Tell me about Scientology.

[LostInAnomie]

I know very little about it besides the fact that a few celebrities are members. What are it's beliefs? Why do people say it's a cult?

Help me!

[norml]

1. Xenu Lives!

http://www.xenu.net Operation Clambake present:
What is Scientology?

Norsk introduksjon
tilgjengelig her.



In the late 1940s, pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard declared:
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion"
Reader's Digest reprint, May 1980, p.1
Hubbard later created the Church of Scientology...




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on a text by ex-Scientologist Roland Rashleigh-Berry. Roland wrote: "This is my personal opinion. I grant permission to anyone to reproduce this material. This description has been tailored to people who have never been Scientologists and seek a simple and short explanation as to what it is and why it is surrounded by controversy."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



In a Nutshell

The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends.
It was started in the 1950s by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in fulfilment to his declared aim to start a religion to make money. It is an offshoot to a method of psychotherapy he concocted from various sources which he named "Dianetics". Dianetics is a form of regression therapy. It was then further expanded to appear more like a religion in order to enjoy tax benefits. He called it "Scientology".

Scientology is a confused concoction of crackpot, dangerously applied psychotherapy, oversimplified, idiotic and inapplicable rules and ideas and science-fiction drivel that is presented to its members (at the "advanced" levels) as profound spiritual truth.


The Harm it Does to a Person
The results of applying their crackpot psychotherapy (called "auditing") is to weaken the mind. The mind goes from a rational state to an irrational one as the delusional contents of the subconscious mind are brought to the surface and are assumed to be valid. It also makes a person more susceptible to suggestion since it submerges the critical thinking faculties of the mind into a partial subconscious state. It results in a permanent light hypnotic trance and so from thenceforth that person can be more easily controlled. The person will, to a much greater extent, believe and do whatever they are told. And of course this is used to the full in persuading them to hand over further money and dedicating themselves further to the cult.
The results of applying their oversimplified and inapplicable rules in life is to lose the ability to think rationally and logically. A person loses the ability to think for themselves and so they lose the ability to challenge incorrect ideas. This makes them easier to control. It also isolates and alienates the person from society so that they withdraw from normal society and into their "Scientology" society. This further increases their susceptibility to the influence of their group. They end up being afraid of society, believing all society to be controlled by a group of drug companies, psychiatrists and financiers all of whom report to more remote masters. In other words they are in a state of mass paranoia. They therefore avoid reading newspapers and the like since they fear it will disturb their safe Scientology world. It is a downward spiral into madness.

The science fiction content of Scientology is revealed to them after they have reached the state they call "Clear", meaning freed from the aberrations of the mind. However, perhaps "brainwashed" would be a more applicable word to describe the mental state of someone who has survived the near entire delusional contents of their subconscious mind brought to the surface and presented to them as "truth". On the "advanced" levels (called OT levels) above the state of "Clear" they encounter the story of Xenu. Xenu was supposed to have gathered up all the overpopulation in this sector of the galaxy, brought them to Earth and then exterminated them using hydrogen bombs. The souls of these murdered people are then supposed to infest the body of everyone. They are called "body thetans". On the advanced levels of Scientology a person "audits out" these body thetans telepathically by getting them to re-experience their being exterminated by hydrogen bombs. So people on these levels assume all their bad thoughts and faulty memories are due to these body thetans infesting every part of their body and influencing them mentally. Many Scientologists go raving mad at this point if they have not done so already.

The "Ethics" Trap
On the surface the Church of Scientology seems reasonable. The insane content of it is only revealed to a person when the early stuff has done its work and made them more susceptible. After a short while a person "believes" that Scientology is doing them good. They are then persuaded to help their new-found group further by donating money and/or working for the organisation for almost no money. Many people do exactly that.
"Ethics" is used to good effect to trap a person. A person’s natural tendency to do good is worked upon. Yes - they want to be more ethical, but what is ethical? This is where a clever trick is pulled! "Ethics" is redefined by Scientology in such a way that to be ethical is to be a better Scientologist and obey the "church". Young people, not yet made cynical through the machinations of life and politics, are very keen to contribute to the world and to be ethical. So the "ethics" trick works easily into persuading them to join the "church". Many of them join an elite group called the "Sea Org" where they become brainwashed slaves. There they work a hundred hour week for almost no pay. There they are subject to every cruel whim of their masters. It is a living hell that they endure because of the conditioning they have received and this now perverted sense of ethics that they have accepted. The "Sea Org" is the ultimate in brainwashed slavery. They are expected to work harder and harder to achieve ever higher targets of production. If they fail to meet their targets there are various penalties. One of them is to be put onto a diet of beans and rice and to miss sleep. Another is to be sentenced to a period on the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force). This is the equivalent to "hard labour". Such is the extent of their brainwashing that they actually write "success stories" when they complete their sentences.

