Scientology information

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Playing off the "ask an ‘insert religion / denomination here’ - I thought we could maybe get a thread together about Scientology.

If anyone has been in it / knows someone in it / knows anything about it, shoot away.

This may not get a lot of traction as it’s obviously not Christian and I think more sci-fi.

I really don’t know anything about it other than it pulls in Hollywood.

Do they go after anyone, or is the focus strictly on those with the cash?

Any information will be good to have in one place here.

Take care,
 
Scientologists believe there was intergalactic alien called Xenu 75 million years ago. Xenu was in charge of 76 planets and 26 stars including Earth which was then known as ‘Teegeeack.’ All the planets were ‘over populated,’ with about 178 billion people per planet. Xenu with the help of psychiatrists called billions of people for ‘income tax inspections’ but people instead were given injections of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The people were unconscious and taken on ‘space plans,’ which could travel 300 light years in 9 weeks

They flew to Earth and the unconscious people were put in to the bases of volcanoes. H bombs were put into the volcanoes, and were detonated. The ‘thetans,’ think refers to souls, of the people that were killed, blew around and captured by an ‘electronic ribbon’ and put in ‘vacuums zones’ across Earth where the hundreds of billions of thetans were taken to cinemas to watch for 36 days ‘three-D, super colossal motion picture,’ where thetans were given data on world religions

Some thetans went into the bodies of people that survived the volcano explosion, which are known as ‘body thetans’ which scientologists believe can be removed by doing certain tasks
 
_Abyssinia said:
Scientologists believe there was intergalactic alien called Xenu 75 million years ago. Xenu was in charge of 76 planets and 26 stars including Earth which was then known as ‘Teegeeack.’ All the planets were ‘over populated,’ with about 178 billion people per planet. Xenu with the help of psychiatrists called billions of people for ‘income tax inspections’ but people instead were given injections of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The people were unconscious and taken on ‘space plans,’ which could travel 300 light years in 9 weeks

They flew to Earth and the unconscious people were put in to the bases of volcanoes. H bombs were put into the volcanoes, and were detonated. The ‘thetans,’ think refers to souls, of the people that were killed, blew around and captured by an ‘electronic ribbon’ and put in ‘vacuums zones’ across Earth where the hundreds of billions of thetans were taken to cinemas to watch for 36 days ‘three-D, super colossal motion picture,’ where thetans were given data on world religions

Some thetans went into the bodies of people that survived the volcano explosion, which are known as ‘body thetans’ which scientologists believe can be removed by doing certain tasks
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Whoa.

Do you believe all that? lol. 😛
 
_Abyssinia said:
Scientologists believe there was intergalactic alien called Xenu 75 million years ago. Xenu was in charge of 76 planets and 26 stars including Earth which was then known as ‘Teegeeack.’ All the planets were ‘over populated,’ with about 178 billion people per planet. Xenu with the help of psychiatrists called billions of people for ‘income tax inspections’ but people instead were given injections of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The people were unconscious and taken on ‘space plans,’ which could travel 300 light years in 9 weeks

They flew to Earth and the unconscious people were put in to the bases of volcanoes. H bombs were put into the volcanoes, and were detonated. The ‘thetans,’ think refers to souls, of the people that were killed, blew around and captured by an ‘electronic ribbon’ and put in ‘vacuums zones’ across Earth where the hundreds of billions of thetans were taken to cinemas to watch for 36 days ‘three-D, super colossal motion picture,’ where thetans were given data on world religions

Some thetans went into the bodies of people that survived the volcano explosion, which are known as ‘body thetans’ which scientologists believe can be removed by doing certain tasks
Click to expand...
And you don’t actually learn that until you’ve gotten to a high level in their religion. Of course by the time you’re on that level, you’re ready to believe whatever they say. Though, you can get there by paying them a lot of money.

The reason info like that came out about Scientology was that some people who did get to that level posted it up on Wikipedia. Scientology tried to get the info out of the public, but they couldn’t.

