Scientology

[Otis McNutt 395]

Scientology, everyones heard about it but what is it really? It has famous members Like Tom Cruise, Jason Lee, Lisa Marie Presley, Katie Holmes and Issac Hayes. But what does it stand for?

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices initially created by American speculative fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. The major organization promoting Scientology is the Church of Scientology, a hierarchical organization founded by Hubbard, while independent groups using Hubbard's materials are collectively referred to as the Free Zone. Hubbard developed Scientology teachings in 1952 as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics. Hubbard later characterized Scientology as an "applied religious philosophy" and the basis for a new religion. Scientology encompasses "auditing", a spiritual rehabilitation philosophy and techniques, and covers topics such as morals, ethics, Purification (a type of detoxification), education and management.

Hubbard also laid down the foundations and policies for the establishment and management of Scientology organizations with the first Church of Scientology being established in December 1953. Today organizations affiliated with the Church of Scientology form a complex network geared towards introducing Scientology into society. Religious Technology Center owns the trademarks and service marks of Scientology. These marks are licensed for use by the Church of Scientology International and its affiliated organizations.

Scientology and the organizations that promote it have remained highly controversial since their inception. Journalists, courts and the governing bodies of several countries have described the Church of Scientology as a cult and an unscrupulous commercial enterprise, accusing it of harassing its critics and abusing the trust of its members. Scientology officials argue that most of the negative press is motivated by interest groups and that most of the controversy is in the past.

Scientology's beliefs and related techniques comprise 18 basic books, and 3,000 recorded lectures. There is no single Scientology book that is the equivalent of the Bible or the Qur'an, but the study of Scientology is achieved through the chronological study of its basic books and lectures.

Scientology describes itself as "the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life," and "encompasses all aspects of life from the point of view of the spirit" including "auditing" and training in morals, ethics, detoxification, education and management.

Prime among Scientology's beliefs is "that man is a spiritual being whose existence spans more than one life and who is endowed with abilities well beyond those which he normally considers he possesses." Scientology believes man to be basically good, that his experiences have led him into evil, that he errs because he seeks to solve his problems by considering only his own point of view, and that man can improve to the degree he preserves his spiritual integrity and remains honest and decent. According to the Church, the ultimate goal is: "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights."

The Church of Scientology declares that the goal of Scientology is to achieve "certainty of ones spiritual existence and [of] ones relationship to the Supreme Being," and says that Scientology's tenets are not a matter of faith but of testable practice: "That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true."

The exact nature of all of existence is said to be stated in Hubbard's Scientology and Dianetics Axioms.

Other beliefs of Scientology are:

A person is an immortal spiritual being (termed a thetan) who possesses a mind and a body.

The thetan has lived through many past lives and will continue to live beyond the death of the body.

Through the Scientology process of "auditing," people can free themselves of traumatic incidents, ethical transgressions and bad decisions which are said to collectively restrict the person from reaching the state of "Clear" and "Operating Thetan."

Each state is said to represent the recovery of native spiritual abilities and to confer mental and physical benefits.

A person is basically good, but becomes "aberrated" by moments of pain and unconsciousness.

Psychiatry and psychology are destructive and abusive practices.

Members study Scientology and receive auditing sessions to advance from a status of preclear to Operating Thetan.

Scientology practices (called "Technology" or "Tech" in Scientology jargon) are structured in sequential levels, reflecting Hubbard's belief that rehabilitation takes place on a "gradient", that is, easier steps are taken first and only then greater complexities are handled; for example, the negative effects of drugs must be addressed before other issues can be successfully tackled. Scientologists follow a sequence of courses that culminate in esoteric, advanced strata. This is described as a passage along "the Bridge to Total Freedom," or simply "the Bridge," in which each step promises a little more personal freedom in some particular area of life. Hubbard first developed the basic axioms then he went into experimentation and finally, he developed the therapy and proof of application by means of a first-time-ever "spiritual Technology". As he says, ..."One might here use an analogy of bridge engineering". The Bridge is the Classification Gradation and Awareness Chart.

Scientologists believe that man is composed of three distinguishable parts: mind, body and spirit.

