What do Scientologists believe?

[Bruised_Reed]

Are these people in their right mind? How could anyone believe such fantastic dribble?
Worst, they seem normal. If they believe this crazy story, you could sell them anything.

The really “out there” stuff is not what they lead with. I took a personality test and was invited to do an audit. The emphasis was self-improvement, over-coming weaknesses and faults. They don’t talk about Xenu, etc.

They are in their right mind. The Church of Scientology just isn’t upfront about what they teach, and its members fall for the classic bait and switch.

Exactly.

And none of them has ever heard of Google, apparently.

If If you google it the first thing that comes up is their own website, their Twitter, links to articles on celebrities that belong; nothing not the weird stuff, maybe a fewcontroversial articles but then celebrities again. Someone who is searching, especially if they are needy or vulnerable, looking for something to fix everything might not dig deeper. Thanks to Leah Remini the criticism is staying on the first page. She’s on a mission, and she’s a celebrity. Missing the latter her mission might not make the first page of Google. Say a prayer for Leah and her family. She’s a strong and brave woman but she needs prayers, especially for protection.

 

[drac16]

I don’t know much about it, but I know that they believe in reincarnation (although they don’t like to use the word ‘reincarnation’). It’s not like Hinduism’s reincarnation where you could reincarnate into a sewer rat or vice versa. Rather, it is a type of reincarnation in which humans reincarnate into other humans-- not into [or out of] animals.

 

[jimkhong]

From what I understand, the core of it is that a certain amount of time ago (before recorded history), an alien (named Xenu, I think) came to Earth and dumped a bunch of aliens that he’d gathered all around the universe into Earth’s volcanoes and killed them with nuclear weapons. The ghosts of these aliens became trapped on Earth as “ingrams” or some such nonsense, and that the “ingrams” are responsible for any bad things that happen to us. The goal of scientology is to purge your existence of ingrams by giving the church or scientology vast amounts of money. The “church” then hooks you up to a machine that checks you for ingrams, and charges you more money to teach you how to purge yourself. After you spend some time purging yourself, you pay more money to get checked again, and so on and so forth, until you’ve purged enough ingrams to become an “operating Thetan”. You then pay more money to get into the higher levels of the church, where you are rewarded with the right to pay more money to do super secret Thetan stuff. It was created by science fiction writer and pathological liar/con man L. Ron Hubbard, whom scientologists claim is still alive.

I have a brother-in-law who explored scientology in the Phoenix area in the early 2000s. He’s now literally insane and institutionalized.

At which point do you get promoted to the level when you start charging people and getting back your investment? I mean someone other than Ron Hubbard has to be running it today. He did he/she got to that level?

 

[ajcstr]

From what I understand, the core of it is that a certain amount of time ago (before recorded history), an alien (named Xenu, I think) came to Earth and dumped a bunch of aliens that he’d gathered all around the universe into Earth’s volcanoes and killed them with nuclear weapons. The ghosts of these aliens became trapped on Earth as “ingrams” or some such nonsense, and that the “ingrams” are responsible for any bad things that happen to us.

I would be curious to know what percentage of active Scientologists believe this.

The goal of scientology is to purge your existence of ingrams by giving the church or scientology vast amounts of money. The “church” then hooks you up to a machine that checks you for ingrams, and charges you more money to teach you how to purge yourself. After you spend some time purging yourself, you pay more money to get checked again, and so on and so forth, until you’ve purged enough ingrams to become an “operating Thetan”. You then pay more money to get into the higher levels of the church, where you are rewarded with the right to pay more money to do super secret Thetan stuff. It was created by science fiction writer and pathological liar/con man L. Ron Hubbard, whom scientologists claim is still alive.

This I think is more the attraction from a self-improvement point of view. I am still skeptical that most in the organization believe the alien origins, but I do think they believe they are clearing themselves of something negative.

 

[Peter_J]

Are these people in their right mind? How could anyone believe such fantastic dribble?
Worst, they seem normal. If they believe this crazy story, you could sell them anything.

No great surprise then that there are so few of them. Cf eg.

In 2001, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reported that there were 55,000 adults in the United States who consider themselves Scientologists.[157] A 2008 survey of American religious affiliations by the US Census Bureau estimated there to be 25,000 Americans identifying as Scientologists.[158][159]
-Wikipedia

 

[PatrickKen]

From what I understand, the core of it is that a certain amount of time ago (before recorded history), an alien (named Xenu, I think) came to Earth and dumped a bunch of aliens that he’d gathered all around the universe into Earth’s volcanoes and killed them with nuclear weapons. The ghosts of these aliens became trapped on Earth as “ingrams” or some such nonsense, and that the “ingrams” are responsible for any bad things that happen to us. The goal of scientology is to purge your existence of ingrams by giving the church or scientology vast amounts of money. The “church” then hooks you up to a machine that checks you for ingrams, and charges you more money to teach you how to purge yourself. After you spend some time purging yourself, you pay more money to get checked again, and so on and so forth, until you’ve purged enough ingrams to become an “operating Thetan”. You then pay more money to get into the higher levels of the church, where you are rewarded with the right to pay more money to do super secret Thetan stuff. It was created by science fiction writer and pathological liar/con man L. Ron Hubbard, whom scientologists claim is still alive.

I have a brother-in-law who explored scientology in the Phoenix area in the early 2000s. He’s now literally insane and institutionalized.

Ha ha ha ha. That is literally the best laugh I have had all day (with the added benefit of being concise and true)

 

[SyroMalankara]

The reason many celebs get into it, is that it’s an ego-driven you-can-be-master-of-the-world name it and claim it thing. The celeb version of prosperity gospel, without the Jesus “baggage”

 

[Faith1960]

My prof had no clue…I think he was a bit jealous… But it seems the celebs flocked to it!

I was reading some message board that Leah Remini participates in and either Leah or somebody else in the know said that when you see the actual number of members, there really aren’t that many celebrities involved in comparison to the whole.

 

[Faith1960]

For tax purposes

From all the documentaries I have watched over the years, I don’t think the majority of the members view it as a religion.

I guess the premise that a person is attaining higher levels of the mind could be considered religious but I don’t think they have a concept of a deity, but I guess that’s not a requirement for a religion.

HBO did a pretty good documentary called “Going Clear”. If you subscribe to HBO, I’m sure you can find it.

I’m reading, and nearly finished with a book called, “Beyond Belief: My Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape”, by David Miscavige’s niece, Jenna Miscavige Hill.
Next up is “Going Clear” by Lawrence Wright.

 

[anon90438963]

Leah Remini has a TV documentary–it seems to be a series–on scientology. She’s doing all she can to expose and discredit it. If you read her book, you’ll never see Tom Cruise the same again. He remains their biggest “catch.” His former wives (both of whom are Catholic I believe) escaped.

 

[Pat_Payne]

I was reading some message board that Leah Remini participates in and either Leah or somebody else in the know said that when you see the actual number of members, there really aren’t that many celebrities involved in comparison to the whole.

That does not surprise me at all: If you have both Tom Cruise of Hollywood, USA and Joe Jones of Odgenburg, NY in your organization, which one are you gonna trumpet to get more recruits?