English language

How to pronounce freeloader in English?

Full Transcript

hi everyone welcome back to growing up
in Scientology
so I've done Q&A videos before but
usually they're really long maybe 30 45
60 minute videos where I try to cover as
many questions as possible and it
occurred to me recently that videos like
that don't have much future value
they're not easily searchable and
they're not convenient to watch so I
thought it would make sense to instead
start doing a whole bunch of just one
question one answer videos and try to
cover the questions that people tend to
ask the most on Facebook and the
supporters of Leah Remini group we have
about 17,000 people almost all of which
I've never been in Scientology and the
same questions tend to get asked over
and over and over again and that's to be
expected
that's partly what drove home to me that
the time that had previously been spent
answering these questions and videos in
the past had not been very well spent
because somebody is not going to go
through a 60 minute video just to dig
out the answer to one question
especially when the questions aren't
even indexed so the question we tackle
today is why do people pay their
freeloader debts so first let's talk
about what a freeloader debt is when a
Scientology staff member who's on a 2
and a half or a five-year contract or a
Sea Org member who's on a billion-year
contract when they decide to leave staff
before their contract is up or when they
decide to leave the Sea Org
ever they are given a bill by the Church
of Scientology for every course in
auditing action they did during the time
that they were working for the church
and it's called a freeloader bill
because the policy that l ron Hubbard
wrote about these bills says that
issuing people these bills was a
solution to a problem and the problem
was that people were joining staff just
to get free auditing and training and
then would leave staff without
fulfilling their contract I think this
was probably a straw man argument from
the very beginning I seriously
questioned how pervasive this problem
was when he wrote that policy regardless
of that these days you can join the Sea
Org work a hundred hours a week or more
get paid $50 a week if you're lucky you
could be in the serum for 30 years and
at the end of it if you said hey I won
leave you could end up getting a bill
for a hundred two hundred thousand
dollars and recently on the scientology
in the aftermath television show we've
heard from some people who told stories
of having paid these massive debts
I myself paid a $40,000 freeloader debt
when I left the C organization back in
2006 and people asked all the time why
do people pay these bills so here's the
answer the only reason any Scientologist
would pay a freeloader bill is because
they still intend on being a
Scientologist when someone leaves staff
or the Sea Org they are very rarely
doing so because they want to leave
Scientology most people that leave staff
for the Sea Org are still trying to stay
in Scientology but just as a public
Scientologist a public Scientologist is
someone who does not work for the church
and they do Scientology and pay for it
as they go they pay for auditing they
pay for courses so the way the Church of
Scientology enforces the free load of
real policy is they say you are not
allowed to do any Scientology auditing
or courses until you pay this bill and
that's how they enforce it
people will commonly ask how is this
debt legally enforceable it is not
legally enforceable
I don't believe Scientologists even
think it is legally enforceable I mean
I'll speak from personal experience when
I was in the Sea Org when I was on staff
when I was in Scientology there was no
part of me that believed these debts
were legally enforceable the force of
them comes from how much one wants to
continue doing Scientology you are
definitely treated like a second-class
citizen if you are an ex staff member or
an ex york member and you have not paid
your freeloader bill if someone does
happen to completely leave Scientology
and they have a freeloader bill they
have not paid scientology does not
pursue people through collections
agencies or through the courts to try to
get these bills paid it is an entirely
internal process as long as you are in
Scientology you will get phone calls you
will get letters enticing you to make
small payments towards your bill you can
even
negotiate the bill down in fact when I
said I paid $40,000 on my freeloader
bill that was actually a combined bill
between me and my wife and that was
negotiated down from well over $100,000
so in my case I left the Sea Org right
around the time when the church was
releasing these massive books and
lecture packages called at that time it
was called the basics and then after
that we had the congresses and the ACC's
and the church was having a really hard
time selling these things and so what
happened is I was contacted by somebody
in middle management Jain genj actually
Heber gentians wife and I was told that
there were Scientologists in Italy in
Germany who wanted to buy these packages
but didn't have the funds available to
them and if I would loan them the money
on my credit cards to get these packages
they would allow me to participate in a
limited time only deal to remove a whole
bunch of things from my free loader debt
so I loaned a total of about ten
thousand dollars to these two
Scientologists to buy these packages and
in return for doing so
was permitted to only give them forty
thousand dollars to settle my debt I
probably sound like a huge schmuck for
falling for that one but this is what
happens this is how Scientologists end
up paying this money because they really
really want to continue to be
Scientologists and they feel sort of a
relief that for just a certain amount of
money they can kind of put this whole
issue to rest and move on and just be
treated like a normal public and not
really be harassed about it so reason
that the church has been changing its
own policies on how they handle these
free loader debts because of things like
Scientology in the aftermath that has
really created general broad public
awareness about the abuses of
Scientology and also because of things
honestly like the aftermath Foundation
which was set up to provide financial
assistance and other means of support to
people who are leaving the Sea Org and
leaving Scientology the Church of
Scientology has been doing everything it
can to
and people from wanting to leave and one
of the things that it has changed
recently is handing out these massive
freeloader bills I've been contacted by
many people have left staff and left
this year recently and been told that
they were allowed to go without a