The thetan (spirit) is described in Scientology as having no mass, no wavelength, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit, then, is not a thing. It is the creator of things

1956, Professional Auditor's Bulletin 85

The spirit, represented with the Greek letter 'theta' (θ), is the true form of man and can exist exterior to and/or independent from a body. The mind in Scientology is described as a bank of mental image pictures that give the spirit experience and knowledge and that store the spirits "postulates." Scientologists subdivide the mind into the analytical or conscious mind, which is "totally accessible to the spirit," and the reactive or subconscious mind, which "unknowingly affects the spirit" and is said to operate "on an irrational, stimulus-response basis." Scientology describes the physical body as "a carbon-oxygen machine" of which the spirit is the engineer. Illnesses and injuries to the body are said to be relieved through the use of "assists."

Xenu

Other religions have manifstations of evil (Satan, ect) and Scientology is no different.

Xenu according to Scientology founder (and speculative fiction writer) L. Ron Hubbard, was the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Scientology holds that their essences remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm. Members of the Church of Scientology widely deny or try to hide the Xenu story.

These events are known within Scientology as "Incident II", and the traumatic memories associated with them as The Wall of Fire. The story of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings on extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in Earthly events, collectively described as space opera by Hubbard. Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan level III (OT III) in 1967, warning that this material was "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it."

Criticism of the Church of Scientology often includes details of the Xenu story. The Church has tried to keep Xenu confidential but critics say the story should be made public, given the high prices charged for OT III, part of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology" doctrines taught only to members who have already contributed large amounts of money to the organization. The Church avoids making mention of Xenu in public statements and has gone to considerable effort to maintain the story's confidentiality, including legal action on the grounds of both copyright and trade secrecy. Despite this, much material on Xenu has leaked to the public, largely via the Internet.

The story of Xenu is covered in OT III, part of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology" doctrines taught only to advanced members who have undergone many expensive hours of auditing and reached the state of Clear. It is described in more detail in the accompanying confidential "Assists" lecture of 3 October 1968 and is dramatized in Revolt in the Stars (an unpublished screenplay written by L Ron Hubbard during the late 1970s). Direct quotations in this section are from these sources. (See also Scientology beliefs and practices)

Scientologists believe that seventy-five million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as Teegeeack. The planets were overpopulated, each having an average population of 178 billion. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with aliens "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.

Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of psychiatrists, he summoned billions of his citizens together under the pretense of tax inspections, then paralyzed them and froze them in a mixture of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The appearance of these spacecraft would later be subconsciously expressed in the design of the Douglas DC-8, the only difference being the DC-8's jet turbines. When they had reached Teegeeack/Earth, the paralyzed citizens were unloaded around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were then lowered into the volcanoes and detonated simultaneously. Only a few aliens' physical bodies survived. Hubbard described the scene in his film script, Revolt in the Stars:

Simultaneously, the planted charges erupted. Atomic blasts ballooned from the craters of Loa, Vesuvius, Shasta, Washington, Fujiyama, Etna, and many, many others. Arching higher and higher, up and outwards, towering clouds mushroomed, shot through with flashes of flame, waste and fission. Great winds raced tumultuously across the face of Earth, spreading tales of destruction. Debris-studded, and sickly yellow, the atomic clouds followed close on the heels of the winds. Their bow-shaped fronts encroached inexorably upon forest, city and mankind, they delivered their gifts of death and radiation. A skyscraper, tall and arrow-straight, bent over to form a question mark to the very idea of humanity before crumbling into the screaming city below...

L. Ron Hubbard, Revolt in the Stars treatment

The now-disembodied victims' souls, which Hubbard called thetans, were blown into the air by the blast. They were captured by Xenu's forces using an "electronic ribbon" ("which also was a type of standing wave") and sucked into "vacuum zones" around the world. The hundreds of billions of captured thetans were taken to a type of cinema, where they were forced to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for thirty-six days. This implanted what Hubbard termed "various misleading data"' (collectively termed the R6 implant) into the memories of the hapless thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, et cetera". This included all world religions, with Hubbard specifically attributing Roman Catholicism and the image of the Crucifixion to the influence of Xenu. The interior decoration of "all modern theaters" is also said by Hubbard to be due to an unconscious recollection of Xenu's implants. The two "implant stations" cited by Hubbard were said to have been located on Hawaii and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

In addition to implanting new beliefs in the thetans, the images deprived them of their sense of personal identity. When the thetans left the projection areas, they started to cluster together in groups of a few thousand, having lost the ability to differentiate between each other. Each cluster of thetans gathered into one of the few remaining bodies that survived the explosion. These became what are known as body thetans, which are said to be still clinging to and adversely affecting everyone except those Scientologists who have performed the necessary steps to remove them.

