The “Scientology Cross” deliberately resembles a Christian cross
Here is another quote from L. Ron Hubbard expressing thoughts about Christianity:
“It’s an interesting thing that there exists on Earth a cult which believes a hundred percent that it has the only god there is in this universe. And this is quite an interesting thing. See, this is terribly interesting. Anybody who says he has a total monopoly on all there is of something, which you can’t weigh, see or measure, is suspect. Christianity’s gain in the world and its departure from its own announced principles were in the main in the direction of control…It is not even a major group today in European and American spheres of influence. It keeps telling you that it is, but it isn’t. The majority of the white races today are not members of the Christian church. And there are about ten times as many Buddhists. Oh I don’t know, two hundred times as many Buddhists or something. Rather overwhelmingly big. But that was an effort to control. And an interesting effort to control, because when it failed in its own basic tenets it then departed from its basics. And our quarrel with it is, that in practice it isn’t what it says it is. That’s our only quarrel with it. It is something that tries to appear one way when it is something else.” — L. Ron Hubbard, March 28, 1957
Hubbard, as was his practice, is pointing out something he proclaims is wrong, while doing EXACTLY what he is railing against.
Apart from calling Christianity a cult (yet if anyone refers to scientology as a cult, they are most definitely a “bigot” and a “hater”), he also claims “Anybody who says he has a total monopoly on all there is of something, which you can’t weigh, see or measure, is suspect.”
This is the mantra of Hubbard with respect to scientology: it is a total monopoly on real knowledge. Read Keeping Scientology Working one time and it is clear. Scientology, in his view, is the ONLY path to spiritual freedom (something you cannot weigh, see or measure.) It is the ONLY technology of the mind. It is the ONLY hope mankind has.
Like the flea saying the elephant it is riding on is “insignificant,” Hubbard also proclaims Christianity “is not even a major group today in European and American spheres of influence.” The words of Hubbard can never be doubted as possibly untrue or even hyperbole in scientology. This is now a “fact.”
And finally, in this single paragraph is third Hubbard doozie: “And our quarrel with it is, that in practice it isn’t what it says it is. That’s our only quarrel with it. It is something that tries to appear one way when it is something else.”
If you start listing the ways scientology is NOT what it says it is, we could be here all day. Just a few:
Proclaims itself pro-family but destroys familiar with disconnection routinely
Proclaims itself pro-Christian. See above and earlier posts including this: Can Scientologists be Christians or Jews Too?
Proclaims itself gay-friendly and yet in practice tried to “audit the gay away.”
Proclaims “the work was free, keep it so” while charging exorbitant prices which sends people into bankruptcy routinely
Proclaims to love it enemies (What is Greatness?) while actively pursuing policies to destroy them — “ruin them utterly, if possible.”
There are MANY more examples.
And just for good measure, here is another Hubbard quote about Christ.
“Evidently, it’s practically an affront not to be able to find out about something. Any time you want to go around wearing a bath towel with a Woolworth diamond on it and be a swami reading people’s minds, also take out a large insurance policy and get your burial arrangements straight. It’s probably why they hung Christ, if they did. That’s right. That’s right. If he was the Son of God, he should have been able to find out about all the orthodox malpractices. And he didn’t. And they hung him. They didn’t hung him. They crucified him. Common practice of the day. If he existed. It isn’t true that he led a good life, so they crucified him. You see, that wouldn’t be the right story. He should have found out about ’em and he didn’t, so you see they had to crucify him and that’s just about the way it would be.” — L. Ron Hubbard, February 7, 1962
“Anybody who says he has a total monopoly on all there is of something, which you can’t weigh, see or measure, is suspect.”
Since Hubbtared claimed this exact thing for Scamology then he’s saying he himself is suspect.
Please guys stop using the “name” Ron and use his real name Lafayette Ronald Barabbard or some demeaning name. He doesn’t deserve to be called with a normal name.
And use proper names like Shit Org, Shit Org members, Unchurch of Scamology, the scam-meter…
Reading any of his word or names spelled the way he wanted makes my blood boil at a temperature higher than the sun’s ☀️
It is Elron.
