wbarwell@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM Sat May 15 20:35:40 1999
Newbie Q: "What is Scientology?!?"
15 May 1999 14:35:40 -0500

In article <19990513015843.07862.00001976@ng-fi1.aol.com>, Size13EEE <size13eee@aol.comnospam> wrote:

> From: stopthesporgeries@berlin.snafu.de (Tilman)

>> Here's the belief of scientology: that you are possessed by
>> the spirits of aliens murdered 75,000,000 years ago by
>> "Xenu." You have to exorcise these spirits, at a very high
>> cost per alien.

> Since most ars critics believe that the BT exorcism business
> is unknown to Scientologists except for those who've become
> extensively involved in it, this Xemu story can hardly be
> what's sums up Scientology in the consensus of critics, if they
> really were to be honest about it.

No, there is the abuse, the disconnections, numerous false promises about big OT abilities, perfect memories, massive increases in IQ, lies and frauds upon those who sign 5 year contracts to go on staff, or into the Sea Org and other issues.

Then there is auditing. That fuzzy, "we can't explain it but whatever it is its great" come-on we see here from many low level clams.

Why auditing costs increase until it costs 4400 - $500 an hour is never explained by the church. We know. Suckers! $$$$$! Miscavige and crew dive like porpises in the $$$ in their offshore money vaults.

At lower levels there is that auditine rush that some ex-members have explained to us, the exact details of the why's and wherefores of auditing are beside the point. Hubbard tripped over a mind-fuck that keeps the suckers on the hook.

This is an issue too. It is of course, the same phenomenon that one see in people who go to their analyst 1 or twice a week and get very upset when he or she is on vacation or is unavailable for some reason. The same phenomenon that has many people boring bartenders with their prattle. Or has many Catholic Priests spending hours with people who become chronic confessors, who go over every imagined sin at length several times a week.

Hubbard made this into a hook that keeps one on the conveyor belt to hugely exspensive auditing, sec checks, expensive repair auditing when the fake promises don't come true, (it's always YOUR fault) and other abuses.

This abuse and exploitation is an issue also with critics, you bet!

> This is so as the vast majority of people who were involved
> with but then ditched Scientology never heard of Xemu, yet
> they for some time had some belief in Scientology. This is,
> and forever will be, the basic flaw in going around telling
> people that Scientology amounts to the Xemu weirdness.

It is the denoument of Scientology. Telling people up front about this (because the cult surely will not) is a duty of the critics here. Because failure to explain that the expensive part of Scientology, that part that has people selling themselves to the Sea Org cause they KNOW they won't ever have the $$$$ to pay the going rate is what you can expect from the cult left to its own devices.

Exploitation.

People have a right to know. Critics and non-members whose friends and family might be suckered into Co$. Those who are being inticed into the cult with fake promises and to whom this is NOT explained by this abusive and exploitive cult. Those who are in and are getting some inkling things are not what they seem in Co$ and wonder "What the hell?" and somehow make it to here.

If people read it, hear of it, know of it from other sources, newspaper or magazine, fine, but they do deserve to know it.

And your complaint is a bit of a straw man anyway, we critics KNOW it is not the whole or a major part or somehow THE key issue.

But you can take any critic concern and give it the same treatment and then one by one brush all concernes away and pretend theer are no real concerns.

> Of course there's a great deal of distortion that can be achieved
> by going around saying Scientology is just Xemu in essence.
> Scientologists don't resemble suicidal "UFO cults" (recently
> and shockingly in the news) but can be made to carry some of
> their odor by playing up the Xemu business as if it were really
> important in the overall scheme of Scientology beliefs. It's a
> *distortion*, which along with such things as shore stories,
> "PR", acceptable truths and the like, basically amounts
> to what is usually called "lying".

It is important enough it gets lots of suckers into the Sea Org and used as cheap labor for the cult so they can get that OT stuff that offers false promises of grand and great OT powers.

This is what gets a LOT of people into the sea org. Not just playing on their idealism, the other great Sea Org hook.

And what do the Sea Org study in their march to OT? Xenu, BT auditing and so yes, it is indeed an important issue. It is what many people do for goodly portions of their lives. Work 12 hour days to get a few hours toward going OTVIII eventually, the big gold ring many are conditioned to want.

> Don't forget, should the Scios succeed in playing a dirty trick
> on you, that you threw your hat into the dirty trick playing
> arena with this kind of "Scientology is belief in Xemu"
> crap right along with them.

Xenu is part of Scientology, the McGuffin that explains Hubbard's very expensive OT courses and why we don't see miracle working Clears ala Dianetics. It is a very impotant part of the plot that helps keep the Sea Org staffed which organization, has reserved to it, many important functions within Scientology's structure that keeps it a going concern.

Without a long, ardious, very expensive set of OT courses, based on the Xenu myth, Scientology would not only have to find a new scam to keep people paying $$$$ for years to them, but they'd need another hook to get SO members, and they'd have to reorganize their entire cult from top to bottom without a SO hooked on the prospects of going OT and becoming supermen to keep them supplied with warm bodies and drudge labor at next to no monetary cost to the cult.

So, yes indeed, Xenu is a VERY important lynch pin to the whole scam. Without that, Scientology would be radically different from what it now is.

Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope of Houston
Slack!