Want a fun read?
Here are two Hollywood Reporter excerpts from a new Scientology tell-all book that gives some of the back stories on Travolta and Cruise.
Just in case you aren’t sure if Scientology is a weird-ass, dangerous cult, these two snippets ought to put a rest to your doubts:
I’ll have to get this. In previous years, Scientology would have blocked something like this with lawsuits and threats of other actions. That’s how they effectively shut down Paulette Cooper’s book The Scandal of Scientology, and Russell Miller’s * The Bare-Faced Messiah*, which disappeared almost immediately after it hit the bookstands. I have copies of both, but for years it was virtually impossible to get them (They’re on http://www.xenu.net/ )
Maybe the fact that this book is coming out unhindered is a sign of the waning of the CoS power.
Despite the source of the articles and the fact that they’re about actors, this is more about Scientology than the arts. Moved CS --> MPSIMS; depending on how it goes, it may be moved again to GD. Keep it civil, folks.
Or, perhaps, have they just stopped fighting? Stories about the loopiness of $cientology are so ubiquitous now that they may feel blocking one more book is just not worth the effort. Honestly, how much more bad publicity can the LRH crowd get?
Does it call for ritual body modification? Smearing ashes on your face? Sweeping the ground in front of you with a broom as you walk? Passing your hand through flames? Wearing special underwear? How about special hats? Does its leader wear a giant stylized vulva on his head?
My point is not that Scientology is not absurd–it most assuredly is. But is it really that much more absurd than religions that are widely accepted as “normal”? (Now, if you want to call it a more outrageous scam, I don’t think I could argue with you, though some of the others have a huge edge in the long-con competition.)
It’s not the weirdness of Scientology – it’s their nasty vindictive and litigious streak. It goes WAY beyond mere defvense of their institution into downright attack.
They framed Paulette Cooper (author of The Scandal of Scientology) by getting her fingerprints on paper upon which they later wrote a bomb threat and forged her signature and simultaneously launched a campaign of harassment and threats that was intended to unhinge her. This was lovingly spelled out in detail in papers that the FBI seized on a raid of Scientology headquarters.
They also broke into FBI offices (“Operation Snow White”) to steal documents, and performed many other wonderful stunts that you won’t find other wacky cults indulging in.
Oh, absolutely. In fact, they’re such a clichéd Villainous Organization[sup]TM[/sup] that I’m mildly surprised that their headquarters aren’t in a volcano. I’m just pointing out that absurdity, in and of itself, does not appear to be a serious impediment to the success of a religion (or quasi-religion).
Maybe that’s why they have that volcano on the cover of their book, and the “explanation” L. Ron gave about it being a characteristic Track image is just window-dressing.
I’ll repeat a point I’ve made about Scientology vs. other religions before
If you didn’t know anything about Judaism, and wanted to know what it was about, any rabbi could and would gladly tell you the basics in 10 minutes, for free. At that point, you could decide that this was intriguing and worthy of further study or dismiss it as crap and forget about it.
Similarly, any priest would happily tell you the basics of Catholicism for free in 10 minutes; he’d then steer you to the complete church Catechism, which would answer ANY question you could possibly have on Church doctrine (and which you could read for free at your local library).
You could easily find out what almost ANY mainstream religion is all about with a minimal investment of time, and without shelling out any money. Can you do that with Scientology? Can I go to a Scientology office and find out what it’s all about for free, in 10 minutes?
That makes all the difference in the world, in my book.
Market research has advanced a great deal since Judaism and Catholicism developed their PR strategies. If you can get people started, they seem willing, and even anxious, for that continued sequence of new things to pursue. Scientology, Pokemon; it’s hard to argue with success.
That’s secretiveness, not absurdity. What does it have to do with the post you quoted?
Look, folks, I’m not defending Scientology. Far from it. I’ve already called it evil, absurd, and a scam in this thread, for pity’s sake. I was addressing a single point by sparky! about the absurdity of a religion keeping it from gaining traction by listing–in a would-be humorous manner–some of the oddities of mainstream (and not-so-mainstream, but mostly accepted) religions that have not kept them from gaining and retaining adherents.
So are the druze not a real religion then? Not to mention how certain islamic sects have a concept whereby they can legitimately hide aspects of their religion.
reality is all religions are evil. Now there are more or less evil religious organisations, but there is no doubt in my mind that the two most evil are the catholic church and what I will call the particular mostly wahhabist islamic hierarchy that is suppported by saudi arabia . Their evilness has little to do with their beliefs really.
edit: there’s no reasonable way you could explain catholic beliefs as espoused by the mother church in ten minutes. they are not really even conceptually (never mind logically!) all that related with one another, and there is a whole bloody lot of them.
I have to say if I had a problem with a psychaitrist I would call the scientologists.
You’re off-topic in this thread, which is about the release of a new book about Scientology. If you wish to make this sort of assertion, start a new thread in Great Debates.
I believe the Scientology response is that a neophyte is not ready for the difficult high-level information yet. They have to go through the paces before they get there.
Christianity has a similar concept–that “when I was a babe I drank milk, now I eat meat”–that a person’s understanding of the religion evolves over time.
RE: payment for services, Scientologists would tell you that all religions charge for their services, and Scientologists use the up-front fee-for-services model much like buying tickets to attend Jewish services on high holy days.
(I’m an atheist and not a Scientologist, by the way.)