Z
Zooey
Guest
Kelly H.:
According to the wikipedia entry on him, he started out to be a Franciscan priest.
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W
wiki7
Guest
Kelly H.:
Wiki7 All I can say is that I’ve done the research on Hubbard’s “Church” Pro and Con. He took advantage of medicine’s lack of sophistication in mental heath pre-1980’s; as well as western ignorance of eastern religion. He combined this with science fiction to create a"new religion" and Mega-Business! With his Intelligence angency he declaired war on psychyatry and fled the U.S. shortly after the Kennedy administration went after him. The “Church’s” web site is full of lies about his “exploits”. You can find out the truth in a book called “Bare Faced Messia”.
I
iwonder
Guest
On the contrary, making fun is truly the only effective way of getting through to the new Scientologist. Anything that even smacks of suggesting validity to it’s teachings is eagerly grabbed onto and reinforces the pathological adherence. I’ve seen people come away from scientology after being enraged at the person poking fun at it.
Seeds get planted. They don’t grow immediately, but all it takes is one seed of doubt and the presto- ex scientologist.
Unfortunately- the more money they invest, the less likely they are to leave. Thye are unable to face the loss of so much in such a poor investment.
B
briand
Guest
It is a business, rather lucrative at that. So it is a success.
Z
Zooey
Guest
My grandmother used to tell me, “It’s better to laugh than to cry”. As much as my heart breaks for these people who are caught up by this horrible confusion, I agree that making fun of it is the only way to deal with it…
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
I do not know if this site was linked but even if it has been it is so good that it deserves another link.
Go to Operation Clambake, The Fight Against The Church Of Scientology On The Net
The greatest thing is that they have a list of books. Scroll down to the Book Shelf. They are all online (so far all the I have looked at) and some of them are downloadable.
Great resource.
Go to Operation Clambake, The Fight Against The Church Of Scientology On The Net
The greatest thing is that they have a list of books. Scroll down to the Book Shelf. They are all online (so far all the I have looked at) and some of them are downloadable.
Great resource.
K
kp1
Guest
Kelly H.:
It is sad but his sister (who incidentally works for Paramont Pictures, I think in script reviews as of my last update to the school alum handbook) has also left the faith and the two are working on their very orthodox mother who seems to still be standing strong.
As for Katie Holmes, the poor girl is so star struck infatuated that she can not see straight. I heard that she was quoted as having a Top Gun poster in her room as a teen and dreaming of marrying him someday. So, if it means she can continue her infatuation, she is probably willing to give it a try. I feel sorry for her when she realizes she has been following her teenage crush and not true love.
Thomas Mapother (aka Tom Cruise) attended St Raphel grade school and two years of St Xavier High School in Louisville, KY. (His sister, graduated from Assumption Hight School, my Alma Matre.) Tom moved to either Indiana or Illinois (I can’t remeber which one) to attend an acting school for the remainder of his high school years. I do not know much beyond this other than he did think of seminary but acting won over. I think I remember his first encounter with scientology was sometime early in his career around Top Gun, he was seeking some detox and scientology has some sort of purging program for celebrities.
It is sad but his sister (who incidentally works for Paramont Pictures, I think in script reviews as of my last update to the school alum handbook) has also left the faith and the two are working on their very orthodox mother who seems to still be standing strong.
As for Katie Holmes, the poor girl is so star struck infatuated that she can not see straight. I heard that she was quoted as having a Top Gun poster in her room as a teen and dreaming of marrying him someday. So, if it means she can continue her infatuation, she is probably willing to give it a try. I feel sorry for her when she realizes she has been following her teenage crush and not true love.
B
Blanka
Guest
There has been mention in several posts that people spend all their money (even to the point of having no money left) on Scientology. What is it that they are spending the money on and who are they giving it to? 
Z
Zooey
Guest
Every single thing that you get from Scientology has a price on it. You have to pay (hefty prices, too!), for every “class” you attend, for every test they give you. And then, there is the buying of books…not just your personal copy of the LRon Hubbard books, but you have to buy them over & over. They are then able to inflate the # of people who are buying them.
