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1 FemNaziBitch  Mar 31, 2015 6:35:47am

Rape of the Mind

free here

Required Reading

2 Nyet  Mar 31, 2015 6:47:09am
You’ve probably all heard the nutty mythology, about how 75 million years ago the evil ruler Xenu froze billions of victims and stashed them in Earth’s volcanoes. So right away this is almost impossible to comprehend: If joining Scientology requires buying that insanity, how in the hell can Scientology have, not just tens of thousands of members, but count among them some very wealthy, successful people with no history of mental illness?

Um. How can Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism?.. It’s not like their traditional stories are any more believable. In fact, a galactic overlord stashing thetans in volcanoes sounds downright realistic compared to the traditional religious myths.

3 No Country For Old Haters  Mar 31, 2015 7:33:32am

re: #2 Nyet

Um. How can Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism?.. It’s not like their traditional stories are any more believable. In fact, a galactic overlord stashing thetans in volcanoes sounds downright realistic compared to the traditional religious myths.

All religion is crazy, but the Scientologists are really out there. It takes a special kind of gullible to believe there was an alien world just like Earth, including cars and clothes just like ours, and that they had intergalactic DC-8s. Of course they’re not told about any of this until they’re completely financially and emotionally invested in the cult.

Hubbard was completely bonkers, and was able to draw a huge number of people into his ridiculous delusions.

4 Romantic Heretic  Mar 31, 2015 8:18:21am

Scientology and other cults, and every other social construct for that matter, depend on a phenomena I call information disease.

Simply put, the mind processes new information it receives through the prism of the information already in there. So that new information is twisted, distorted and often completely rejected by the mind as it doesn’t fit in with the existing information.

Information disease can even affect the way you perceive physical phenomena. The worst example I ever heard of was from a former Krishna. When he was in the cult and he was outside the temple he saw everything as dark and threatening like there were storm clouds overhead. This in Southern California which is not noted for its excess of stormy days.

Another was a couple who had fallen to the Moonies and come back. After their ‘conversion’ they went to pick up their worldly goods so they could give them to ‘Father’. They were living with the man’s parents and the parents, needless to say, were distraught. They tried to talk the kids out of it to no avail. As the couple were driving away the woman said to the man how proud she was that he stood up to his parents. His reply? “Those aren’t my parents.” Later when interviewed he stated had he been hooked up to a lie detector that statement would have registered as true.

You can read all about information disease in this book; Snapping: America’s Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change.

5 Skip Intro  Mar 31, 2015 10:14:18am

One major difference between Scientology and other religious cults is that the founder, L. Ron Hubbard made no bones about his belief that inventing your own religion was the best way to make big money.

No different from any other religion, other than him being completely up front about it.

6 No Country For Old Haters  Mar 31, 2015 10:26:48am

re: #5 Skip Intro

One major difference between Scientology and other religious cults is that the founder, L. Ron Hubbard made no bones about his belief that inventing your own religion was the best way to make big money.

No different from any other religion, other than him being completely up front about it.

He did say that, but after watching the documentary on HBO, I don’t think that’s why he founded his religion. He was actually completely insane.

7 Skip Intro  Mar 31, 2015 11:50:30am

re: #6 No Country For Old Haters

He did say that, but after watching the documentary on HBO, I don’t think that’s why he founded his religion. He was actually completely insane.

Not when he started S. His problem was he began to believe in his own bullshit.

8 Nyet  Mar 31, 2015 12:03:42pm

re: #3 No Country For Old Haters

All religion is crazy, but the Scientologists are really out there. It takes a special kind of gullible to believe there was an alien world just like Earth, including cars and clothes just like ours, and that they had intergalactic DC-8s.

It’s a usual dumb sci fi scenario, which is still much more realistic than omnipotent and omniscient supreme beings, hosts of angels and demons, talking and flying donkeys and snakes, parting seas, resurrecting corpses and end time prophecies.

9 Nyet  Mar 31, 2015 12:19:07pm

re: #5 Skip Intro

One major difference between Scientology and other religious cults is that the founder, L. Ron Hubbard made no bones about his belief that inventing your own religion was the best way to make big money.

No different from any other religion, other than him being completely up front about it.

The quote belongs to Orwell, and LRH probably did repeat it in some private conversations, although it’s hard to say for certain whether he did or whether this is a rumor some later assumed to be a fact. In any case, “this can be done” is not the same as “I will do it”. We understand, of course, that that’s exactly what he did, but we also understand that any allegedly inspired author really wrote his allegedly inspired miracle-filled work by themselves, without them confessing to it. So this wouldn’t really change anything in the substance of the belief.

10 No Country For Old Haters  Mar 31, 2015 4:48:33pm

re: #8 Nyet

It’s a usual dumb sci fi scenario, which is still much more realistic than omnipotent and omniscient supreme beings, hosts of angels and demons, talking and flying donkeys and snakes, parting seas, resurrecting corpses and end time prophecies.

It’s really dumb Sci-Fi, just bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Good Sci-Fi is much more realistic than Fantasy is, but this stuff is not good Sci-Fi. I have a box full of SF pulps from the 20s and 30s that are full of stories that are smarter than anything LRH ever produced.

Our religions were much better Fantasy for the time they were created, than Scientology is Sci-Fi for the time it was created.

Imagine what would have happened if someone like Asimov, Clarke, Lem, or Heinlein went off the deep end and founded a cult based on some smarter Sci-Fi. The cult could have been a lot bigger with a talented writer at the helm. If a talented Sci-Fi writer founded the COS, they’d probably have a base on Mars by now.

11 Nyet  Mar 31, 2015 4:52:50pm

re: #10 No Country For Old Haters

If you can found a successful religion on chloroform in print™, you can found it on anything.


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