If you’ve seen that episode about it on South Park, I hear that the silly description they gave it was actually accurate. Their religion’s founder got his start as a science fiction writer, came up with that story, and a religion came from it that insisted the story is real.

I read that one of the methods they used to get followers was to offer a special test that you could take online or at their center, but to get an interpretation, they need to meet you at their center. When they do, they invariably tell you that you have serious psychological issues and you need their services. There was a girl who got duped into that and ended up being kidnapped by them. When they found her body, it even had roach bites on it.

Their leader supposedly has serious personality issues, like an insane temper, according to a defector.

Here in Hawaii, their center was located just next door to our Catholic Cathedral, right next to a college, among other things. The Scientology center closed and now the Cathedral occupies the building as a parish center. Christianity dominates over paganism once again…
 
The best show I watched regarding this false religion was South Park!
 
I thought Scientologists didn’t believe in psychiatrists/psychologists and the field?
 
PazzoGrande said:
The Scientology center closed and now the Cathedral occupies the building as a parish center. Christianity dominates over paganism once again…
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Calling Scientology “pagan” is an insult to paganism 😛 It doesn’t even rise to that dubious level. Neo-pagan leaders may not have the truth of the Catholic faith, but at least they’re (I assume) sincere in their convictions. Hubbard? pfft. It was a money-making scheme from A to Z. The whole reason (as far as I remember) Lafayette Ron Hubbard founded the “religion” was that he had been marketing his “e-meters” as a therapeutic device to go along with his sham “Dianetics” self-help book. The government was about to shut him down for quackery, but he figured out that religous objects were exempt from relevant regulations. Hence Scientology.

Oh, and those spaceships? He explicitly described them as looking like DC-8 jetliners without engines.
 
cheezey said:
I thought Scientologists didn’t believe in psychiatrists/psychologists and the field?
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Notice that the psychiatrists in their mythos were complicit in mass murder. They’re like the devils of Scientology.
 
Have any of you guys actually tried going to their center and taking that test they offer?

I wanted to do it online out of curiosity, but like I wrote earlier, they make you go in to get their interpretation and I seriously wasn’t interested in wasting that kind of time, however curious I might be. After that online test, they did try to get my address and phone number, but I just gave phony info because I don’t want their junk mail getting mixed with my mail from monasteries and stuff.

I am curious though, how exactly does that sort of thing go.

They do try their hand in the rehab business. They opened one center up somewhere in my state. When they had their opening, even our then-Lieutenant Governor attended, there are pictures of him with John Travolta. Our Lieutenant Governor is a Catholic, his son is even the head of the Youth Office in our Diocese. Of course, he didn’t know that the rehab center was just an arm for this cult. Just goes to show the kind of pull their organisation can have, what with the star power, money and influence they have.

I hear that their rehab centers, which they have spread throughout the country, are shams under investigation for things like abuse and fraud.

ffg I’m happy you brought this topic up. There’s something fascinating about it, all the politics and deception and weirdness that goes on with this bizarre “religion.”
 
Scientology was started by a science fiction writer, starting with that its hard to take seriously. Having Said that I was curious about it two years ago.
 
PazzoGrande said:
Have any of you guys actually tried going to their center and taking that test they offer?

I wanted to do it online out of curiosity, but like I wrote earlier, they make you go in to get their interpretation and I seriously wasn’t interested in wasting that kind of time, however curious I might be. After that online test, they did try to get my address and phone number, but I just gave phony info because I don’t want their junk mail getting mixed with my mail from monasteries and stuff.

I am curious though, how exactly does that sort of thing go.

They do try their hand in the rehab business. They opened one center up somewhere in my state. When they had their opening, even our then-Lieutenant Governor attended, there are pictures of him with John Travolta. Our Lieutenant Governor is a Catholic, his son is even the head of the Youth Office in our Diocese. Of course, he didn’t know that the rehab center was just an arm for this cult. Just goes to show the kind of pull their organisation can have, what with the star power, money and influence they have.

