I have known many of them including four that I consider friends. While, I have never felt the ones that I know well were geniuses of any sort, I don’t believe they are stupid either. Their intensity of belief has never struck me as any different from my friends who are Roman Catholic, Muslim, Protestant, etc. In other words if it wasn’t the thetans, I imagine something else would have come along for them to have faith in and that something could have been just as ridiculous.
I don’t know any Scientologists (as far as I know); on the other hand, I do know the founder of Operation Clambake (xenu.net). I’m guessing just knowing him would put me on some sort of list. 
I don’t know a single Scientologist. I don’t know any married or divorced ones, either.
well then, her e-meter should come with a bathroom scale and a thighmaster.
That was an easy out for them, wasn’t it?
Yes, a Scottish girl, she used to go out with a friend of mine in Florida. I went away, when I came back he told me she’d joined this cult. I went down to the office looking for her and on about the third attempt they let me see her. She was working there in the office. It was all about this crazy love story where she’d married this Scientology guy two weeks after meeting him. They had a small child, whereas she’d always been adamant about not having kids. We were allowed to sit together on a sofa in the waiting area, but were constantly interrupted in the twenty minutes I was there. I felt suffocated and asked her if we could go outside for a moment. I might as well have offered to blow up the building - they had me out of there very quickly. She was a cult person she explained, having lived in some crystal crushing commune in Scotland previously. I still feel sad about it.
No…but thanks for asking.
I used to live down the street from the Scientology church(?), so several of my neighbors were scientologists. I don’t remember anything particular about their behavior.
This makes me a sad panda. 
A former dentist had Scientology books in his waiting room. Apparently they target small business owners like dentists and chiropractors for recruitment.
Another group Scientologists seem to work hard to recruit are mentally unstable people. A psychiatrist I worked with told the story about having to hospitalize a very mentally ill fellow who was involved with them. When the Scientologists came to visit him they tried to get away with taking photos of other patients (therefore totally invading those patients’ privacy) as part of their anti-psychiatry agenda.
I think it is tempting to laugh off Scientology because the whole thing seems so ridiculous. Unfortunately, there are an incredible number of gullible and stupid people in this world. For that reason I do worry about them gaining any more power and influence. Their strong arm tactics against people who criticize them are truly frightening. And while I do know there are limits to how much we should protect people from their own stupidity, I feel bad for those who end up getting scammed in big ways by this group.
How so?
Btw, I vaguely remember hearing about a Dr. Peebles Channeler a while back. He may have been a guest on Coast to Coast AM when Art Bell hosted.
A reminder to several people- Xenu is a devil figure, NOT a Deity to Scientologists, and the subject comes up maybe six levels in.
From what I’ve read, Dianetics is a superficial form of psychotherapy designed so that you can relate traumatic events in your life & not show stress on a stress-detector. As a friend said when I explained it her “Oh- so they cease to be traumatic & just become boring.” As such, a lot of people who go thru it can feel more immediate relief than from other forms of psychotherapy which might seem to encourage them to wallow in their pain. Thus, they get hooked.
A friend of mine got caught up in Scientology during a low point in her life. She was with the group for about a year or so.
When I came back from Europe and tried to visitor her, they first said she was not allowed to see me, but she insisted. She was able to meet with me, but someone from the ORG had to be in the room.
Luckily, I and a few other friends eventually got her to leave - but the ORG harassed her for months on end - calling, stopping by, threatening her with lawsuits for supposed unpaid debts for lessons, etc.
I learned far more about the Scientology cult than I ever wanted to learn, and she told me some horror stories; once she made some kind of infraction and they made her clean the steps of the building - with a toothbrush! She didn’t even want to mention some of the other things that happened - and to this day, she gets almost sick to her stomach when you mention that asshat organization.
I have absolutely zero tolerance for Scientology. I know Germany has tried for years to get them officially declared a cult - so they can ban them from the country. Hope Germany eventually succeeds, if they haven’t already.
