Scientology, a wack job cult religion!

I admit I pay a little attention to popular culture. Tom Cruise or someone with a few degrees of separation seems to be in the news constantly and therefore constantly reminds me of Scientology. What is surprising is how few people seem to know what a complete wack job cult religion Scientology is. I suppose it might speak to the power if its well known star power members and the medias fear of pissing them off. You might have seen, or heard about, Tom Cruise's appearance on NBC's today show where he went off on Matt Lauer..."you don't know the history of Psychiatry, I know the history of Psychiatry". Cruise contends the use of any drugs in Psychiatry is quackery and that any mental affliction being a chemical imbalance you can fix with drugs utterly false. Frankly there is no measured proof of that, true enough...however the use of medication has worked for millions even if as a placebo. But that's not my topic...why Tom thinks he knows the history of Psychiatry and the bizarre story that the members of Scientology believe is. More tomorrow when I complete the story.

The rest of the bizarre story: In giving my version of what Scientology is I'm not attempting to be accurate on dates, timeline, or being blow by blow accurate. Those details are not important as evidence that the entire existence of Scientology is one man's creation with no proof for what it purports to be true. Sure, you could make a similar claim about many religions but I think the actual history of any religion can make its own case and Scientology's case is non-existent!

I did all of my homework online, and got a lot out of the comprehensive site on the topic called Operation Clambake, Undressing the Church of Scientology since 1996. The site also gives links to those who don't agree which is refreshing. I'm going to be brief in making my case since. Like I said, the gory details of when L. Ron Hubbard did this or that, or his actual words, or how much it costs to get something from the church don't matter...the overall story is what is truly shocking to me...shocking that people would be so gullible, so easily conned!

In the 1950's L. Ron Hubbard (LRH) talked about creating a church as a better way to make millions as opposed to writing for a living. LRH creates a method of regression therapy from other existing psychotherapy methods that exist. Why regress someone? That's coming. He writes about this regression therapy method in a book called Dianetics. LRH, wanting to of course make more dough takes his own advice and creates the tax loophole religion called the Church of Scientology (COS). Again being brief, and only focusing on the bizarre.

Ok, a brief side editorial. Frankly one really bizarre, bad, or evil characteristic about a person, an organization, a group is enough to completely right them off. Not every time, but lets take an example. Lets say there is a religion that is clean cut, promotes doing good and having what are obviously to most high moral standards, they try to spread there message to others. Then lets say you find out that they absolutely disallow members to celebrate someone's birthday! To the point where you could be ostracized or removed for participating in a cake and candles willingly. They believe God dislikes birthdays! Why, well they believe if the bible doesn't mention something God dislikes it. They believe if the bible has a story about evil doers doing something common (like say celebrating something) that's God's way of saying he dislikes that something even though by itself that something isn't inherently evil. This religion is the Jehovah's Witnesses. Again, I'm being general here...don't go correcting me on this...the fact is the point I'm making is on track! But I digress!

Back to COS, the church has a story of how we got here on earth and why some of us are bad, or evil, or not at peace and so on. The church claims you need to go thru auditing (what they call the psychotherapy they employ). They are trying to help you reach some spiritual truth, to cleanse your being all of which is done over a period of time thru "levels" members progress through...largely triggered by your paying for this progression! And fees have been reported from thousands to hundreds of thousands per level. Paying is required while the church claims it isn't, plenty who have left the church have provided evidence and experience that you must pay to play....doesn't sound like a friendly, we-just-want-to-help-people religion does it?

Ok, now for the good part. After you have reached an "advanced" level and at this point your for the most part brainwashed into thinking this church and the people in it are so enlightened. You are told the big secret! That man got to earth millions of years ago because an alien named Xenu gathered up criminal and over populated beings of this galaxy and dropped them on earth. He put them next to volcanoes and then detonated hydrogen bombs (as if a alien millions of years ago would use an explosive technique we use today!). The COS believes in reincarnation and since some of these beings would survive the bombs Xenu employed psychiatrists of his time to re-program the minds of the living and dead so as to not know their origin. According to COS they programmed the notion of the historic religions (Catholicism, Buddhism, Judaism, etc.) practiced on earth and thus they are false. These psychiatrists and Xenu were evil! COS says that the souls of all these murdered beings infest the body of everyone today. They call these souls "body thetans" and at advanced levels in COS a member of the church "audits out" the body thetans telepathically. The COS and its members believe all our bad thoughts, our miss-steps, unhappiness, etc. is due to these body thetans. Given the COS believes we are all descendents from murdered beings brainwashed by evil psychiatrists is why Tom Cruise thinks he knows the history of psychiatry!

The COS easily fits the definition of a cult. It is very telling that the COS has gone to great efforts to try and stop those spreading these details about the church. It is also telling that they do not tell their members about Xenu, and these basic premises of the church, until they have spent a long period of time and money with the church. Having this element of secrecy and a lack of trust to all members of the COS says it all. There are lots of other details about the COS, but I think this bizarre central tenet on how we got on this planet is all I need to label this a wack job cult religion.