I hear that their rehab centers, which they have spread throughout the country, are shams under investigation for things like abuse and fraud.

ffg I’m happy you brought this topic up. There’s something fascinating about it, all the politics and deception and weirdness that goes on with this bizarre “religion.”
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Have you seen their video “Inside a Church of Scientology”? If you’ve never been inside one of their “orgs”, this gives you a look: youtube.com/watch?v=ALVUus22NVc

Yes, I did the personality test, and I have quite a bit of experience with Scientology. I wrote a research paper on it awhile ago in undergrad (I studied psychology), and I’ve been writing about my experience there elsewhere. I’ve even been contacted recently by a journalist that has written extensively on Scientology to share my experiences.

So anyway, here is what will happen:

You do the personality test, either online, or at the church. They go through it (yes, you’ll have to go in to get the results), and it is guaranteed that there will be something wrong with you. Naturally, Scientology can help you with that, and you need this help desperately, immediately. They may try to get you to buy a book, like Dianetics, watch a video about Dianetics and/or Scientology, and most likely get you to sign up for a “service” (essentially courses, seminars, etc). Comparatively speaking, the intro services are relatively cheap. You could do a Personal Efficiency seminar for $50 (this will teach you how to better manage work, which is a large portion of our lives), for example.

Scientologists will try to “hard sell” you. If you say you don’t want to do it, they’ll keep trying to “help” you see why what they’re offering is really needed, how it’ll help you so much, and that people that have done it have had amazing “wins”, or improvements. They won’t hold you prisoner, but they will really try to convince you to sign up for these services.

So, if you’re really curious, go ahead and do the personality test, print out the thing at the end, and go in to your local Scientology church. I predict it’ll be exactly as I described, no matter what answers you gave for the test. However, if you aren’t strong-willed, I don’t recommend this.
 
ffg said:
Playing off the "ask an ‘insert religion / denomination here’ - I thought we could maybe get a thread together about Scientology.

If anyone has been in it / knows someone in it / knows anything about it, shoot away.

This may not get a lot of traction as it’s obviously not Christian and I think more sci-fi.

I really don’t know anything about it other than it pulls in Hollywood.

Do they go after anyone, or is the focus strictly on those with the cash?

Any information will be good to have in one place here.

Take care,
Click to expand...
Naturally the main scientology.org website is great to learn about it from their own perspective. This website, xenu.net/, is also helpful for the opposing viewpoint.

They “go after” anyone. It doesn’t matter if you have money or not. Granted, money is very important in Scientology. All the services cost money, and the amount increases dramatically the higher up you go on the “Bridge”. You will constantly be asked to donate to things. In addition to services, they ask you to join the International Association of Scientologists, which costs money ($500 for annual membership, $5000 for lifetime membership, and then there are “statuses” you can have in the IAS, which cost even more money), books and lectures cost money, you’ll be asked to donate to help fund buildings, etc etc. If you don’t have money but still want to participate (or even if you have money for that matter), they’ll try to recruit you to join “staff”, to work for the local organization. This is essentially a full time job, where you aren’t paid anything near a living wage (most on staff have a “real” job in addition so they can support themselves). In exchange, you get free services. So, they recruit anyone.
 
LivingWaters7 said:
Naturally the main scientology.org website is great to learn about it from their own perspective. This website, xenu.net/, is also helpful for the opposing viewpoint.

They “go after” anyone. It doesn’t matter if you have money or not. Granted, money is very important in Scientology. All the services cost money, and the amount increases dramatically the higher up you go on the “Bridge”. You will constantly be asked to donate to things. In addition to services, they ask you to join the International Association of Scientologists, which costs money ($500 for annual membership, $5000 for lifetime membership, and then there are “statuses” you can have in the IAS, which cost even more money), books and lectures cost money, you’ll be asked to donate to help fund buildings, etc etc. If you don’t have money but still want to participate (or even if you have money for that matter), they’ll try to recruit you to join “staff”, to work for the local organization. This is essentially a full time job, where you aren’t paid anything near a living wage (most on staff have a “real” job in addition so they can support themselves). In exchange, you get free services. So, they recruit anyone.
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Here’s what I didn’t get: why does anyone even go to work for this thing?

