What are the actual beliefs of Scientology?

Question

You hear about Scientology all of the time anymore, but what do they actually believe? I have tried to read about it, but get confused when they start talking about "the clear" and auditing sessions. Is there anyway someone can explain it in laymans terms? Only serious answers please.

Answer 1

This answer is a big one, but don't mess with Scientology because it's a cult and a very bad one. Look at how much peace and serenity it brought to Tom Crazy...

-Belief in Deity
Scientology considers the belief in a God or gods as something personal and therefore offers no specific dogma. The nature of the Supreme Being is revealed personally through each individual as s/he becomes more conscious and spiritually aware. There exists a life energy or force (Theta) beyond and within all.

-Incarnations
There are no particular human incarnations of God, as the universal life force (Theta) is inherent in all. All humans are immortal spiritual beings (thetans) capable of realizing a nearly godlike state through Scientology practices.

-Origin of Universe and Life
All is manifestation of the universal spirit, which is all that actually exists.

-After Death
Rebirths continue until one consciously confronts all pre-birth, current-life, and previous-life traumas and realizes one's true nature as a "thetan," immortal spirit--transcending matter, energy, space, and time. Achieving this state enables the spirit to escape the cycle of birth and death--to operate independently of the physical universe and become one with God.

-Why Evil?
Painful experiences and harmful acts in one's prebirth, current, and past lives become imprinted in the reactive mind and lead to irrational behavior. Departures from rational thought and untrue ideas ("aberrations") can result in wrongdoing.

-Salvation
Salvation is achieved through the practices and techniques of Scientology, the ultimate goal of which is to realize one's true nature as an immortal spirit, a thetan. The path to salvation, or enlightenment, includes achieving states of increasingly greater mental awareness--Pre-Clear, Clear, and ultimately Operating Thetan. An Operating Thetan is a spirit who can control matter, energy, space, time, thought, and life. Practitioners ("Auditors") are regarded as ministers and counselors who assist others to achieve self-enlightenment. Auditors help others to identify their prebirth, current, and past-life disturbances, which are obstacles to happiness and spiritual enlightenment.

-Undeserved Suffering
Suffering occurs as part of the spirit's entrapment here in the physical universe. Only when the individual is aware of his spiritual nature can he identify his barriers within the universe and overcome them, rising out of a lower state and into a higher state of happiness and freedom.

-Contemporary Issues
Based on the belief that you cannot free yourself spiritually without working to free others, Scientology has founded and supports many organizations for social betterment, particularly in the areas of drug abuse, crime, psychiatric abuse, government abuse of law, human rights, religious freedom, education, and morality. Scientology strongly favors the use of their methodology for spiritual/mental healing over the use of conventional treatment.

And now you might be asking "What the hell are "thetans"?"
It's all got to do with the story of Xenu and his Galactic Confederacy. Xenu is introduced as an alien ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living. The alien souls continue to do this today, causing a variety of physical ill-effects in modern-day humans. Hubbard called these clustered spirits "Body Thetans," and the advanced levels place considerable emphasis on isolating them and neutralizing their ill effects.
(Crazy stuff but Christians also have the burning bush and the sea being divided in two)

Answer 2

The short answer is that they believe in making people better. They use proven principles and techniques to improve the lives of people. They believe that the spirit, and thus the person, can become more healthy mentally and therefore better able to deal with life. By the way, they also believe in God.

It is hard to give you a simple answer because it is not a simple subject. It would be like asking what do Psychiatrists believe...

I would suggest that you buy the book, "Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health" which is available in bookstores for about $6 but you already have misunderstood words. You should go to a Dianetics and Scientology center because they are trained to explain what it is all about to new people.

Answer 3

they believe in a higher power but they are space dwelling beings. they believe that these beings are goin to come and take them home some day. its a cult religion, be careful looking up stuff like that!

Answer 4

I really don't know the answer to this, but if it causes people to act like Tom Cruise you might want to stay away from it.

Answer 5

read the book, i laughed at what should be the common way to go ( try to be a decent human),, let me say that again, TRY,,,, and the alien crap made just as much sense as the bible, fu#k why not, isnt it all the same

Answer 6

I hope this explains it, what they believe, what they do, who created it, etc. If not I have posted plenty of links to help...

Yes the language they use can be confusing. Here is a dictionary for there loaded language for any further research you might do...
http://www.clambake.org/archive/dictionary/

And now my answer with evidence as to what is scientology...

