Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

[Spooky]

True, true. Reminds me book "Blasphemy" by Douglas Preston.

Be it known my schooling was for Psychology. And the mechanism you describe I'd call "private logic". It can be used to justify anything. In a healthy person private logic is limited to justifying an expensive car (or in my case a 4 thousand dollar watch)/etc. It was interesting while working with sex offenders listening to all the faulty logic. Not unlike religion.

[Mudhammam]

Couple of questions about claims in the documentary:

Did Hubbard actually kidnap his daughter and tell his wife repeatedly that he chopped her up into little pieces and threw her in a river? Because if that wasn't reported to the police at the time I think that's more likely a crazy ex-wife fabrication.

And did Scientologists really buy Tom Cruise a girlfriend? As what, as an accommodation or reward? And why can't she talk about it? That seemed sketchy.

[Kitty Galore]

I don't know about the questions you asked, but I had experience with them. I got sucked in by the Personality Test" they perform to get people in, to at least buy a book. $$. I wanted to get some auditing. I was 18 and working at McDonald's a few blocks away. I was given a receptionist job in exchange for classes etc. Before any of that I was made to sign a non disclosure agreement. I was paid .40/hour. Just like they said, this was in 1986-87. I made friends and moved into a Scientology house and started dating someone who was levels above me. The church said I was a "SP" suppressive person. Said e had to stop seeing each other. I moved and never looked back. I remember a work book I had that explained the church. It had Thetans, and the volcano thing.

I saw the most of the documentary last night. Wow.

[rexbeccarox]

I wasn't surprised by much in the documentary, but it was really well done, and felt eye-opening.

[Minimalist]

And why can't she talk about it? That seemed sketchy.

They probably gave her a metric fuckton of money and made her sign a non-disclosure agreement.

[Jackalope]

I don't know about the questions you asked, but I had experience with them. I got sucked in by the Personality Test" they perform to get people in, to at least buy a book. $$. I wanted to get some auditing. I was 18 and working at McDonald's a few blocks away. I was given a receptionist job in exchange for classes etc. Before any of that I was made to sign a non disclosure agreement. I was paid .40/hour. Just like they said, this was in 1986-87. I made friends and moved into a Scientology house and started dating someone who was levels above me. The church said I was a "SP" suppressive person. Said e had to stop seeing each other. I moved and never looked back. I remember a work book I had that explained the church. It had Thetans, and the volcano thing.

I saw the most of the documentary last night. Wow.

Suppressive Person, often abbreviated SP, is a term used in Scientology to describe the "antisocial personalities" who, according to Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard, make up about 2.5% of the population. A statement on a Church of Scientology website describes this group as including notorious historic figures such as Adolf Hitler.[1]

OMG, so not only is my girlfriend a Scientologist, she's apparently worse than Hitler!

[Kitty Galore]

^^kudos^^

---

or should I say "Heil!"

[Clueless Morgan]

This HBO documentary premiered yesterday and if you can get the chance to watch it, holy shit... mind-blowing. Has anyone else seen it?

I'm going to watch it tonight.  I'll be sure to come back and comment on my thoughts about it.

Some people are dumb enough to fall for that money making schism.

Being recruited into a cult isn't about being smart or dumb, it's more about how quickly they can isolate you from your friends and family and start messing with your head.  Cults use a lot of techniques on their members to get them to conform and go along with the group.

It reminded (remound?) me of 1984.

What apalls me the most is the war on the IRS and the $1B+ that cult owes the US government. They flooded the IRS with civil suits and blackmail until they gave them church exemptions. That needs to be revoked.

No kidding!  The church tax exemptions should be pulled for every church, but it is especially egregious how Scientology got theirs.

I heard that when Scientology found out that South Park was making their scientology episode that they got people onto the South Park staff to spy on them, and that they have people working in the IRS greasing wheels for them.  Who knows if this is true, I haven't looked into it, but that's what a heard.

I don't know about the questions you asked, but I had experience with them. I got sucked in by the Personality Test" they perform to get people in, to at least buy a book. $$. I wanted to get some auditing. I was 18 and working at McDonald's a few blocks away. I was given a receptionist job in exchange for classes etc. Before any of that I was made to sign a non disclosure agreement. I was paid .40/hour. Just like they said, this was in 1986-87. I made friends and moved into a Scientology house and started dating someone who was levels above me. The church said I was a "SP" suppressive person. Said e had to stop seeing each other. I moved and never looked back. I remember a work book I had that explained the church. It had Thetans, and the volcano thing.

I saw the most of the documentary last night. Wow.

My mom recently told me that the soon-to-be valedictorian of her high school class dropped out of school like two months before graduation and no one heard or saw her again.  Then years later she got in touch with my mom and wanted to have lunch and catch up, and then tried to recruit my mom into Scientology.



Back when I was a teenager and going through my questioning religion/god phase, I knew I wasn't a Christian but I thought that I had to belong to a group or worship something in some way, and I thought that I'd see if there were any groups that were science-based.  See where this is going?     It took about ten minutes on the 2001 version of google to find the erupting thetan-volanco and uber-galactic overlord Xenu story of Scientology and it was pretty well confirmed after that that I was an atheist.

(^^-- And that was during my X-Files phase when I really wanted that shit to be real - even though I knew it wasn't.)

[Jackalope]

It took about ten minutes on the 2001 version of google to find the erupting thetan-volanco and uber-galactic overlord Xenu story of Scientology and it was pretty well confirmed after that that I was an atheist.

I forget the guy's name, but I loved the interview with the ex-Scientologist, who upon reaching OT-III, was given the whole Xenu story.  The way he retold his whole "the fuck is this?" reaction was priceless.

Seriously, that shit reads like fourth-rate science fiction - horrible, even by LRH's standards.

[Clueless Morgan]

I forget the guy's name, but I loved the interview with the ex-Scientologist, who upon reaching OT-III, was given the whole Xenu story.  The way he retold his whole "the fuck is this?" reaction was priceless.


Seriously, that shit reads like fourth-rate science fiction - horrible, even by LRH's standards.

I think I heard that story somewhere but, like you, can't remember who it was.