@Mike, why do you never mention the freezone?
When Scientology says that all religions are welcome, someone should ask:
Can I be a Scientologist and be a member of the freezone simultaneously?
I would like you to include this spot on question each time you discuss Christianity. Christianity is much less obvious than the freezone argument. No Scientologist can reply with any standard answer.
Skipping quotation marks on everything, the freezone presents itself as delivering scientology technology without the abuses which are attributed to the policy and administrative aspects of the organization. Many people might say they had worthwhile benefits, perhaps up to and including clear.
Saying the entire Catholic Church should be castigated because many priests were pedophiles would not be correct. By the way, have any nuns been accused of molesting young girls?
Just saying and I’m not a freezone-er. I split for good over 40 years ago. 😇
2) of my earlier comment.
Quotes from Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique:
[Quote]
Now, if it comes to a pass where it’s very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.
The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, “But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees.”
You say, “Your professor of what?”
“My professor of physics.”
“What school? How did he know?” Completely off track! You’re no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you’re arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won’t know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis. The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they’re not sure of their own name.
And at that point you say, “Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don’t you?”
“Yes-anything!” And he’ll go out and draw the water out of the well.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard Lecture, 20 May 1952 “Decision.”
source Lermanet.com
“If you can produce enough chaos — it says in a textbook on this subject — if you can produce enough chaos you can assume the total management of a psyche — if you can produce enough chaos.
The way you hypnotize people is to misalign them in their own control and realign them under your control, which necessitates a certain amount of chaos, don’t you see?
Now, the way to win through all of this is simply to let the guy have his stable data, if they are stable data and if they aren’t, let him have some more that are stable data and he’ll win and you’ll win.
In other words, you can take any sphere — any sphere which is relatively chaotic and throw almost any stable datum into it with enough of a statement and you will get an alignment of data on that stable datum. You see this clearly?
The whole society is liable to seize upon some stupid stable datum and thereafter this becomes a custom of some sort and you have the whole field of morals and mores and so forth stretching out before your view.”
Hubbard, L. R. (1955, 23 August). Axiom 53: The Axiom Of The Stable Datum. Academy Lecture Series/Conquest of Chaos, (CofC-2). Lecture conducted from Washington, DC.
“Another way to hypnotize somebody would be to put him in the middle of chaos, everything going in all directions, everybody shooting at him and suddenly throw him a stable datum, and make it a successful stable datum so that it’s all called off once — the moment he grabs this. And this gives you the entire formula of brainwashing: interrogate, question, lights, pain, upset, accusation, duress, fear, privation and we throw him the stable datum.
We say, “If you’ll just adopt ‘Ughism’ which is the most wonderful thing in the world, all this will cease,” and finally the fellow says, “All right, I’m an ‘Ugh.’ ” Immediately you stop torturing him and pat him on the head and he’s all set.Ever after he would believe that the moment he deserted “Ughism,” he would be drowned in chaos and that “Ughism” alone was the thing which kept the world stable; and he would sell his life or his grandmother to keep “Ughism” going. And there we have to do with the whole subject of loyalty, except — except that we haven’t dealt with loyalty at all on an analytical level but the whole subject of loyalty is a reactive subject we have dealt with. ”
Author: Hubbard, L. R.
Document date: 1955, 21 September, 1955, 21 September
Document title: Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing – New Understanding of Axiom 36, Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing – New Understanding of Axiom 36
“A confusion can be defined as any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion is random motion.”
“Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particular in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder.
