What is Scientology?

Question

I am not interested in converting...I just want to know what it is and what the beliefs are.
What exactly is it?

Do the not believe in pain killers and prescritions?
Do they believe in riencarnation?
Do they have something/someone to worship?
Is it a cult?

Answer 1

Scientology, which questionably calls itself a new "religion", is the brainchild of science fiction writer & occult enthusiast L. Ron Hubbard. The organization, by means of Hubbard’s self created psychotherapy technique called “Dianetics”, claims to be able to help rid members of any & all mental constraints including but not limited to emotional scarring (from this & "past" lives) due to "engrams" (past negative experiences stored in our unconscious mind), psychological disorders & chemical imbalances (the solution is to convince members that these things don't actually exist) & drug dependence (including legally prescribed psychopharmaceuticals which counteract the effects of psychological disorders Scientologists believe to be nonexistent).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianetics#Scientific_evaluations
Dianetics review: http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2005/06/28/dianetics/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812852,00.html

The official Scientology organization is composed of a number of “levels”. One begins as a “preclear” & works their way up. One must purchase virtually every service crucial to advancement directly from the "church" & at staggering prices. "Auditing", for example, is purchased in 12½ hour blocks, costing anywhere from $750 for introductory sessions to between $8,000 & $9,000 for advanced sessions. Visit this link to see how $380,000 is a conservative estimate for the total cost of moving all the way up the Scientology hierarchal ladder: http://www.xenu.net/archive/prices.html
These are the total costs for auditing alone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_as_a_business#Costs
Here’s an explanation of what “auditing” is: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061224182319AA2nnd6

At level OT III (Operating Thetan 3), some very strange & fiercely guarded secrets are imparted upon worthy members who have paid enough money to advance to such a level (and no, this isn't a joke): the evil alien ruler Xenu killed millions of aliens (Thetans) from around the universe by kidnapping them, bringing them to earth in golden DC-8 “space-planes” & blowing them up inside volcanoes with hydrogen bombs. Scientologists believe the souls of these aliens (these souls are "Body Thetans") were captured, brainwashed & released; they then attached themselves to our ancestors (and according to Scientology’s belief in Thetan immortality, they also attached to us during “past lives”) & cause many of our mental & physical ills to this day. Auditing is said to “clear” us of these Body Thetans as well as the “mental implants” they supposedly impose on our minds. http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/spaink-ot3.html
http://www.spaink.net/cos/essays/atack_ot3.html
http://xenu.net/archive/leaflet/Xenu-Letter.pdf

Scientology has taken a very hostile stance towards psychiatry & psychiatric drugs irrespective of the fact that some people require medication to remain adequately functional during everyday life. They don’t recognize legitimate conditions like autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc, and the “church” has been known to withhold prescription pharmaceuticals from members (often with harmful & deadly results). Suspiciously, it was discovered upon Hubbard’s death that the anti-anxiety drug hydroxyzine (Vistaril™) was present in his body, which several of his assistants would later attest was only one of many psychiatric & pain medications Hubbard ingested over the years.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/07/01/sci_psy/index_np.html?pn=1
http://www.clambake.org/archive/ronthenut/16.gif
(visit this link to read about the uses of hydroxyzine: http://www.drugs.com/mtm/v/vistaril.html )

To be blunt, Scientology is a cult. It employs semi-legitimate psychotherapy & self-help methods to keep people loyal & convinced of its merit while it simultaneously sucks them dry financially & attempts to keep them far away from ANYONE, even friends & family, who would dissuade them from remaining in such a harmful situation. It’s a particularly greedy as well as manipulative & dangerous cult that takes its anti-psychiatry fanaticism to deadly limits. See these links for more information: http://www.lisamcpherson.org/
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/24/Tampabay/The_unperson.shtml
http://www.factnet.org/Books/SocialControl/scs.html#toc http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/s/scientology/pignotti/

