What are your thoughts on Scientology?

Answer 1

Ok, I have many thoughts on scientology, none of them good. I have put down my answer as to what I have found scientology to be after years of research, reading LRH's books and having family involved in this organisation.

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

Answer 2

I do not personally know any Scientologist and what little I have read I did not consider to be very well written. Thus at this time I cannot accurately give any thoughts about Scientology because it is all still vague to me.

Answer 3

When I hear the word scientology, the first thing that comes to mind is Tom Cruise, then I start thinking how strange he is lately.

Answer 4

>Scientology was the result of a bet (that) L. Ron Hubbard made that he could write a fiction story so convincing that thousands of people would actually form a formal religion around it.

He won.<

Answer 5

Crackpots!

A religion created by a man to take people for money. I wish I could find his quote on that. I have to give L. Ron Hubbard some credit. He must have been a pretty smart guy to suck all that money out of so many people. Creative.

Answer 6

Hmmmm....as far as I know, Scientology was created by a sci-fi writer. I would not join but "to each his own".

Answer 7

i can only connect scientology to cruise and all i see is an insane man who just lost a contract with paramount and it doesn't look too good.

Answer 8

scientology - fancy name for cult

Answer 9

My thoughts...that Tom Cruise would be a horrible spokesman for the religion.

Answer 10

Just another wacko religious group out to make a buck

Answer 11

Quack. Quack. Quack.

Daffy Duck has more spirituality.