Military officers loyal to the people finally overthrew Xenu and his renegades, and locked him away in a mountain, where he was imprisoned forever by a force field powered by an eternal battery. Although the location of Xenu is sometimes said to be the Pyrenees on Earth, this is actually the location Hubbard gave elsewhere for an ancient "Martian report station." Teegeeack/Earth was subsequently abandoned by the Galactic Confederacy and remains a pariah "prison planet" to this day, although it has suffered repeatedly from incursions by alien "Invader Forces" since that time.

Within Scientology, the Xenu story is referred to as "The Wall of Fire" or "Incident II". Hubbard attached tremendous importance to it, saying that it constituted "the secrets of a disaster which resulted in the decay of life as we know it in this sector of the galaxy". The broad outlines of the story that 75 million years ago a great catastrophe happened in this sector of the galaxy which caused profoundly negative effects for everyone since then are publicly admitted to lower-level Scientologists. However, the details are kept strictly confidential, at least within the Church.

Hubbard said that he was the first to map a precise route through the Wall of Fire, "probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years". He first publicly announced his "breakthrough" in Ron's Journal 67 (RJ67), a tape Hubbard recorded on 20 September 1967 to be sent to all members of the Church. According to Hubbard, his research was achieved at the cost of a broken back, knee and arm. OT III contains a warning that the R6 implant is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it." In RJ67, Hubbard then alludes to the devastating effect of Xenu's genocide:

And it is very true that a great catastrophe occurred on this planet and in the other 75 planets which formed this [Galactic] Confederacy 75 million years ago. It has since that time been a desert, and it has been the lot of just a handful to try to push its technology up to a level where someone might adventure forward, penetrate the catastrophe, and undo it. We're well on our way to making this occur.

OT III also deals with Incident I, set four quadrillion years ago (or roughly 300,000 times longer than the current scientifically accepted value for the age of the universe). In Incident I, the unsuspecting thetan was subjected to a loud snapping noise followed by a flood of luminescence, then saw a chariot followed by a trumpeting cherub. After a loud set of snaps, the thetan was overwhelmed by darkness. This is described as the implant offering the gateway to this universe, meaning that these traumatic memories are what separate thetans from their static (natural, godlike) state.

Hubbard uses the existence of body thetans to explain many of the physical and mental ailments of humanity which, he says, prevent people from achieving their highest spiritual levels. OT III tells the Scientologist to locate body thetans and release them from the effects of Incidents I and II by auditing them. This is accomplished in solo auditing, where the Scientologist holds both cans of an E-meter in one hand and asks questions as an auditor. The Scientologist is directed to find a cluster of body thetans, address it telepathically as a cluster and take first the cluster then each individual member of the cluster through Incident II, then Incident I if needed. Hubbard warns that this is a painstaking procedure, and that OT levels IV to VII are necessary to continue the long process of dealing with one's body thetans.

The Church has objected to the Xenu story being used to paint Scientology as a mere science fiction fantasy. See: Space opera in Scientology doctrine. Hubbard's statements concerning the R6 implant have been a source of contention. Critics and some Christians state that Hubbard's statements regarding R6 prove that Scientology doctrine is incompatible with Christianity, despite the Church's statements to the contrary. In "Assists", Hubbard says:

Everyman is then shown to have been crucified so don't think that it's an accident that this crucifixion, they found out that this applied. Somebody somewhere on this planet, back about 600 BC, found some pieces of R6, and I don't know how they found it, either by watching madmen or something, but since that time they have used it and it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the Cross. There was no Christ. But the man on the cross is shown as Everyman."

This is meant to teach, not to ridicule. If you want ridicule here ya go!

South Park on Scientology

Edited 3 Apr 2008 by Diamond Triforce (see edit history)

[Shadowknight 54]

I personally like to publically ridicule Scientology, especially with my friends. I don't do it to attack re scientologists, but t tell people what it's really about. However, this topic is dangerous. The church of Scientology has a tendency to sue people when they start talking about incident II. Caution is advised.

[Otis McNutt 395]

[quote name='shadowknight' date='Apr 3 2008, 11:12 PM' post='135473' The church of Scientology has a tendency to sue people when they start talking about incident II. Caution is advised.

