Scientology. What in the world is wrong with their minds?

Question

I've been researching this cult quite heavily and these people are frightening. What do you think?

Answer 1

All I can say is, Lisa Mcphereson

Answer 2

While I believe that a person should be free to express their spirituality anyway they seem fit as long as it does not harm others, I have to agree that scientology is beyond wierd. First of all, any religion that requires you to pay to join cannot be on the level. I just do not understand what could make a sane person want to join such a group. Everyone is born with an inner voice that talks to us when something is wrong or not quite right. Pehaps those people who join cults cannot hear their inner voice and thats why they join.

Answer 3

It is because the "religion" of Scientology is a false religion. L. Ron Hubbard (?), who wrote the books that started the religion, stated years ago that it was a book of fiction, nothing more. Unfortunately, it turned into a religion targetting rich and famous people. This "religion" is a cult not really a religion. It brainwashes it's members and when they (the members) find out what it is and wants to leave, the organization try to make the person's life miserable.

It is a dangerous cult and should be left alone.

Answer 4

I think it's great that this religion, that has been around for over 50 years and survived heavy attacks in the past from various vested interests , is now expanding at such a fantastic rate.
I have no idea what material you have been "quite heaviliy" researching but it's definitely not Scientology.
Probably just the old black propaganda from the past.
Good luck with that!

Answer 5

L. Ron was an initiate of the Golden Dawn and a Science Fiction writer. I think he was trying to meld those into a single fantasy book and ended up with Scientology.

Answer 6

I think some people are just desperate. They probably don't know about all the nasty little secrets in Scientology's past:

• Operation Snow White – Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, & theft of documents in government offices. This program constituted the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history. Among the 11 prominent Scientologists convicted of this conspiracy was Mary Sue Hubbard, the wife of Scientology’s “prophet”.
http://lisatrust.freewinds.cx/scientology/snow-white/index.html
http://en.allexperts.com/e/o/op/operation_snow_white.htm

• Operation Freakout - Their campaign of sabotage & violence against Paulette Cooper, the writer who published her research & findings on several cults, including Scientology. Scientology’s official plan: to frame Paulette, ruin her career & reputation & get her either incarcerated or locked up in psychiatric confinement.
The official plan: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Krasel/cooper/frk1.html
Her book (free pdf): http://holysmoke.org/cos/books/scandal-of-scientology-cooper.pdf

• Fair Game - the Scientology policy detailing how the organization may confront & handle critics & perceived enemies. Here is a direct quote: "Enemies 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.”
http://www.xenu.net/archive/disk/fairgame.htm
http://www.planetkc.com/sloth/sci/Fair_game_ord.html

• Physical and psychological maltreatment: Scientologists who "break the rules" while members of the "Sea Org" must subject themselves to the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which includes regimes of harsh physical punishment, forced self-confessions, social isolation, hard labor and intensive ideological indoctrination.
http://www.xenu-directory.net/practices/rpf.html
http://www.lermanet2.com/scientology/gulags/BrainwashinginScientology'sRehabilitationProjectForce.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/rpf/escape_2.htm

• Violent Kidnapping - Lisa McPherson was a Scientologist, was involved in a car accident & resultantly became mentally unstable. She was kidnapped from the hospital by agents of Scientology, held against her will, refused proper psychiatric treatment & allowed to STARVE TO DEATH.
Video: http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/
Website: http://www.lisamcpherson.org/

• Tragic Murder - A CBS “48 Hours” special on Jeremy Perkins, the mentally disturbed son of Scientologist parents who refused to put him on the anti-psychotic drugs that would have stabilized him & prevented him from killing his own mother.
Video: http://www.scientomogy.com/jeremy_perkins.php
CBS article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/25/48hours/main2124568.shtml

Answer 7

I think when people are inducted into Scientology they are only told a little bit at a time. It's only from reading anti-Scientology websites written by people that escape that you get the whole picture.

Answer 8

An unreasoning, frequently paranoid, and occassionaly lethal sci-fi religion. Several people have died as a result of their "treatments" for mental illness, and no small number of people lost their entire livelihoods to them. They are not a joke.

Answer 9

It's just the newest fad around Hollywood. I think Tom Cruise is the one person who takes it soooo seriously!

Answer 10

Maybe you have been researching in the wrong places.
Have you ever read an actual Scientology book?
Let me enlight you:

THIS IS SCIENTOLOGY
Scientology is a path to find your own personal truth. These are the principles:

1. What is true for you is what you yourself observe to be true. (Because of this rule you can believe in anything you want: Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad or Dharma. Your own believes are your own business. It is a high crime in Scientology for anyone to tell you what to think or believe. You are expected to question everything in Scientology.)

2. Man is his spirit not his mind or his body.

3. The spirit creates its own mind. Please, do not confuse the mind with the brain that is a physical thing. The mind is a bank of mental image pictures as explained in Dianetics. These pictures serve the spirit to give him knowledge and experience. 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 these pictures are accompanied by ideas or considerations. Lets suppose 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 situations. This is what we call on Scientology an aberration (a conclusion that is imposed to you by a mental picture). This picture is what we call an engram (a pain memory that affects your judgment and free will).

4. You can discharge the energy in these pictures through communication. This is Dianetics Auditing and is the oldest of hundreds of Scientology techniques used to improve the individual.

