Notice: Fredric Rice may have removed segments of the replies given to questions if they contained copyrighted materials. After a very short while, Scientology "experts" refused to answer questions and started cut-and-pasting copyrighted cult propaganda. Additionally I removed URLs in some of the replies, and left them in others. And it's also important to note that eventually the unfortunate "Greg Churilov" cultist was ejected from askme.com for his typical Scientological behavior.

Anonymous asked this question on 5/20/2000:

what is Scientology?

honorarykid gave this response on 5/22/2000:

First, let me say that Scientology is a lot of things, so any quick summary is bound to miss things. But I'll try.

For one thing, Scientology is a set of beliefs. The beliefs basically center around the idea that L. Ron Hubbard discovered a methodology to free people from life's problems. The nature of these beliefs is wide ranging and some are downright bizarre. One is first introduced to the belief that we all have engrams (negative mental pictures) in our minds which inhibits our happiness and progress in life. This belief comes out of the book Dianetics.

A later belief is that we are all infested with the spirits of dead space aliens (Body Thetans), and that each of us is actually a reincarnated dead space alien spirit, too. According to Hubbard, we have all been reincarnated many times in meat bodies, here on Earth, because we're too stupid to know that we are really Godlike spirit beings, with no need for meat bodies. The reason we're so stupid and confused is because we've been brainwashed by other evil space aliens who want us kept as meat body slaves, here on Earth (hey, what recently released bad LRH story, just made into a major motion picture does this remind you of?).

And finally, there is one underlying belief in Scientology, common to all these previous cosmologies. That is, that a trained Scientology auditor can help you rid yourselves of engrams (at first) and Body Thetans (later on) and that in doing so, your health, intelligence and happiness will improve, and you will also gain magical, mystical super powers, including the ability to astrally travel, do remote viewing, move things through sheer force of will, and even control space-time itself.

People can believe in these "discoveries" by Hubbard, and practice them outside the purvey of the Church of Scientology, in what is called the "Free Zone", or they can join the Church of Scientology.

The Church of Scientology is operated as a tightly bound, many would say a cultic group (I am one of these, BTW, just so you know where I'm coming from) of people, who share not only the belief that Hubbard discovered these amazing truths, but that planetary dissemination is necessary, and that the Church of Scientology is the only hope for mankind's betterment.

This ideal mirrors Hubbard's growing megalomania, as his organization expanded and grew more powerful. The CoS takes this to the point where nations and laws and other institutions are considered inferior and sometimes even obstructions to mankind's improvement.

This part of Scientology demands money, loyalty, obedience, and behaves generally like a totalitarian political movement. Members are wrung out of their money and labor, controlled, indoctrinated, socially engineered into believing Hubbard's and the CoS' paranoias. They are elitist, exclusive and at the top levels, constitute a legitimate threat to democratic institutions.

Hubbard told his followers that he was not a God. But then he proceeded to demand to be treated like one. His tech is infallible to many Scientologists, only human error in the application can be faulted if it doesn't do what it promises...

Both groups, the Free Zoners and the CoS Scientologists revere Hubbard to a certain degree. But inside the CoS, the reverance approaches that of worship. Scientologists clap and yell "hip hip hurrah" at portraits of LRH. They keep a vacant office in every Scientology facility, complete with a pack of his favorite brand of cigarettes, waiting for his return.

Does that sound like any other deity you've heard of?

Further facts about this criminal empire may be found at Operation Clambake and FACTNet.

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