Blog: Mental Manipulation - 2010-06-05
Mental Manipulation June 5, 2010,
After I left the Church of Scientology, the question that people asked most often was "Why did you put up with it?" People would hear stories of the abuse, the degradation, the sleep deprivation, the slave-level wages, the control, and wonder why anyone would put up with it.
Recent stories about abusive "reg cycles," blatant extortion, threats, invasions of people's privacy, family disconnections and so on prompt the same question: Why do people put up with such insanity? Why did we put up with it?
It was a question that plagued me for years after I left Scientology. I consider myself an intelligent person, a rational person. I don't consider that I am easily pushed around or manipulated. So why had I gone along with such insanity? Why had I agreed to be treated that way? And that prompted my own study of the subject of what we might call "mental manipulation."