The people on staff don’t make any real money so it’s not a real job, and from what I saw it’s impossible for them to actually think their services are truly helpful – they must be going in with an agenda to convince people they absolutely need the services, so that must make them think that it is dishonest. How can you be passionate about something you know is dishonest and won’t make money out of?

It seems that if you’re smart, you won’t work for them. If you’re stupid, you could work for them but you wouldn’t do a good job of getting others to join. Seems like something like this would naturally implode.
 
PazzoGrande said:
Here’s what I didn’t get: why does anyone even go to work for this thing?

The people on staff don’t make any real money so it’s not a real job, and from what I saw it’s impossible for them to actually think their services are truly helpful – they must be going in with an agenda to convince people they absolutely need the services, so that must make them think that it is dishonest. How can you be passionate about something you know is dishonest and won’t make money out of?

It seems that if you’re smart, you won’t work for them. If you’re stupid, you could work for them but you wouldn’t do a good job of getting others to join. Seems like something like this would naturally implode.
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Pazzo, you make one fatal mistake in your argument…you use logic 😛

In all seriousness, some people do not use logic. Some people are incapable of formulating a logical argument. Some people are emotional. Some people are mentally disturbed. Some people would prefer to believe certain things because it allows them to do the things they want to do. Some people are indoctrinated into a religion. Some people are brainwashed at a certain point or throughout their life. Some people have experienced tragedy or mental anguish which causes their sense of reasoning to work differently. I guess my point is that “it takes all kinds.” Unfortunately, I don’t know if we will ever be able to determine why some people do some things and it certainly isn’t the same reason in all circumstances.

Lastly, I’ll add, look at the roster of Scientologists…some of them are incredibly intelligent people. Either through indoctrination or brainwashing, they now believe this. I will also say that I think some people are too afraid of what it might mean if they don’t maintain their belief and so they continue to maintain their “religion” despite the fact that logically they recognize it does not pass the test of reason.
 
Hey this was great.

Knowing the subject is based in Sci-fi, it is important to note Boulder’s information about people who don’t use reason when in search mode or in trouble mentally.

The thought of this thread stemmed from seeing an article about a Tom Cruise ex ‘girlfriend’. Where basically the ‘religion’ did all the recruitment and release of said ‘girlfiend’.
 
I occasionaly glance into Skeptic magazine to see what Shermer and the rest of the the hard-core gang are up to–and some months ago they had an article about Scientology (they also had an article “de-bunking” Christ’s resurrection as group hallucination–and to deal with the fact hallucinations are not contagious, they used the “examples” of Fatima and Lourdes to say yes they were–which just goes to show Skeptics can be just as irrationaly dogmatic a Christian Fundamentalists, only their starting propositions differ)

Anyway. per the article, they cited writer Harlan Ellison who claimed he was there when Scientology was “created”. This was in the very early 1950s at one of the first science fiction conventions. A fan at that point, Harlan witnessed Hubbard (who had already introduced Dianetics as the first self-improvement fad) complaining the IRS was on his case, and fellow writer L. Sprague de Camp casualy said “make it a religion and they can’t touch you” or words to that fact. A bunch of other writers in the Pro-suite joined in pitching in various ideas as a fun thought exercise never dreaming that Hubbard would develop into a incredibly abusive, manipulative, and financialy lucrative cult.
 
Unfortunately, there seems to be very little unbiased information about Scientology out there. What you do have are lots of books and websites that toe only the official Church of Scientology viewpoint and believe that Scientology will save the world, and you have lots of websites which exist only to denigrate Scientology and want to show that it is pure evil.
 
PazzoGrande said:
And you don’t actually learn that until you’ve gotten to a high level in their religion. Of course by the time you’re on that level, you’re ready to believe whatever they say. Though, you can get there by paying them a lot of money.
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Simliar to how the LDS church works, withholding information that they teach untill you’ve been there a while.
 
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