Scientology empties trailer park, but gets larger golf course

News: Scientology buys trailer park and evicts tenants. The reason? To extend their golf course. No, I’m not kidding.
The story: Scientology buys trailer park, evicts tenants
this isn’t the first time this had happened, either, but is is part of a tragic patterns that effects lives.

Scientology, the “only” “major” “new” “religion” in the 20th century.

It is common to see, in Scientology publications, websites, and statements, the claim that they are "the only major religion to emerge in this 20th century". This has been echoed by the average man on the street, all the way up to David Miscavige himself.

However, that belief, and the supporting statements, shows a great disdain for some of the other religious movements to appear in the 20th century.

For example:

The Rastafari Movement was officially in 1930, with the first mission founded in 1933. Rastifarians believe in a personal god, Jah, and believe that the holy spirit incarnate lives within the human. They believe in equality among all men, as the spirit is equal in all. Currently, there are approximately 1 Million members worldwide.

Although its roots are rather old, Santaria itself is relatively young, with the first church established in 1974. Santaria is an amalgamation of African Religions (especially the worship of the Orisha) and Roman Catholic beliefs, which African slaves were generally required to adopt upon arrival to America. There are currently an estimated 22,000 adherents in the US.

Unitarian-Universalism was formed in 1961 from the merger of the Universalist Church in America and the American Unitarian Association. Unitarian-Universalists believe strongly in personal freedoms, a strong moral code and personal responsibility. Although divided on personal beliefs on a god, they are defined by a shared desire for personal and spiritual growth. There is an estimated 629,000 adherents in the world.

Eckankar was founded in 1965 and claims to "provide a personal, unique and individual spiritual inner path to understanding of self as soul,and development of higher awareness "consciousness" and God" and that the spirit, which is the true self (and the body is not) is able to leave the body in full awareness and travel.Like scientology, Eckankar does not publish membership statistics, but is estimated to be 50,000 or less.

One of the newest worldwide movements is the World Pantheist Movement, founded as recently as 1999. Is is "is the world’s largest organization of people associated with pantheism, a philosophy which asserts that spirituality should be centered on nature". The exact number of members is not currently known.

Not to be forgotten is Thelma, created by Aleister Crowley in 1904 (as it is known today), using the dictum "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. … Love is the law, love under will," Often (incorrectly) confused with Theistic Satanism, Thelmaism centers around personal ethics, the concept of "true will", magik and cosmology.They believe that there is no universal moral code, nor any form of eternal punishment.

So the question remains: when scientologists say that they are "the only major religion to emerge in this 20th century", what is the form of slight? Do they not consider these examples to be major? Do they not accept these examples as "religions"? Is there some confusion as to the meaning of the term "20th century"? Regardless, millions of people would disagree with the very common claim.

Go to your library, just fill up your gas tank first.

I have often asked scientologist difficult questions, only to be told “go to your library, read a book!”.

However, I have been frequently frustrated by one simple fact: libraries don’t seem to carry scientology books. What’s more, when I, or another, points out the fact, we are met with derision and doubt.

So, I did some research, found out for myself, went to source.

I started with california, as that is the home state of scientology, so I figured that it would be the most tolerent. I learned from publiclibraries (dot) com, that there are 1,090 public libraries in the state of california. So far, so good.

Next, I used the california public library catelog search at calcat (dot) org to search for specific titles. The beauty of this site is that it will show you how many libraries carry a particular book, which was perfect for my research. Here’s what I found:

Out of 1,090 public libraries in california:

“What is Scientology?”  Is carried by 71 libraries, or 6%
“Fundamentals of thought (1988)” Is carried by 58 libraries, or 5%
“Clear body, clear mind : the effective purification program” Is carried by 64 libraries, or 6%
“Scientology : the fundamentals of thought (2007)” Is carried by 17 libraries= 1%
“Scientology an overview” Is carried by 42 libraries, or 4%
“An introduction to Scientology” Is carried by 45, or 4%
“Dianetics : the modern science of mental health” Is carried by 31 libraries, or 3%
“Introduction to Scientology Ethics” Is carried by 24 libraries, or 2%
“The way to happiness : a common sense guide to better living” Is carried by 17 libraries, or 1%
“Scientology : a new slant on life” Is carried by 29 libraries, or 3%
“Science of survival : prediction of human behavior” Is carried by 21 libraries, or 2%
“The Scientology handbook” Is carried by 59 libraries, or 5%
“The creation of human ability : a handbook for Scientologists” Is carried by 21 libraries, or 2%
“Have you lived before this life?” Is carried by 34 libraries, or 3%

On the other hand, 

“Bare-faced messiah” is carried by 62 libraries, or 6%
“A piece of blue sky : Scientology, Dianetics, and L. Ron Hubbard exposed” is carried by  31 libraries, or 3%
And they’re not sent to them for free

So you can see, saying “go to your library and get XXX book”, can often mean quite a drive.