5. The Spirit creates his own emotions. Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you depressed? Maybe you think that something external of you is creating your emotions. Maybe you believe that you are sad because you had a bad day or maybe you believe that you are happy because you had a great day. And this might be true. But who made the decision that you had a good or bad day? You did. You decided if life was good or bad, and adjusted your emotions to respond to your own consideration. You create your own emotions.
Some people are born with everything they want and are still unhappy. And others are born into humble means and are happy. What's the difference? The only real difference is each person's ideas and considerations.
Scientology uses hundreds of processes in order to help a person get a better understanding and a better outlook in life by using his own observations.

6. Scientology Ethics. Ethical people take full responsibility for their actions. Un-ethical people blame others for their actions. ‘wrong doings’ diminish and deteriorate the freedom of the spirit because the need to justify the ‘wrong doing’. So the spirit is enslaved into repeating the ‘wrong doing’ in order to justify the original ‘wrong doing’. The road to freedom lies within taking full responsibility for your personal condition and actions, past, present and future. Scientology provides the tools to help the person able to be fully responsible over his life thus rehabilitating his ability to be good and self determined.
Also Scientologists base their conduct on a non-denominational code of conduct. http://twth.org/eb/?id=16664j

7. Scientology and God. Scientology acknowledges the Supreme Being and promotes the individual search for closeness to God trough religion.

8. Scientology religious status: Religious scholars agree that Scientology is a bona-fide religion. In this link there are 28 religious studies papers about Scientology: http://www.neuereligion.de/ENG/index.html Also see this link: http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/09/index.htm

9. Scientology vs Psychiatry. Psychiatry believes that self awareness, feelings, love and faith is merely cellular activity. Basically they think that you are your brain and you are not in charge of your behavior but your cells are. This is a totally materialistic point of view that denies the spirit and God. Psychiatrist is a pseudo science because it is based in principles that are false. All Psychiatrists base their diagnosis on opinion and opinion alone. There aren’t any pathological tests that can determine if a person is insane.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3895596783332855545&q=Psychiatry+is+fraude&hl=enhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8443414209115892468&q=scientology&hl=en
Psychiatry has never proven that any "mental illnesses" (like they call it) has any connection with a physical illness. In the following video two college professors explain that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbTqjSfMPKA&mode=related&search=
Happiness, exhilaration, depression and psychosis are states of mind, not diseases. All what you have to do to stop being depress is change your state of mind. How you do that? By changing your ideas and considerations. Scientology provides the tools to achieve a better state of mind in accordance with your own point of view.
Note: Scientology doesn't have anything against Psychology or Neurology.

10. Scientology is a force for good in society. Scientologist fights Psychiatric abuses, http://www.cchr.org/ dangerous and harmful drugs, criminality, http://www.criminon.org and drug addiction. http://www.narconon.org. And Scientologist initiated the social reform group "Youth for Human Rights" http://www.youthforhumanrights.org and the movement "Say no to drugs and yes to life". http://www.notodrugs-yestolife.org
Scientologist are some of the more intelligent, able and successful people in this planet; including Jenna Elfman, Kelly Preston, John Travolta, Priscilla Presley, Sofia Milos and Leah Remini. Even Danny Masterson from that’s that '70s Show is a Scientologist.

11. Scientology is the only church that doesn't ask for donations from their parishioners during their Sunday Services. All chapel services are 100% free (marriages, naming ceremonies, ect). Scientology earns its money by delivering courses and auditing. Courses and auditing are optional. You do not need to take courses and auditing to be in Scientology. All you need to do to be a Scientologist is to read the books and apply Scientology to your life (like I do). But if you want auditing there are many alternative and economical ways to achieve this.
a. You can do volunteer work in your local church and get your services for free.
b. You can study to be an auditor and perform all your auditing with a fellow student. This way you can also provide free services to your friends and family.

12. L Ron Hubbard (13 March 1911 – 24 January 1986), was a literary genius that published more than two hundred stories and novels between 1927 and 1941. As a Hollywood screenwriter during this same period he wrote the screen plays for films such as The Mysterious Pilot and The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, while his The Secret of Treasure Island stands as one of the most profitable serials of all time. With a regular production of one hundred thousand words a month L Ron Hubbard was the undisputed king of high-speed production writers. In fact he had the ability to produce a whole story in a couple days of work by only using a manual type writer (believe it or not). Amazingly in the 1980ties he did a come back as a Sci-Fi writer by producing the best sellers ‘Battlefield Earth’ and the decaology (ten volume series) Mission Earth. L Ron Hubbard had 21 consecutive international bestsellers in the 1980s and 1990s, a feat unmatched in publishing history.
L Ron Hubbard could have lived a very profitable and idle life as a writer but his chose to use his earning to finance his research into the human spirit and human mind that later became Dianetics and Scientology. L Ron Hubbard produced 5,000 writings and 3,000 tape-recorded lectures on the subject of Dianetics and Scientology. Contrary to popular belief L Ron Hubbard never profited from Dianetics and Scientology but it actually cost him many millions of his personal fortune to finance his research. L Ron Hubbard also developed drug rehabilitation, educational and management programs. Humanity will always be indebted for the contributions of L Ron Hubbard.
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http://www.myspace.com/129727315

References
http://www.bonafidescientology.org/
http://www.chaplaincare.navy.mil/Scientology.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientol.htm
http://www.scientology.org/
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8057_1.html