbard formed is so destructive in the actions it takes that it engenders antipathetic comments and criticism. Fuels the very fire that is burning it.

I should know, I was part of it for years. And for those I hurt with my actions, I apologize.

Since, I’ve worked as I can through my books,  this blog, and other sites to help others find their own way out of the winding labyrinth which Hubbard created through his corporate Scientology. You’ll see on this blog that I’ve got several proposals which can help people get their own life back.

So others don’t have to have recurring nightmares anymore.

This write-up was probably overdue. In October, it will be a decade since I left. And it’s only been through an intense study of scams in the last two years, where I saw that the “long arm” of the legal and PR branches of corporate Scientology are nothing to fear. Rather, they are subject to simple pity. Even the heads of these branches have been leaving that sinking ship in droves, lately.

Your life is and has always been your own. Live it as best you can. And any current or former Scientologist who wants to get relief – just contact me via this blog. I’ll help as best I can.