Cult?

Doing some housekeeping......
**My knee has made strides. I am pleased. I believe in another week I could wear my boots with a small heel and not feel wobbly. My goal is to be able to be on my knees.....don't make that dirty like my husband did!
Kneeling is painful. I made the enormous mistake of saying out loud as I was making dinner that I can't wait until I can be on my knees again. As soon as it came out of my mouth I knew that my hubby would be jumping on that and sure enough. Damn!

** The women who were staying at my home for the march on January 21st are still coming but not staying at my home. They are staying with someone in Maryland. I don't understand why because it is so much further for them when I am closer to the metro to just get into the city. But that's fine. A neighbor has a house full and she asked if 2 of the women (who I have met) could possibly stay with me. So I may have women here anyway. Since I can't walk a great deal and stand for hours, this is me doing my part.

Okay now to a topic I wanted to talk about.
I have been watching a documentary series on A & E about Scientology.
Let me start this with my opinion.  If you like and believe in this, I'm sorry.
This is NOT a religion. This is a cult.
If you are Methodist, Catholic or Luthern etc and you wish to leave the church, you leave. You are not harassed, you are not shunned, you are not split from your family, you are not followed, they do not tell lies about you, try to get you in trouble with the law etc. You just leave the church.

I believe to a certain degree all organized religion is a cult. I know that if the Pope told my father to drink the kool-aid and put on his nikes then he'd do it just like those that did it at Jonestown. But this is so off the charts it's amazing.

I have also always believed that those who need this so much are a bit weak. So watching this I just can't fathom how people believe the things they are told, the money they MUST pay to be in this cult/religion and how they can be pushed around. I want to think this couldn't happen to me, perhaps it could. After enough beatings who to say.

As you all know the actress Leah Remini is the one doing this documentary with a former big leader of the church. When I say big leader, I mean the man who was the right-hand man to their leader. The pope's assistant so to speak. The man who did the harassing and found the weak spots in the people who asked questions etc.

Now, if you are like me you think, Leah Remini is so mouthy and straight up no chaser you just can't fathom she could fall for this shit. But she did. For 35 years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars she gave them so she could continue. Her mother went to Scientology first after her divorce (ah, my theory of being weak and needing something) and she brought along her daughters. This life and doctrine are all she ever knew. When someone did something as she was doing she too would have said the same things as they say about her because that is how they are programmed.

She began asking questions and then she was punished. That was the beginning for her. Then she asked about the leader's wife at Tom Cruise's wedding and again, she was harassed, told to take these classes to "cleanse" and those cost a few hundred thousand, she was being followed etc. It was ugly for her.

A few more things happened and it was like a light bulb (finally)went off for the first time for her. She began to see the things the rest of us could see in this cult (sorry I can't call this a religion) She left Scientology. She has been followed, rumors printed in magazines, news shows, and anywhere they can. She has been harrassed beyond belief. But now she wants to show the world what is really going on there. She says on the show she can take it, it's others who's family have been destroyed on purpose and others who can't help themselves is who she wants to help.

She and this man set out to see others who have escaped along with all the horror they have gone through and some still going through. While watching some of these stories I have cried. It is unfathomable the things that have been done to people and how they tear apart families and kids who think their parents don't love them and vice versa. It's crazy how they fuck with them. Mentally and sadly physically with beatings that they think they deserve. The beatings alarmed me. But each story you hear that is a part of it. One mother couldn't take it anymore and run away with only the clothes on her back. Her son was a teen and she hasn't seen him since. She stayed for as long as she could because she knew she would never be allowed to see her son. Her son would be told she is a repressive person and evil and not to deal with her. And sure enough, after the last beating she left and it all happened as she thought it would. She is still being harassed. What the hell is the point of that? After 10+ years why not just leave them alone? You call this a religion? The punishment stories would make your hair curl and you wouldn't believe they can do this legally.

She and this man are taking a lot of this to a lawyer to see how this can continue being tax-free as well as some other things.
I would love to see them stripped of their religious status so all this money they take from their followers is not tax-free. That is their goal meeting with this lawyer from what I have seen thus far. This is not a religion. A religion one would hope teaches good things.  Kindness, exclusivity, faith, hope and hopefully all things one learned in kindergarten to treat others the way you wish to be treated. They would not beat or mentally hurt their followers. A real religion if they felt you needed to leave, would ask you to leave. Period.

The show has been far worse of a situation than I even thought. Watching those 2 (Leah and the man, who's name I can't remember) drive to a former Scientology "escapee" and be followed, run off the road etc. The stories from those interviews are gut wrenching and horrific. If I did any of those things I'd be in jail. But they just say Leah is a loser, bitter and a horrible person who needs help and she's doing this for money. They must know she doesn't really need the money, jokes on them.

I grew up a very strict Catholic and I rebelled. Even as much as I disliked the church never in a million years could I fathom the Pope trying to hurt me in any way. (there is a joke in there about me not being male, but we'll skip that today)
Today I do not belong to an organized religion. A lot of that Catholic upbringing is there and rears it's ugly head but it never hurt me. (not counting nuns who would hit my knuckles with a ruler) That is the enormous difference here.

I know the series can get a bit tedious at times but it is so very eye opening and worth watching. I think they did a great job. They also had on this week a man in Britain who did a documentary in the 80's who has been constantly harassed and who has feared for his life etc. He sat at a table across from Leah and told her how she told him the same robotic things she is hearing. They even showed her tape from the documentary speaking with him. She apologizes for a great deal in this series of what her part was. She can't believe she bought this bullshit either. She apologized to him as well.

And that brings me back to how someone can be so mentally weak to fall for this. Could you? Would you? Who knows, right? While we all like to think we are stronger than that I am certain if that were the case there wouldn't be so many that are blind to this harmful cult.
If you are so inclined to watch a couple of those episodes will it make you think this is crazy to be called anything more than what it is, a cult?