They charge you for being:whacky: “clear”, for being an :bowdown: “overthetan”…yeah, goofy meaningless titles to us, but to them, the way to spiritual growth. There is a constant selling of new & “higher” states of “spirituality”. Nobody gets to be anything in scientology w/o paying for it!! Making money is the
name of the game!
They charge you for being:whacky: “clear”, for being an :bowdown: “overthetan”…yeah, goofy meaningless titles to us, but to them, the way to spiritual growth. There is a constant selling of new & “higher” states of “spirituality”. Nobody gets to be anything in scientology w/o paying for it!! Making money is the
name of the game!
B
Blanka
Guest
Wow…I had no idea! :bigyikes:Every single thing that you get from Scientology has a price on it. You have to pay (hefty prices, too!), for every “class” you attend, for every test they give you. And then, there is the buying of books…not just your personal copy of the LRon Hubbard books, but you have to buy them over & over. They are then able to inflate the # of people who are buying them.
They charge you for being:whacky: “clear”, for being an :bowdown: “overthetan”…yeah, goofy meaningless titles to us, but to them, the way to spiritual growth. There is a constant selling of new & “higher” states of “spirituality”. Nobody gets to be anything in scientology w/o paying for it!! Making money is the
Thanks for the info. Luckily for us Catholics, we can be “absolved” and all we have to pay is the penance given by the priest.
Better to be absolved and receive the Eucharist at mass than to be an “overthetan!”
M
masondoggy
Guest
I can’t believe people fall for this baloney!Every single thing that you get from Scientology has a price on it. You have to pay (hefty prices, too!), for every “class” you attend, for every test they give you. And then, there is the buying of books…not just your personal copy of the LRon Hubbard books, but you have to buy them over & over. They are then able to inflate the # of people who are buying them.
They charge you for being:whacky: “clear”, for being an :bowdown: “overthetan”…yeah, goofy meaningless titles to us, but to them, the way to spiritual growth. There is a constant selling of new & “higher” states of “spirituality”. Nobody gets to be anything in scientology w/o paying for it!! Making money is the
D
Deus_Vult
Guest
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050627/scoop_cruise_hmed.hmedium.jpg
''Matt, Matt, you don’t even – you’re glib. You don’t even know what Ritalin is."
(Tom Cruise on the Today Show with Matt Lauer)
:whacky:
That Tom he really cracks me up…now he is an authority on medicine…maybe he gets messages from his home planet.
''Matt, Matt, you don’t even – you’re glib. You don’t even know what Ritalin is."
(Tom Cruise on the Today Show with Matt Lauer)
:whacky:
That Tom he really cracks me up…now he is an authority on medicine…maybe he gets messages from his home planet.
I
irena
Guest
Hello Everybody! I am a Catholic who used to date a Scientologist. This was 5 years ago. When we first started dating, I didn’t know he was a Scientologist. It became a real nightmare when I saw someone I cared about very much caught in such an awful trap. But, he also tried to get me into joining Scientology, which I just wouldn’t do. Instead, I read alot of books about how to save someone from a cult, and also information on the internet. As already mentioned, www.xenu.net is a really good site. So is www.lermanet.com. Even though I have gotten on with my life after this awful experience, and I thank God for helping me grow in faith, I still wish more people knew about cult mind-control tactics. So many of my ex-boyfriend’s Scientology friends were former Catholics!
