CalMeacham,
Have you read my second post? Just curious.
The only reference I recall seeing to him by any other SF writer was by Larry Niven in his novel about a sci-fi fan who falls out a hotel window at a convention and ends up in hell. I think it was called Inferno?
Niven portrays L. Ron as a pile of ashes in an urn in some quiet corner of hell, and his character basically says that is what you get for trying to create your own religion, oh, and you were a crappy writer too.
And Martin Gardner included it as such in a book about quackery and scientific frauds back in the 60’s (along with Orgone, General Semantics, Lysenkoism, etc.)
jrd
And I still resent the $cienos for forcing the shutdown of the excellent anon.penet.fi remailer back in the mid-90s.
Re-reading what I wrote, I guess I came off as pretty flippant. It is fun to ridicule Xenu, Body Thetans, and a thousand other aspects of Lron’s warped mind, but if it stopped at the silly stuff, I’d hardly give them a second thought. When you begin reading some personal stories about what being in the cult is like [1] and what it’s like trying to get out of it…you start getting chills!
As it is, they are a scary bunch. Just like other zealous, we’ll-do-anything-for-our-beliefs-because-we’re-RIGHT “religions” they are absolutely committed to “clearing the planet”[2] and if that phrase sounds scary, it should! Their stated goal is to turn everyone into Scienos, and if there are those who don’t want to get with the program, they can be “disposed of quietly, without sorrow”[3] as Lron so chillingly put it.
Obviously they’re not getting very far and fiascos like Battlefield Earth, which they expected to be a huge hit and bring in a new generation of Hubbard lovers, aren’t helping them. That doesn’t mean they should be dismissed as just another kookoo cult. Germany and France are smart enough to keep an eye on them.
This is, after all, a group that has a COURSE teaching how to deal with those who question $cientology titled PTS/SP COURSE LECTURES.[4] PTS is “Potential Trouble Source” and SP means “Suppressive Person.”
There are hundreds of ways that Lron’s paranoid delusions of grandeur have been translated into scary practices and attitudes, but one of the most …um…interesting is the “Tone Scale” which ranks emotional states, illustrated here: http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/full.htm (I love being able to use Lron’s own writings to show what fakes they are. See also the quotes that Lissner posted)
The highest (best) level is +40 which is “Serenity of Beingness”
This “church” rates “Sympathy” at .9, well below things such as Hate, Anger, Fear, Pain and No Sympathy!
Even lower on the scale is
“Making Amends” at .375,
“Pity” at -0.1,
“Accountable” (as in holding yourself accountable for your actions? I don’t know) at -0.7,
“Regret” at -1.3,
“Approval from Bodies” at -3.5,
“Needing Bodies” at -4.0 and
“Sacrifice” at -6.0
Note that one of their buzzphrases is that “Scientology is there to help the able become more able”[5] and we can make a good guess as to where that leaves the disabled. If you ever hear any of them bullshit about what “good” they’re doing (they trot out charity acts when they need the PR) remind them that it’s against Lron’s policy to do good deeds.
Aside: Ever wonder where Tom Cruise got that amazing stare? He got it directly from $cientology. They have early courses called TRs (Training Routines).[6] The course is designed to train the auditor (“therapist”) to be unresponsive to the PC (Preclear, someone who has not been cleared).[7] A side effect of TR training is creating a cold and distant “thousand-mile stare” in Scientologists’ eyes. Look close at photos of Cruise, Travolta, Mimi Rogers, Giovanni Ribisi, Charles Manson, Kirstie Alley and Juliette Lewis next chance you get. Their eyes, except for the color, remind me of the children in the old film Children of the Damned.
Equipoise
“In a remarkably skilful way, Hubbard has developed methods whereby people are lured into scientology and, once ensnared, are kept in subjection. So diabolical are the methods he has devised for procuring “bodies in the shop” that, but for the fact that the procedures are fully documented by his own written instructions, one would be pardoned for doubting that anyone could be capable of planning such villainy.”
Report Of The Board Of Inquiry, Published 1965 by the State of Victoria, Australia by Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C. (aka The Anderson Report), Chapter 15, Procurement and Dissemination (http://www.demon.co.uk/castle/audit/ar15.html)
[1] http://home.snafu.de/tilman/mystory/
[2] http://users.ev1.net/~doogmeister/dcs/posts/pulp/lrhplan1.html
[3]“There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the tone scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the tone scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow.” L. Ron Hubbard in his book “Science of Survival”
Quote found here: http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/germany/quotes.html
[4]http://alfa.ist.utl.pt/~dif/ic/persons/story8.htm
[5] David Miscaviage, head of the cult, on Nightline http://www.primenet.com/~xenubat/transcript/Night1.htm
[6]http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/
[7]http://www.scientology.org/world/worldeng/20/20-precl.htm
[8] Ok, there’s no 8 up there, but I wanted to add this link: http://www.xenutv.com/
The subgenius must have slack!
http://www.subgenius.com/
You’ll pay good money to know what you think.
All Praise be to “Bob”, the One True Prophet of Sales and Avatar of Bogus, and certified TIME Magazine Biggest Fraud of the XXth Century!
jrd
I was in DC with some friends when we saw a Scientology center. They wanted to go in, and see if it was really as bad as people said. I went in to protect them. The recruitment film we saw was more incriminating than anything I’ve read on the web. It’s basic theme was `All your problems are caused by your reactive mind. Your overeating, drug use, wife beating, are not your fault. It’s not your fault that you’re 52 and still work at Burger King. It’s all caused by your reactive mind.’. At the conclusion the narrarator telss us in a friendly tone that we could just ignore the message of Scientology, then screams “You might as well jump off a bridge! Or put a gun to your head and pull the trigger!”. Those were his actual words. After that we had short talks with the Scienos. I don’t think Children of the Damned describes these people. There eyes were empty and dead. They were more convincing and much more frightening than the zombies from Night Of The Living Dead. Why do I think they’re spooky flakes? Their own film. I can watch Hellraiser alone in a dark house, but that recruitment movie is truly frightening.