“Any body of knowledge, more particularly and exactly, is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” – Ron Hubbard, The Scientology Handbook
“Any time anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude…if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject…he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as a hypnotic suggestion….With parity, such as occurs between acquaintances, friends, fellow students and so on, there is no hypnotic suggestion” (Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery, volume 4). Source Jon Atack
Also, even earlier, in 1950:
[Quote]
One error, however, must be remarked upon. The examination system employed is not much different from a certain hypnotic technique. One induces a state of confusion in the subject by raising his anxieties of what may happen if he does not pass. One then “teaches” at a mind which is anxious and confused. That mind does not then rationalize, it merely records and makes a pattern. If the pattern is sufficiently strong to be regurgitated verbatim on an examination paper, the student is then given a good grade and passed.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard lecture 29 August 1950, “Educational Dianetics.”
source Lermanet.com
From a tape on the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures in 1952 entitled Structure/Function we get this:
RON THE HYPNOTIST
Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1
“All processes are based upon the original observation
that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis
and removed at will any obsession or aberration,
compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“
“Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;
sometimes it worked,
sometimes it didn’t work.
It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.
Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.
Well, I had a high certainty already –
I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…”Ron Hubbard
From the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lectures we have a couple extremely relevant quotes. The tapes are listed by their number:
SHSBC-402
Of course, we go on a tradition “if you learn anything about man that will help him,
you help him with it.” …
“If you learn anything about man that you can manipulate him
You’re going to manipulate men,
you’ve got to change their definitions
and change their goals
and enslave them and do this and do that.
SHSBC-447
Now, brainwashing simply is the trick of mixing up certainties.
All you have to do if you want to know and develop the entire field
of brainwashing as developed by Pavlov,
is simply to make somebody ….. into a confused or hypnotic state in which he can believe anything. Ron Hubbard
Complimenting this is a quote from Philadelphia Doctorate Course lecture tape numbered 39 from 1952 – known as the games maker tape or lecture
“Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process.” End quote
THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.
Lecture: “Off the Time Track” (June 1952) as quoted in Journal of Scientology issue 18-G, reprinted in Technical Volumes of Dianetics & Scientology Vol. 1, p. 418. Ron Hubbard
Conclusion:
Hubbard plainly defined “postulates” broadly as decisions, conclusions and this can be called beliefs. Changing postulates in a person is changing their beliefs.
So, he called brainwashing the trick of mixing up certainties. Putting a person into a confused state in which he would believe anything was how he phrased it. He said if you can manipulate men you WILL, not leaving any exceptions for himself ! And he said you will change their definitions and their goals which were their certainties and you will enslave them !
He said he started with hypnosis which could “implant or remove any inhibition, compulsion, aberration or desire you could think of BUT it has the wild variable that it works on the some people but not others and it works sometimes but not others.” So, he was trying to see who it worked on and when and likely how to get it to work as often as possible on as many people as possible. He wanted people in Scientology to shift around the certainties, the postulates, the decisions and beliefs of people to change their definitions and goals, to definitions he wanted them to believe and goals that benefited Hubbard.This all aligns with the “game” he wanted.
I have written quite a bit on the contradictions in Scientology and perhaps only Jon Atack has covered the topic more thoroughly than myself.
I have a few concrete ideas on the subject.
First, I do not believe they are at all accidental or misinterpreted by the audience. Hubbard contradicted himself quite often.
Second, Hubbard both knew that he was giving confusing and contradictory information and did so intentionally and knowingly.
Third, these contradictions were intended to confuse people to a hypnotic level by Hubbard with himself as a high altitude authority on Dianetics and eventually Scientology as the only source of stable data to resolve this confusion and alleviate the cognitive dissonance it causes.
Fourth, Hubbard had studied hypnosis and it had the foundation of methods and ideas that support the use of contradictions to confuse people then as they are in a moment of cognitive dissonance and hesitation to give them a direction, an implant, to follow.
Fifth, people like Hubbard, a specific type of human predator, naturally lie frequently and contradict themselves as part of their pathology, their behavior that’s compelled by their mental illness. To the degree that they understand this lying can confuse people and make them suggestible is the degree to which they understand the benefit for themselves the behavior creates but in my opinion the behavior is compelled by their mental illness and it comes naturally, whether they understand it or not.
Here’s something from Margaret Singer’s magnificent book Cults In Our Midst
First a quote that struck me instantly. It reminded me of an analysis of Scientology written by a class XII auditor. She said Hubbard’s writings can seem contradictory and paradoxical. That is actually intentional.
