What do Scientologists believe?

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adamhovey1988

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I have noticed there’s been a bit of conversation here lately about scientology so I am curious what scientologists actually believe since Beyond the personality tests and something to do with aliens I don’t know much about them.
 
adamhovey1988 said:
I have noticed there’s been a bit of conversation here lately about scientology so I am curious what scientologists actually believe since Beyond the personality tests and something to do with aliens I don’t know much about them.
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youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4-20wfzZs

I’m pretty sure that 3:00 - 5:00 is the most straight to the point that I’ve ever seen, even if you don’t like southpark.
 
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.
 
Brassring said:
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.
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Sounds like a pyramid scheme
 
The founder, L Ron Hubbard was a second rate (pulp fiction scifi) author (see series Battlefield Earth). His books became bestsellers when early scientologists would go into bookstores and buy them up. He was the first to admit he made the whole thing up…based on a mishmash of mysticism…when I was in the Navy, I met a professor at a school I attended who told us that story…he actually attended his funeral.
 
Brassring said:
From what I understand, the core of it is that a certain amount of time ago (before recorded history)
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Try “a time period even LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG before the calculated creation of the Universe in the Big Bang”
Brassring said:
, an alien (named Xenu, I think)
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Yep, Xenu the -]space monkey/-] “galactic emperor” (there’s a Mr. Palpatine right now getting his lawyers ready…)
Brassring said:
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.
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Slightly more complicated, and a heck of a lot more crazy.

Xenu (probably on the advice of his advisers, Bobo, Godo, Bogro and Chim-Chim :p), decided to deal with a intergalactic rebellion by having all the rebels come to the galactic capital on the pretense of tax audits(! I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), and with the help of psychiatrists (whom Hubbard thought of as devils) had the rebels frozen. They were then taken on starships that looked exactly like DC-8 jetliners to the planet Teegeack, which was Hubbardcrazyese for “primitive Earth” and were dumped into volcanoes as you said, and also as you said, nukes were dumped down the volcanoes to make the rebels deader than dead…

You know what? My head hurts. I need the sanity and clear writing and impeccable logic of “Manos”, or “Turkish Star Wars” or “Hudson Hawk”…
 
Crusaderbear said:
The founder, L Ron Hubbard was a second rate scifi author (see series Battlefield Earth). His books became bestsellers when early scientologists would go into bookstores and buy them up. He was the first to admit he made the whole thing up…when I was in the Navy, I met a professor at a school I attended who told us that story…
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I have to confess to having actually seen the Battlefield Earth movie in the movie theatre. I think that was back when the cheap movie theatre cost $0.99. I am curious why this seems to be associated with celebrities.
 
adamhovey1988 said:
I have to confess to having actually seen the Battlefield Earth movie in the movie theatre. I think that was back when the cheap movie theatre cost $0.99. I am curious why this seems to be associated with celebrities.
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My prof had no clue…I think he was a bit jealous…🙂 But it seems the celebs flocked to it!
 
Tsuzuki said:
The Church of Scientology deliberately courts celebrities and treats them better than other members so that they in turn can promote the church.
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And once “in”, celebrities in the church are often fond of assisting fellow members who are working their way up.
 
Crusaderbear said:
The founder, L Ron Hubbard was a second rate (pulp fiction scifi) author (see series Battlefield Earth). His books became bestsellers when early scientologists would go into bookstores and buy them up. He was the first to admit he made the whole thing up…based on a mishmash of mysticism…when I was in the Navy, I met a professor at a school I attended who told us that story…he actually attended his funeral.
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He was also a naval officer during WWII. He briefly commanded two small vessels, but was removed from command on each occasion (once for shelling territory belonging to Mexico, an ally!). The “church” of scientology swears that he was a decorated hero and “commander of corvette squadrons” (even though the U.S. Navy has never operated corvettes) in “all five theaters or operations”. They say the navy changed the record to discredit him.

The man had, let’s say, a problematic relationship with the truth. He also once said “Writing prose for a penny a word is insanity. If a man really wanted to get rich, he’d start a religion.” Scientologists don’t even dispute that he said that. They just claim it’s quoted “out of context.”
 
There’s a very good presentation from the Institute of Catholic Culture on the subject of Scientology, including some pretty shocking facts about Hubbard’s background (for instance his having been a quasi-Satanist). I’d link to it, but it now requires free registration, so I can’t link to it direct.

It’s on this page, though: instituteofcatholicculture.org/library/ . It’s from a series called “Kingdom of the Cults”.

CrusaderBear – I’ve always thought that the only reason that Hubbard founded Scientology (outside of being insane) was that he had less talent in his entire body than Ray Bradbury (God rest his soul) routinely shed when getting a haircut.
 
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.
 
Tsuzuki said:
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.
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And none of them has ever heard of Google, apparently.
 
I don’t think they believe anything from a theology point of view. Seems to be more of a self-help mechanism and an ideology for the people that get into it more than anything else.
 
ajcstr said:
I don’t think they believe anything from a theology point of view. Seems to be more of a self-help mechanism and an ideology for the people that get into it more than anything else.
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So how is it a religion?
 
adamhovey1988 said:
So how is it a religion?
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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.
 
ajcstr said:
For tax purposes
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That and the FDA, IIRC, was about to take a very close look at the alleged medical benefits of his E-Readers, a look that would have ended in his prosecution and likely conviction for quackery (as the E-Reader, from what I gather, is little better than a cut-rate version of a lie detector, technology that itself is dodgy even at the best of times). So he hastily founded “Scientology” to get both organizations off his back.
 
Tsuzuki said:
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.
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It does seem the ones who come out very publicly against the Church are some of their formerly higher placed members. Those that have gone well above “Clear” and delved into the portions of it such as the Xenu story and more direct contact with the higher level abuses the Church leader and leadership engage in. Former members such as David Miscavige’s own father, Mark Rathburn, Mike Rinder, and Leah Remini.
 
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