MICHELLE JUERGEN | editor-in-chief
The man who lived in our house before we bought it, Mr. Tony Roads, belonged to the church of Scientology. We still get his mail from time to time and it’s all brochures and other paraphernalia from the Scientologists.
Call me crazy, but—no wait, call them crazy.
Everyone has the right to choose whatever religious organization they want to belong to, but Scientology seems to me more a pseudo religion than anything else.
Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction writer extraordinaire, created scientology in 1952, after writing his self-help book Dianetics in 1950, upon which much of Scientology is based.
Scientology has to be one of the most complicated, confusing “religions” I’ve ever encountered, and it’s supposed to be about un-complicating your life.
Here’s a little blurb I found on Wikipedia:
“Through the Scientology process of ‘auditing’ one can free oneself of ‘engrams’ and ‘implants’ to reach the state of ‘Clear,’ and after that, the state of ‘Operating Thetan.’
Oh, is that all? Scientology makes no sense if you don’t have an understanding of its terminology.
One of the few items we got in the mail for Mr. Tony Roads included a newsletter about the “Flag FSM World Tour,” a pamphlet for doing the new Professional TR Course at Flag, and a little insert about confusion, written by L. Ron—I was still confused afterwards.
Here’s a little excerpt from the newsletter about the Flag Tour:
“Technical perfection is what Flag is all about. When you train at Flag, you are trained to the same standards as the Flag auditors and supervisors themselves. Flag training is also the fastest in the world, with TRs and Metering courses routinely being completed within checksheet time. So it does not take a long time before you are on your Academy Levels and auditing. This makes the Flag Co-Audit Route to Clear, without a doubt, the ultimate way to travel to the Bridge.”
Clearly, the ultimate way to travel.
I don’t know if my tolerance for other people’s beliefs extends this far. More information from Wikipedia claims:
“One advanced teaching revealed to those who reach OT level III is the story of Xenu and his Galactic Confederacy. Xenu is introduced as an alien ruler of the ‘Galactic Confederacy’ who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living. The alien souls continue to do this today, causing a variety of physical ill-effects in modern-day humans.”
This, by the way, is secret “Advanced Technology” doctrine, taught only to members who have already contributed large amounts of money to the organization.
And then Scientologists get mad when other people say they’re crazy. Sorry your religion sounds like another of L. Ron’s science fiction stories.
I went to the Scientology Website (www.scientology.org), and took the Free Personality Test, which they told me I would normally pay $500 for—hello, gimmick. Give them all your personal information, and they mail your results to the Scientology center nearest you.
Today, Mr. Xenu Alien (email: xenuthealien@aol.com) will be picking up his test results at the Scientology center in Phoenix, Arizona.
After answering 200 stupid and vague questions (like “Does life seem rather vague and unreal to you?” and “Would you make the necessary actions to kill an animal in order to put it out of pain?”) (all to which Mr. Xenu Alien replied “no”), the only answer I got was to go to 4045 North 7th Street to find out “a basic picture of your personality and what you think about you.”
Road trip, anyone? I’d love to find out more of what I think about me.
There’s a lot of criticism towards the church of Scientology, as I’m sure most people are aware. People interested in the “religion” have complained of being hypnotized, put under surveillance, and generally harassed by Scientologists, and apparently it’s very difficult to leave the church once you become part of it.
And I mean, look, I’m not here to criticize (yeah, right), but it seems like there are easy reasons not to believe this:
a.) created in 1952
b.) by a science fiction author
c.) paying large sums of money to advance levels to learn “the real truth” and learn what “you really think about you
d.) learn made up words and terminology to understand what exactly you’re paying for, and, oh,
e.) Xenu.
But please, make your own informed decision about this. What do I know?