The more complicated and filled with contradictions the new system is and the more difficult it is to learn, the more effective the conversion process will be. ( page 67 )
The contradictions serve to thoroughly confuse Hubbard’s victims and help to increase their suggestibility. With hundreds or thousands of contradictions in millions of words of doctrine the effect is compounded by unimaginably immense repetition.
“If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Arnie Lerma used to play a tape of Hubbard in a lecture saying “there was no Christ” for people who are Christian so they knew that Scientologists lie about the topic.
I have heard the tape and seen the transcript. Hubbard was very clear, no ambiguity. Hubbard also on the original OT VIII Antichrist edition clearly wrote “Christ was a lover of young boys”.
I do not believe in ANY Scientology doctrine personally, but find it hard to understand how a person can both never exist and simultaneously be a paedophile! The people who did the original OT VIII can figure that one out!
MB, I think Hubbard took the esoteric position that the Jesus who lived and ministered was not The Christ, but just a teacher and perhaps a spiritual and magickal adept, something he likely encountered versions of several places including possibly his brief membership in the Rosicrucians. The idea of Jesus as non-heterosexual is based in the teachings of early Christian sects that became considered heretical, and was circulating anew among the sort of circles Hubbard cribbed a lot of his ideas from, and who unlike the lazy plagiarist and self-proclaimed ‘source’, actually were well read in things like the work of Morton Smith.
Hubbard’s presentations of the idea are very disrespectful towards modern Christianity, either intentionally or as the pathology of an egotistic and malignantly narcissistic personality. One reason the basic position is not familiar to many, is those who put stock or even believe in versions of it, are more considerate about it.
My opinion is that Hubbard lied nearly every time he spoke and frequently changed his lies on the same topic. In fact we have literally thousands and thousands of examples.
Jon Atack has pointed out hundreds of contradictions by Hubbard in his articles. I can’t emphasize this enough. I have written numerous articles on the contradictions myself and listed hundreds as well.
In my opinion a certain type of human predator has a compulsion to lie and they don’t bother to tell the same lies over and over. They alter them quite frequently.
Another example of the various contradictory lies that Hubbard told is the two volumes that Scientologists used the tech and admin dictionary in Scientology for decades.
Both have thousands of terms that have multiple definitions and if you examine these definitions it’s quite obvious the definitions quite routinely are contrary to one another. Hubbard would define a term like clear one way in one reference then another explicitly contradictory way in another and often in other ways in others.
Hubbard made his lies as confusing for the audience as possible to confuse people and ultimately to control them.
It is the only logical explanation in my mind.
He simply told contrary lies routinely for most of his life.
MB, I think what Hubbard’s says about the “Beast666” and “antichrist” also reflect things he picked up during his era of association with the occult, and are more or less consistent with a particular esoteric point of view that is logical in its way, along with his claims about Jesus. I would certainly agree that he lied, and more relevant to this particular area cribbed earlier ideas that he did not understand in depth, as if they were his own – but in this case I think what he expressed is actually somewhat consistent, if you understand the underlying concepts and their actual source.
Once again Hubbard was probably recycling late 19th and early 20th century ideas, that would have seemed new to his baby boomer followers in particular:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
Hubbard was mentally off. He was a galactic level self congratulating megalomaniac.
I tell people who ask me what I did all my life, I said I used to work in the Xenu Scientology cult, and then explain the Xenu and body-thetans exorcism stuff of OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, tie that to Hubbard’s mentally ill mind, and prolific pulp writer manic personality, I can end a person’s interest in Scientology in two minutes and I always tell them all they need to know is Xenu.
If a person knows Xenu, and uses the Xenu word with Scientologists, it acts like garlic to a vampire (Scientology).
Hubbard’s most important Scientology word he ever created, was Xenu.
Packed into the Xenu word, are all the ills of Scientology/Hubbard. Knowing Xenu’s meaning, protects someone from Scientology snaring you.
I read the last LRH quote about Christ a couple of times and for the life of me I don’t know what the hell he was saying there.
