SCIENTOLOGY: What is it
really?
Millions of people world-wide who
have heard or read anything about Scientology have asked themselves; “Is
Scientology a religion or is it a cult?” I will try and explain the difference.
Religion
A religion is an organized
collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate to humanity and the belief in a superior being
such as a god. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life, the origin of life, or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle.
Many
religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may
include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration of a diety, (gods or goddesses) sacifices, festivals, feasts, trances,
initiations, ceremonies, (such as baptisms, weddings and funerals) meditation, prayer, music, art,
dance, public service, or other aspects of human
culture and in the Catholic Church, confessionals.
Cult
A cult is a religious or social group with socially
deviant or novel beliefs and practices. However, many sociologists and
scholars of religion have more or less rejected the word "cult"
altogether because of its negative connotations in mass culture. Some began to
advocate replacing that word into new terms such as; “new religious movement:, “alternative
religion” or “novel religion” to describe most of the groups that had come to
be referred to as cults.
There can hardly be any doubt in anyone’s mind that Scientology,
although not a traditional religion like Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam,
Buddhism as four examples, is definitely a novel religion. But is it also a cult?
In the United States religious
activities of cults are protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which prohibits governmental establishment
of religion and protects freedom of religion,
freedom of speech, freedom
of the press, and freedom of assembly. However, cult members are not
granted any special protection against any criminal charges laid against its
members.
A Canadian Security Intelligence
Service report of 1999 discussed Doomsday Religious Movements
espousing hostile beliefs and having the potential to be violent. Groups
classified as "Doomsday Religious Movements" included: the Branch
Davidians, Canada's Order of the Solar Temple and Aum Shinrikyo (called
the "Aum cult").
In my opinion, Scientology does not fit into the category of a dangerous
cult. However, I am definitely convinced that it certainly advocates some weird
beliefs.
Ron Hubbard (born
March 13, 1911—died January 24, 1986) was an American author and the
founder of the Church
of Scientology. After establishing a career as a writer, becoming best
known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he developed a self-help system called Dianetics which was first expounded in book
form in May 1950. He subsequently developed his ideas into a wide-ranging set
of doctrines and rituals as part of a new
religious movement that he called Scientology. His writings became the guiding
texts for the Church of Scientology and a number of affiliated organizations
that address such diverse topics as business
administration, literacy and drug rehabilitation.
In 1952, while I was serving in
the Canadian Navy, I visited my mother for a month. She was living in Beverly
Hills, California and while I was on the train, I read Hubbard’s book, Dianetics which I
had purchased earlier. The book comprises of a set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the human mind and body. Dianetics has
achieved no acceptance as a scientific theory and is a widely accepted as an
example of a form of pseudoscience however there was one aspect of
the book that caught my attention. Hubbard had asserted
in his book that "memories of painful physical and emotional experiences
accumulate in a specific region of the mind, causing illness and mental
problems.” That got me thinking. If a psychiatrist could hypnotize a patient
into regressing back into his or her childhood, he may discover what sources
that prompted the mental problems that the patient currently had.
Although I was only an ordinary
seaman and later an able seaman, the medical doctors on the base permitted me
to practice hypnotism on my fellow sailors. In one instance, I placed a dental
patient into a hypnotic state so that he would be asleep during the complex
operation of removing all of his teeth. I was called upon to do this because the man couldn’t be given any
form of anesthesia otherwise his heart would stop. He had the operation while he
was totally unconscious.
By keeping in mind Hubbard’s
suggestion that mental illnesses are found in certain areas of the human brain,
I hypnotized one of the men and regressed him back into his childhood memories
to find out why he hated his mother so much. I couldn’t find anything in his
childhood that would tell me what the source of that hatred of his mother was.
I continued regressing him back and to my surprise, I found the source. Two
months before he was born, his mother told his father that she wanted to abort
their child. A seven-month fetus can hear voices. The memory of her mother
making that statement stayed in his memory and although it was submerged in his
subconscious. It was always there and that was the cause of his hatred for his
mother. I placed him in a state of amnesia while he was experiencing that
memory and when he came out of the trance, I asked him if he still hated his
mother. He replied, “Why should I hate her. She is a marvelous mother as far as
I am concerned.”
I was one of the very first
persons to discover this technique. It is a common practice nowadays by
psychiatrists. If I hadn’t read Hubbard’s book on Dianetics, I never would have thought about regressing someone back
into the memories of a person’s mind.
