does anyone really belive in scientology?

Question

i have never met someone that does.
is it just a california thing?
i am not trying to affend if you believe please tell when you started and why.

John Travolta and Tom Cruise do not count both are great actors. i llove there movies but dont belive great actors couse i have no idea if they are acting

Answer 1

Scientology isn't about "belief". I've been a Scientologist for the past 34 years and I've studied it and used it and applied it to life.
I do not "believe" in it. If it didn't make sense to me, if I didn't observe it working, I would have continued to look for something that did. That's how I found it.... looking for something that made sense and actually applied to my life.
By the way, no offence taken. In fact I will share my story of how I found it .

When I was 17 still in school in London UK,I looked around me at life in general, what I was being taught by my teachers and also my parents in particular, and realized that they did not actually have answers to my questions.This was quite a shock at the time, and I actually got quite depressed, I thought:" I don't want to bring children into this world the way it is". I even got sent to the doctor, who offered me "something to take the edge off things"(valium was very popular back then). He also asked me if I was pregnant!! I declined his offer and started searching for answers myself.
I got interested in Eastern thinking, meditation, and even went to see a guru who asked me if I wanted "the Word". I felt he really knew nothing about me and did not seem very interested either way, so again I declined his offer.
I decided to go to teacher training college, as I thought that might be a way to help change and improve conditions in life. In the summer before starting college, summer of 1971, I travelled to Israel and spent 6 weeks there, travelling and working. I spent time in the Negev desert on an acheaological dig, picked apples in a kibbutz, etc. While there I had this realization about myself. Basically , that I AM myself, independant of what or who is around me. Until that point I thought I was the sum of what others considered me to be, my culture, genes, environment etc.
When I got back I found out from a friend of mine that a guy I had a crush on before I left, had cut off all his hair (long hair was "in" at that time) and become a Scientologist. I was curious, I imagined him with a shaved head' orange robes and a tamborine chanting his way down the streets of London!
I was told he worked at the Church of Scientology in London. So I went there. He was there, pleased to see me etc. For me the whole meeting was affected by my "crush" on this guy, he hadn't shaved his head, just got a hair cut and looked pretty OK. But he did lend me a copy of a book about Scientology called "The Fundementals of Thought"
Anyway I went to college (in Liverpool) and he wrote me long letters that I didn't answer. The college experience gave me more certainty that the answers were not available in the "system". Particularly I took psychology as one of my additional subjects, hoping to find out more about what makes us "tick". It quickly became apparent to me that this subject was pretty useless and did not really know anything about the mind or the spirit (the word psychology comes from the Greek word PSYCHE which means soul or spirit).
So one day I was feeling guilty about not answering this guys letters, so I started reading the book he lent me.
There was a chapter in it called "The Parts of Man" and it descibed the exact same thing I had realized for my self while in Israel.
Having someone else agree with me that what I found to be true was in fact true was enough for me to know that I had found something finally.
I'm not one to waste my time, so when I got a telegram from this guy asking me to come to London and help out at the Church of Scientology, I packed my bags and left.This was in early 1972.
Since that time I have been a very active Scientologist in many areas of life ,married a Canadian, moved to Toronto in 1981. Have 2 adult kids, helped establish schools using education methods of Hubbard,
ran Drug Rehab and Drug Ed programs, also using these techniques.
Helped many people change and improve their lives, and have personally achieved a level of understanding and ability that is beyond
any "price".
In short for me, I found what I was looking for. A way to change and improve life and conditions for myself and others and the adventure of understanding life continues.

There are currently over 8 million Scientologists in more that 150 countries world wide. However we are a new religion, only 53 years old.
The true story of Scientology as a religion goes like this:
1. A philosopher developes a philosophy about life and death.
2. People find it interesting.
3. People find it works.
4. People pass it along to others.
5. It grows.

Answer 2

Sadly, yes. They commonly prey on people with psychiatric problems and money. I know just such a fellow who donated most of his sizable inheritance to them in the vain hope that they could "cure" his emotional discomfort. It didn't work. After he was nearly broke (he had fallen hook, line, and sinker) they were less interested in him so he lost interest as well. He's pulling his life back together, no thanks to scientology.

Why would someone get involved in a philosophy/religion concocted by a science fiction writer who wrote that the quickest way to get rich is to start your own religion? That's why the Church of Scientology is constantly badmouthing psychiatrists, medicines, and psychologists and trying to get their patients into their cult. Some people are so uncomfortable with themselves that they will grasp at anything, like the cancer patient and Laetrile.

Answer 3

Unfortunately they do. They've suckered several of my friends over the years. In addition to LA, Clearwater, Florida is where Flag Training center is located. The town is virtually a Scientology property today.

