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Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

  • Thread starter Deleted member 133
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Deleted member 133

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Watched this fantastic HBO documentary last night. Highly recommended.

My "connection" with scientology goes back to my high school years, where, for a grade 12 world religions course, a buddy of mine and I did our major project on scientology and just bowled the class away with our presentation.

What the documentary reveals is not only a wacky belief structure (more on that later) but rather a cult of abuse that's on a scale with the best of them. Of course the "star power" connections (Tom Cruise - who does not come out smelling of roses in this one!) and the massive financial empire are the icing on the cake. (The Catholic Church should be taking notes on that last point - see the book God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican (2015) by Gerald Posner.)

About the wacky belief structure, funny enough I really found nothing to be critical about. Sure church members had to have donated or signed up for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of courses before they get to the level where all is revealed, but to me (a devout atheist), I found nothing about it any wackier than the belief structure of any other mono or multi-theistic religion. Hey if the world really is only a few thousand years old and some dude can be certified dead for a few days but then come back to life, who's to say that some evil warlord by the name of Xenu in another galaxy could not have put all his enemies into coffins, flown them here on DC-8s, dropped them into volcanos, and then nuked them, 75 million years ago - resulting in the spirits of those barbequed and nuked enemies taking root in modern day humans, thus necessitating costly therapy to remove them. If a priest can still exorcise Satan from a parishioner, then why can't a scientology auditor do the same with a thetan from a church member? Equally believable (or not) in my opinion.

Anyhow, this documentary will be a real eye-opener to anyone who has not heard much about scientology before.

Jeff
 
I hesitate to even write this.

In my late twenties I was trying a bunch of different things, trying to fix what I (much) later figured out was just a mix of depression and extreme introversion. Was looking into different religions/philosophies, psychotherapy, yoga, meditation, etc (no drugs as I had a bunch of security clearances at the time). I read Hubbard's Dianetics, which left out the weirder aspects of the religion and focused on psuedo-science of injuries received while still in the womb, and I was intrigued.
Got to my first "session" at about noon in Columbus, OH. They had me close me eyes, start talking, and things went on and on. I don't think I'd been hypnotised as I was the one doing most of the talking, he just asked more questions. We finished after about an hour, it was weird, and I wrote a check for, wait wat??, $700?!? I stopped in the restroom on the way out, was exhausted, and saw in the mirror I had salt crusted on my cheeks beneath both eyes.
it was when I stepped out of the building that I got shocked; it was dark!! I had been in there at least seven hours!!
The cost was a shock, but the fact that I lost all idea of time and was so exhausted, I thought something real may have happened. I went to my next session, and before starting they showed me a device (which I recognized as a relabelled ohmmeter from high school Physics) connected to two tin cans that I held in each hand. The fluctuations in the needle would allow my "counselsor" to steer the discussion to more quickly "clear" me. The cost, of course, went up to $1,000/hr, and they happily accepted Credit.
It was at that point that even a Slow person smelled a rat, and I walked out never to return. I soon PCS'd to Albuquerque, and after moving into my new house found a "Come Back!" letter from them in my mailbox, then phone messages. This continued for 5 years; when I PCS'd to North Dakota I was in temp housing for 9 weeks and then sent to school in Indiana for ten weeks, went back and bought a house, and by then they'd lost track of me.
Interesting, and scary, experience. It was a big factor into my current frame of mind of questioning everything, so I guess in that way it was a good thing. Question Everything.
 
Botch said:
I hesitate to even write this.

In my late twenties I was trying a bunch of different things, trying to fix what I (much) later figured out was just a mix of depression and extreme introversion. Was looking into different religions/philosophies, psychotherapy, yoga, meditation, etc (no drugs as I had a bunch of security clearances at the time). I read Hubbard's Dianetics, which left out the weirder aspects of the religion and focused on psuedo-science of injuries received while still in the womb, and I was intrigued.
Got to my first "session" at about noon in Columbus, OH. They had me close me eyes, start talking, and things went on and on. I don't think I'd been hypnotised as I was the one doing most of the talking, he just asked more questions. We finished after about an hour, it was weird, and I wrote a check for, wait wat??, $700?!? I stopped in the restroom on the way out, was exhausted, and saw in the mirror I had salt crusted on my cheeks beneath both eyes.
it was when I stepped out of the building that I got shocked; it was dark!! I had been in there at least seven hours!!
The cost was a shock, but the fact that I lost all idea of time and was so exhausted, I thought something real may have happened. I went to my next session, and before starting they showed me a device (which I recognized as a relabelled ohmmeter from high school Physics) connected to two tin cans that I held in each hand. The fluctuations in the needle would allow my "counselsor" to steer the discussion to more quickly "clear" me. The cost, of course, went up to $1,000/hr, and they happily accepted Credit.
It was at that point that even a Slow person smelled a rat, and I walked out never to return. I soon PCS'd to Albuquerque, and after moving into my new house found a "Come Back!" letter from them in my mailbox, then phone messages. This continued for 5 years; when I PCS'd to North Dakota I was in temp housing for 9 weeks and then sent to school in Indiana for ten weeks, went back and bought a house, and by then they'd lost track of me.
Interesting, and scary, experience. It was a big factor into my current frame of mind of questioning everything, so I guess in that way it was a good thing. Question Everything.
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I'm glad you had the courage to share that. That says alot about this place. And I am SUPER glad that you had enough sense to exit stage left when you did. I've seen the documentary and it's scary. There have been alot of lives and families ruined by those people.
 