The religious beliefs of Scientologists
The Church
of Scientology says that a human is an immortal, spiritual being (thetan) that is resident in a physical body. The thetan has had
innumerable past lives and it is observed in advanced Scientology texts that lives
preceding the thetan's arrival on Earth were lived in extraterrestrial
cultures.
Thetans are believed to be reborn
time and time again in new bodies through a process called
"assumption" which is analogous to reincarnation. However I
believe that the vast majority of those who believe in reincarnation also
believe that the souls they inherited have come entirely from Earth and nowhere
else.
According to Hubbard's son, Ronald DeWolf (born L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.), his father stated that thetans
are immortal and perpetual, having willed themselves into existence at some
point several trillion years ago.
How would that be possible if the approximate age of the universe is only 14
billion years?
Scientologists are taught that all
matter, energy, space, and time exists solely because thetans agree that it exists. How could anyone know
what these so-called thetans actually agree on? Have devout Scientologists
communicated with thetans? Are such communications recorded for
prosperity? If you are a true believer in
this fantasy, then I have some land I would like to sell you. It is on the far
side of our moon where you won’t be bothered by pesky neighbours.
The belief of devout
Scientologists is that since thetans knew everything, this required them to
abandon or suppress perceptions and knowledge. Over time, the loss of
perception accumulated and certain thetans began to cause harm to others—(physical)
beings who also sought to trap other thetans in order to control them. Thetans then
came to learn contrition, thereby punishing themselves for their own harmful
acts.
I know what you are thinking. Is
this belief any different that of the Christian belief that a band of angles
defied God and their leader was Satan and God punished them be sending Satan
and his cohorts to Hell where Satan can rule all who ae sent there for being
bad? I just love boogeyman stories. Of course I don’t believe them but that is
why I love them. However, I am not so gullible as to purchase land on the other
side of the moon.
According to Hubbard, an essential
part of the thetans' game plan was the "conquest" of matter, energy,
space, and time by the life force, theta. This has produced multiple universes
which have ended and begun in succession, each new one being more solid and
entrapping than the last. The thetans then became so enmeshed in the physical
universe that many have identified themselves totally with it, forgetting their
quadrillions of years of existence and their original godly powers.
According to Scientology, thetan
powers are said to remain potent and restorable. One of the Church of
Scientology's stated goals is "the rehabilitation of the human
spirit", by which it means the restoration of the thetan’s original
abilities. Hubbard claims that thetans are able to change reality through “postulates”—decisions
made by the individual about the nature of the reality around them. Some
thetans are said to have misused this ability to “implant” others with hypnotic
suggestions, forcing other thetans to “cluster” around bodies (hence body thetans). Scientology seeks to undo it and
return the thetan to “self-determinism” where he can control himself and his
environment. The eventual goal is to achieve “pan-determinism” where he acts
for the good of all.
And, my dear readers, this is where the so-called
healing of the evil minds of the human sufferers begins to take place and where
else but in the confines of Scientology buildings naturally.
Scientology
healing practices
Despite what its founder and its advocates say,
Scientology is not a recognized major religion. It is a pseudo religion. It has
no creed, no rituals, and no hope of becoming a major social institution for
the transmission of values. It offers nothing new or valid in ethical
teachings. What it does have is
philosophical dogma which it claims is scientifically validated by its practice
of auditing. And while
these dogmas do assert belief in a soul which is independent of the body and
which usually resides in a person's brain, the origin of the soul is obscure
while its destiny is vaguely described in Buddhistic terms of escape from the
cycle of rebirth. Scientology is an eclectic collage of philosophical and
religious concepts imaginatively brought together in a loose system by a man (Ron
Hubbard Sr.) who was a science fiction and fantasy writer who said that if you
want to make money, create a religion. Scientologists also claim that Scientology
is a science. It isn't.
Scientologists say that we are all “troubled.” They say that we
need “auditing” to find the cause and cure of our troubles. What is auditing?
Auditing" in the context of
Dianetics or Scientology is an activity where a person trained in auditing (an
employee of the Scientology organization) listens and gives auditing commands
to a subject, who is referred to as a "pre-clear", (meaning he is a
new member of Scientology) or referred to as a “pc”. Whilst auditing sessions
are confidential, the notes taken by the auditor during auditing sessions, and
kept in the pc folders are potentially subject to scrutiny by several staff
members, especially if the pre-clear is later upset or having difficulty
understanding what was going on during the auditing session. The preclear never
gets to see his or her own pc folder.
