Ann O'Nymous

As a consequence of the recent drama on Enturb, the notion of victim of the cult was revisited and questioned extensively.

At the beginning, there was some sort of consensus about the fact that members were victims of a manipulative system and should not be targeted personally. Ex-members were very welcome and some of them told their story and received a lot of moral support. The ladies at ExScientologyKids.org were almost heroes and their site often seen as a consequence of the Anonymous movement.

The recent events put a different light on a couple of ex-members and the whole category became suspicious. They could not be trusted anymore and their story not be taken at face value. Furthermore, they became collectively the potential authors of wrongdoing while in the cult. People began to expect them to apologize for what they might have done and to contact the authorities to confess it.

In short, cult victims became very quickly potential cult criminals.Time will tell if this type of generalization was useful or not. It is public knowledge that some of the most visible ex-members were high-ranking members in scientology. For instance, Robert Vaughn Young was an international spokesman[1] and Larry Brennan was in charge of the new structure design after David Miscavige took over the power[2]. There are other cases.

As high ranking officers, they might have been prosecuted – and to the best of my knowledge they were not – but as whistleblowers they were and are a vital source of information about what happens at the top of scientology.Putting these people in the corner might lead them and newer ex-members to be more reluctant to tell their story and the anti-scientology movement – Anonymous included – to be deprived of information that could be useful.

It remains to be seen if the same will happen about the present members. Up to now, they were largely left alone, with the exception of OSA people, handlers sent out to bullbait the protestors and private eyes. Those are identified and exposed for security purposes.

If the shift seen with the ex-members is extended to the present ones, this could lead to a form of radicalization on both sides. The “last dungeon” syndrome within the cult would be reinforced – if this is possible – and “blowing” (leaving scientology) even more difficult.