No Laughing Matter (The Forbidden Side of Scientology)

The Truth About Scientology ^ | Feb 23, 05 | Murray Luther

[bd476]

While the Church of Scientology may be of passing amusement to you, it was anything but a joke to the parents of Lisa McPherson.

LisaMcPherson.org

[libs_kma]

"For the next twenty years they hounded me with solicitations and junk mail. They absolutely creep me out!"

I had a very casual friend join this POS "R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N" 11 years ago and she must have gone through the phone book and given names of all she knew as potential candidates.

After simply throwing away the first few pamphlets they mailed, I started to get ticked, and by that time I had a better idea about what they were, so I called their phone number and called them every name I learned in my entire Army career and said they had better just take me off their list. They agreed to and apologized, but the next month I got another one.

This time I made the rant and rave of the first call seem like a walk in the park, and I told them that if I got one more pamphlet mailed I was not going to call again. I would just show up at the desk and stick a size 10 boot in someones @$$, and a size 10 fist down someones throat.

It's amazing what the right incentive can do. I never received another pamphlet from them after that.

[ErnBatavia]

Do they do the Kwanzaa thing?

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

After reading the Time expose on them, I decided to just leave well enough alone.

You should see the neo-maxi zoom dweebies they have hanging out at their storefront in downtown Cincinnati. Too freakin' weird.

[FreedomCalls]

From Xenu.net:

Once upon a time (75 million years ago to be more precise) there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack.

Now Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation so he had a plan.

Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers).

These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in their hundreds of billions. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.

The story doesn't end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a "thetan" in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams (the electronic beams were sticky like fly-paper).

After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge cinemas. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called "implanting".

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies.

As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today.

That, in a "nut"shell, is the Church of Scientology's religion. It's a religion for people who believe that space aliens are mutilating cows, that JFK was killed by a conspiracy of government officials, that the more diluted a drug the better it works, that Gore would have won Florida, that the Air Force flys a squadron of alien spaceships in Area 51, that we never went to the moon, that John Kerry is a war hero, and who hang out at Democraticunderground and DailyKos.

[bd476]

Not all have been able to laugh them off as an inconsequential joke. Lisa McPherson.org

[FreedomCalls]

There's many more. Just go here and scroll down to "Personal Accounts."

[libs_kma]

Funny you should say Cincinnati. Thats the one I called, and thats the one that our friend joined. One of the rathole buildings on the south side of 4th st.

What is weird is that we just got a visit from one of our friends last night who actually knew our mutual friend since childhood who joined 11 years ago. I asked about her and our friend said she is living in one of their commune houses in Latonia, KY. Our friend ran into our lost scientology friends parents a few weeks ago and found this out.

She is apparently stuck and can't leave because she owes them too much money for classes (at least thats what the parents said). I stopped knowing, caring or trying 11 years ago when she wouldn't listen to reason and said all her friends wouldn't let her live her life.

[freedumb2003]

Battlefield Earth was a *terrible* book.

Had it been 1/3 the size, maybe. It had a LOT of satire in it -- it basically was a satirical book.

But it kept ending, then restarting, then ending, then restarting.

What is sad is to imagine how stupid people must be who think L. Ron Hubbard, an average if amusing writer, and a huckster of slightly-above average talent, as a genius for the ages.

[Nowhere Man]

I remember the DC-8 spaceship story back in the 1980's although the DC-8 had jets not propellors although the DC-3's through 7's had piston power propeller engines. If you ask me, I think the DC-8 was a pirated Boeing 707 but that's just me. IIRC, the first passenger plane to fly supersonic was a DC-8, it made it to just above Mach 1 in 1961 or so.

[conservativeharleyguy]

L. Ron Hubbard was, at best, a mediocre science fiction writer.

He was a well-known atheist who started Scientology on a bet that he could start his own religion just to prove how susceptible to influence people really are.

Looks to me like he won.

California has always been fertile ground for the expansion of whacko ideas, and this one took root and flourished.

Once they realized how much money was in it, he and his initial set of sycophants kept it going until it became self-sustaining.

Now they make hundreds of millions off of it (if not billions, there's no real way of knowing, cause they certainly aren't telling).