snip

[MissBrooks]

40. Wow...

Is that why the stars that practice Scientology are so successful?

John Travolta?

Tom Cruise?

Sonny Bono was a member as well as Chick Corea.


I live by the motto - live and let live.

Is Scientology more of a cult that Kabbala?

[Enraged_Ape]

43. Kabala, last time I checked, doesn't have a "Fair Game" policy...

against its critics, whereby they are encouraged to sue the shit out of anyone who reveals their "trade secrets" in exposing their scam. (And how many religions do you know of that have "trade secrets"? I can name only one.)

May the needle on your E-Meter(tm) never waver, and may the great alien tyrant Xenu(tm) have mercy on your Thetan(tm) soul.

[Lex]

2. It's a science-fiction based religion.

.
L. Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, founded it.

And apparently you have to take classes to be enlightened--and pay big bucks for the classes in order be a good Scientologist.

Kind of like Amway, but for religion.

They treat their religion like a trade secret, like the formula to Coca-Cola.

[Merlot]

3. I thought amway was a religion

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. It's seems to me to be mostly a kind of psychotherapy...

dianetics, they call it. An "auditor" straps you to a sort of "lie detector" ( maybe we should make membership a prerequisite for public office)and you talk about past experiences... sort of free association style. When the machine goes bonkers it means you've come accross an "engram", i.e. a an area of repressed trauma that needs to be brought to conciousness.

Part Freudian and part sci-fi. There's a lot of more bizarre stuff ( it was founded by Ron Hubbard, Sci-fi novelist) but that part is less interesting to me... not to mention incomprehensible... not to mention dumb.

The therapy probably helps some folks. The organization has been known to engage in authoritarian tactics when challenged from within and from without.

[laheina]

11. Authoritarian tactics such as

slipping, what my friend called, a "scino nanny" onto followers computers. The heads of the "church" are very anti-internet.

After his parents installed some software that the "church" passed out onto their family computer, my friend was amazed to find out that any web page that had his name, or preferred moniker, on it would not load. Such pages would produce messages that the page was forbidden-- like he was trying to peek at porn.

The reason that the software wouldn't allow any page with his name to load was that he was very outspoken against the church. He often posted in anti-scientologist forums online. Interesting.

[kodi]

5. i'm sorry, you'll have to pay me first.

that's it. all of it. hubbard was conman

[NNadir]

37. LOL. Right on!

[FM Arouet666]

6. Not terribly intelligent

The whole "religion" is based on a mixture of pseudo-science and fantasy from the mind the cretinous L. (ludicrous) Ron Hubbard. Your first reply from Norml gives an excellent link, he beat me too it.x( Stay away, and be afraid, very afraid. :evilgrin:

A few more pages with info from my bookmarks. enjoy...

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/
http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/celebrities_con.html?FACTNet
http://www.rickross.com/sg_alpha.html

[Dirk39]

7. Religion is a meal ...

Science is Science...
And Scientology is a "Hamburger".
The "Big Mac" among faked religions.

Scientology is the american version of religion: take away history, take away tradition, add a lot of criminal intentions and violence and "buisness", still add a bit of those silicon and plastic versions of personal freedom and liberation of the sixties, and you get Scientology.
It's simply a criminal organisation.
I just have to add a personal experience: one of the best friends of my first girlfriend became a member of scientology and I did meet her about a year or two years later, and she had become a robot.

Nothing of her personality was left. Nothing.
I hate Germany for one million things, but declaring Scientology a criminal and illegal organisation that is plain profit oriented and not a "religion", isn't among them.
Amen in Germany,
Dirk

[LibDemAlways]

8. They value celebrities for their $$,

and they will go to great lengths to coerce people into joining. Years ago I worked with a woman whose husband was a character actor. You'd recognize his face. Anyhow, he had shown an interest, and she subsequently was invited aboard a Scientology-owned yacht for a weekend where she was basically held captive. The woman was so frightened she jumped into the polluted waters of LA Harbor in the middle of the night and swam to safety.