Personally I think scientology is a destructive cult. I think that while some minor benefits can be found on the lower levels, just from the social aspect of belonging to a group and having your days more or less worked out for you. Additionally the starting auditing sessions is just talking about your problems, no biggy that could help. However this is mainly an illusion (delusion) and it soon takes a turn as you progress in scientology, the starting levels are merely the trap.

My view of scientology comes from the following things.

Scientology tends to take over a person's life, devoting all their time, effort and money to it, and normally to the expense of their families, friends, work or education, etc.

They lie to people, they use bait and switch. This means that what they begin telling you is not the final story, and you are expected to pay a lot of money for this without knowing what you are buying, and never achieving the claims or abilities of each course. Scientology presents itself as scientifically tested and researched, and in LRH's writings you will see impressive claim after another, about how something is fact, or beyond doubt, or scientifically proved, or demonstrable, etc, etc, etc. The truth is that this is all lies, utter fabrication; there was no research, testing, facts, doubt, proof or demonstrations. Hubbard on the whole plagiarised almost every 'idea' he had. He was a prolific writer and a very intelligent and charismatic man BUT he was not as he and scientology claim a scientist, a graduate, an explorer or a war hero, he did not study extensively into the human condition, nor did he travel learning of wise men in the east. He did not heal himself of war wounds, and nor did he create dianetics and scientology to help mankind. Hubbard was a constant liar, an amoral man & only ever sought to entrap people for money, control & his ego. And yes scientology he died of natural causes, while having Vistaril, a psychiatric drug in his system, important because Scientology hates psychiatry with a passion – no, he did not leave the body for the next level of training, duh.

Hubbard taught that we have a reactive mind where some traumatic memories normally when unconscious, pre-natal, or past lives present themselves as a jumble of sounds, visions, smells, feelings, etc. When you see something that is similar to one of the memories it re-stimulates that particular memory, or as scientology calls it, Engram. This can lead to distressing feelings, or incorrect behaviour, or even your illnesses and disabilities, etc. They also teach you have an analytical mind which is a perfect computational bit of the mind that makes no mistakes – it is only the reactive mind getting in the way; this theory of the mind has already been debunked by science. So scientology uses something called 'auditing' to clear these engrams. Once you have cleared all your ‘Engrams’ by ‘auditing’, you are then told that you are clear… So what does this mean? Well most scientologists will struggle to tell you. Hubbard first claimed that a clear would be without illness, have a perfect memory, have a higher IQ, and do massive computations. These have never, ever been demonstrated. In fact Hubbard’s first clear showed quite the opposite, when she couldn’t remember what she had to eat on a particular morning, or then even the colour of Hubbard’s tie that he was wearing. She wasn’t any smarter, or better adjusted than before she spent all that time, effort & money on scientology, Hubbard, a hypnotist, had just told her she was. His methods induce very suggestible states, unnoticed or explained away, and I don’t think this is any coincidence. His claims are not true, it doesn’t do what he says it does.

Becoming ‘Clear’ prepares one for the latter levels, where you are led to believe the absurd, and pay lots & lots of money for it. This is the infamous Xenu story, and how the reactive mind is really generated by hundreds or thousands of Body Thetans – ancient alien souls killed by Xenu 75 Million years ago - of which you still have them all… (So why do you pay to become clear again?) These thetans were implanted with all sorts of images, and effectively brainwashed, thus they cause their host, you the thetan & your body the whole host of problems and more that becoming clear was meant to solve. Thus you then spend time, effort and money solo-auditing (talking to oneself) the ancient alien souls out of your body. To pay for this humiliation is bizarre, but something happens in learning scientology where you accept everything LRH said as source, that he couldn’t possibly be wrong; after all he researched it right? (well no…) To make matters worse the current leader has been butchering the ‘tech’, teachings and policies of Hubbard ever since he died – so people aren’t even getting what they paid for, being conned on a con.