Auditing involves the use of “processes,”
which are sets of questions asked or directions given by an auditor. When the
specific objective of any one process is achieved, the process is ended and
another can then be used. By doing this, the subjects are said to be able to
free themselves from unwanted barriers that inhibit their natural abilities.
Most auditing sessions employ a
device called the Hubbard Electropsychometer or E-Meter. This device measures
changes in the electrical
resistance of the preclear by passing a small electrical current (typically in the range
from 50µA to 120µA) through the preclear's body by means of a pair of tin-plated
tubes looking much like empty soup cans. These changes in electrical resistance
are believed by Scientologists to be a reliable and a precise indication of
changes in the reactive mind of the preclear. It works similarly like a lie detector which
shows reactions to certain questions being asked. No clinical trials have shown
its effectiveness. A good listener who has the respect of a troubled person can
accomplish the same goals such as advising the person who is telling the
listener about his or her problems. If the listener is a knowledgeable person on
life’s troubling concerns that most people experience, he or she can help the
person who needs good advice.
What will being audited cost a preclear to reach a
state of being cleared of problems? Costs can vary considerably
depending upon the needs of the individual, but a rough estimate suggests a
preclear will be paying $128,000 to reach the state of being clear.
The levels OT I and OT II are fairly boring as far as content goes. It
takes years for a Scientologist to reach OTIII. Here are the costs. $33,000 must be paid to reach
OT III, and an additional $100,000 to $130,000 to reach OT VIII, which is the
highest level currently available.
If you reach OT III, you
will be told that 75 million years ago, an evil being named Xenu decided to
solve a population problem on his galactic colony by exiling a bunch of people
to Earth. Xenu then did horrible things to these people, like drugging them,
placing their bodies around a volcano, and blowing them up with H-bombs. But
that really only took care of the physical problem. Xenu didn’t just want the
bodies gone, he wanted to make sure the ‘thetans’ (spirits / souls) of those
people didn’t come back and reincarnate on his colony. So when the souls
started leaving the bodies, he captured the souls and forced them into a huge
implant station that was similar to a movie theatre. There, he made them watch
movies that ‘implanted’ them with false pictures of Christ, and other
historical events that Hubbard says didn’t actually happen. Hubbard was a
master at fantasy. Hey, I would rather spend ten dollars and see the movie than
pay all that money to hear that gibberish. Most lower-level Scientologists find
reference to Xenu and aliens ridiculous, and they immediately think of it as
obvious fallacy and are smart enough to not pay any more money to listen to
more gibberish.
The auditors can’t
tell lower-level Scientologists what’s in OT III because to do so is considered
a high crime, punishable by expulsion from Scientology. Why then are the materials in OT III so secret within the church? The
Scientologist’s answer is that if you’re not spiritually ready
to read the materials, and you look at them anyway, you could die, or at the
very least, ruin your treatment which means that you will be unable to have
further Scientology auditing. It also means you won’t be throwing away your
money any longer.
Narconon International
This is an organization which
promotes Ron Hubbard's theories of substance abuse treatment
and addiction. Its parent organization is ABLE,
which is controlled by The Church
of Scientology. Narconon
operates several dozen residential centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States
and Western
Europe. The organization was formed in 1966 by Scientologist William Benitez, a former inmate of Arizona State Prison.
While both The Church of
Scientology and Narconon state that Narconon is a secular program, that it is
independent of Scientology, and
that it provides legitimate drug education and rehabilitation. Narconon has been described by many
government reports and former patients as a Church of Scientology front group
that advocates membership in the Church of Scientology.
The program has garnered
considerable controversy as a result of its origins in Scientology and its methods. Its drug
rehabilitation treatment has been described as being medically unsafe, consisting of quackery and being none other than a
medical fraud. Academic and
medical experts have dismissed its educational program as containing factual
errors in basic concepts such as physical and mental effects and addiction.
Narconon's facilities have been
the location of several deaths, some of which have been linked to a lack of
trained medical personnel on site. There exist no independently recognized
studies which confirm the efficacy of the Narconon program.
In the wake of
a public report on three deaths at a Scientology-linked drug
treatment center in Oklahoma, the former president of the facility, and a
former executive at a Narconon facility in Michigan have come forward to expose
what they call deceitful marketing techniques and underqualified staff.
Lucas Catton (past
president of the drug treatment centre in Oklahoma) and his former colleague,
Eric Tenorio, alleged that Narconon advertises a bogus success rate of 75
percent to lure in desperate families of addicts and hires recent graduates of
the treatment centre to be counselors. They said that the deaths at Narconon
Arrowhead could have been prevented if qualified addiction counselors had been
on staff. Beyond the teachings of Ron Hubbard, staff members did not
receive instruction on how to treat people addicted to drugs or alcohol. Both
Tenorio and Catton describe Narconon’s methods of treatment as
"pseudo-science. That’s ironic when you think about it. The so-called
treatment centre practices pseudo-science under the auspices of a pseudo
church.