My ex-boyfriend tried to get me to join by telling me how much Scientology helped him. He credited it for making everything in his life better. He told me I would have “fun”. Everything about Scientology was “fun”. He made it seem like a harmless thing. On the flip side, he also tried to make me feel bad about certain situations in my life. I have an alcoholic father, I was rather depressed and it was hard to make friends since I isolated myself. He tried to point these things out in order to see how I “needed” Scientology. From what I have read on the internet, this is a common way for Scientology to get people in. They find out what is not working in your life (for example: you can’t find a good job, or your relationship is going downhill) and then they tell you how you need to take a communication course. This is the first step in. Just learn how to communicate, everything will be better! Or, so they say…
In trying to get me to see how “fun” Scientology was, my ex-boyfriend did tell me about some of these basic courses. In Scientology, he told me, they break things down to the lowest level and then build gradually. He said, the first step of communicating is “being there”. You have to learn to “be there”. THis is done by sitting for a long time and not blinking. If you blink yoru eyes, you are told “flunk” and you have to start over. From what I have read on the internet and books to get people out of cults, sitting for a long time without blinking puts you into a trance-like state where your critical mind stops working and you start blindly accepting information you are being given. So, as you are practicing “being there” you also are in a very vulnerable state. There is more information out on the internet about other Scientology practices, but I just wanted to share one I heard about first hand from a Scientologist.
ANother thing I witnessed firsthand was “loaded language”. In cults, they have you start talking in a new way, or they re-define commonly used words in a new way. The idea is to cement the cult identity, and also to cut you off from the outside world. If you no longer feel comfortable communicating in your “old” way, it’s harder to leave your cult group. My ex-boyfriend tried to use Scientology-speak with me, but I wouldn’t go along with it. He tried to teach me these new words and word-definitions, but I just played dumb. An example, love is redefined as “wanting to share the same space” with someone. So, if you no longer want to be around non-Scientology family members, it’s not that you don’t love them in the traditional sense, you just don’t want to share the same space with them, so you don’t love them, in the Scientology sense. There are alot more words they use that don’t make sense to non-Scientologists. I think that is why Tom Cruise comes off as not being able to communicate very well. (Which is rather sad, because he probably paid alot of money to learn how to communicate in Scientology and the end result is he can’t communicate!)
Also, I saw first hand how everything comes down to money. According to my ex-boyfriend, if you are working the Scientology technology, you will be able to do just about anything. And, they chart how well you are doing by how much money you are pulling in and giving to them. They keep statistics on this, I think they think this is scientific if you have graphs and charts. But, all the Scientologists I met were deeply in debt with bad credit. Yet, they thought they were so much better than non-Scientologists because they knew the answer to man’s salvation (Scientology).
This is what really makes me angry: I read in People magazine an article about Katie Holmes where spokespeople for Scientology said you can be Christian and be Scientologists. THis is such a lie! This is just to make you not be afraid to go and try their courses. Once you get in, the mind-control tactics are used progressively until you really believe that the psychiatrists are trying to make everyone crazy, and you are soul trapped in your body and can’t leave until you go through Scientology auditing. This is their answer to man’s salvation.
My ex-boyfriend tried to get me to join by telling me how much Scientology helped him. He credited it for making everything in his life better. He told me I would have “fun”. Everything about Scientology was “fun”. He made it seem like a harmless thing. On the flip side, he also tried to make me feel bad about certain situations in my life. I have an alcoholic father, I was rather depressed and it was hard to make friends since I isolated myself. He tried to point these things out in order to see how I “needed” Scientology. From what I have read on the internet, this is a common way for Scientology to get people in. They find out what is not working in your life (for example: you can’t find a good job, or your relationship is going downhill) and then they tell you how you need to take a communication course. This is the first step in. Just learn how to communicate, everything will be better! Or, so they say…
In trying to get me to see how “fun” Scientology was, my ex-boyfriend did tell me about some of these basic courses. In Scientology, he told me, they break things down to the lowest level and then build gradually. He said, the first step of communicating is “being there”. You have to learn to “be there”. THis is done by sitting for a long time and not blinking. If you blink yoru eyes, you are told “flunk” and you have to start over. From what I have read on the internet and books to get people out of cults, sitting for a long time without blinking puts you into a trance-like state where your critical mind stops working and you start blindly accepting information you are being given. So, as you are practicing “being there” you also are in a very vulnerable state. There is more information out on the internet about other Scientology practices, but I just wanted to share one I heard about first hand from a Scientologist.