As far as I know, I’ve never known a single Scientologist.
I used to work with a Scientologist. I think the only reason he was a Scientologist was because his father was, and he was too dumb to think for himself. Although he was an adult, he seemed somewhat like a teenager in many ways.
A few. They’d occasionally want to “discuss some really interesting things we’ve been doing with our church,” and offered free tickets to (a) Chick Coreal and (b) some car race in which they had a sponsored team. Even had I not been pretty aware of what a crock the CoS is, they were bad enough proselytizers that I doubt I was in much danger (Chick Corea, forsooth).
Lt. Saavik is a Scientologist?
God, I wish. The craziest religious person I’ve ever interacted with would easily be a former boss, a Jehovah’s witness. My other boss intercepted a small birthday gift I’d wrapped for her juuuust before I was about to give it to her. Crazy shit. Her kids came into the office every now and then and begged to be allowed to trick-or-treat.
Oh crap. The line you quoted was a brain fart. While I do see superficial similarities between COS and LDS, the “Hubbard borrowing from Mormonism” line came from my ageing brain scrambling names and ism’s.
Was he playing Dr. P as a hyperactive, motormouthed “Koo-Koo Professor” type?
Having lived in Hollywood and Los Feliz, I have met many. We had a neighbor in Los Feliz who was one. British guy. Did computer programming. Had me come and work on his computer once. Never saw him associate with any other person in the years he was there. Had a bookeeper for my business who we later found out was one. She was incompetent and almost cost me a lot of money, but we were able to correct the books and get a lot of money back from the IRS.
One time my GF and I were walking across a parking lot in a strip mall, about two blocks from “Big Blue” at Vermont and Hollywood Blvd. Two people approached us, one holding a clipboard. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” “No Problem!”
“What is the most obvious thing about me?”
My girlfriend didn’t miss a beat: “That your’e a Scientologist.” We both busted out laughing like little kids, and kept on walking. God I love that woman.
As far as the numbers they claim, it is a big old lie. Independent estimates put their number at about 50,000 worldwide, and I find this totally believable. In LA, the big “ORG” known as Big Blue, might have 100 cars in the parking lot on a good night. The thing is, there aren’t many “ORGS” of that size in the world. Clearwater FL, has a big one, There is one in Manhattan, and they have a big one in England, but most cities have no Scientology presence at all, or at most a small org that handles a handful of local clams.
The cult does a lot of things to inflate their numbers, B. Dalton used to get boxes of Dianetics from them, WITH THEIR OWN PRICE STICKERS ALREADY AFFIXED. The cult was buying the same copies over and over, to keep Dianetics on the sales chart.
Anyway, we pass by various cult installations in Hollywood on a regular basis, and it is very rare to see anyone actually going into the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibit, or the Museum of Psychiatry. You never see anyone in the “Test Center” except the forlorn clam whose “hat” is to keep the doors open. Big Blue seems like a bustling place, but the people you see there are the lifers, Sea Org types, but very few members of the public are flocking in there to sign up.
Despite all their efforts, with their “Free Stress Tests” and handing out tickets to the Orientation Film, the cat is out of the bag on these people. Kids today have the internet, and most people are aware of the wacky nature of the cult. The Xenu story is out, it has been ridiculed on South Park and many other programs. In that environment, it is tough to find new suckers.
Every indication is that the cult is in decline, propped up mainly by huge donations from folks like Cruise and Travolta. Most of their membership claims are meant for internal consumption. If you are to convince members that they are making great strides in “clearing the planet”, you have to lie to them and tell them that Scientology is growing like never before. It is all nonsense.
OK, the only CoS-LDS similarity I can think of was a belief in some form of pre-existence. There is definitely a CoS-Gnostic ripoff & Hubbard himself claimed to be carrying on the tradition of Aleister Crowley.
And yep- that’s Dr P! I googled after I posted & apparently Dr. P has several channelers.