Answer 2

A brainwashing CULT. Their techniques of "clearing you" actually induces hypnotic states. They make you sit motionless and stare at another person for hours at a time. They make you tell them every bad thing you've ever done in your life, and then as soon as you leave the church, they use all of this information against you. They picket your house, distribute fliers saying you're a murderer or religious bigot etc etc. They've also been known to hire private investigators to bother your friends and family. If you join the church and leave then say anything critical about scientology/scientologists, they'll follow you, call the police on you and give false reports of criminal activity. If you can think of it, they will do it. Their reasoning behind this is, if they can make you seem like a criminal or a crazy person, it will distract people from believeing you when you tell them that scientology is actually a money laundering/brainwashing UFO cult that practices black-psychiatry. Scientologists will say that it is an applied philosophy, and that you can practice other faiths while being a scientologist, but if you're, say, a christian, scientology doesn't fit with it at all. In fact, L. Ron Hubbard claimed that Jesus wasn't the son of god.

xenu.net is the place to find the truth about scientology.

They're a pack of mindless losers who should have read Orwell's 1984 instead of Hubbard's clap-trap scifi. It would have saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Answer 3

Scientology is a path to find your own personal truth,
Scientology doctrine as a religion holds as its most important axiom “What is true for you is what you your self observe to be true.” This axiom promotes individual thinkingness and independence. In fact it is a high crime in Scientology for anyone to tell anyone what to think or what to believe in. In Scientology it is YOU that do the exploring, YOU that do the observations and YOU come up with your own conclusion.
This link has 28 different religious studies papers on Scientology made by religious scholars: http://www.neuereligion.de/ENG/index.html Also see this link: http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/09/index.htm
Scientology means “knowing how to know” and follows a tradition of 10,000 years in the study of life and the spirit. Scientology earliest ancestor is the Veda (the Veda means knowingness or sacred lore) continued with the Tao-The-king (also known as Taoism and it means “the way to solving the mystery which underlines all mysteries”) continued by the Dhyana (that means knowingness or lookingness), continued by the works of Gautama Sakyamuni also know as Gautama Buddha (a Buddha or Bodhi is one that has attained intellectual and ethical perfection by human means).

Do the not believe in pain killers and prescritions?
No way

Do they believe in riencarnation?
Yeap

Do they have something/someone to worship?
Not really but Scientologists can also be part of other religions so they can worship in their second religion.

Is it a cult?
Baby, even Jesus was killed because he was a cult leader and Christians were persecuted because they were cult member. A cult is just a religion that is not main stream that's all.

Answer 4

Here's a factual description for you:

Scientology is an applied religious philosophy. When I say "applied" I mean you actually use it in your life to change or improve existing conditions. It is a very practical religion.
All religions if you learn about them have a basic philosphy, but they also have certain dogma, rituals and observances, and a certain faith or belief is required. There is nothing wrong with this, but Scientology is not that kind of religion. It does not intrude on anyones faiths of beliefs in the area of God , the Supreme Being, or the Infinite. This area is left totally up to the indivdual as pasrt of his life. It does not conflict.
It is also not a messianic religion. This means there is no worship of prophets or messiahs in Scientology. It is not faith based. A truth should be true according to ones own observation and experience.
The dictionary definition that applies:
Religion: The spiritual or emotional attitude of one who recognises the existence of superhuman power or powers.

The most basic principle of Scientology is that YOU are your own immortal soul, that this is not a "thing" you HAVE but what YOU actually are.
The whole purpose of Scientology is to increase an individual's understanding and awareness of himself. and life.And to rehabilitate his native goodness, abilities and potential.
When you do this the sphere and zone of his positive influence increases and moves outward into his life, his family ,his friends, his groups and mankind which he is part of.

How this result is achieved is the "technology" of Scientology, which was developed by L.Ron Hubbard after his extensive research and the discoveries he made, about the human spirit. The basic religious philosophy and knowledge of Scientology is very old, going back 10,000 years at least to the Veda or Vedic Hymns from the East. L. Ron Hubbard researched and made new discoveries about the human spirit. He developed technology from these discoveries to apply to increase spiritual awareness and ability.
He completed his research before his death in 1986 and left all of his results and copyrights
to the Church of Scientology along with most of his considerable personal estate, when he died.