ANother thing I witnessed firsthand was “loaded language”. In cults, they have you start talking in a new way, or they re-define commonly used words in a new way. The idea is to cement the cult identity, and also to cut you off from the outside world. If you no longer feel comfortable communicating in your “old” way, it’s harder to leave your cult group. My ex-boyfriend tried to use Scientology-speak with me, but I wouldn’t go along with it. He tried to teach me these new words and word-definitions, but I just played dumb. An example, love is redefined as “wanting to share the same space” with someone. So, if you no longer want to be around non-Scientology family members, it’s not that you don’t love them in the traditional sense, you just don’t want to share the same space with them, so you don’t love them, in the Scientology sense. There are alot more words they use that don’t make sense to non-Scientologists. I think that is why Tom Cruise comes off as not being able to communicate very well. (Which is rather sad, because he probably paid alot of money to learn how to communicate in Scientology and the end result is he can’t communicate!)
Also, I saw first hand how everything comes down to money. According to my ex-boyfriend, if you are working the Scientology technology, you will be able to do just about anything. And, they chart how well you are doing by how much money you are pulling in and giving to them. They keep statistics on this, I think they think this is scientific if you have graphs and charts. But, all the Scientologists I met were deeply in debt with bad credit. Yet, they thought they were so much better than non-Scientologists because they knew the answer to man’s salvation (Scientology).
This is what really makes me angry: I read in People magazine an article about Katie Holmes where spokespeople for Scientology said you can be Christian and be Scientologists. THis is such a lie! This is just to make you not be afraid to go and try their courses. Once you get in, the mind-control tactics are used progressively until you really believe that the psychiatrists are trying to make everyone crazy, and you are soul trapped in your body and can’t leave until you go through Scientology auditing. This is their answer to man’s salvation.
I
irena
Guest
I really don’t think Scientology can be understood without learning about cult mind control techniques. I read “Combatting Cult Mind Control” by Steven Hassan, and I thought it was very enlightening.
Here is another good site:
www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/scs.html#toc
The above site describes the “training routines” in Scientology and how they get control over people’s minds. I really recommend it for anyone wanting to understand why people believe such bizarre stuff. They are really victims,not stupid or gullible. It’s from www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ , the site of a Carnegie Mellon Computer Science professor who is fighting Scientology. (If you scroll to the bottom of the page past all the Computer Science stuff, he has more links on Scientology.)
Thanks!
Here is another good site:
www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/scs.html#toc
The above site describes the “training routines” in Scientology and how they get control over people’s minds. I really recommend it for anyone wanting to understand why people believe such bizarre stuff. They are really victims,not stupid or gullible. It’s from www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ , the site of a Carnegie Mellon Computer Science professor who is fighting Scientology. (If you scroll to the bottom of the page past all the Computer Science stuff, he has more links on Scientology.)
Thanks!
I
irena
Guest
Here’s the link that describes the Training Routines of
Scientology:
www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/critique.html
(And, these people have to pay for this!!!)
Scientology:
www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/critique.html
(And, these people have to pay for this!!!)
L
Lilyofthevalley
Guest
So Xenu is the reason my life is so messed up??? Do I need to be “audited”?
F
Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
Only if you have the cash or are willing to go deep in debt.
L
Lilyofthevalley
Guest
Byz I suppose I am not even loaded enough to get swindled by a cult. That’s okay!
T
Thetan
Guest
The Church of Scientology is not a cult.
You don’t need to be filthy rich to be a Scientologist. I am a typical poor college student, yet I manage to practice at the Church of Scientology-Washington,DC. I don’t use credit cards, take out loans, etc. to practice. I have been a Scientologist for almost 6 years now, and I have not experienced anything that is cult-like, or anything that is “expensive”. You pay what you can and for what services you want in Scientology. No one is forcing you to go to the OT levels, especially OT VIII. If money ever becomes a problem, you can do co-auditing, or train to be an auditor.