 

The Satanic Coincidences

Regardless of one’s interpretation of such, it is fact that there are definite connections (or, at the least) coincidences between Scientology and certain types of Satanism. The following discusses some of the connections and/or coincidences.

And it all began when Hubbard was 16, and read the book by Aleister Crowly, founder of the Church of Satan, Called ‘The Book of the Law’. After further study, and an eventual relation between the two (to the point of Hubbard jr. claiming that his father believed he was Crowley’s successor, and Hubbard saying  ”The only modern work that has anything to do with them is a trifle wild in spots, but is a fascinating work in itself, and that’s the work of Aleister Crowley – the late Aleister Crowley – my very good friend.”), Hubbard developed Scientology, and we find, today, the following elements:

1. The Church of Satan says, “And if a man smite you on one cheek, smash him on the other!” L. Ron Hubbard himself said, “The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”

2. Church of Satan = CoS
Church of Scientology = CoS

3. Satanism either traditionally denies the divinity of Christ, or believes that man himself is his own being, and there is no higher religious authority. Hubbard said, “Anyway, Everyman is then shown to have been crucified so don’t think that it’s an accident that this crucifixion, they found out that this applied. Somebody somewhere on this planet, back about 600 BC, found some pieces of R6, and I don’t know how they found it, either by watching madmen or something, but since that time they have used it and it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the Cross. There was no Christ. But the man on the cross is shown as Everyman. So of course each person seeing a crucified man, has an immediate feeling of sympathy for this man. Therefore you get many PCs who says they are Christ. Now, there’s two reasons for that, one is the Roman Empire was prone to crucify people, so a person can have been crucified, but in R6 he is shown as crucified.”
“Assists” lecture. 3 October 1968. #10

4. Certain occult elements call their lodge “Ordo Templi Orientis”, or OTO’s. Scientology calls their “inner circle” group the OT’s.

5. The Church of Satan believed that embreyo implants- satanic or demonic spirits- can inhabit the body of a fetus. Scientologists believe that Thetans inhabit the body of a fetus.

6. Both the Church of Satan and Scientology oppose psychiatry, with Crowley saying, “Official psychoanalysis is therefore committed to upholding a fraud… psychoanalysts have misinterpreted life, and announced the absurdity that every human being is essentially an antisocial, criminal, and insane animal”. Hubbard, of course, was staunchly anti-psychiatry.

7. Both CoS’s advocated a return, mentally and emotionally, to birth.
“Having allowed the mind to return for some hundred times to the hour of birth, it should be encouraged to endeavor to penetrate beyond that period” -Crowley
“After twenty runs through birth, the patient experienced a recession of all somatics and ‘unconsciousness’ and aberrative content.” “Thus there was no inhibition about looking earlier than birth for what Dianetics had begun to call basic-basic” -Hubbard

8. Crowley created his own terot card design. The symbol on the back of the terot cards is the exact same as the scientology cross. (http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/DEMONS/Aleister%20Crowleyt.jpg)

9. Many of hubbard’s statements, after studying and following the works of Crowley, were in line with the Church of Satanic teachings and writings. For example, Hubbard used “power affirmations”, writing such things as “Men are my slaves”, “Elemental Spirits are my slaves” and “You can be merciless whenever your will is crossed and you have every right to be merciless” “All women shall succumb to my charms! All mankind shall grovel at my feet and not know why.”

Most chilling, may be a prediction from Crowley himself. In his book ‘Moon Child’, Crowley claimed that one of his followers would form a new world religion. Of the known followers of Crowley, Hubbard is the only one known to have done so.

Questions that Scientologists have not yet answered

Along the way, I’ve seen and asked many questions asked of Scientologists that have not been answered. Perhaps they merely didn’t read them; perhaps they couldn’t think of a good answer; perhaps they were not permitted to broach certain subjects.

Whatever the case, I hope that any Scientologist would be able to make an attempt to answer any of them.

1. Scientology writings are very clear that critics of scientology are criminals, and that that is true “100% of the time”. This is echoed many times on Scientology controlled sites, such as this sites sister site, scientologymyths.wordpress.com. I do not have any crimes- how is this reconciled?

2. Before the internet, Scientology (and Hubbard himself) made very grand claims about the life of L. Ron. This includes his war record, education and achievements. However, with the popularity of the internet, certain records and facts have conclusively contradicted these claims. However, even in the face of official records, even items with Hubbard’s signature on it, many Scientologists still stand by these claims. Why is this?