Since we’re talking religion (haha) here’s this. All monotheistic religions believe in a singular Supreme Being, God or Universal Intelligence. There would be many interpretations of such depending on one’s upbringing and the culture in which they were raised. Somehow over time maybe billions of people have said they have factually experienced this Universal Intelligence, my preferred description, as very real and very “there” even if just as a “Presence” without form or gender. In Catholicism I suppose this would be expressed as The Presence of the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost.
From a scientific realism or atheist point of view it might be said that an innate part of self aware consciousness, however that came to be, might be a concept a Universal Intelligence hard wired into consciousness to allow coping with the ever present reality of eventual mortality while alive in a body or meat sack as sometimes referred to in scientology.
One time on a TV show an interviewer was interviewing a Fundamentalist Minister. She asked him if he believed there was some “truth” in other religions, probably expecting some form of magnanimous answer. His immediate and simple reply was “No!” Lol
After an awkward ten second pause she said, “Well, okay.” and continued the interview. Lol
End of college dorm comment on religion.
welp, it seems that most posters have an anti-Christian attitude to say the least. I am not one of those. Christianity as properly viewed follows Jesus’ teaching first and foremost. It’s not that complicated or hard.
oldbikingdude – I don’t see it that most posters here are anti Christian. The criticism is to people who insist that their particular religion is the one and only “One True Religion” with scientology obviously being the main point of discussion on a scientology blog.
Adult education courses on world religion history really ought to be done.
I was a college philosophy major dropout, I ran into Sea Org in 1975, finally quit in 2003.
In retracing my dropout philosophy stuff, led into the presocratic (before Socrates) philosophers, and one of them, Anaximander hit the nail on the head for me. He was an atheist for the most part. There were quite a few pre Socratic atheist philosophers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtkXpYmaWXg
Buddhism is about my only religious interest, other than I for sure wish well of traditional religions who do pressure their members to be moral. I’m reading listening to Bhikkhu Bodhi’s excellent translations.
Scientologists are mentally censored, you have to dump all of Hubbard’s nonsense and just adult self educate, and keep at it.
Hubbard was a mentally ill megalomaniac.
Chuck Beatty
ex Team Xenu 75 to 03
After almost thirty years in, the moment I discovered that hubs was doing EXACTLY what he said someone else was doing almost took my breath away:
Scn frees you from the trap
Removes hypnosis
Etc.
He knew exactly what he was doing. And it works.
And yet they call their buildings “churches” and put crucifixes on top of them. Of course, if Judaism were the majority religion in the US or in any country in the world except Israel, Co$ would “position” themselves with the Jews. Their buildings would be called temples and there would be Stars of David affixed to them. No matter what the majority religion could be in the world, Co$ would be “positioning” itself with it.
Pretty sickening, how meaningless and phony Scientology’s “ethnics” are.
Speaking of Israel though, I wonder if Scientology’s org in Tel Aviv has a crucifix on top of it. Anyone know?
Question: Is it LRH policy that Sea Org members can’t have children? If so, how does COS expect to continue? Clearly people aren’t beating down its door to join, and since LRH policy can’t be changed, won’t it eventually just kill itself off?
My understanding is that yes, SO members can not have children. However, public members (People who simply pay for courses or auditing, while working in the outside world), and church staff who are not in the SO (2.5 or 5 year contracted staff members), can have children. The SO recruits heavily from those families. It’s like the medieval days, when a family was expected to “give up” one of their children to a monastery or convent.
There was extreme criminality in the acquiring of the CROSS placed above the Super Power Building as depicted above on this blog.
Luis Garcia was given high pressure sales tactics to be the benefactor of the mounted cross.
$40,000.
He was made to believe this would be HIS legacy monument.
He had already given huge sums of money and was tight but the pressure was relentless
Luis paid the $40,000
Later he found out that some 20+ other duped public had been given the same pitch and had *bought* the cross
as their *legacy!*
Very interesting intel to me, Karen. A friend of mine back when I was one of those pressured the same way and donated 30K for that cross above the Super Power Building.
Edit: …”A friend of mine back when I was IN, was one of those, etc….”