Sources & Links for above:

Wiki Entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/scientology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/xenu
Scientology & Xenu South Park Style:
http://www.xenutv.com/cruise/sp-closet.htm
Proof of OTIII Story, Xenu and the Body Thetans:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/OTIII/index.html
http://www.spaink.net/fishman/ot3.html
Coroner Report
http://www.clambake.org/archive/hubbardcoroner/
Biography
http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/bfm/bfmconte.htm
Stolen Ideas
http://www.clambake.org/archive/lrhbare/
His war record
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/warhero/
All evidenced documents concerning LRH's life.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/LRH-bio/
Secrets of Scientology:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/
http://www.clambake.org/archive/secret.html
Ex-member Testimonials/Stories:
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/krasel/
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/index.php?f=3&sid=62c9287e6962fbbb53c51af3e1f3c730
Ex-Member videos:
http://www.xenutv.com/interviews/index.html

So IMO Scientology is a collection of denounced or poorly re-written set of stolen ideas and theories created by LRH, that is not only a waste of time, and a happy delusion in the very best of circumstances (freezone), but can be physically, mentally and fiscally damaging to people even to the point of death. http://www.whyaretheydead.net

They even lie about its membership, there are neither 8 nor 10 million scientologists, that claim is absolute rubbish, it is closer to 100,000.
http://www.clambake.org/archive/COS_members.html

I think its practices, theories, and design uses mind and social control techniques, along with suggestion and trance like states as do many others, ex-members and experts alike.
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/documents/scientology/pignotti
http://www.clambake.org/archive/infopack/7.htm
http://www.clambake.org/archive/1984/

Basic techniques looked at:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/techniques/
How someone can be trapped into scientology:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/personal_story/funkydonny.html

Hubbard wrote some terrifying policies and made lots of claims that are quite frankly dangerous to a person's wellbeing and possibly their life. Firstly is his claim that dianetics and scientology can cure illnesses and correct disabilities, let's see it from the man himself:

"Leukaemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukaemia had been treated successfully by Dianetics after medicine had traditionally given up. The source of leukaemia has been reported to be an engram containing the phrase ‘It turns my blood to water.’"
-L. Ron Hubbard, "Journal of Scientology," Issue 15-G, 1953

"Arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases, asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalogue of illnesses goes away and stays away."
L. Ron Hubbard, DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH, 1987 Ed., p. 72

"Scientology is the only specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns."
- L. Ron Hubbard, ALL ABOUT RADIATION, p. 109

"You are only three or four hours from taking your glasses off for keeps."
- L. Ron Hubbard, "Eyesight and glasses," "Dianetic Auditor’s Bulletin," Vol. 2, No. 7, January 1952

"The alleviation of the condition of insanity has also been accomplished now…"
-L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin, November 1970, "Psychosis"

Of course, Scientology does none of these, and because people believe everything Hubbard said, and it must be them not doing the ‘tech’ right, rather than it not working, they sometimes don’t seek assistance and pay the price as the website, http://www.whyaretheydead.net clearly shows.

Some more choice quotes from LRH:
"Somebody some day will say ‘this is illegal.’ By then be sure the orgs [Scientology organizations] say what is legal or not."
- L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 4 January 1966, "LRH Relationship to Orgs"

"MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY."
- L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 9 March 1972, MS OEC 384

"ENEMY SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."
-L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 18 October 1967

http://www.clambake.org/archive/infopack/5.htm

Here look at what some high court judges thought of scientology:
http://www.clambake.org/archive/judge_quotes.html

This is but the tip of the iceberg, I could also start talking about:

-Hubbard’s prosecution for fraud
-The way they hound and harass critics (i.e., Op. Freakout)
-Govt. investigations & crimes
-The 11 scientologists jailed for stealing documents, information, bugging, etc, numerous amounts of government agencies at all levels (Operation Snow White)
-The hard sell recruitment tactics
-Disconnection
-The horrible conditions and pay for staff
-Their ethics system or their slave labour/punishment camp called the RPF.
-The Endorphin release & so addictiveness & effect of their ‘E-meter’
-Hubbard’s connection with OTO Satanist Aleister Crowley & Sex Magick
-Etc, Etc, Etc.

Oh what the hell here are some of the links for the above:
http://www.suppressiveperson.org/

http://www.clambake.org/archive/go/gohist.htm#go_ops
http://www.lermanet2.com/cos/brainwashing.html
http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/

So you can probably gather I don’t like scientology one little bit, but I hope I showed you why. Did I mention it costs a lot of money, it breaks up families, hurts lives and even kills people? Oh I did, good!

Some Main Sites to look at critical of scientology:
http://www.clambake.org
http://www.lermanet.com
http://www.xenutv.com
http://www.scientology-lies.com/

And this for fun (ignore the ending advert – I do wish that wasn’t there!)
http://www.zipperfish.com/free/yaafm11.php