Mike Rinder was
raised a Scientologist from age six that saw him rise up the ranks to senior
executive and board member. Ever since his departure, though, he has been
speaking out against the organization. He certainly knows what he is talking about when he speaks about
Scientology because it used to be his job, for more than 25 years, Rinder was
the Church of Scientology’s go-to spokesman, frequently appearing in the
media to talk about the church’s controversial doctrines and practices.
He said, “You’d be foolish not to be wary of an organization that
has the amount of money that the Church of Scientology has, and the
fundamentalist views and sort of radical approach to dealing with things that
Scientology has. It was my mindset that if I didn’t lie that I would be
committing some sort of horrendous, horrible act of treason against Miscavige and
the Church of Scientology.”
At the time, Rinder was responding to
questions regarding Miscavige’s alleged abuse of him. He flatly denied the
accusations then, but now Rinder claims he had indeed been physically assaulted
by Miscavige, or at his behest, more than 50 times. When questioned about the
Scientology leader, who assumed his position at the church’s head after
the death of its founder L. Ron Hubbard in the 1980s. Rinder no longer minces
words: “I think he is truly a sociopath. He is dangerous to anybody who comes
in contact with him.”
When Rinder left the church, his main concern
was not a fear for his own personal safety or reputation, but the knowledge
that, if he walked away from the organization, he would also be walking away
from his entire family. It is a threat that he says Miscavige frequently held
over his head, and a reality that he came to accept after the TV interview: “I
figured, well, that’s probably what’s going to happen anyway. I can’t do this
anymore, and I’m getting out of here.” He didn’t have anyone in his family who wasn’t
a Scientologist, so that played a far greater role in his difficulty of making
the decision to finally walk away from Scientology.
Rinder
is ambivalent about the future of the Church, pointing out that its public dealings
have been getting “wackier” as the public becomes increasingly unwilling
to ignore allegations against the Church. He said, “Back in my day I would’ve
rolled over and died before doing some of the stuff that is being done now, I
may have been a mindless robot working for the Church of Scientology, but I
wasn’t that mindless. It’s just become idiotic.
Scientologist
Jason Beghe spoke about the Church of Scientology. He said in part; “I believe that a belief system can lead you into a cult-like
mentality of doing things that are against your best interests or better
judgment because you’ve been lead to believe that that is for the greatest good.”
Tom Cruise is a well-known
actor and is also a Scientologist. He speaks at
Scientology conventions, as well there is a video clip constructed by the
church positing that Cruise as one of the most powerful men on Earth. Rinder
takes it a step further, repeating the claim of fellow former Scientologist Tom
De Vocht: “He said that David Miscavige told him that Tom Cruise is the only
person around here that could take over. He’s too dumb to do it, but at
least he’d do what I’d tell him to do.”
Mischief
by Scientologists
A caller on a show said that he and his family were pulling
out of the Scientology battle because Scientology would send members into their
house at night to stand in their children's bedrooms to scare them.
On January 13, 2013, an
announcement was made on behalf of Scientology. We in the Church of Scientology wish to make it clear that
our religious
prison located at the Church’s International Base (International Base) in San Jacinto, California is a place of
uncompromising ecclesiastical discipline where errant Sea Org members are
rehabilitated for their own good and that of Scientology.
The Sea Organization, or Sea
Org, is a core organization within the Church
of Scientology, comprising the church's most dedicated members. Sea Org is effectively the most
powerful institution within the church, as only its members are allowed to hold
key administrative positions. It is considered to by scholars to be a labor and paramilitary unit and has been
described as a private naval force, having operated several vessels in its past
and displaying a strong maritime tradition. As of 2009, it consisted of
approximately 6,000 members, according to official Scientology reports.
When one of the Sea Org ships was docked in Corfu,
the London Times reported that a number of people on
shore had seen a female Scientologist and her two children attempt to run off
the boat while screaming and they then saw her dragged back on board the ship
by uniformed Scientologists the ship before she could reach the roadway. Such
incidents inevitably led to the offenders being assigned a 'lower condition',
the penalties for which were by then routinely formalized. The least serious
was 'emergency' followed by 'liability', in which hapless state the miscreant
forfeited pay, was confined to 'org premises' and had to wear the infamous
dirty grey rag on one arm. In a condition of 'treason', all uniforms and
insignia were removed and the rag was replaced by a black mark on the left cheek.