Aqua – Thanks for the edit! After all the comments you’ve made about how you cleverly escaped regges, on a quick read I thought you were admitting you had donated $30K for The Cross. What a shock. Laughter
LOL, and thank you, Richard. No they didn’t get me for The Cross, and yes I get a kick out of sharing my escapes but trust me, in the beginning, and for quite a number of years after getting in, I did NOT escape, and man oh man did I fall hook, line and sinker for their gentle, appealing, “But don’t you want to HELP” ploy! THAT one used to get me, every time! Oh, well, I can laugh today. Because, you know, I DID want to help, and I was susceptible. Now, eventually, I DID wise up to this tactic they’d use on me (culled from my PC folder no doubt). Today, the way I see it, and the way I think everyone who got out should consider this, is that oK, I was conned, I was a fool, but in the end, I can laugh it off, and I’ve moved on, and the shame, the embarrassment, is actually theirs. Because we did want to help, and that of itself is not a bad thing, even though it makes one susceptible to being conned.
Thanks. Everyone has a different story about why they got in and got out. I’m glad you can have a laugh about it which is the best possible outcome IMO. Cheers
What a crazy fact? Always love your endless knowledge of COS.
I would be willing to bet that there were more than 20+ publics who ‘paid’ for the cross on the SP building. Not to mention that the SP building has to be the most expensive building in Clearwater since every public was regged endlessly for years and years for the d@mn thing. It was Miscaviges favorite fundraising pink elephant. Then he had to actually build it. Now it’s what…the LRH auditorium or some such thing. Then after it is built there will be another and another and another…for the $ that they have fundraised for all the ‘Ideal’ orgs they could have put nice small buildings in every major city in the US. One good thing has come out of this …Miscavige is the worst thing (or best) to happen to Scientology since the old man died.
Karen, yes that was a scam all right. And I had a friend in Las Vegas and when they went Ideal Org and had to raise money for their building etc, my friend was told if he donated such an so amount of money, that he would have his name on a commemorative brick in the building. All donors who gave for that building over a certain amount would have their name engraved on a brick. Ha! That never happened. It’s been over 19 years and no names on bricks. I wonder if that Las Vegas org is even up and running now.
It’s interesting reading this, having also read Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. His in depth look at LRH’s past seems completely evident of a mentally disturbed if not demonically possessed individual.
I think if Satan were to try and dissuade people from experiencing the passion of Christ, his words seem to have come out in LRH’s voice.
I don’t know what to say…
Oh GOSH, if scientology was even a small fraction of what Ron declared it was, they would have no trouble attracting and keeping followers. “Clear”, which I attested to, was a great accomplishment; I was on top of the World for a while afterwards, but the reality was that it did NOTHING to help me or anyone in the real world, and I crashed hard soon after as I proved vulnerable to the suppression endemic in the group — particularly at Flag.
My fave today: “[Christianity] is not even a major group today in European and American spheres of influence. It keeps telling you that it is, but it isn’t.”
As early as 1971 the cult was telling journalist George Malko (“Scientology–The Now Religion”) that they had 15 million members. A slip of the tongue or something Malo misheard? No. They told the same thing to the NYT.
Since then, there has not been even a single time when they have claimed anything short of explosive growth. Leave it to dilletantes like Grant Cardone to settle for 10x-ing his business (by means that have apparently attracted the attention of the FBI); nothing short of 47x and “straight up and vertical” will do. And yet, 50+ years later, not even the most brazen cult shill will claim anything even close to 15 million. Yes, “It keeps telling you that it is, but it isn’t.”
Todd, people have reported being told 20 million members by staff – when they walked into orgs that were pretty much empty. Kirstie Allie has also used the number.
So clearly it floats around in the approved Scientology internal scuttlebutt, even if the PR people have better sense than to try to use it in an an outside world that would recognize it as unbelievable, and probably try to dissect it (just to compare it to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons whose missionaries almost everyone has encountered and whose churches most have drive past, when the CoS is rarely if ever encountered, debunks it). And I think it demonstrates how the remaining membership has become unquestioning about those sorts of claims, even when they contradict what they can observe in their own local orgs.
