0 Votes
Scientology & The Church
I think it is important to differentiate between Scientology the subject (the philosophy & “technology”) and the Church of Scientology (the official organisation that delivers Scientology services).
Scientology as a practical system of self-improvement and spiritual enlightenment is, imho, a fascinating and beautiful subject, offering a highly workable spiritual toolset.
The Church of Scientology, the “official” organisation that delivers services (self-help courses, counselling, counsellor training, etc) is severely in need of reform. It is clearly violating the very subject that it promotes (through mismanagement that has resulted in an array of reported abuses) and appears hypocritical and often cultic. Without a volume of “alternative”, “competing” organisations, the large majority of Scientologists (however displeased with how current management is running things within the CoS) will stay put. Non-CoS groups (aka “Freezone”) are very few and far between. Some claim to deliver 100% Scientology services but don’t, others readily admit to having splintered off into other practices. Currently there is no real alternative to the CoS – this situation needs to change somehow as I personally believe this is the only way the Church will ever reform itself swiftly and effectively.
RE: Scientology & The Church by Occams
Surely if it had the expertise that it claims to have, then it could not have degraded as badly as you say. Don’t these people have powers to reconcile conflict etc?
RE: Scientology & The Church by Anonymous
The Independent and FZ Scilons who worship Hubbard’s holy tech and blame everything that went wrong on DM are in the same vein as Holocaust deniers. That is, people who refuse to look at facts, history and documentation or when they do, they can’t see them objectively.
This shouldn’t be surprising, in a cult where “bad thoughts about Hubbard” are grounds for being placed in their internal prison camp. Scientology is a serious form of brainwashing.
Dianetics was in a bind from the beginning. It was the pseudo-scientific practice of psychotherapy designed primarily as a reverse-pyramid “secret level” money-suck. Hubbard got the secret level thing from the control he observed in Crowley’s Satanism. Medical authorities put a stop to it.
Since its primary focus is on the individual, through auditing, it becomes a poor excuse for “like Buddhism,” where there is communal purpose in meditation and promoting a peaceful world.
Scientology’s communal focus is on KSW, statistics and the hard selling of Scientology to others. Once people buy into it, the focus is on keeping them in it. When workers run away, they are frequently chased and coerced to come back.
Hubbard’s designs on overtaking government, being the law one day, cannot be ignored. He was serious about that. The implications for that are monumental, and cult must be stopped, starting with removal of tax exemption.
We cannot let the huckster/narcissist Hubbard have his minions — mini-narcissists all — controlling government, making major decisions about health care, education, business and ultimately other religions.
It is Hubbard who claimed Scientology was the religion of all religions. He was quite the megalomaniac and his deluded followers need to stay within the law, and stop their deceptive recruitment practices, as well as relinquish tax exemption.
They are not a religion, they are a destructive, persistent brainwashing business bent on world domination, and no one should forget it.