Anti-scientology websites document some of their more bizarre "beliefs." How they get celebs to buy into this nonsense is beyond me.

[Lexingtonian]

9. beware of your Body Thetans!

okay, that's an inside joke...

Scientology is basically this: it's a massive, fairly complicated, set of psychotherapeutic and psychomanipulative stuff. The founder was a midling schizophrenic and Scientology is his method of curing the disease. The method 'clears' the human body of 'body thetans' and then a second kind hidden in the brain (well, invisible at the first pass over the body, but discovered there at a second pass). Scientology intends to 'clear' the whole planet. (It's literally the inmates running the insane asylum...and franchising it out.)

The Church of Scientology is about the nastiest corporation- uses and abuses all the privilege given the status of corporations and churches simulatneously- you may ever encounter. It's a classical abusive cult group, it's an awesomely corrupt and profitable enterprise for the leadership, it's professional at civil harassment and litigation and cooking up criminal complaints against its critics. It has about 30,000 actual paying members, maybe about 12,000 active for the Church at any given time. It's a $50 million/year outfit willing to spend every dime of that destroying its critics.

Its critics spent ~5 years in a nasty set of lawsuits. Most of it revolved around copyright violations of semi-obscure advanced initiate teaching materials, which were secret but posted on the Internet. It's pretty complicated and full of people who seem to have or develop multiple personality syndrome. The Usenet group alt.religion.scientology was the major public arena for it all, and there's still a lot of detritus from that war there. Don't get involved with any of it, or at very least use pseudonyms.

[claudiajean]

10. Engrams. If you have them, you need Scientology.

Do you have engrams?

Yes. Everyone does.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. Yes, it is a cult

I don't know a great deal about it, but avoid it, and its celebrity members, like the plague. A friend of mine, who I thought was very intelligent, moved to California and joined up with this group. He became obsessed with making money for them, which is, apparently, what they demand. And he hanged himself at 26. End of story. This is not a good organization.:grr:

[AntiFascist]

13. I had a friend once....

who happened to be gay. He converted to Scientology overnight. Apparently they can use their auditing techniques to "cure" homosexuality. He kept calling me, trying to get me to join. Very creepy!

[Rhiannon12866]

14. That is totally creepy, but these "folks" will do anything

How did he make out, anyway, with his "cure?" :shrug:

I just can't see how any intelligent person would get involved with such a thing, let alone, my friend.;(

[AntiFascist]

16. Yeah, it was really sad at the time....

but I hadn't known him that long and eventually lost touch with him so I don't know how it turned out. I was hoping he could be deprogrammed, but he was way too into it.

On edit: (I hate to say this, but some people in LA, even if they're intelligent, seem to be susceptible to these sorts of things)

[UdoKier]

18. Why would you want to "cure" homosexuality?

What a strange thing to do. Same-sex and opposite sex relations are just two different items on the menu. I favor trying everything at least once.

Better to cure society's irrational hangups about gay sex than try to cure gay people.

[Dark]

28. Because it's very different being gay.

I can't count the number of times I had begged for God to fix me, or told myself that I wasn't gay, just going through a phase.

Eventually, I just realized that I was, and that I'd much rather accept it and live happily than hide it and be a repressed self-hating homophobe. So, that's what happened. Would I turn straight if I had the choice? Of course, but I didn't have a choice, so I'm stuck being gay.

If it had been my choice, I wouldn't have made it.

[UdoKier]

39. That's sad that you think being gay is something you're "stuck with"

Growing up, I was not raised with religion, and didn't have any hang-ups about sex other than shyness and social issues. I enjoyed exploring sex with both genders, and I'm glad I was able to do so without pointless guilt. It allowed me to be certain of who I am - a bisexual who is quite content to be monogamous and faithful to my wife. I was able to "sow my gay oats" at a young age, I enjoyed it very much and don't feel deprived because I made the choice to marry the woman I love. (there are some things I would not do with men, and I did not feel the same kind of love towards men, so that influenced my decision)

So, in a sense, I did have that choice. But I don't regret having explored that aspect of my sexuality. I wish everybody felt free enough to do so. I imagine there are a lot of straight people who'd find they are not so straight, and some gay people who would discover the charms of the opposite sex without feeling like it was something they "had to do".