3. Has Scientology ever created a true clear, as defined by Hubbard?

4. Does this outfit make me look fat?

5. Have you ever met an OT that can demonstrate cause over MEST at any greater extent than the average wog?

6. Why did Hubbard die, and why has he not returned?

7. Why have multiple high-level OT’s died of cancer, or other similar ailments?

8. Do you support the scientology decision to instigate a high-cost lawsuit against the child that was protesting recently? Does he deserve such an action?

9. Why does scientology refer only to third-party sites to support their claims of online expansion, and not release the true records that would give an accurate indication as to the number of website visitors and, thus, online popularity?

Repost from GroundReports.com

Generally, I try to post only my own material, and not simply copypasta. However, this article (below) really hits the nail on the head, and makes some excellent points. Article in original context available at http://www.groundreport.com/Business/Editorial-Scientology-debate-underway-in-France/2911339

“A Little Bird Told Me” is a weekly op-ed column that will appear every Monday on Breaking Tweets. It is part of an effort to add more opinions to BT, with the addition of an international roundtable discussion also in the plans.

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, a French court ruled that certain practices by the Church of Scientology were classified as fraud under French law, imposing a number of heavy fines and threatening jail time to a few church members.

The ruling did not restrict the practice of Scientology within France, but warned church officials that they should be aware of and operate under French law.

Of course, bloggers from all corners of the internet celebrated upon hearing the news in their traditional way of mass tweeting and, honestly, I’m with them, but let’s hold on one second and go over why France’s condemnation of Scientology’s practices is a good thing.

Note: Whether Scientology’s teachings are legitimate will not be debated within this article. I’m not a theologian and, so, frankly it’s none of my business or expertise to root through one group’s faith trying to show how they’re wrong. Instead this is a look at why Scientology’s loss in France was an important, and ultimately good, blow to the church’s current operating structure.

So, sorry there will be no Xenu, South Park or Tom Cruise references here–no mater how hilarious they may or may not be.

Anyway…

So, trying to use twitterers to take a look at the French ruling on Scientology is actually quite difficult. Some time ago, for whatever reason, it seems the entire mass of voices that comprise the internet decided to take up arms against the Church of Scientology.

Which is actually pretty cool–usually no one can agree on anything–but it’s a real pain if you want someone to say something more than “The Church of Scientology is convicted of organized fraud in France. YAY!” as detentiondnb did along with many others following the news from France.

However, good for me there was at least one twitterer who took the time and spent the money–bless her–to buy a Dianetics DVD and then tweeted about her experience with it–thanks WrongEyedEar!

After viewing of the first DVD installment of Dianetics, WrongEyedEar made two conclusions.

First, that the church was making blatantly false statements about psychology and misleading vulnerable viewers–again I’m not going to go into that–and second, that the DVD seemed to be a marketing/money making tool.

AH! There it is!

For every line WrongEyedEar tweeted about false statements and misleading facts there was invariably also a tweet about product placement and production value.

WrongEyedEar’s concluding statement about the DVD I think perfectly captures the underlying issue here, “conclusion: Scientology is a pyramid scheme.”

She also added, “..also I’m disappointed there was nothing about Xenu–okay one Xenu reference–on the DVDs. How much I gotta pay to get some Xenu–maybe two–action?”

So, what does this mean?

WrongEyedEar’s observations about the introductory Scientology DVDs shows that the French ruling is probably not the “modern inquisition” Scientology officials are painting it out to be.

Instead it’s a rational conclusion about an organization that is structured to make a profit marketing their “monopoly” on the answer to happiness.

Scientologists have to pay to be tested in order to find out what’s troubling them, they have to pay for an introduction to the answer to their troubles, they have to pay to move up in the church and–as WrongEyedEar explains–they have to pay to learn all the aspects of that oh-so-important answer.

This is actually not that unusually of a scheme. Many of the world’s major religions developed similar structures at one point in time, but forced reform changed them from money making scams into a legitimate religious organization, focused on solving man’s problem of finding answers to the major lessons of life.

Anyway, getting back to Scientology, one twitterer advocating for the end of the Church of Scientology I think has the absolute right idea.

As they state in their first tweet, the IFreezoneAssoc–the official Twitter account of the International Freezone Association–promotes the Scientology Standard tech as an alternative to the out tech church–meaning, primarily, that they are promoting a free Scientology church.

The account simply tweets news about the organization’s activities as well as deemed important lessons from Scientology, including passages from Dianetics and quotes from Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard.

It’s an interesting account that puts one of the first Scientology splinters groups on display, a major crack in Scientology’s total legitimacy.

