To be honest I am not even sure when this particular trend started, and if anyone does know, I’d be happy to hear from them. But I do know that it began on the David Miscavige watch, and certainly was not anywhere on the radar screen when Scientology was still SCIENTOLOGY under LRH. By my reckoning this started sometime around 1987 or 1988 when DM was on his power push after taking out Pat and Annie Broeker – during a time when he had to shut up any opposition by labeling people as “criminal” or “disaffected”. In other words, the Scientology internal equivalent of an SP declare was to be so labeled because then you were a black sheep – no one wanted to touch you or post you – you were disarmed and no threat to the man himself or his plans. I know – I was one of those people. When I spoke up – I was so labeled. When I spoke up again – I was RPF’d as a criminal. When I still refused to be quiet I was denied other rights – including marginalized and low posts in spite of having “graduated” the RPF. The label of “criminal” or “disaffected” never disappeared. It couldn’t be as-ised because it was a lie.

If you were in the Sea Org, as I was, you may well have experienced the travesty of being told that you were a “criminal”. Oddly, when I grew up, a criminal was someone who violated the law – theft, mayhem, murder and such things. In the 21 years of my life before I came into the Sea Org I never once committed a criminal act, never had the inclination to do it – period. When I signed that billion year contract and dedicated my life to freeing mankind and the perpetuation of Scientology for the long haul – it never occurred to me that someone would come along one day and tell me that I was a criminal.

Now, realize, and honestly I am not even vaguely being dramatic about it, to label almost any Sea Org member as a criminal you would have to redefine the term in diametrically opposed terms, because if there is an oxymoron going around it is attempting to put the terms Sea Org member and criminal in the same basket. It is an impossible task to accomplish. It is like putting GOOD and BAD in the same category – or LOVE and HATE. Sea Org members are possibly the most dedicated people anywhere in terms of salvaging this sector. There is no group like them. In spite of the current fall-out of the organization you cannot possibly equate them with anything bad. This is not to say that they haven’t derailed in the last decade or two – but aside from the organizational fall-out – SO members are second to none.

In my 31 years in the Sea Org, I met one or two people in the Sea Org that I might have labeled as criminal – maybe – out of THOUSANDS of Sea Org members. I can certainly name ONE of them now and he's at the TOP. Generally speaking  - the term is so inappropriate and so diametrically opposed to the genre that it is ridiculous, in fact, suppressive that the DM camp has resorted to using it to debase the status of Sea Org members.

In truth ANYONE who signs on for a billion year contract CANNOT be a criminal. Please – logic dictates that it is an impossible combination. Are we to assume that Sea Org members, working 24/7, dedicating their life to the movement without luxury, could possibly go criminal – HOW? By possibly not doing enough – whatever that means? By possibly neglecting an area of their post because they were so overworked on the other five hats? By failing to meet the expectations of some whip-snapper above who thinks that you should do more?

Come on! Who are they kidding? And that is the point – it was a trick.

If you were like me, you worked your heart out, gave your all, sacrificed any luxuries and money, and lived in a small room with your wife, smaller possibly than the room you had as a kid when you grew up. How is that criminal? How – by any stretch of the imagination could people join an organization with a pure heart, and then along the way, be accused of being criminal – dragged through perverse Committees of Evidence, black PR smear campaigns, illegal and suppressive “sec checking” and sent to the RPF or reduced to menial work – and labeled “criminal”.

If this happened to you or someone you know, tell them the truth. They are NOT, were NOT and never have been a criminal anywhere along the way in their Sea Org tenure. I am not saying that Sea Org members are pure and without their share of faults - they are human and they are people.

The concept of calling an SO member a "criminal" is dynamically opposed to what Sea Org members do - day in and day out. Ask any former Sea Org member – “tell me, when did you have time to do something criminal or out-ethics”. On which 26th hour of which eighth day of your week did you slip out of the mold and do something that was morally and principally offensive to the forward motion of Scientology that you deserved that label? Watch their face. If they answer you sensibly I’d be surprised. If they get teary eyed or go into a rage – that would be an honest reaction - because the very idea of being so labeled was degrading, humiliating and offensive to them and their purpose as beings. It ais and was suppressive - which tells you something about the administration that used it and popularized its use - the David Miscavige camp.

I am quite sure that if LRH himself discovered that David Miscavige had allowed this treatment to become popular in the Sea Org, he would have acted to have the man quartered and drawn publicly. If there is one thing I observed LRH do at all times was to care for Sea Org members and staff. He respected them, he trusted them and he protected them. He did not label people as “criminal” because that is a charge that is utterly unsustainable – it acts against the very moral fiber and principles of the Sea Org. It violates the essence of the commitment that we all made when we signed on. If Sea Org members can be so labeled then there is no group on this earth that can save it or the universe in the end.

Again – I’m putting this out there for every former SO member, or person who was told they were “disaffected”, “criminal” or otherwise. It won’t as-is for you – ever – because it was NEVER true to start with.

If you came into Scientology, onto staff or into the Sea Org with a good heart, then it was good to the end and STILL is – and the rest of it is a pile of lies and belongs in the garbage bin. Don’t even give it a second thought. Don’t try to as-is it. Goodness cannot disappear. But you can certainly buy into the idea that you are bad. Why do you think we’re sitting in bodies now? Playing a small game? It was a buy-in – so don’t give this other stuff a second thought.

People are good. They don’t go bad by joining staff or the Sea Org and all this yak about “ex-SO” and the allusion that they are “bad” or “out-ethics” or “criminal” – well my friends that is all coming out of one person’s mouth and is being resonated by people who are either in the same camp or have been duped by him over the years.

Just because Hitler said that every Jew was bad didn’t make it true. In fact, the ONLY bad one in the lot was Hitler himself – but a lot of people bought into his program and a lot of GOOD people died.
Assume your true beingness.

Be as big and beautiful and great as you ARE and get on with life.
One day the true criminal will only have one person to call criminal and that will be the guy staring back at him in the mirror.

Written by Outside the Box