(Part 2) Best products from r/scientology

What you have heard is a likely combination of misinformation, misunderstandings, and out of context information with a dash of truth thrown in for believability (plus some stuff that so weird you can't make it up). I suggest you start with one of these books (in order of objectivity):

• The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion by Dr. Hugh Urban. This one is by a religious studies professor and is by far the most objective. He covers the history of the church, its basic beliefs and practices, and controversies and does an amazing job of putting things into context.
  
  
• Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. This guy is a journalist and did a pretty good job of staying objective. He chose some of the more sensationalist topics I think but still covered them more-or-less fairly. I was actually surprised that this book was more objective than I was expecting.
  
  
• Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman. Another journalist's take on Scientology. Reitman was a bit heavier on the sensationalist stuff and didn't quite "get" the context for some aspects of Scientology but she still did a pretty good job.
  
  > allows it's members to attack critics
  
  The video you probably saw recently isn't attacking a "critic". While I don't believe he should be harassed at all, this is a guy who was a top executive that left, wrote some books that makes the rest of top management looks like total assholes, and basically wants to reform the whole movement from the outside. Normal critics, members, and ex-members don't get treated like this. No one is going to knock on your door for posting critical stuff on reddit, for example.
  
  > No one person's religion is "the right way"
  
  This is one of Scientology's core moral values - "Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others"
  
  > the rich are going to get more rich in this religion
  
  not really, not many people are making a lot of money from it even toward the top. It's mostly going into bank accounts, real estate, buildings, improvements of services, and other churchy things. The one guy at the very top lives a pretty CEO-like lifestyle but I doubt many others are getting rich other than the organization itself - and I'd argue that even it isn't super rich. Things like the setup ot Bridge Publications, the church's publishing arm, cost a huge amount of money.
  
  > put those funds back into the fucking community, instead of wasting it on new churches, make new homes and schools for the poor
  
  Then donate to organizations that build homes and schools instead of a church. The aims of a church are to further the spread the religion. Churches that build schools and houses are usually doing so with spreading their religion as their real agenda. There are plenty of secular non-profit organizations that build homes and schools for the poor as their primary concern that tend to be much better at it.
  
  Its also worth pointing out that donations to the Church of Scientology are typically not outright donations. They are almost always for some service or material good, such as a book or lecture series on CD. There isn't really a concept of 'tithing' in Scientology and indeed the idea of getting something directly back when you give someone money is kind of part of the culture of the church.

One of the ills of cult-thinking is that you're encouraged to think in black-and-white. THESE people are good, and THOSE are bad. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS is good; EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT is bad.

Life ain't that way. And not just in regard to cults.

One of my sisters was married to her first husband for 17 years. After she left she adopted an attitude that everything about that marriage was wrong (and very much that he was at fault for it). She presented it as a wholly horrible experience. But I clearly remember how much she was in love with him. As "flower girl" at the wedding, I saw (and was inspired by) her expression as she came down the aisle. I learned a lot of healthy things about marriage by watching the two of them together (which I needed, because our parents' marriage was not a good one). Even if things went downhill between my sister and her husband (for reasons I later realized were an example of The 5 Love Languages -- a useful set of guidelines that appear nowhere in Scn), there was joy. And by refusing it, she was refusing an admirable part of herself.

> "We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." -- Mark Twain

I gave permission for Leah Remini's show to access multiple pieces of my protest work and they made good use of them. Even cult guard Odo Huber makes a cameo appearance in his stormtrooper outfit. You go Odo! Other works on the show include incriminating photos used at the uber-dramatic moment when cult leader David Miscavige's father smears him.

To see the show online just go here if you are a cable subscriber with access to the A&E network: http://www.aetv.com/shows/leah-remini-scientology-and-the-aftermath

Episodes can also be rented on:
Itunes: Search Itunes store for "remini aftermath"
Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/The-Bridge/dp/B01MZZN4BF/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1483913422&sr=8-4&keywords=leah+remini

Your country of origin may affect availability.

I'm also appearing in a podcast at Aeon Byte's Gnostic Radio. We discuss all things Scientology and religion. What is going on now with the cult? What will happen to it next? Find out now at: https://youtu.be/IHgKOkdg00Q?t=12m9s

Unmentioned in my video is my work also appears in the Tom Cruise movie "Jack Reacher 2". If you have seen the flick I animate a taser TC uses to zap a bad guy, and some random other FX shots. Yes I am the one making TC look like a hero, when he actually is not. It's just computer animation.

