I'm thinking about trying out Scientology. What's your experience with the org?

[Chimera]

@VCO3

All right, I’m freaked out enough just by reading that other thread that I’m going to basically scour the clambake site before I even think about going in for some auditing.

Hey, let us know how your hardcore friend reacts, eh?

[si_blakely]

Their audits use a skin galvanic response meter - a very crude device, but it will indicate stress (or excitement, anything, really). They ask you questions attempting to elicit a response from the needle. And (because they people asking the questions have had lots of practice at making people react) they will get a response - even if it involves needling and wearing away at your psyche until you do react.

A BBC reporter was filming a documentary on scientology - after a week of comments and attacks from the scientologist guides he lost his temper (very unusual for a BBC journalist) and shouted at them. It’s what the scientologists do.

UK Dopers - there is a petition on the 10 Downing Street website asking the Prime Minister to turn down any request by the scientologists for status as a religion - it’s not, its a (very shady) business. If you are stirred, sign it.

Si

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

Just remember, you can’t say you really gave it a fair trial unless you did everything they told you to do for the rest of your life.

[Shirley_Ujest]

@What Exit?

I know you don’t like him, but this is some harsh advice. I would not even send someone I disliked into their clutches.

Scientology is a pyramid scheme and a cult started by a clever conman / science fiction writer. VCO3, I would stay away from them if I was you. I would stay far away from them.

Jim

You could always make friends and money by selling Amway. Slightly less cultish somehow.

[Scissorjack]

@VCO3

But the amount of people that say Scientology changed their lives is ENORMOUS, and a lot of their literature makes it sounds like an interesting “operating system” for daily life. My Scientologist Friend (sounds like a They Might be Giants song title or something) is one of the most put-together people I know, and he really seems to be living the tenets of the organization and displaying how they’ve made him a better person on a daily basis. He’s one of the most truly self-actualized people I’ve ever encountered.

How do you expect to rate?

[Jodi]

@VCO3

I agree that the whole pricing structure seems completely insane, and their defense of it is equally stupid (they compare it to a university education - “you’d pay for that, wouldn’t you?”)

You might pay for an education, but you shouldn’t have to pay for a religion. As a practicing Christian, I believe it is a sin to charge for salvation, regardless of how you personally define the term “salvation.”

Forget the aliens and emgrams and hooking you up to machines: I could never get past the “we charge money” part of it. Pulls me up short every time.

[Argent_Towers]

Hey, Beck is a scientologist. If HE is into it, it can’t be all bad, right?

[mswas]

VCO3 It’s basically all about deprogramming your imprints.

Pick up these two books:

Cosmic Trigger Final Secret of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson

and

Info-Psychology by Timothy Leary

They are both essentially talking about the same thing, but aren’t trying to sell you on the lost souls of aliens inhabiting your body.

A friend of mine is a Scientologist, he loves it, but he doesn’t take it uber-seriously. You’ll spend a lot of money and deal with a lot of insecure cultists. If you want to read some really entertaining stuff about L Ron Hubbard pick up “Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft”. It talks about L Ron robbing poor Jack Parsons blind. Jack Parson was the head of Agape lodge of the OTO in California, they were both living together and banging some hot redhead that was a big star in Kenneth Anger’s films. Jack Parsons was a Rocket Scientist who was always being investigated for his ties to occult organizations, but because he was a genius and providing good research for the Military Industrial Complex they mostly left him alone, until he declared himself the anti-christ and talked about how he was going to open a rift to another dimension, which he sort of did as he created a really powerful rocket that breached the atmosphere IIRC.

L. Ron took a bunch of money from Parsons took his girly and went to buy some boats to make some money for the three of them, but then ended up keeping the profit and buying more boats. Boats are a major theme in Scientology as their super-secret elite headquarters is on a boat, it’s where you get the initiation into the leadership.

Like all occult/religious orders it’s a pyramid scheme. It offers some insight into human psychology and gives you a community that you can belong to. That’s what these things are designed to do. However, you have to deal with the ego of bureaucracy and people who want to move up in the bureaucracy just for the sake of moving up in the bureaucracy. A lot of times these things are very incestuous and involve old men and women presenting each other with fancy certificates and congratulating each other on being old and in the organization for a long time.

Scientology has been moving in on Latin America a lot providing textbooks to schools and such. At least according to my friend who is a Scientologist.

IMO it’s no worse than the Catholic or Anglican church. Just another faction to try and sell you on the notion that they’ve got the REAL down-low on what’s REALLY going on.

Read Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary, they strip the psychological notions of a particular sects dogma and lay it out in systemic frameworks. Of course, this does not provide the community that you may be seeking.

If you do choose to embark on such a venture, best of luck to you, don’t take it too seriously otherwise it won’t be that much fun anymore.

[AncientHumanoid]

Go for it. Nothing else seems to make you happy.

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

I actually just picked up “Strange Angel,” a Jack (john whiteside) Parsons biography that came out last year. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve known about the guy and his kooky Babylon Working stuff for years. And the redhead and the sex magick. Interesting stuff…

[picunurse]

Here’s a very interesting site that gives a little bio on Hubbard

[Johnny_Hildo]

Do they still have those Scientology infomercials? I used to see them several years ago on late night TV. They were hosted by Michael Fairman, the guy who played Dutch Kinkade on Cheers. They featured other celebrity endorsers like Nancy Cartwright and Chick Corea.

[Musicat]

@VCO3

I just read it [Dianetics]. Some of it’s a little iffy, but I think that there are a lot of valid concepts in it.

Really? That’ll be the day. Name one.