Botch I recall when we had that lengthy discussion at Chris's gtg and you shared that story with me. So you lost out on 700.00 buddy I'm about to give you a real life lesson.

We are all fucked up in one way or another and no "higher being" will fix that.

You can send me 500.00 (see I saved you 200.00) to my home address. I take PayPal or cashiers check. :angelic-green:
 
I watched this as well, and it is scary some of the stuff they supposedly are doing. On some level though, I think they are helping some people, but they aren't doing anything that a therapist could do, and charging way too much money for it. David Miscaviage(sp) comes off as a very scary man, and not somebody you would expect to be leading a church.

I would counter Jeff's position that it is no more unbelievable than Christianity, as LRH(That's what they called him in the documentary) surely made his stuff up, and I think we can all agree that there was at least somebody named Jesus that roamed the earth many years ago. Whether or not he is the son of God, or if there is a God, that's where somebodies faith comes into play, which I respect the right for everyone to believe what they believe.
 
I have this on my DVR to watch in its entirety. I caught the last 10 minutes of it or so.
From what I saw it paints a very bad picture of Scientology.

I'll throw up what I wrote in another thread concerning Scientology.

I feel compelled to weigh in on Scientology. As my father was a die-hard Scientologist. After a while, he calmed down on his "religious fervor" (mostly due to the ridiculous greed, salesmanship and constant pestering with "come to this event, come to this event, come to this event") but he still pays attention and occasionally takes some classes. I even participated when I was younger (between...I think 10-15). Like any youth/teenager, I approached this "religion" with a general sense of sarcastic "belief". The same way I approached the Catholic religion (in which I was mostly raised...ie Mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc are all Catholic). So, I think this puts me in a somewhat rare position to comment somewhat intelligently on Scientology and Catholicism.

Scientology, is somewhat run like a cult. You have to pay to take courses and learn (anywhere from $15 to thousands). All of the classes that I was involved in were basically, how to handle yourself as a human being, the way to take in information (ex: if you are reading something and have a word that you do not understand, you need to look it up, otherwise everything you read beyond that is skewed incorrectly), a system of ethics (treat people with respect, don't be late and if you are, take responsibility, etc). One of the main things I remember was "Be, Do, Have". (More on that later). My father even had one of those mythical and crazy "E-Meters", which I think simply read the electrical charge of the person holding them. Supposedly they would be able to read your feelings about something based on how the charge changed (positive for good, negative for bad). True story: When I was 7 or 8, I was thrown of our horse (AppleJack) and basically never got back on. Was never outwardly scared, just never rode that horse again. Several years later when working with that E-Meter and testing it out you hold the "cans" and they ask general questions, "Are you happy? Are you hungry?" causing slight movements on the needle and then more and more specific about life. And my father then asked "Do you remember AppleJack (long since sold off) and that needle went WAY negative. I had some subconscious dislike of that horse ever since I was thrown. Was the E-Meter really working, who knows...but I definitely revealed/let out some negative feelings about that horse...

Now, I am not trying to sell you Scientology. I think a very large part of it is definitely a cult. It is populated with many money hungry evil bastards. But, at it's most basic...it is simply a system of teaching a person how to be, do and have. How you should be, how/what to do, and how to take ownership of the "things" you have in life. Which, I'm pretty sure, every religion teaches you. Now, as you climb up the ladder, you get into a lot of weird faith based stuff like the "Thetan" which is the equivalent of the Catholic "Soul" has lived for tens of thousands of years (millions?) and we have learned to forget our past "track" and only know what we are in this lifetime. Any of that sound familiar? From what I have been taught and know and grew up with of the Catholic religion...it should, because it is almost the exact same thing. Now, that alien from another planet stuff...no clue. Sounds psycho to me. But the basics are pretty damn good. There are things that I take/use out of Scientology that I have used throughout my life and will continue to do so, since it is smart/good. Same as I take from Catholicism. Do they charge you money to take the classes, they sure do. But the church expects a tithe just the same.

I am not a proponent of Scientology. I am simply more aware of it than some/most others and have a good idea what it has to offer. And as far as I can tell, all Catholicism has on Scientology is a couple thousand years. Beyond that, in a very general sense, in falls in with every other religion. Some parts good, some parts silly, some parts absolutely ridiculous, some people involved good, some people involved bad.
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Huey said:
I think we can all agree that there was at least somebody named Jesus that roamed the earth many years ago. Whether or not he is the son of God, or if there is a God, that's where somebodies faith comes into play, which I respect the right for everyone to believe what they believe.
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Agreed.

And by the by, while not by name, I referenced Jesus more as the flagbearer for resurrection. He was far from the first person or god (or child of a god) to whom resurrection has been attributed. Didn't Jesus himself purportedly raise Lazarus from the dead, meaning that Lazarus beat him to it? Perhaps there should be a cult (or better yet: tax-exempt religion) of Lazarus!

And that gets to the heart of my other comment about scientology: its status as a religion under US tax laws. Rightly or wrongly this "right for everyone to believe what they believe" means that everyone else who does not so believe is directly supporting them through their tax exempt status, allowing them to flourish and to build up substantial wealth. I'm particularly amused recently with John Oliver having created his own church, apparently in full-compliance of US tax laws, to demonstrate how silly the whole thing is. The response to date has been amazing.

Jeff
 
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