Actually, what was LRH’s explanation for how this “knowledge” came to him. Anyone know how he figured out what happened with Xenu and the boys?
Xemu says, “Don’t make me come down there!”
I believe it was through the Auditing process (e-meter stuff et al.), where supposedly you can learn about past lives and stuffs.
Leave it to L-Ron to screw it up-If you want to get information from an empty tin can, you have to hold it up to your ear.
They could have a mythology that is still religious, but one that’s less ridiculous to the outsider. Imagine, for example, that instead the Xenu and aliens and DC-9 stuff, L. Ron said that he was told by God that demons are attaching themselves to people. That’s similar enough to most Abrahamic religions that it’s not going to require a gigantic leap of rationalization.
What I’m wondering is, would Scientology be more successful or less successful with the less ridiculous mythology.
I think you’re missing the point that all mythos are equally absurd from the outside. If you don’t believe in a religion’s origin and theology, it’s all pretentious babble whether it’s dressed up in conventional gravity and pomp, or the comic-book ramblings of a deranged mind.
Your question frames your bias: something claiming to be schismatic from Abrahamic tradition would be “more believable” than something from… pulp sf. But really, angels, 13th tribes and magical gold plates, or Xemu, thetans and billions of past lives… aren’t they both pretty goofy when viewed from a distance? Also, Mormonism was meant to appeal to an existing mainline-Christian population; Scientology was meant to appeal to the second round of “new age” seekers and be all scientificky and stuff. So comparing any two religious myths from different eras has to take the audience of potential converts into account.
Go back to the proto-Christian religions, and the Egyptian pantheon and theology - yeah, they’re real old and we’re familiar with them and they have the gray weight of historical tradition, but they’re just as goofy as Elron’s creation. I mean, I keep looking up at the sky to see Nut’s boobs, but they aren’t there.
So if LRH had crafted a more traditional religious shell for Dianetics… he would have drawn a different audience. His 1950s b-movie science-y one probably drew more, at least in the early decades.
The problem is that you can’t look at this stuff in a vacuum. No, Scientology’s “backstory” is no less ridiculous than those of more mainstream religions. But we don’t know that the myths of other mainstream religions were intended to be treated as fiction when they were written down. In fact, there is every reason to believe that somebody thought they were plausible explanations for natural phenomena. We do know that about the story of Xenu and all that stuff: it was a sci-fi novel first, and a religion later. It’s like pretending that Sauron and the Einur are battling for our souls because someone started a Tolkien-based religion.
To be fair, the importance to modern people of the distinction between fiction and non-fiction was largely absent in ancient times. Nomadic peoples told stories for all kinds of reasons, and even a story with a kernel of truth, from something that really happened, was inevitably embellished.
Ancient religions largely started as stories people passed down aurally for generations. Fiction or not wasn’t an important consideration.
There may only be 15,000 active members, so we are talking about a super niche religion in a world with over 7 billion people. The Xenu stuff appears to be necessary for tax exceptions, or at least helps the case. It also helps break down existing members for brainwashing purposes.
It stands to reason that a large percentage of the 15K to even 50K of people attracted to this system would believe anything anyway.
Xenu isn’t a s stumbling block for people who are “in the market” for a belief system anyway.
Tangent alert:
The ancient religions have the benefit of being the product of even older oral traditions with the seal of approval of “GOD”. GOD explains all the wackiness. No rational person could justify a hack sci-fi writer’s alien myth without evidence. Newer religions such as Mormonism and Scientology have the major drawback of being written by guys who were nutcases and some say frauds. Mormonism at least has the exterior trappings of mainstream Christianity, which has resulted in 14 million followers.
What novel would that be?
I’ve always been partial to Hindu mythos and the Greek pantheon mythos, they make sense for the most part and have understandable human motivations.
It wouldn’t; I misremembered what I’d read about the origin of Dianetics. It was quasi-science first and a religion later.
I’ve wondered why there isn’t like a splinter group of scientology that says thetans are good and nothing to rid yourself of. Who says thetans are bad? Define bad?
Sort of like a “Satanic Scientology”?
Edited to add: Thetanic!
Yea kinda, I’ve also been curious why there isn’t a breakaway sect espousing “free scientology” you know disentangle the scam from the ideology and teaching, open source info wants to be free etc.
The fact it hasn’t happened tells me scientology despite all the noise they make is dying.
That point is irrelevant because the converts aren’t coming from place where they’re hearing all mythos for the first time. They are already in a society where the beliefs of Abrahamic faiths are accepted. Scientology’s mythos could be more compatible with what people have already had drilled into their heads, and hence would not require such a huge swallowing of disbelief. Unless of course that is an advantage somehow, which is what I’m trying to determine.
I don’t think it’s irrelevant, because millions of people convert between faiths every year - and I’d wager most of them convert from the familiar, understood “community” (or at least “family”) faith to one that has different principles and mythos. It may be a slight change among Abrahamic faiths, or from rock-ribbed Catholicism to… Buddhism. Or Scientology. So the question sort of moots itself. If a faith is so attractive it gains a convert despite having a b-movie theology and mythos, it’s hard to say whether it would have attracted that convert with, say, a “Jesus was an astronaut” one. Or which one would attracted more, in the end - part of Scientology’s appeal, I think, is that it IS so different. (And scientific, you know.)
You seem to really want to believe Scientology would be a roaring success if it had a less… loony mythos. I suggest you look into things like the couple of “Jesus was a space traveler” religions, some of which have dozens of converts, and make up your own mind through comparison.
There have been “free scientology” groups – lots of them. Scientology fights to drive them out of business, suing them over using copyrighted material without permission. They call such “unauthorized” groups “squirrels”, and they keep telling devout Scientologists to help “Stamp Out Squirrels”
Converting to Buddhism requires less faith, as it can be completely non-spiritual. Converting to Scientology from the modern Christian religions requires more faith. (Modern Christianity largely rejects demonology–the equivalent of Scientology’s thetans.)
And I’m pretty sure the entire appeal of Scientology was its science fiction roots. Without being different, it wouldn’t have picked up as many followers as it did. If it’s similar to an Abrahamic faith, those are already covered. There’s a lot more competition.
(While Mormonism is similar to a Scientology with Abrahamic roots, I think it picked up more people for being an “American” religion. Scientology was too late to capitalize on that. It capitalized on the love of aliens that was big at the time.)
The problem is that followers have no idea about the science fiction roots until they are already totally committed. So those roots can play no role in its appeal.
Scientology attracts followers by pretending to be some sort of alternative psychotherapy. While certainly woo, there’s nothing remotely sci-fi like in the initial stages that I have ever seen.