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More about Scientology at http://www.angrygaypope.com

One of these missions is described in a book entitled Mission Into Time. But I will warn you that none of these Source Missions mean anything. L. Ron Hubbard was simply using his position as cult leader to play games and pretend that he was doing something meaningful when he was just screwing around.

Also, power and attention. Those seem to me to be the reasons Hubbard did most of what he did. He wanted to lecture others, be revered, hold power over adoring sycophants (mostly women and rich people), be seen as an expert, hobnob with world leaders and intellectuals, that sort of thing. He wanted to seem like a rebel, anti-establishment, a challenger to the prevailing power structure (in psychology, the government, society).

I do think that Hubbard had as a sub-goal making money. Or at least stealing it. His many run-ins with the law show that he was a fairly regular theif and embezzler - running up bills and not paying them was his norm, as was taking people's money and just doing his own thing and going away. Not just Parsons, the department and grocery stores, and the issues with Don Purcell where he lost the rights to Dianetics stuff, but those in particular stick out as a way to show how much he really thought he could just take money wherever he wanted.

And some of the most revealing parts of A Queer and Pleasant Danger were the parts where Kate remembered being ordered to go to Switzerland and open/manage bank accounts under an assumed name, or deliver suitcases of cash to banks in other countries. It's been a while since I read it, but that was the part that stuck out to me the most - and wondering what ever came of all the money she hid for Hubbard.

You need to sit your mother down and read.

http://exscientologykids.com/storiesindex.html

http://www.forum.exscn.net/forumdisplay.php?f=2

Also, start calling her Lisa McPherson Jr.

http://www.lisamcpherson.org/

Free comprehensive book on PDF form (A Piece of Blue Sky):

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/

Books:

http://www.amazon.com/Scientology-Abuse-Top-Amy-Scobee/dp/0692008012/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293718546&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Blown-Good-Behind-Curtain-Scientology/dp/0982502222/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293718546&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.com/My-Billion-Year-Contract-Scientologist/dp/0578039222/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293718546&sr=1-5

Here are two excellent books in this very subject:

The Believing Brain and Why People Believe Weird Things both by Michael Shermer, the head of the skeptic's society.

There is one passage which describes what you are talking about to a "T"

>In 1620 English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon offered his own Easy Answer to the Hard Question:

>The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate … And such is the way of all superstitions, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, although this happened much oftener, neglect and pass them by.52

>Why do smart people believe weird things? Because, to restate my thesis in light of Bacon’s insight, smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

From: http://www.michaelshermer.com/weird-things/excerpt/

and

From: http://www.michaelshermer.com/2002/09/smart-people-believe-weird-things/

Alanzo

Read Inside Scientology and Jenna Miscavige's (The niece of the current leader David Miscavige) Beyond Belief. I was curious and recently read these and they blew my mind. How this is still happening in the U.S. is insane. I would recommend Inside Scientology first to get a background on all of their beliefs and terminology. They have their own jargon that is incomprehensible to anyone not in the group. Jenna's story tells about her life growing up inside the Sea Org and how she had to escape. Before reading this I had no idea that they were holding people captive and using child labor. It is a very interesting subject to learn about, especially since no one ever talks about it.

Welcome to the rabbit hole that is Scientology watching.

Yes all the stories are real. Many of them have been documented for years. I don't know what you mean by dramatized. It is people sitting on a couch telling their stories.

It helps when all of your members sue and stalk IRS agents.

It is against the rules for a Scientologist to contact the police about a crime that another Scientologist has committed. If you do you will be kicked out and declared a suppressive person.

L Ron Hubbard targeted celebrities and opinion makers in communities to enable the "rapid dissemination" of Scientology. Wiki page on "Project Celebrity". They self shelter so that they aren't exposed to entheta (upsetting stuff).

The LAPD and the Hollywood station have been "safe pointed" for years. So when something bad happens with Scientology, the cops are on the side of Scientology. They even sent an officer that is familiar with Scientology to check on her.

I can't talk about what people think when someone dies. What I can tell you is when someone dies there is no memorial service. And the church tries to rug sweep when someone dies as much as possible.

More Reading:

Your daily dose of Scientology Tony Ortega's The Underground Bunker

2 hour interview with actor Jason Beghe. His story of how he got in is very common for a generation of Scientologists.

Mark Headley's Blown For Good

Tony Ortega's The Unbreakable Miss Lovely If you want to see how off the rails Scientology can get, the story of Paulette Cooper is truly scary.

Does the uniform look like this

https://www.amazon.com/Portwest-S999NATM-Boilersuit-Fabric-Medium/dp/B00PYIIAIM

It's actually more complicated than that, but your instinct is correct!

