Scientology: Interview with Lawrence Woodcraft 1/4

Stacy Brooks sits down with Lawrence Woodcraft to discuss the Freewinds and his discovery of blue asbestos during some reparations. For far too many years Scientology upper management denied the harm that could come to their "parishners". Recently, The Freewinds was dry docked and sealed to allow authorities time to investigate the matter.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Stacy
• Brooks
• Lawrence
• Woodcraft
• Freewinds
• Blue
• Asbestos
• Xenu
• Xemu
• scientology
• Mark
• Bunker
• Bob
• Minton
• Astra
• Zoe

[nowgleaning]

@MisterKorihor Thanx for ur reply.Like I said,I don’t know much about the “Church”.Have read the odd snippets of info here & there,seen some vids(plus those ‘I’m a Mormon’ ads r everywhere)but must do some proper research.Curious but will try to refrain frm bombarding u with more questions,lol. Anyway, glad to hear u were able to open your eyes to the BS & at a young age;the younger the better! I hope one day every kid will b allowed the freedom to choose whether they want to b religious or not.

[MisterKorihor]

@nowgleaning PART 2: At age 13 my skeptical mind seemed to turn on. The doctrines of the church appeared arbitrary, complex, inconsistent, lacking in depth and explanation. I realized that this is exactly what you'd expect in a man-made organization that has been patched together and modified for over 150 years. Of course, I asked my church leaders questions, but they rarely gave me satisfactory answers. The conclusion was obvious to me, the Mormon church is as phony as reality TV :-)

[MisterKorihor]

@nowgleaning PART 1: I don't mind answering questions. I lost my belief in the Mormon church at age 13, but I didn't officially leave the church until I was older and independent from my parents. I also didn't broach the subject with my parents until my later high school years. My parents were strong Mormons and I was raised from the get-go as a Mormon. Soon after I lost my belief in the Mormon church I became agnostic. (continued in part 2)

[nowgleaning]

@MisterKorihor So, if you don’t mind my asking some nosy questions (obviously you don’t have to answer me if it’s too personal) - you’ve officially left the Mormon church? Were your parents Mormons? What prompted your loss of faith – was it just with the church or the religion in general? Just out of curiosity. I hope I’m not being too rude asking you all of this and apologize in advance if I am – no disrespect intended.

[nowgleaning]

@MisterKorihor I don’t know very much about the Mormons. I’ve a general idea of what their beliefs are but don’t actually know how the cult is operated, esp. in terms of brainwashing techniques. I know that Hubbard studied hypnosis & mind control quite extensively, then incorporated it into $cientology. The most obvious would be with the TR’s, auditing sessions, & loaded language. He did quite an excellent job. The minute I read about the TR’s, I knew what was up.

[MisterKorihor]

@nowgleaning I agree that it's possible to be intelligent and a cultist. There are clearly other factors involved (I think personality is an important factor as well). However, I strongly suspect cultists to average fairly low IQs. And I disagree with you regarding cult susceptibility. I think some people (not many) are just not susceptible to cultish brainwashing. As an example, I lost my belief in the Mormon church at age 13. It was completely on my own accord with no promptings from anyone.

[nowgleaning]

@MisterKorihor Our brains r incredibly flexible.I think people would b flattering themselves if they thought they were impervious to the brainwashing techniques that r out there.This is what i meant by- our brains r the same & it could happen to anyone.Again,speaking in very general terms here. People laugh at culties & their slavery as if that could never happen to them but they’re wrong. I feel very bad for people trapped in cults. They must know it’s not right but seem powerless to walk away.

[nowgleaning]

@MisterKorihor ...with very high intelligence. They can be found in cults too. Take, for example, the Aum Shinrikyo culties who perpetrated the Sarin attack in 95 - Yasuo Hayashi studied Artificial intelligence. Toyoda, Hirose, & Yokoyama all studied Physics, & Dr Ikuo Hayashi was a heart& artery specialist. In fact Aum, in general, was full of exceptionally intelligent people, physicians, lawyers, scientists. I really don’t think these people were lacking in brainpower, just sanity...

[nowgleaning]

@MisterKorihor I think we might b talking about different things here.I’m talking neuroscience,structure of the brain,&“Thought Control” not differences btwn individual intelligence,capacity or even religiosity. I specifically put a star on ‘basically’ b/c I’m being incredibly vague.Really, I had the prefrontal (& anterior cingulated) cortex in mind & what happens when it’s infiltrated & manipulated. The mechanisms in the PFC that guard us from exterior influence can b bypassed even in people...

[MisterKorihor]

@nowgleaning I'm sorry but our brains are NOT "basically the same". There is huge variability of function and capacity between one brain and another. Consider intelligence. You have imbeciles on one end of the spectrum and geniuses on the other. Furthermore, studies indicate that intelligent people are less religious (see Wikipedia article "Religiosity and intelligence"). I think an extrapolation to cults is not unreasonable.