If either of my sons told me they were gay, I'd be totally fine with it. My only advice would be not not box themselves in with labels, and to try everything before writing off all relations with one gender simply because society tells them they have to.

Anyway, I hope at some point you will he truly happy with being gay, instead of buying society's BS message that it's sinful or wrong. I don't think homosexuality is always a choice, but for those of us who can get a charge out of both genders, I happen to think either choice is a good and decent one. (I'm not a big believer in fluttering back and forth all one's life between genders - monogamy is a much better idea in this era of std's...)

[everythingsxen]

15. I used to live in Florida

Specifically in the Clearwater area. That's Scientologist HQ.

Cult? Religion?

Army is more like it.

1. They wear uniforms. They march down the street recruiting people.
2. They kidnap people. There have been plenty of documented cases of people held against their will, only to later "decide" they wanted to stay. Frequently the news outlets were paid of to silence inquiries.
3. They are very dangerous.

I will relate to you two stories that are personal to me and show the danger of Scientology.

I once met a girl on the bus. A cute girl, the kind who looked to me like the type who would be way out of my league. She asked if she could stay at my house. I asked her why. She said her parents were Scientologists, that she didn't want to be a Scientologist, but that they were shipping her off "to be helped". (This was frequently done at a hotel on Clearwater beach. It's easy to spot -- it's the little run down motel surrounded by eight foot high fences with concertina wire at the top. You will see a lot of people who don't want to be there clawing at the fence, prisoners in a city full of cops; the massive signs that say "Scientologist parking only" are a dead giveaway too.) She pleaded with me to let her stay. I said I would have to talk to my parents and we exchanged numbers. When I called later to tell her it was ok, someone other than her answered. I asked if I could talk to her and the speaker said that she was being evaluated and that she was getting the help she needed. I called again, every day. Finally I got in touch with her and she wanted to see me. She was wearing the little Scientologist uniform and had a blank, emotionless stare. She spoke with no emotion in her voice and told me that I didn't need to check on her, she was fine, she saw now that she was wrong to resist the help her parents and Scientology were offering. Then she asked me to go with her and join them. I politely declined and ran away at high speed.

Story 2

I got a job working at a Scientologist owned herbal medicine store. Nice enough people and they paid well. All I had to do was data entry and sell as much of their crap as I could.

One little catch.

I had to "taste test" every batch of "health" items they brewed up. I examined the ingredients and found that one of the main items was Wormwood Oil. For those who don't know, Wormwood Oil has hallucinogenic properties in addition to causes susceptibility to suggestion. And they had strategically placed speakers all over, piping out "soothing, harmless white noise".

As soon as I heard that, I was out of there.

So, in closing, let me just say --- stay away from Scientologists!

[RadicalMom]

17. They are very brownshirtish...

I had a friend many years ago who went to work for a small typesetting firm owned by a Scientologist and former heroin addict (there were a lot of those in the organization). After he left another company to work for these people, and soon after he started working with them, they brought him a huge Scientology manual,which they told him was a company policy manual which he was required to read. He was also supposed to sign it at the end of every chapter, or he wouldn't be allowed to work for them any more. He kept stalling them, and then telling them he wouldn't read it, while he tried to look for work. He was fired because he refused to comply. I know he could have sued them for wrongful termination, but he was truly afraid they would hurt him.

[tjdee]

23. Wormwood used to be in absinthe, indeed.

[Flammable Materials]

19. I tried Dianetics once ...

Worked for a while.

Then I gained all the weight back.

*rimshot*

[name not needed]

20. Basically, it's a cult

read up

http://www.xenu.net/

[Swamp Rat]

21. It's a scam.

Fraud on a large scale, nothing more.

[blondeatlast]

22. The "church" leadership are mean SOBs.

I work in the Collection Development section of the library and they routinely offer us "donations" of their materials.

We are overwhelmed with their stuff, have no more real estate for it, but they demand we PAY them if we don't put it on the shelves, and they refuse to allow us to sell the items in our "Friends of the Library" store to raise funds.