At one point after the war, he was trying to get help for certain "ailments" (not the ones he claimed he suffered during the war - just ulcers, and generally feeling bad etc.) and was denied disability several times by the Veteran's Administration. Then at one point pre-Dianetics, he requested psychotherapy (which was a new field then), and wrote a detailed letter requesting it and telling his symptoms. It was also denied. My understanding is that he was trying to get more money out of the disability department, it seems.

Then, when he wrote Dianetics, and some fans set up Dianetics groups and he went out doing demonstrations and lectures, he tried to get the American Psychiatric Association to pay attention and give him credibility. He wrote them letters, talked about his groundbreaking "research", and had hoped to become the new Freud or Jung or the rockstar of psychiatry. They investigated and denied him and most of them sort of called what he did pseudoscience and quackery.

THEN, he started coming out with ever-increasing tirades in writing and lectures that basically said that the "psyches" (psychologists and psychiatrists) were evil and out to get them, etc. He went on to say that Dianetics cured so many illnesses that it was taking business and credibility away from them, so they were out to destroy him. His writing and lectures got increasingly anti-psyche over time, leading to the current incarnation.

However, pretty much everyone was out to destroy him, if you ask him.

Those days (around when Scientology was formed, post-Dianetics), he was also on about the communists. He ghost-wrote what he claimed was a communist brainwashing manual and held it up as proof that they were awful - as well as wrote a plethora of letters to the FBI accusing his enemies of being communists (remember McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 50s/60s?). Many of those people had just wronged him in some way - it's obvious that he was trying to use the FBI and red scare to destroy people he didn't like.

Then the FBI didn't respond as he wanted (they called him something like "unstable" or "unhinged" in internal documents), so they became the enemy.

Of course, by that time, he'd had more accusations about money issues against him. He stole and ran away with and misappropriated money from people like Jack Parsons, some early donors/supporters, and the people running his Dianetics Foundation, among others. Some of those money issues became criminal-ish.

And he'd run afoul of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) by making claims about what Dianetics and the e-meter could do health-wise (curing cancer, making the blind see, none of it true, of course). So when the FBI didn't listen to him and he was under scrutiny for a bunch of other stuff, the FBI and the government became the enemy. That was part of the advent of the religious cloaking (going from a pop-psychology thing and making it a religion), to decrease government scrutiny in many ways (and avoid taxes).

Basically, this was a man who didn't suffer narcissistic wounds lightly. When someone dismissed him, didn't listen to or believe him, or made him feel "less than", he used his followers as pawns to insult and hurt them (always making himself the persecuted savior).

The "psyches" were only one of his many "I want to be acknowledged by you and be seen as important by you" targets who didn't give him what he craved - admiration and attention.

Go googling around for some of his letters to the FBI and Veteran's Administration and stuff like that, there's lots of very interesting reading.

His hubris also really comes across when the government of Rhodesia was trying to form a new government post-colonialism, and he went and wrote one (some would say badly) and approached some officials (mind you, as an unknown entity, swaggering about with his secretive group and being cagy about who he was) and was like "here, I wrote the constitution for you, you can thank me later". He was incredibly depressed when they were like "who is this guy?" and dismissed him.

There's a great story about him getting two bottles of pink champagne and walking up unannounced to the door of one of the government officials there and rang the doorbell, expecting to sit and have champagne with this official's wife and thereby get his "in" into the government... of course he was turned away there too.

I mean, he approached everyone in that manner - like he expected to have his ring kissed and be granted medals and seen as important. And then when he wasn't, well, that person or entity became his next target.

It's interesting stuff. If you're interested, some of the stories are researched, documented, and told in books like A Piece of Blue Sky, Bare-Faced Messiah - which was recently re-released and is incredibly documented and researched, Going Clear, Inside Scientology. And others, but I think those are the works that are informative, with incredibly researched documentation of claims.

EDIT: Oh, I also forgot that he wrote to the US Government offering his incredible knowledge and research and said that it could solve all their problems, etc. Then, when he didn't get any response after trying mightily hard, he wrote again and threatened to defect to the Soviet Union. He said they'd offered him a sweet sweet deal, with some kind of research position and budget and teaching positions or something, and if the US Government didn't take him up on it he was going to go to the communists with it instead. Of course, that was an empty threat...

He also claimed later, in lectures and stuff, to have worked on the Manhattan Project with the leading scientists, to develop the Atom Bomb. Which was, of course, not true. And he claimed at various times to have worked undercover for the CIA.