What, then, I hope comes from the French decision is a fundamental change.

Whether that means a group like the IFA taking over as the legitmate Church of Scientology or the death of Scientology altogether is unimportant to me, the point is no organization should ever operate under the guise of “the answer” and simultaneously drip vulnerable people dry so that they can make a profit.

Earn that tax exempt status Church of Scientology; libraries can dole out answers for free why can’t you?”

How do scientologists think?

Scientologists seem to come in two flavors: those that are die hard and will never admit flaw (except, of course, in anyone else) and those that admit that flaws exists, and would like to see them fixed. Guess which one I agree with.

The following quotes are taken from http://scientologymyths.wordpress.com (crediting the source, hoping I don’t get sued), and give a unique insight into the difference between the two groups. Some are scary, some are hopeful. (for the sake of social graces, and to avoid the trappings of the original site, I have sanitized the vulgar words. All *’s have been added by me, sadly)

“The “insane people” arent really insane. The only insane person which is hard to rehabilitate is the SP. The rapist, the killer, and the childmolester arent the SP’s, they are the supressed ones.”
-Deatherex

“I dont even think that the childmolester is truly insane. I would rather have a childmolester as my best friend than an SP, thats what I think”
-Deatherex

“Bulls**t. These videos are the gems in the flood of crappy videos on Youtube. Or didn’t you notice that Anonymous tries to flush away free speech by drowning Youtube with hate-filled and disgusting propaganda videos?”
-Louanne

“Auditing and the e-meter works, so who the f**k cares. Why has this become a troll forum?”
-Deatherex

“It is because there is a Church policy that says if a person joins staff or the Sea Org, and then leaves without going through the proper steps, he must then be declared a “suppressive person” independent of whether he meets the actual definition of “suppressive person” or not. The “proper steps” include finding a replacement for oneself in the position that one held, and this can sometimes take weeks or months.
Personally, I think it’s an unworkable Church policy and has led to a tremendous amount of difficulty in and out of the Church and, frankly, has made the actual use of the term “suppressive person” less meaningful. Also, because Scientologists in good standing are then required to disconnect from (i.e. not communicate with) any formally declared “suppressive individual or group”, it magnifies the problem.”
-Lake (probably the scientologist that makes the most sense)

“No matter how many “wars” you end Miscavige, it doesn’t change the fact that you have been cruel, deceptive and have caused untold damage to Scientology with your behavior.”
-Lake (I like this guy)

“THIS is the evil that we have to confront — not some external critic, with questions and misunderstandings. The guy running our church either always was, or has become, an SP.”
-Lake

“I call on all Scientologists, and Scientology opinion leaders, to denounce Miscavige and call for his immediate resignation and removal. Further, the Church needs to adopt workable policy that won’t allow for that type of abuse to re-occur.”
-Lake

“Scientologists do not listen to masked, obnoxious a**holes.”
-Louanne

“Germany became a country of killers and it seems like they have not learned yet that tolerance and understanding make up a successful group.”
-Louanne

“I don’t need to know you to know that you’re a critic, therefore you have crimes. That’s a certainty. It is true, 100% of the time”
-Pat

Aside from Lake, these guys must be a hoot at parties.

My personal point of view

Personally, I believe that scientology has potential merits, and I would be happy to call it a religion, if that’s what they want to call it. Anyone can make up a religion, anyone has a freedom to believe what they want. I mean, what’s wrong with Pastafarianism, if that’s what one wants to believe?

No, I don’t care if they believe in space aliens or certain abilities or powers. More power to them- my kid believes the same thing.

It’s the management that I protest. It’s the horrible abuses that are so well documented all over the ‘net. It’s the attitude. It’s the anger. It’s the insults and attacks that scientolgists resort to. It’s the way that they defend their management structure, no matter how many suicides or ruined lives are seen, without the slightest HINT (from most) that reform could possibly be beneficial.

The reluctance to change- to admit any flaw and to fix it- is why there are protests, and why people are still being driven to suicide and the poor house.

Believe what you want- but when people start to get hurt, that’s when there’s a problem; and that’s a standard that should be held to any group.

What is this site?

This site, “The Truths of Scientology”, is a place to discuss scientology without censorship (exception of spam) or the deletion of posts that don’t support my point of view. For the official record, my personal point of view will be listed in another post.

This site is NOT affiliated in any way with the scientologymyths blog, and has a different approach. For one, disagreement and discussion is encouraged, and censorship is not allowed. What’s more, I, personally, will not call you, the dear reader, vulgar names or resort to ad hominem attacks.

Big difference.

I hope that you enjoy reading and participating in this forum as much as I do, and look forward to some engaging discussion.