I went right down to my local library after Scientology came up on the board the last time and read a couple of the publications the LRH’ers had kindly donated. I urge anyone with questions about what they believe to do the same. My conclusion was that the “religion” is a bizarre combination of pseudo-science, science fiction, and psycho-babble. They really HATE pyschologists/psychiatrists – whom they say disavow the soul and attempt to heal all problems through drugs (yeah, right, as opposed to healing through hooking someone up to the bells and whistles of an e-meter). They are also paranoid in the extreme – a lot of references to different “groups” that are “out to get them.” Keep in mind these are conclusions I reached from reading THEIR publications and THEIR explanations of THEIR OWN “religion.” Very, very odd.
As I’ve said before, I object to Scientology because I am offended by the idea of putting a price on salvation which, no two ways about it, is what Scientology does. In Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and most other established religions I know, all you need to do to learn about the beliefs of the religion and the “way” to “truth” or “salvation” or whatever, is to ask. Heck, for some Christian sects, you don’t even have to ask – they’ll chase you down to tell you, whether you like it or not. With Scientology, if you want to know what they believe (except for the broadest explanation) or how you personally can become a better person, you have to pay for the priviledge. I find that very distasteful.
I’ve been doing some reading up on these weirdos, thanks in large part to the great links Equipoise posted, and I keep coming across the word scienos. Someone want to PLEASE tell me how this is pronounced? Yeah, it’s minor, but it’s driving me nuts. Sy-uh-nohs? Seen-ohs?
Oh, yeah - because they ARE flakes.
How about the fact that the $cientologists closed down anon.penet.fi? They went after the owner and demanded he give the identity of the person posting $cientology info and because of it, shut it down as it could no longer be truly anonymous. This hurt a lot of people who wanted their anonymity to post personal info without it being traced to them.
Rhymes with rhinos.
Thanks! That was driving me nuts.
What exactly is an e-meter? What is it supposed to do?
Ooops! I apologise for not answering you, I completely forgot about the thread. Thanks to lissener for answering.
It’s short for “electro-psychometer”: a crude lie detector used by Scientology auditors (“counselors”) to examine a person’s mental state. Scientologists claim the device allows people to “see a thought”. In the hands of a (cough) trained auditor it is said to be able to uncover hidden “crimes”.
That was somewhat paraphrased. More information can be found at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/
Of course it’s a load of bullshit, what with holding on to a couple of soup can-like things and confessing all your sins to a total stranger, but if you buy into it (and thousands of people do) what’s really scary about it is that the e-meter will be used to get whatever information the scienos want out of you, and you’ll give that information willingly, because the high of “confession” is like no other. What you can also be sure of is that the organization WILL use whatever you say in your auditing sessions against you if you turn against them, leave $cientology and become a critic.
<insert gossipy mention of unnamed high profile Hollywood stars revealing homosexual trysts in auditing sessions, and said sessions being held over the star’s heads when they wanted to leave $cientology.>
Yikes.
IzzyR;
I went on a couple of trips after my last post, and didn’t see your comment and query.
I noted that Dianetrics was first opular among science fiction fans (not that it was an sf fad) because that’s how it first made its way into the public eye. It may be true, as the Scientologists claim, that there was a mention of Dianetics in The Explorer’s Journal (the magazine of The Explorer’s Club, of which Hubbard was a member) before it appeared anywhere else, but even if that is so, it’s an extremely limited audience. The real unveiling of Dianetics appeared in Astounding Science Fiction (a magazine stioll around, although now it’s called Analog), edited by the legendary John Campbell. Campbell was Hubbard’s editor and a convert to Dianetics. I believe he was even an officer in the early Dianetics orgnization (see Martin Gardner’s book “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science”, among other sources). Campbell had been giving the release of ianetics a big buildup in Astounding, with a cliffhanger ad in the issue before it appeared. Then he gave Hubbard a LOT of space in one issue to do a writeup on Dianetics. Fans wanted to know more, and there as a lively correspondence. It was only after this that the book came out. Therefore, science fiction fans were the first audience. No judgements – just a statement of fact.
I don’t imply any put-down. I’m a big science fiction fan myself. Astounding gave Hubbard a good launching platform for his ideas. Campbell was an influential editor – he has been called the founder of modern science fiction, and he fostered many of the Great writers of sf’s Golden Age. He was also a clever and powerful essayist. His letters ad editorials are well worth reading. Campbell would have been a big fan of The Straight Dope. He’d probably take it over, in fact.
But he could also be seduced by the occasional whacko idea. Thus he supported “psionics” and the inertialess “Dean Drive”, and he bought into Dianetics (even though, as Gardner pointed out, it didn’t cure his sinusitis). But his interest and enthusiasm doubtless “sold” Dianetics to an eager body of science fiction fans who had seen similar things in the pages of his magazine.
Why? What did the library ever do to you? 
Oh, and here’s another thread from “Comments on Cecil’s Columns,” you may wanna read: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=1793 (It features the one and only post by a poster named berkstar, who is apparently a $cientologist. He was peeved.)
And here’s a link to the New Times L. A.'s article on whow $cientology defeated an organization called CAN (Cult Awareness Network) by taking it over and making it a part of $cientology: http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/1999-09-09/feature.html It’s five pages long, but it’s worth reading to see just how ruthless they can be.
Most people have heard the philosophy “If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em.” $cientology believes, “Beat 'em by making 'em join you.”