He published a book in 1951 to communicate the basic principles he discovered called: " Scientology The Fundementals of Thought"
There are currently over 10 million Scientologists in more than 163 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.

This is just an overview.
L. Ron Hubbard explained fully the theology and technologies of Scientology in more than 500,000 pages of writings, including dozens of books and over 2,000 tape-recorded public lectures. So it's not possible to fully answer your question on this forum.

Scientologists use medical Dr's just like anyone else.
Scientology addresses the spiritual being, not the physical body.
Scientology acknowledges that a spiritual being has lived
many previous lives, but does not lable this "reincarnation"
as this word describes a different concept.

Hope this gives you some idea.

Answer 5

in a nut shell, the organization was started by this pill poppin booze drinking author,he states that we started because this alien took over a kingdom on some planet and excelled the king and queen here on earth somewhere in Arizona or Hawaii volcano(I'm serious),i think their called theologians or something,they think you can heal yourself by mental aspirins,not drugs(which their founder was heavy into),it is seriously a twisted group who calls themselves a religion in order to save on taxes,their is nothing religious about this group of occultists,DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THESE PEOPLE,they are very very muliputive,and will try to squeeze all the money you have,it startes with a bogus test about your mentality,then they tell you they can help for x amounts of money,as you progress you pay more and more until you get to the point where you can"read minds,make things float"among other things,they have their own navy,but most country's do not want them in their ports,they have tom cruise (who just got promoted to high priest)as their spokes model and freak show ring announcer.theirs more but who has the time

Answer 6

They use Hollywood self-aggrandizement as a sedative.
Tom Cruise is the high priest and Kirstie Alley the High priestess.
They believe in little green men and really large purple ladies.
Hmm
That is about all I know.
They generally really despise psychotherapy,

No really I don't know much about it except it had something to do with L.Ron Hubbard.
There are many here who are much more knowledgeable.

Answer 7

began via L. Ron Hubbard as 'self aid method' known as Dianetics (he began out writing SiFi books after which wrote self aid books) ...it right into a became "faith".....many men and women (Christians, atheist, agnostics, former contributors, ect) say it's the ultimate 'textual content-e-book' illustration of a non-violent Cult (idea a few contributors have pronounced bodily and emotional abuse) the elemental suggestion is: for the duration of your and beyond lives you may have had terrible studies that you simply can not don't forget, those repressed studies 'maintain you again'.... via distinctive counseling known as "Dianetics" (supplied via the CoS. for a nominal rate) you'll 'system/manage' those unhealthy studies....as soon as there all looked after, you'll go beyond to a "prime simple of lifestyles" ....THE END....

Answer 8

I heard someone say recently...

"Scientology is the biggest load of compost I have ever heard and Tom Cruise is the biggest weed growing out of it."

Basically its a brain-washing cult thought up by a science-fiction writer - I think that says it all in a "nut" shell.

Answer 9

http://www.xenu.net/
contains all the information you need.

It's an evil cult designed to make money and nothing else . Its effects on believers are destructive - Check out http://www.lisamcpherson.org/ , a victim of the cult who was starved to death.

Read "the road to xenu" - http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/xenu/ - an account of a girl who escaped scientology after 12 years!

The cult's core belief - no, I am not kidding here! - in the words of the founder:

"The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 5,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.

One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.

In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck."

Answer 10

L. Ron Hubbard wrote a couple of books after studying the world's religions and started marketing it. Originally 'Dianetics' was a self help book that sprouted this new religion. Basically it believes that there are intelligent civilizations out there and earth was something of a prison. This civilizations killed all the prisoners here and they are 'haunting' us. You 'progress' by removing them. Of course to learn how to do that they charge you and the higher the level the more expensive it is. They believe that psychiatrists are here to keep control of the population that is why they don't like them.

Answer 11

People complain here about Christianity.... they should look at Scientology.

Scientology is a religion created by a guy who writes science fiction. He took one of his SciFi books and turned it into a religion.

There's a real good South Park episode that covers the major beliefs, and they're nuts.