By Lee Reynolds:

I'll tell you what, I'm not worried about being anonymous. I have no fear of the cult. To fear them would only give them power. I dare them to try and cause problems for me.

My name is Lee Reynolds and I live in Tempe, AZ.

I was on-lines at the Nashville CC from 88 to 92 and at the PHX org (aka Mesa) from 92 to 94. I was on staff for a little over a year between 93 and 94, most of which was spent out in LA. When I got back from LA I was the treasury secretary for a few months till Karen Mosher (the ED at the time) decided she didn't want me there anymore because I wasn't a true believer. In all sincerity I'd like to thank her for saving me from the cult. She really helped me, even if she was trying to do the opposite.

Lee

Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Re: Big Blue = dishwater grey?
From: neilclark222@hotmail.com (Neil Clark)
Date: 31 Aug 2004 10:33:09 -0700

Lee Reynolds:

When I was living out at "Big Blue" from 93 to 94, I saw a lot of things that didn't sit right with me.

I don't remember seeing any cases where guys in their 20's or 30's were pursuing girls in their teens. What I did see were guys walking up to EPF'ers and asking "Will you marry me?" In the real world this would have been a little creepy, but not an entirely implausable come-on line, especially coming from a 16 year old. In the SO however, this question was 100% serious. The reason was that when you're in the SO, you're expected to completely suppress your sexual needs unless and until you're married. The result were kids getting married at 16 just so they could have sex without getting expelled from the SO or put on the RPF. The other reason people got married was berthing, or the quarters you lived in. Single people who weren't part of CMO were crammed together 6 to 12 to a room. The room I was in had 14 people in it at one point. Bunk beds were stacked 3 high and you had ZERO privacy. Theft was a problem as I'm sure you can imagine. Married couples on the other hand got a room to themselves. The result were marriages of convenience based upon biological necessity and domestic comfort. Not only did people get married at the drop of a hat, they got divorced as well.

Marriage is something that I consider to be extremely serious and sacred, so seeing people treat it so frivilously really bugged me. Of course the whole "You held her hand, you're out-2D!!" routine was even more disgusting.

The other thing I saw were kids being utterly neglected by their parents. Not every kid there was part of the SO. Some were just sort of there. Some seemed reasonably happy, but others were VERY unhappy. The ones I knew didn't buy into the whole cult thing, unlike their parents. They didn't want to be there, but were afraid to say so, although that fear was sometimes overcome. I remember one time this blonde girl I knew was sprawled out on the floor outside the galley, screaming "why can't I see my mom?" at the top of her lungs to this woman who was clearly trying to "handle" her.

The other thing I remember was people "blowing." One group of 4 that I remember took off by car and were gone for several days. The only one I remember clearly was a girl named Kimberly who was from Australia, although she'd all but lost her accent. At the time I didn't understand why they'd left really, and the "offical" explanation was "don't talk about it!" I didn't realize then that all of the things that bugged me, bugged everyone, especially the people those things were happening to. I was so suckered that I actually believed if everyone in Scientology just got on the same page and tried to make things work, they would. Mostly I thought and hoped that the cult would stop acting like a cult, that it would put its money where its mouth was and actually start working to achieve its stated goals using common sense. What I didn't understand then was just how bad Scientology is. The purpose of Scientology is utterly corrupt from the core and from the get-go. There is no salvaging something that has no virtue in it. You might as well try to reform the devil.

I'm sure that many people here are familiar with Astra Woodcraft's story. Well I was actually out there at pac base at the same time she was. I didn't really know her per-se, but I'd seen her around and talked with her a couple of times. She was the receptionist at ITO when I was there, or at least that was one of her jobs. I remember someone mentioning at one point that you had to be careful around her because she worked for ethics. I never would have guessed at that point that she was as desperate and unhappy as anyone else there and wanted nothing more than to escape from the cult. Even among the "downstat" people I hung around with there was no acknowledgement that anyone wanted to leave. We'd talk about things that bothered us about Scientology, but always within the context of trying to understand why those problems existed. Since leaving was one of the things the cult was most afraid of you doing I suspect that everyone was afraid to even talk about it for fear of being sent to ethics.

I wonder what percentage of SO members spend 100% of their time pretending to everyone else that they are happy with the SO and scientology? The number has to be in the high 80's.

What this proves to me is just how effecitve information control is at mind control, or at least behavior control. You can have an entire organization filled with people who feel one way, and yet each person there will believe that they are the only one who feels that way. Not only that, but they'll think that they are wrong to feel that way. I hope that this phenomena is understood by psychologists and sociologists becuase if it isn't it needs to be.

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