[ZuZu 10]

Surely such a peaceful religion wouldn't mind a discussion about things like that

[AarghZombies 0]

I don't generally have a problem with religions, as most of them do teach peace and love, etc. It's just the people who take scripture/ideas too literally that are the problem.

But Scientology? Made up by a science fiction writer, who once stated that the easiest way to make a million dollars was to start a religion. Good one!!!

[Michael 290]

scientology was banned in Germany I think didn't read the whole post too much and too lazy.

[Padraig! 103]

xenu.net

[Du5t1n 57]

I'm okay with religions, but not cults. Scientology is a cult.

[Padraig! 103]

I'm okay with religions, but not cults. Scientology is a cult.

AND it kills.

I might go to the April 12th protests.

[Na Riknia 4]

i personally say that those who deny the fact that there is an omnipresent/omnipowerful single God are the screwed people and trust me that is one way of being screwed you don't want to experience.

[Otis McNutt 395]

i personally say that those who deny the fact that there is an omnipresent/omnipowerful single God are the screwed people and trust me that is one way of being screwed you don't want to experience.

I respect peoples religious beliefs, my mom and dad are Catholic, but I have a hard time believing when the Bible, a book that's supposed to have all the answers is chock full of hypocrisy. It seems that it was written by guys who had grudges and used they're religion to make them bad.

[Ryu 7]

i personally say that those who deny the fact that there is an omnipresent/omnipowerful single God are the screwed people and trust me that is one way of being screwed you don't want to experience.

So true....

i'll read the post tomorrow...too lazy right now

[Musicale Personna 0]

Am I the only person who fully read the post? Well, I shouldn't say that I read it and UNDERSTOOD it, because I had no clue what it was saying past the first paragraph! As a matter of fact, I really only understood about ten sentences throughout the whole thing. I guess Scientology isn't for me! I don't think they'd like me anyways. Cults and cult-like religions are gibberish to me-I can't understand them! Honestly, I about fell asleep halfway through. That post was extremely long. No offense, Diamond Triforce, but that seemed like it should have been a novel. And I agree with you on your views of the Bible; the men are rather hypocritical, aren't they?

i personally say that those who deny the fact that there is an omnipresent/omnipowerful single God are the screwed people and trust me that is one way of being screwed you don't want to experience.

Na Riknia, I'm not trying to offend you with this whatsoever, but I think a few members would see that as an insult. I, for one, don't think that's true, simply because is that really what God wants? For all nonbelievers to go to Hell? Don't you think that He would at least TRY to revert them to Christianity and help them to Heaven?

...If I offended you, I'm sorry. I don't try to be a difficult person on this subject but I'm afraid I am. Pay no attention to me... *whistles innocently* I'm just a random person.

Edited 20 Apr 2008 by Musicale Personna (see edit history)

[Shadowknight 54]

Am I the only person who fully read the post? Well, I shouldn't say that I read it and UNDERSTOOD it, because I had no clue what it was saying past the first paragraph! As a matter of fact, I really only understood about ten sentences throughout the whole thing. I guess Scientology isn't for me! I don't think they'd like me anyways. Cults and cult-like religions are gibberish to me-I can't understand them! Honestly, I about fell asleep halfway through. That post was extremely long. No offense, Diamond Triforce, but that seemed like it should have been a novel. And I agree with you on your views of the Bible; the men are rather hypocritical, aren't they?

Na Riknia, I'm not trying to offend you with this whatsoever, but I think a few members would see that as an insult. I, for one, don't think that's true, simply because is that really what God wants? For all nonbelievers to go to Hell? Don't you think that He would at least TRY to revert them to Christianity and help them to Heaven?

...If I offended you, I'm sorry. I don't try to be a difficult person on this subject but I'm afraid I am. Pay no attention to me... *whistles innocently* I'm just a random person.

I think that you have just addressed a topic that most people are confused by. God doesn't want anybody to go to hell. I don't want to offend anybody, so I'll try to word this properly. In Christianity, we believe that everybody is born with something called origional sin. Basically, Adam and Eve eating the fruit made it part of the human nature to sin. God wanted us to be able to be in heaven, so he sent his son to die for us (the penalty for sin is ultimately death). He took the death upon himself and decended into hell. He kicked over the gate of hell and returned to earth before ascending into heaven. We don't have to suffer the eternal death, so we can go to heaven. We believe that Jesus offered us the gift of eternal life, all we have to do is accept it.

[LDGM 0]

how would a person become a member of the church of scientology?

and who is the current leader?