freeloader bill for various reasons so
one of the way Miscavige has justified
changing these policies and I say
justified because the policies aren't
supposed to change but whenever
Miscavige wants to change a policy all
he has to do is pull some reason out of
his ass how this was something LRH had
always intended and then he can
implement whatever policy change he
wants a normal staff member who just
works at an org or mission they can sign
a two and a half-year contract and do as
much auditing and training as is
possible in their allotted study time
and then after two and a half years they
fulfill their contract and they have no
debt somebody could sign a five-year
contract go into full-time training
full-time studying for five years do
hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
of training and auditing and then after
just being on post for five years
they've satisfied their contract and
they have no debt it doesn't make sense
to give Sea Org members these giant
freeloader debts when a class-five staff
member would be basically totally
squared up after five years or in some
cases two and a half years so for some
seared members they've just wiped
everything off of the free letter debt
that's older than five years or older
than two and a half years and then
further sometimes they have been going
through and just scratching everything
off the list that wasn't an actual
Scientology grade chart action like an
actual auditor training course or an
actual grade or OT level and you know a
grade is just like an official step up
the bridge as opposed to just some
random auditing you got to address
something that came up another example
so my first stretch on staff was from
1993 to 1998 and this was as a non sirak
member this was as a class five work
staff member at the philadelphia org and
when I left staff at that time in 1998 I
was 17 years old and I was given a bill
for a hundred and thirty
thousand dollars and at this time when I
left SAP I still considered myself a
Scientologist
but because I knew that I was going to
get her for this freeloader bill when I
left staff and because I decided to
leave staff anyway and because I knew I
was never gonna be able to pay off this
bill I considered that I had for all
intents and purposes been declared and
kicked out of Scientology even though
that wasn't literally the case and so
for two years from 1998 to right around
the year 2000 just before the year 2000
I moved to Los Angeles and just lived a
normal life having really nothing to do
with Scientology for almost two years I
didn't hang out with Scientologists I
didn't have friends who were
Scientologists I didn't go into a
Scientology organisation for almost two
years I didn't take any courses or do
any auditing or anything like that and
then it got to a point where I sort of
felt like I was kind of stuck I was kind
of stuck in life I still thought of
myself as a Scientologist but here I was
not able to do Scientology and not able
to pay this bill the pressure of this
freeloader bill actually caused me to
pack up all my things move back to
Philadelphia and finish the last two
years on my contract just so that I
could get rid of this bill and then
right just before my contract that
Philadelphia was expiring is when I then
got heavily recruited for the Sea Org
again and I was planning on just leaving
staff and moving back to Los Angeles and
you know my my debt was fulfilled my
contract was completed I was just gonna
live a normal life and then I got
heavily recruited to join the CIA and at
that time and I ended up joining the sea
org and going back to Los Angeles but as
a sea org member so these bills really
do have a lot of weight in the minds of
Scientologists and it is a pretty
effective way of controlling people who
leave and even this practice of greatly
reducing or eliminating the freeloader
debts is in its own way a tool of
manipulation because these staff members
steered members particularly expects to
receive a large fueler to debt when they
leave the Sea Org
so when Scientology goes and then all
but eliminated the debt these former CEO
members are now so grateful that they
are not being given tens to hundreds of
thousands of dollars in bills
that they will do almost anything in
return the position of the Sea Org isn't
we're not giving you this bill because
it was wrong the entire time the
position of the Sea Org is we are going
to be so generous and so kind and we
don't want this bill to be saddled
around your neck and prevent you from
moving up in the bridge so we're going
to throw this bill away and instead what
we want you to do is to donate to your
bridge see here's the thing people don't
like paying freeloader debts so they
will take years and years and years
normally to pay their freeloader debts
that's money Scientology isn't making
off of these people but Scientologists
believing what they believe very much do
usually want to pay for the bridge and
do the bridge it's almost like a
switcheroo instead of giving you a bill
and saying pay us for all the stuff
you've done in the past before we allow
you to join the thing more in the future
they throw the bill away and say do you
see what we've just done for you do you
see how much we've just helped you so
instead of paying all this money towards
this stuff you've done in the past what
you really should do for us is pay us a
bunch of money now for what you're going
to do in the future so someone got wise
and realized it's easier to get for
mercy org members to pay for auditing
they're gonna do in the future than it
is to get former senior members to pay
for all the auditing and courses they've
done in the past again this is probably
a net positive change but this is one of
those things where it looks like it's
some great change that's been done to
benefit the individuals involved when
really it's a change that has been
implemented which makes it easier for
Scientology to make more money which
really is the main reason behind most of
the changes that get made in Scientology
so I hope that answers the question
about freeloader debts I'm just gonna
stick to one question one answer
hopefully doing it that way will make
these Q&A videos more helpful moving
forward that's all for now guys talk to
you soon bye
[Music]
if you wanna just my videos then you
could kick it glass or not
[Music]

hi everyone welcome back to growing up

Toggle Transcript

freeloader::noun | Spocien Dictionary

freeloader

noun

/'fri,loʊdər/

someone who takes advantage of the generosity of others

Type	Words
Type of	borrower
Derivation	freeload

How to pronounce freeloader in English?

freeloader::noun | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

Related

Subscribe to our Newslatter