Scientologists ARE NOT Crazy

Today it is not entirely uncommon to make fun of Scientology. This is acceptable to Scientology. You see, if someone thinks that Scientology is full of nutjobs and weirdos, they are not going to take it seriously as a threat to society. The more Scientology is laughed at the more it seems to be persecuted. The more Scientology is joked about the safer it is from the real issues.

What are the real issues? There are a great many topics to be discussed (the OSA, Lisa McPherson, the Sea Org, etc, etc) but when it comes down to it, all criticisms and reasons for criticism stem from these key points: Scientology is designed to extract the maximum amount of money from its members while protecting itself from any inward or outward threats including critical evaluations from its members. In simpler terms, this means that Scientology is greedy, ruthless, and brainwashes its members to the point where they are prepared to take anything its leaders say as absolute, unchallengeable truth. In this article, I will specifically be focusing on the third of these charges.

When a person is introduced to Scientology, they will usually know very little about what Scientology actually believes. They will normally be at a time in their lives where they are struggling with their perception of the world and they are filled with unanswered questions. The idea that they will be introduced to first is called the "reactive mind." This is the belief that we have two minds: one that is conscious and rational and basically what one does most of their thinking with, and another mind known as the "reactive mind" which is subconscious and activates whenever someone is vulnerable or in pain. The reactive mind will absorb information from these experiences and assimilate them into the personality and subconscious attitude of the person, causing depression, anger, and even physical aches and pains.

These ideas are not particularly irrational. Everyone knows that there is a part of your mind over which you have no control and it has been scientifically proven that there is a link between the welfare of the mind and the welfare of the body. In addition, Scientology also advertises itself claiming beliefs long established as good ideas deserving of praise. If you simply click on the massive link to a Scientology website, which is surely sitting right there in the upper left-hand corner, you can see plenty of examples.

From here, the Scientologist will proceed to take regular courses and auditing sessions, all of which requiring large amounts of money. During these courses, the Scientologist will be slowly entrenched into the pyramid structure of Scientology. They will be slowly brainwashed as auditors (or "spiritual counselors" as the CoS will sometimes refer to them in an effort to convince the world that they are an actual religion) employ psychological techniques to influence the said Scientologist. There is a reason L. Ron Hubbard denounced psychiatry and it is not the least bit humanitarian. Most effective Scientology techniques are actually rip-offs of psychiatry and used in ways not meant to be beneficial to the patient. In other words, psychiatry was Hubbard's competition.

The higher up in Scientology one moves, the more their every thought and action is monitered by the CoS. When a Scientologist learns the story of Xenu, they have gone through enough auditing to make even the most rational person say "This is it! This explains everything!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGFk-U4GaHI&feature=related Tory Christman discusses the time when she entered Scientology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp0PceaWawc Tory Christman talks about CoS tactics