Answer 4

blackrealty,
I heard that John Travolta and Tom Cruise do believe in Scientology. So yes.

The word isn't in yet on whether or not L. Ron Hubbard believed in it though. lol

Answer 5

There's a Church of Scientology in Florida. Not just California. I'm not a scientologist myself.

Answer 6

I have met many of them. The ones with all the money seem happy. The ones giving up their lives for it seem.... blank... empty.
I get the saddest feeling like they have sold their soul for what they thought was a worthwhile cause.

Answer 7

ask Tom Cruise

Answer 8

Dude I got in Scientology when I was living in Puerto Rico. And Scientology is really taking off in Japan. Also they have started mission in India and Nepal of all places. It seems that Scientology is more acceptable in the orient than the West because Scientology have many believes in common with Buddhism.
For example:What is true for you is what you your self observe to be true. This is a common believe with Buddhism in the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha teaches the danger in fashioning one's beliefs merely on the following grounds: on hearsay, on tradition, because many others say it is so, on the authority of ancient scriptures, on the word of a supernatural being, or out of trust in one's teachers, elders, or priests. Instead one maintains an open mind and thoroughly investigates one's own experience of life.
The truth is that people don't have a clue of what is Scientology here in the West. That's is because Scientology is totally new and different. Also we are educated in the materialistic doctrine of Psychiatry. Psychiatry teaches that you are a brain and your behavior is based on your chemical imbalaces. Psychiatry denies the soul. The truth is that the dogma of Psychiatry is based solely on opinion. Also here is the west we see religion as something inrational and dogmatic. There is no teaching in western religion about finding your own truth. Scientology is so advance and so different that people can't understand it. People think that they know everything there is to know about life. And when they see Scientology they jump to conclusions when in reality they don't have a clue what are they talking about. The reality is that man attacks what he can't understand. That's why Scientology gets so much bad press. Scientologist see all these bad press with pity. They understand that people are acting out of ignorance and using their reactive mind. Is like watching a bunch of cows in a stampede going towards a Cliff. They are going in that direction because the cow in front is going that way, What they don't know is that the cow in front is blind.
These are some of the believes of Scientology:
1. What is true for you is what you your self observe to be true.
2. Man is his spirit not his mind or his body. (This is a common believe with many religions.)
3. The spirit creates his own mind. Please do not confuse the mind with the brain that is a physical thing. The mind is composed of mental image pictures as explained in Dianetics. These pictures serve the spirit to give him knowlege and experiance. These pictures are composed of energy. The energy in the picture can affect the spirit. You can feel better by remembering something that you like or angry by remembering something else. These emotions are actually energy waves emanated by the picture. You can actually feel pain by remembering a pain memory. Sometimes this pictures are acompanied by ideas or considerations. Lets suposed that you father beat you mom up in front of you. Your father was the dominating figure so you might conclude that you have to act like your father in some situacions. This is what we call in Scientology an aberation (a conclusion that is impose to you by a mental picture). This picture is what we call a engram; A pain memory that affects your judgement and free will.
4. A spirit is capable of considerations and ideas and this ideas are solely based on uglyness and beautyfullness. The spirit reject ugly things and intends on making everything beautyfull. Do you like your car, you house, your job, your friends? Are you friends nice with you? Can you improve things in your life? All these are ideas based on uglyness and beautyfullness. This is why the spirits rejects the ugly memories and by rejecting the ugly memories (not confronting them) he is unknowingly affected by them.
5. You can discharge the energy in this pictures true communication. This is Auditing, the Auditor directs your attention to this pictures regardless of how ugly they are and you confront the picture and discharge the energy of the picture true the communication line. Is like if you have battery, in order to discharge the battery you need to discharged it against something. If you try to discharge it against your self is just going to chock you.
6. There are many types of Auditing. Objective Processing help you confront the physical universe and regain communication with the current environment. Creative processing improves your imagination and your ability to handle the energy in energy pictures.
I want to clarify that the story of Xeno is just a fable and no Scientologist believe it to be true. In fact most Scientologist I have meet haven't even heard the story. Scientology is much like Buddhism but instead of meditation they use auditing with the same goal and faster results. Scientology is the most attacked religion there is. Why? Because it works. Scientologist are some of the able people in this planet. like Leah Remini, Jenna Elfman, John Travolta, ect. Scientologist are kind, gentle and good communicators (except Tom Cruise but he is learning).
If you have more questions you can e-mail me.
But for me Scientology is the thing, it awnser all my question and has improve my life more than what I could had considered possible.
Look in this link to see the mission in nepal.
http://www.scientology.org/en_US/world/news/missionary/pg000.html

Answer 9

Probably.

Answer 10

not me partner