Hypocrisy at its finest
Thank you for posting this! As a Christian, I have wondered what LRH might have said about Christianity. This statement shows his non-creativity, as he rolls out the usual “Christ seemed fine (if He even existed). . . but His followers have really screwed up the religion He started,” etc. Also, his complete ignorance of atonement and the concept of Christ’s death as substitutionary and chosen betrays the absence of knowledge of the most basic tenet of the Christian faith. Am reading your book–Thanks! Have a great Thanksgiving!
Ken — you should read the other post that is linked inside this one, “Can Scientologists Be Christians or Jews Too?” There are a lot more of Hubbard’s quotes about Christianity and Christ in there.
Thank you, Mike. I will do so. I am a survivor of a Christian cult/abusive church, and a pastor, and lead an all-background-included support group for survivors of spiritual abuse in all religions and groups. Lately have had the privilege of meeting more friends with Scientology history.
There you have it real evidence that this is a godless cult. And right from Hubbard himself.
You are doing good work Rev Garrett.
I love to hear when an ex cult member can get back to his or her roots and find peace through family, real fellowship, real help and possibly finding real healing through God, Jesus, higher power, call it what you will.
Not the pompous self help falsity masquerading as a modern day religion.
And if you meet a still-in scientologist in person you can see, feel and hear the incredible sense of great superiority they feel as they are looking down at you.
Congratulations on your book as well. Sounds fascinating.
https://bookshop.org/contributors/kenneth-j-garrett
I went to pickup Chinese food last night and there was a personality test there in the lobby – I took them all and brought them home to recycle. Saved a few souls.
Good work
It’s great to see individuals taking the effort to help erase that virulent scourge from the real world. Personally, I took the on-line OCA and have been doing fast-flow emailing to tell them their trying to get me into my nearest Org is a waste of their time and effort.
Well, speed of particle flow is the way to effective communication and no dev-t.
Hey, that’s straight from the church of scamology!
Right on!
Good stuff my brother, I do the same with the Jahovas booklets, I ask them if I can take one of each so I usually walk away with a dozen books that I throw out. The poor souls give me a big smile and welcoming let us know if you want any help sentence thinking I am genuinely curious. The only thing I’m genuine about is hoping nobody joins the cult that would rather have people die than give them life saving blood !!! And people think Scientology is bad !
Currently listening to the Fair Game podcasts (late to the party) and you said they referred to Jesus as a Paedophile! Unreal!
The last time I checked anyone who holds Reality as being real can’t be a Scientologist. (Do I have to mention the Crowley cross?)
I’ve been reviewing a number of science YouTubes. One on “is reality real” had me wondering. I am fairly convinced that Ron had a tenuous, nearly non-existent grasp on reality and didn’t really believe that this physical universe was as substantial as it is.
If the reality that we perceive is unreal then that has to a fact of reality.
I’m sorry you weren’t allowed to enjoy the state of Clear for longer. By the way, it is more appropriate to refer to the Theta Trap in Clearwater as Flog, not Flag.
Bryon – Laughter! I split scn soon after “attesting to Dianetic Clear” around 1980 because of the price increases so I escaped any further Theta Traps. haha.
To me Clear was a something rather than a nothing with no bad after effects but I suppose the same could be said about someone spending numerous hours examining their past, however far back they consider that to be, in other forms of therapy or religion. At least by getting into scn I avoided becoming a Moonie. Zen Buddhism would have been okay but I wouldn’t have had the self discipline back then although I did have a few unexpected experiences of satori or kensho after scn.
Kenshō[note 1] (見性) is a Japanese term from the Zen tradition. Ken means “seeing”, shō means “nature, essence”.[4][2] It is usually translated as “seeing one’s (true) nature”, that is, the Buddha-nature or nature of mind.
Kenshō is an initial insight or awakening, not full Buddhahood.[5] It is to be followed by further training to deepen this insight, and learn to express it in daily life.[6][7][8]
The term kenshō is often used interchangeably with satori, which is derived from the verb satoru,[9] and means “comprehension; understanding”.[web 1][note 2][note 3]