Friday, January 25, 2008

An Inside View of Scientology

An interesting slashdot comment from an ex-Scientologist on what he calls their "reality tunnel."

Orthodox Jews might find that some parts of his story hit a little close to home:
Anyone who attacks the church is either a suppressive person (2.5% of the population who are evil - think Hitler), PTS due to a connection to an SP (Potential Trouble Source - 20% of the population), or has committed various other overts and withholds (ie sins and secrets) and it trying to justify their own actions by making the Scientology seem less (because if you admitted to yourself that Scientology was the "one and only solution" then your otherwise small crime would have to weigh fairly heavily on your conscience).


It is also taught that if someone encounters the OT3 materials before being ready for them, then as part of the psychological conditioning to create "prison-planet" earth, the person may get sick and die and this is the reason it is considered "confidential" and heavily protected, and only available to members of the church past a certain level.
(Zohar, anyone?)

This "truth" or "reality tunnel" is slowly conditioned into you until you internalise it. There is a huge taboo against reading or discussing anything potentially negative or "entheta" against Scientology or the church, often the taboo will extend down to the point that you feel it is wrong to "think" about potentially negative things regarding Scientology. To do so would potentially detract from Scientology and is thus a mortal sin against humanity, or you might wind up making yourself sick. I know this, because I was brought up within the church, and through the process of leaving the church and the Scientology "reality tunnel", it took me around two years to fully confront this internal taboo to the point I could openly think and speak on the subject.


Well back to the original question of do David Miscavage, Tom Cruise and the others running the Church, truly believe in what they say? My guess is that they do, they are so fully immersed in the Scientology reality tunnel, that they cannot actually see outside of it. Once you start questioning it, the contradictions become obvious and starts to crumble fairly quickly (it can be scary if you have nothing to replace with), so instead it is accepted 100% as a matter of faith to the point that they have dedicated the whole of their lives to this mission of "clearing" the planet, and "handling" anyone who gets in their way. There is too much at stake (the whole future of mankind) to even consider the possibility that they might be wrong or deviating from their course.

8 comments:

Tigerboy said...

It is not only Orthodox Jews who will recognize the brainwashing tactics. It is any VICTIM of religion.

Scientologists, Catholics, Baptists . . . Jim Jones . . . . It is the easiest thing in the world to find a charlatan willing the oppress the foolish and weak-minded.

Religion is the most powerful and dangerous lie ever told.

Comrade Kevin said...

My thoughts that both Orthodox Judaism, Fundamentalist Christianity, and Scientology all cater to people who are extremely sick people desperately seeking easy answer to resolve complex problems in their lives.

Religion need not be dangerous and it need not lie, but it has no right to limit belief, suppress doubt, and punish those who think for themselves. No right.

Unfortunately Scientologists want money and control so badly that if you try to leave, they will often sic their lawyers on you.

Jewish Atheist said...

My thoughts that both Orthodox Judaism, Fundamentalist Christianity, and Scientology all cater to people who are extremely sick people desperately seeking easy answer to resolve complex problems in their lives.

That's not my experience with Orthodox Jews. Mostly, they seem to be in it for the community and to have a sense of meaning. All the head games just keep them from thinking about whether any of it is actually true or not.

Tigerboy said...

Community is good. Being proud of your history and heritage is good.

Getting your sense of meaning from a fantasy is not good. Teaching your children what is right and wrong based on the violent, hateful, racist mythology found in the Old Testament is not good. Judging your 2008 neighbor by the standards of the God of Abraham is backward, at best, and potentially brutal.

Perpetuating WAR based on who is "God's favorite" is why the world is such a dangerous place.

You make it sound like a purely intellectual exercise:

"All the head games just keep them from thinking about whether any of it is actually true or not."

But those "head games" have consequences. Those "head games" form world-views. Those "head games" are taught to new generations of children. Those "head games" lead to hatred of, and violence against, those who are different.

How do you feel about the sense of "community" that members of the KKK enjoyed several generations ago? The us-versus-them mentality found in religion has much in common with racism.

Religion distracts us from our commonality.
Religion is divisive and ugly.
Religion is uncivilized.

Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka said...

Newsflash: Civilization is uncivilized.

Anonymous said...

Judaism is relatively harmless because its practice is not based on the literal word of the bible but on many centuries of rabbinical commentary and ammendments. The rabbis were always wise people and the moral level of rabbinic judaism is higher than that of the bible. Not to say that rabbinical judaism's ideas are true or correspond to reality but that they are benign and often beneficial. Orthodox jews don't like gays but they would never physically abuse them. Orthodox jews dislike gentiles but in sucha gentle way that it can be mistaken for love.

Anonymous said...

"Orthodox jews don't like gays but they would never physically abuse them."

Except when one stabs a marcher in the Jerusalem gay pride parade, right?

Orthodox Jews will act on their bigotry towards gays in proportion with the amount of power they have. They have little, so they do nothing. Put them in charge and it'll be no different than any other anti-gay theocracy.

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