Xenu is ALWAYS invoked by anti-Scientologists as proof that Scientologists are deluded,that it is one of the core beliefs, etc. The Xenu story, if it is true(seeing as how I’m not an OT III so I don’t know if it is), is NOT a central part of Scientology, nor does it affect the everyday thinking of most Scientologists. Most Scientologists aren’t even at that level, and it is clear that there is a wealth of information that Scientology teaches that has nothing to do with Xenu. It would make more sense to actually attain the state of Operating Thetan III than to listen to an anti-Scientology website.
Scientology has been a very important part of my life, and I have experienced the effects of practicing it. It is not “make believe” or a cult. Many if not most of the anti-Scientology sites simply repeat the same garbage over and over, while many of the authors clearly haven’t actually been to a Scientology Church, done auditing, etc. Yet they all pretend to be experts. I find this very similar to listening to anti-Catholic websites to find out what Catholics “really” believe. So Catholics worship Mary, pray to a cracker God, the former Pope John Paul II prayed to statues of Mary, etc. Former Catholics tell stories of how they were told to worship Mary and the saints. They were taught that all non-Catholics would be damned to Hell, etc. If you’re actually a Catholic, you can refute these claims. This is similar to the situation with Scientology. Many people claim to be experts in Scientology, Islam, Catholicism, etc., when clearly they have no actual knowledge on the subject(even though they were Catholic/Muslim/Scientologist for years…lol) besides repeating the same propoganda found on other sites.
So if you want to know what Scientology is, visit actual Scientology websites. Not anti-Scientology websites.
scientology.org
whatisscientology.org
dianetics.org
You don’t need to be filthy rich to be a Scientologist. I am a typical poor college student, yet I manage to practice at the Church of Scientology-Washington,DC. I don’t use credit cards, take out loans, etc. to practice. I have been a Scientologist for almost 6 years now, and I have not experienced anything that is cult-like, or anything that is “expensive”. You pay what you can and for what services you want in Scientology. No one is forcing you to go to the OT levels, especially OT VIII. If money ever becomes a problem, you can do co-auditing, or train to be an auditor.
Xenu is ALWAYS invoked by anti-Scientologists as proof that Scientologists are deluded,that it is one of the core beliefs, etc. The Xenu story, if it is true(seeing as how I’m not an OT III so I don’t know if it is), is NOT a central part of Scientology, nor does it affect the everyday thinking of most Scientologists. Most Scientologists aren’t even at that level, and it is clear that there is a wealth of information that Scientology teaches that has nothing to do with Xenu. It would make more sense to actually attain the state of Operating Thetan III than to listen to an anti-Scientology website.
Scientology has been a very important part of my life, and I have experienced the effects of practicing it. It is not “make believe” or a cult. Many if not most of the anti-Scientology sites simply repeat the same garbage over and over, while many of the authors clearly haven’t actually been to a Scientology Church, done auditing, etc. Yet they all pretend to be experts. I find this very similar to listening to anti-Catholic websites to find out what Catholics “really” believe. So Catholics worship Mary, pray to a cracker God, the former Pope John Paul II prayed to statues of Mary, etc. Former Catholics tell stories of how they were told to worship Mary and the saints. They were taught that all non-Catholics would be damned to Hell, etc. If you’re actually a Catholic, you can refute these claims. This is similar to the situation with Scientology. Many people claim to be experts in Scientology, Islam, Catholicism, etc., when clearly they have no actual knowledge on the subject(even though they were Catholic/Muslim/Scientologist for years…lol) besides repeating the same propoganda found on other sites.
So if you want to know what Scientology is, visit actual Scientology websites. Not anti-Scientology websites.
scientology.org
whatisscientology.org
dianetics.org
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Lilyofthevalley
Guest
Thetan I don’t like what I am learning about Scientology promoting certain people “worthy” of living.
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