Since they are unsolicited, they fall under postal regulaions, but they try to intimidate us into giving them more real estate than they deserve (they could almost trump our Judaica section--it's that bad)or that we pay them.

[gmoney]

30. Can't you send it back or throw it out?

I guess that would explain all the Tim LaHaye crap at my local public library.

[blondeatlast]

31. We have as much obligation to carry LaHaye as we do any other

popular novelist. Censorship works from both ends, you know. And he has been popular, whether I'm happy about it or not (I'm decidedly not).

As I say, these are mean, nasty SOBs, we just refuse to engage them. More than that I will not say.

[gmoney]

33. well, I was referring to the overwhelming amount of stuff

I guess it's like all the crap the record labels dumped onto public libraries... forty copies of five year old Whitney Houston singles and junk like that as part of their price-gouging settlement. Pure white elephant crap...

[blondeatlast]

35. Oh--don't get me started on that one. Is that getting reported?

I wonder how you heard about that? We got 25,000CDs--NOT $25000 worth--25000 CDs. Virtually all of it useless.

It was sheer crap, a great deal of it cut-outs (which they were NOT supposed to send). Three hundred copies of Entertainment Weekly's "Super '70s" and the like. Over 2000 compilations of 70s and 80s stuff-useless as hell.

I know it's been on library boards and listserves, I didn't know it had gotten beyond the library community.

[gmoney]

36. Yeah, I read it here and there about six months ago...

Might have been the local paper. The libary was obliged to process all these donations, which included labeling, cataloging, etc it was costing libraries huge sums to deal with worthless product.

Ah, the major labels... always doing well by doing good. :/

[blondeatlast]

44. We are just finishing ours (low priority).

Hopefully our Friends of the Library can help us recoup what it cost us in personnel time.

It was a hideous waste.

[tjdee]

24. Poor Tom Cruise--seems the bosses have decided it's time for payback.

Tom actually said something to the effect of being proud to be a Scientologist...at a major awards ceremony.

The bosses have probably decided that it's Tom's turn to do a Battlefield Earth type epic.

:scared:

[Dark]

29. How could anybody have ever agreed to make that into a movie?

Even Bush could have written a better screenplay.

[sarcasmo]

25. Any system of religious beliefs is a cult.

Main Entry: cult
Pronunciation: 'k<
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate —more at WHEEL
Date: 1617
1 : formal religious veneration : WORSHIP
2 : a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents

By definition, any religious group is a cult.



Ignore your freedoms, they will go away.

[jdots]

26. I can't believe anyone would buy into it

the E meter is 4 bucks worth of parts,the dianetics book people start with is based on 30's positve thinking dreck.How there are so many intellegent people involved in it is a mystery.
Over the years i have lost friends to it and kicking junk cold turkey is easier than getting out of the scientology.
Makes for some good reading if you can get a book called " Mad man or Messiah " the auther was killed and the publisher was burned. I see a trend forming that they are attempting to join the human race.I don't want to tell you some of the celebs that are into to it because it is scary.The celebs are treated totally differently than the poor souls that live in the barracks,most of them know nothing about how evil it is for a non celeb.
If you are approached by them run fast the other way.

[tjdee]

38. Tell me right now!

I simply must now.
I only know Tom Cruise and John Travolta (and his wife?).

There's more? That's unfortunate. But, I think the celebs have to pay their dues too--I mean, as I mentioned before, John Travolta had to be in Battlefield Earth.

[hickman1937]

47. Kristy Alley

That woman who played Mary Ellen on The Waltons.
Pricilla Presley and her daughter.

[radwriter0555]

27. Got cult?

Here, donate all your worldly goods while you're at it!!

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. Anyone know how to get off their mailing list?

My son has been getting junk mail from them since he was about 15.

[johnnie]

34. Here is their "Leader"

[NNadir]

41. Is that Tom Cruise out of costume?

[lateo]

42. Pure quackery.

Almost as bad as Xianity.

[JohnLocke]

45. Some readings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_about_Scientology

[crispini]

46. Any religion that makes you pay a f*ckload of money

to find out the "truth" should be suspected. Most real religions and paths will give away their truth.

[matcom]

48. no different than any other cult

they ALL want your $$ "in the name of the lord"