My cousin got sucked into them in the late '70's. They look for vulnerable people just like her. She's always had a weight problem, and her father had just declared that he was "gay" and run off w/ a 22 year old boy, so she was somewhat mixed up and ran off to California to find herself.

Once they had her, they kept her under constant supervision for months.

She wasn't even allowed to go to the bathroom alone.

None of us knew where she was for about 6-7 months, and her mother aged years.

She told me that she had figured them out pretty quickly (she was mixed up, not stupid), but that it was very hard to resist.

They used all of the classic conditioning techniques on her(isolation from the outside world, enforced symbolic rejection of values, sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, discomfort, group disapproval for the slightest transgression, etc.).

They took out loans and credit cards for about $25,000.00 (a lot of money in '77) in her name.

Somehow, she was still able to hold onto some kernel of herself.

After she had worked her way up far enough to go the bathroom by herself for a while, she jumped out of the second-floor window, and escaped (with them chasing her down the street).

They harassed her and her family for years.

They ruined her credit.

They would call her in the middle of the night (even after my aunt got a whole succession of unlisted numbers), and threaten to kill or ruin everyone in the family.

They get celebrities (Travolta's father-in-law is a major figure) to join, and give them the star treatment, but the poor lackeys at the bottom are just that, at the bottom.

If you see them coming your way, be ready to fight or flee. Their world view is shall we say, "a bit distorted".

Sick bastards all.

[LittleSpotBlog]

I too have felt the Scientologists' creepiness. I voluntarily went for a tour of their HQ in Washington when I began working down the street. Curious, I just wanted to see the main digs of the kooks (it used to be a famous restaurant that my parents loved). All in all, it was one of the freakiest things I've ever done. There were PSA-esque posters of Kirstie Alley and John Travolta expousing Scientology's virtues, as well as an office saved for L. Ron "just as he would want it." When I realized that they hadn't moved into the present HQ until after his death and pointed this fact out to our guide, the space cadet stated with certainty that the leader honored the staff with his spirit from time to time to "look over papers." There were even some papers, with chicken scratch on them that I assumed was "Hubbard's" handwriting, scattered on the desk. Then it was on to the dianetics machine in the corner, which looked suspiciously like an Epilady to me. At that point my husband grabbed me, mumbling about the parking meter, and we ran for our lives. It was horrible! Oh, and we got a $100 parking ticket as a souvenir from the tour from Scientology hell.

I just cannot fathom that anyone would take seriously the rantings of a failed sci-fi hack.

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

To add insult to injury, he made no bones about the fact that it was all a grand joke. He was known to have bragged that the best way to get rich quick was tocreate a sham religion and get the IRS to grant it tax exempt status.

I'm still trying to figure out why the head honchos all dress like Dick Cavett with the double breasted blazers and captians caps.

[LittleSpotBlog]

I know, it really boggles my mind that anyone would be taken by any of it. I hear "sci fi" writer, and the fact that he bragged about starting a religion, and I'm gone. Maybe it's that I walk by the HQ every morning. All the staff there are freaks. Oh, and they have a perpetual "Help Wanted" sign up at the entrance. Sounds like a cult to me! Has anyone really persued taking away their tax incentives? It seems like the Scientologists are getting a little too close to Kool Aid status for comfort.

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

The Cincinnati HQ is staffed by flakes, homleless and Russian immigrants. A true freak-show.

[Bones75]

"Raelians came and went. The Church of Scientology is here to stay and it's a very large extensive group already."

Yeah, but as far as being a "religion".. they are equally legit. (that is not at all, 0=0)

Scientology was just more successfull in luring in a lot of people who don't know any better.

Bones

[Quilla]

My oldest sister has been a Scientologist for 25 years or longer. She is a beautiful, successful, intelligent businesswoman. I can recall tales of her indoctrination - mega-doses of niacin, hours in steam rooms, all the while someone is explaining the 'benefits' of the association. She gives them all her money and has sent her four daughters exclusively to expensive Scientology schools. My parents always commented on their lack of basic reading and writing skills.

Three of her daughters, now all married, work for the cult. One of my nieces had an extramarital affair, divorced her husband, and was excommunicated from group. Oh, that is, until she paid $10K to get back in! Scientology is merely a money making racket separating fools from their money. Sorry sis.