[mswas]

@VCO3

I actually just picked up “Strange Angel,” a Jack (john whiteside) Parsons biography that came out last year. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve known about the guy and his kooky Babylon Working stuff for years. And the redhead and the sex magick. Interesting stuff…

He’s one of my favorite historical figures. A really wacky dude.

[Soapbox_Monkey]

@Argent Towers

Hey, Beck is a scientologist. If HE is into it, it can’t be all bad, right?

Just because he makes good music doesn’t mean he isn’t a fucking retard.

[foolsguinea]

If you think Dianetics is even a little iffy, Scientology is not for you. The religion is built on the idea that this is absolute truth. Don’t let it break your heart.

[Czarcasm]

Moving religious debate from IMHO to Great Debates.

[valleyofthedolls]

@VCO3

What’s your experience with Scientology? Anyone gone in for some basic auditing? (he’s offered to pay for a few sessions of auditing for me, since I’m a skeptic).

Your friend’s not being helpful. He’s trying to recruit you. Don’t fall for it.

[Larry_Borgia]

@valleyofthedolls

Your friend’s not being helpful. He’s trying to recruit you. Don’t fall for it.

Second this.

[XT]

@Czarcasm

Moving religious debate from IMHO to Great Debates.

Gods, devils and 70 million year old immortal alien souls…why???
If you are even considering this, and you have actually read through the thread already linked AND some of the debunking websites (one at least also listed in this thread), AND you think that Dianetics (one of the most psudo-scientific load of crapola its ever been my misfortune to slog through) is “a little iffy, but I think that there are a lot of valid concepts in it”…

Then either you are pulling our chain or you should simply take silenus excellent (though harsh ) advice and “I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for you to make new friends. Go for it.”

Seriously. This is like going on Randi’s site and asking folks if they feel that dowsing with wood is better than with metal rods, or if the tin foil hat should be worn right next to the skin or if it can be actually woven into the beanie cap. You simply aren’t going to get the answer you are looking for here…on a mainly skeptical web site dedicated to fighting ignorance.

Just for laughs, here is what Cecil has to say about the subject:

Let’s put it this way: Cecil wouldn’t waste his time and money. But what the hell, some people pay to get beaten with canes. Maybe you’d get a kick out of Dianetics, more commonly known in its religious incarnation, Scientology. The teachings of the late L. Ron Hubbard (he died in 1986) have been described as “the poor man’s psychoanalysis.” There are those who believe this means that if you’re not poor when you start, you will be by the time you’re done. It takes thousands of dollars’ worth of training sessions to achieve “clear,” the Scientological equivalent of enlightenment, and there have been repeated claims that the whole thing is a just a hugely profitable scam. Scam or not, it’s definitely huge. At its peak the cult was reportedly taking in $100 million a year, and in 1986 was said to have assets of $280 million.

The evidence suggests Hubbard was sincere in his beliefs, at least at the outset. Originally a writer of hack science fiction, in 1950 he published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The book argued that the brain was analogous to a computer with two independent memory banks, the Analytical (conscious) Mind and the Reactive (subconscious) Mind. The latter is full of “engrams” (traumatic memories), which interfere with the operation of the Analytical Mind and cause personality problems and ailments such as asthma and arthritis.

During “auditing” (therapy), the “pre-clear” (patient) can “run” (relive) and thus conquer the traumatic experiences. Once “clear,” the patient would have super powers: total recall, high IQ, perfect health, and for all I know X-ray vision. Except for the inflated payoff, the parallels to Freudian analysis are obvious, including the high hourly fees you later had to pay to learn this stuff at Scientology centers.

Dianetics inspired a brief vogue for kitchen-table auditing. But the medical establishment condemned it and many early enthusiasts became disillusioned when they didn’t get results. Undiscouraged, Hubbard repackaged Dianetics a few years later as a religion called Scientology, throwing in some new elements of Eastern mysticism. He now argued that we are all “thetans,” or immortal spirits. Through auditing we can explore previous lives (74 trillion years’ worth), free our inner being, and gain control over the material world. A key element in this is the “E-meter,” a biofeedback device consisting of a galvanometer, some wires, and two soup cans.

By establishing a religion Hubbard was able to set himself up as a font of revelation rather than a scientist and thus control the movement. He also hoped to deflect outside criticism and indeed might have succeeded in doing so had it not been for his own implacable paranoia. He established thought police, conducted purges, and declared his critics “fair game,” who “may be deprived of property or injured [or] tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”

As a result of such threats, Scientology has been frequently investigated and sometimes banned in different countries. The FDA even tried (in vain) to ban the E-meter, claiming it was a quack medical device. Ron’s attempts to fight back made things worse. In 1979, for example, his wife and ten other Scientologists were convicted of burglarizing and wiretapping government offices.

Even Cecil has been the target of the Scientologists’ wrath. Not long after my column on Scientology was published in the newspapers, I got a call from a radio show producer asking me to answer questions from listeners on the air. This happens fairly often and I didn’t give the timing much thought. When the first called lambasted me for dissing L. Ron, I started to get suspicious, and when every caller for the next half hour did the same I knew I’d been set up. Not that they laid a finger on me argument-wise. But swatting mosquitoes for 30 minutes isn’t my idea of fun.

In 1984 several former Scientology officials claimed Hubbard told them to divert $100 million of church funds into foreign bank accounts. The church denied any wrongdoing, but you see the pattern. Whatever may be said for Scientology as a philosophy (and there are those who say it has helped them), its record as an organization is one of unmitigated sleaze. Get mixed up with these people at your peril.

-XT