I thought yall might find this exchange interesting.
There was a story on the Huffington Post about a Scientologist who stormed out of an interview, and in the comments, someone said:
One of the first thing Scientology orders new members to do is write all their “transgressions,” i.e., sins, into how ever many notebooks it takes. Then they lock your reportage into a safe where it will be kept for all time. That’s when I said, “Uh, no, and I’ll be leaving.” You can bet that leverage is in the back of the minds of all dissenting members, especially celebrity members whose public personas could be destroyed by the leak of such information. Scientology is run by some truly rotten bastards.
Someone responded:
That’s what Jim Jones did as well in People’s Temple.
So, I said:
And it’s also the core of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Steps, starting with Step 4 (Fearless moral inventory).
And got my ass kicked. I didn’t respond, because I’m obviously not responding much lately:
Wrong. No one stores that to use against you. Completely different organizational structure.
And:
Yes, but in AA or other 12 step groups, you are not REQUIRED to turn it over to anyone, not even your sponsor. You can write it out and keep it or destroy it. It is the intent and the act of enumerating that is important. p.s. Love your icon; I miss Linda B.
Because I haven’t had the time to hassle — and I do love to hassle — and because I thought the off topic hassle might get scrubbed, I didn’t respond to these. But I thought it was pretty interesting that no one had my back there. Or, if they did, they were deleted.