If there was any doubt about the misbehavior, the offender was fined, barred
from the org and could not be communicated with. Lastly came
the dreaded 'enemy' classification in which the miscreant 'may be deprived of
property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of
the Scientologist.
Students and crew
were lined up on deck in the early hours every morning. They waited to hear
whether they were on the day's list of miscreants. Those who knew they were
would remove their shoes, jackets and wristwatches in anticipation of being
punished. They were dropped into the water, the distance of the fall being
between fifteen and forty feet, depending upon which deck was used. Sometimes
people were blindfolded first, and either their feet or hands loosely tied.
Non-swimmers were tied to a rope. Being hurled such a distance, blindfolded and
restrained, into cold sea water, must have been terrifying. Worst of all was
the fear that you would hit the side of the ship as you fell, your flesh ripped
open by the barnacles. Being
tossed overboard was a very traumatic experience.
Jesse Prince said on the 27th of July 1998, “in late 1991, my wife Monika became pregnant and
although we were elated, she was ordered to abort the child. The reason for the
abortion order is that Sea Org members were not allowed to have children. The
order devastated both my wife and me. Our dedication as Sea Org members clashed
violently with our intentions as parents and we went through a personal
nightmare with me opposing it, to no avail. She got the abortion and afterwards
she was not the same.
Scientology has a reputation for
hostile action toward anyone who criticizes it in a public forum; executives
within the organization have proclaimed that Scientology is "not a turn-the-other-cheek
religion. Journalists, politicians, former Scientologists and
various anti-cult groups have made accusations of wrongdoing against
Scientology since the 1960s, and Scientology has targeted these critics almost
without exception for retaliation, in the form of lawsuits and public
counter-accusations of personal wrongdoing. Many of Scientology's critics have
also reported they were subject to threats and harassment in their private
lives.
Hubbard detailed his rules for
attacking critics in a number of policy letters, including one often quoted by
critics as "the Fair
Game policy. This allowed that those
who had been declared enemies of the Church, called “suppressive persons”
could be punished. Hubbard
also said, “Critics may be deprived of property or injured by any means. They
may also be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” Is the way a church behaves?
In any case, the aforementioned policy was canceled and replaced by HCOPL July
21, 1968, Penalties for Lower
Conditions. The wordings "May be deprived of property or injured by
any means “may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed", are not found any
more in Scientology literature. That is
probably because of bad publicity.
Scientology critics argue that
only the term but not the practice was removed. To support this contention,
they refer to HCO Policy Letter of October 21, 1968 which says, “The practice
of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any
Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This P/L does not cancel any
policy on the treatment or handling of a SP.”
Conclusions
Pseudo religions are
dangerous and can harm you or even people around you. While walking into their
bad paths, (joining pseudo religions) you
are risking mental harm to yourself and your love ones at the same time. Many
people who went into these pseudo religions found out that they were having more
problems than they could have imagined and then they became stuck into trapped
situations and had no way to get out. Such pseudo religions will use all methods
to manipulate and threaten you so that you will stay in their circles forever.
Stay away from these pseudo religions unless you are a glutton for punishment.
It is then that your problems will surpass the earlier ones you had.
As far as I am concerned, there
are only two kinds of people who join Scientology. The first are losers who
have no ambition to go out on their own and live normal lives with the rest of
society. The second group are those who believe that by joining Scientology,
they will become powerful and be able to rule over the first group.
Oh, something I forgot to add to this article. Years ago, I was
threatened by Scientologists that I was going to be sued for something they
claimed I wrote in the Internet. They even had one of Canada`s top lawyers
contact me and ask me to back off. Later I had lunch with one of Canada`s
Scientologist`s leaders who asked the same thing. Did I back off? Does this
article answer that question?
I don’t like bullies. I am not afraid of them. I am not inclined to be a
martyr but I will stand up for my right to speak my mind as long as I tell the
truth. One stupid woman sued me for $5 million dollars and lost because in my
blog, I wrote the truth about her. Further, I wasn’t out one penny in that
case.—not court fees or lawyer’s fees. That is because after years of
practicing law, I am quite capable of representing myself and it is rare in
Canada that defendants in court cases where the defendants are seniors have to
pay court fees. So if the Scientologists want to sue me, my response will be
said in three simple words—“Bring it on.” I love challenges. It will add more
excitement to me in my senior years.
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