Give me a quick rundown on Scientology?

The russkies don't like'em after they basically smuggled a bunch of Scientology books into Russia like it was crack cocaine.

>its a cult created by a shitty sci fi writer from the 50s that believes in alien souls possess you and than you need to exorcise them in order to be whole. The whole reason is because he wanted to get tax exempt status, and tax collectors are basically the snake in the garden of eden in their beliefs. Its also a pretty brutal cult that doesnt allow apostasy, has slave labour and concentration camps, and seeks to ruin the lives of anyone who criticizes them, especially if they are a former member.

That's fucking brutal. Why would anyone even think this should be tax free or acceptable?

>Its also currently run by this guy named David Miscavige who is literally a reincarnation of Goebbels

WTF I love Scientology now

It's kind of all three. L. Ron Hubbard really seems to have created it as basically a scam, and it continues to operate the way cults stereotypically do, but has been established for so long that there are multiple generations of believers that genuinely seem to believe.

And to be fair, it's kind of easy to see how someone could fall for it. The lower levels of Scientology operate like a self-help program (which was actually Hubbard's original con, with Dianetics) that actually does have basis in basic psychology. If a troubled, unhappy person tries out psychology, they're exposed to very rudimentary therapy methods that actually do work, and that makes people believers. The problem is that they get sucked into an incredibly sketchy organization that will suck as much money as possible from them, use that therapy to blackmail them, and dominate their life.

>they actually believe in Xenu, DC-8 jets flying across galaxy and alien souls
The thing is, most Scientologists probably never hear that story. It's restricted to very high levels, and requires giving hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not like people are told that on their first day and only the gullible stay; by the time people hear it, they're so invested, they go along with it because that's how psychology works.

>literally a Polish jew
WTF I hate Scientology more than ever now, instant change of heart

>Cult, religion, scam?
Yes.

And a substitute for psychiatry.

>Cult, religion, scam?
All of the above. (Not all religions are cults but few cults are not religions)
Like most cults they want money, the only thing really special about scientology is that it managed to convert very rich people so they live off whales unlike most cults. (there are cults that manage to target upper class people but generally not to that point)

You basically need to give them a lot of money to "spiritually" progress, they basically sell more and more overpriced methods and devices so you can purify your thertons or something, obviously you need to be rich to complete the whole path of purification.

HOW they managed to convert influent and rich people is probably interresting but I don't know a lot about that.

>Why would anyone even think this should be tax free or acceptable?
they have a crack team of lawyers and arent afraid to use them. Davids wife has been missing for like 20 years now and no one knows where she is. There are also reports that he would make young women in the cult be tom cruises girlfriends when he needed one, and then when he broke up with them, he would make them clean toilets with their tongues and shit

youtube.com/watch?v=XyNh1j3dsp8

I know Russia recently arrested some members for selling books and charged them with “participation in an ‘extremist’ community, incitement of hatred, and illegal business activities.”
The reason it gets tax exemption in the US is that the constitution takes a hands-off approach to religion in that the only favorite it plays is in the book you need to swear by in order to testify in court or take an oath of office, which is the bible.
You can thank Thomas Jefferson and the state of Rhode Island for that.

leave Scientology to me
thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/359730-trump-thinks-scientology-should-lose-its-tax-exempt-status

Most successful ponzi scheme on the planet.

Glad I never lived near any. My neighborhood may be gated enough for blackface at Halloween parties, but Scientology is the shit that would probably never be let in.

>Davids wife has been missing for like 20 years now and no one knows where she is
pic related

>There are also reports that he would make young women in the cult be tom cruises girlfriends when he needed one

It's no secret there's tons of gossip in family guy confirmed with all the sexual misconduct cracks going down, makes me wonder if that part about Tom having men to fuck around with on his wife is true too.

>You can thank Thomas Jefferson and the state of Rhode Island for that.

Sort of undoes all the agnostic Thomas Jefferson memes I've seen

WTF I love Trump now

Read Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. Pretty much ripped them a new arsehole in one book

youtube.com/watch?v=LOqa4MaogDQ

Its the north korea of religions

>HOW they managed to convert influent and rich people is probably interresting
I sort of addressed that in my post above (hopefully the idea is obvious, even with a pretty massive typo). Rich people are often unhappy and spend a lot of time looking for answers and things to solve their problems. That's why there's such a stereotype of rich yuppies being into New Age religions, yoga, and stuff like that. People in that position (some poor people, too; there are tons of lower-class Scientologists who find it the same way) shop around different options a lot, and Scientology is something that comes up, along with Buddhist, The Secret, or ISKON. The difference with Scientology is that Hubbard based auditing on real psychiatry (from the 1940s), so it's easy for people that try it to see actual results, instead of just being told spiritual mumbo-jumbo, and that makes people think it works. Then they stick with it.

This was even easier back in the day when Hubbard was still known from Dianetics, which had been a fad self-help moment in the 1950s. Tons of people tried out Scientology when it was first taking off, because no one knew about all the crazy shit yet. That's why so many people in the organization now have either been members for decades or were born into it. Manipulation also has a lot to do with it, as the church knows everyone's secrets, and they blackmail people into staying.

I can't wait for /x/ to come up with a new theory about Tom Cruise's youth and that he steals the alien souls of his new girlfriends.

>What is it exactly?
A method of pop psychoanalysis coupled with some new age concepts and filtered through Hubbard's exposure to both military and OTO methods.

I mean they tried their hearts out but for example the CMO wasn't entirely young boys.

>alien souls possess you and than you need to exorcise them in order to be whole
That's a wee bit facile, Thetans aren't "aliens" they're Thetans. That bald dude who does "Growing up in Scientology" on YT has a few bits about this and how the doctrine gets misunderstood often. The possession bit is fairly accurate tho.

I mean they have good reason, Scilons are trying to make some serious inroads to countries that are afflicted by various kinds of addiction or general poverty so their slave labor arrangements look attractive. They do much the same in parts of India and Africa and South America.

>it's kind of easy to see how someone could fall for it. The lower levels of Scientology operate like a self-help program (which was actually Hubbard's original con, with Dianetics) that actually does have basis in basic psychology. If a troubled, unhappy person tries out psychology, they're exposed to very rudimentary therapy methods that actually do work, and that makes people believers.
This. It wouldn't persist if people didn't get some form of practical or functional gains from the lower levels of the bridge. Highly controlled cult environments mean the more culty stuff gets held back from common members, like how you read the Wall of Fire (Xenu) materials from a briefcase that's cuffed to your arm, etc.

Well, that's not entirely true, we know where she is, she's being more or less voluntarily secluded and she's alleged to be out at that one facility where they make nickel tablets of Hubbard's writings then put them in inert gas cases in an underground vault.

Dan Burton and Joy Villa will fight that tooth and nail. Pardon if I have little hope of it actually happening.

According to Rinder and Rathbun there's more ongoing butt-stuff with Travolta, at least in early implications before they got some media traction.

It's a pretty good book but any single text won't be comprehensive.

More or less spot on.

this. It also isnt sold on the space opera alien dictator souls and shit. That isnt revealed until you are a few levels up into it

writer William Burroughs infilitrated a Scientology group in the 60s (passed lie detector tests) and wrote some articles about it. Google it up.

It is, by definition, not a Ponzi scheme.

ALL people are often unhappy and spend a lot of time looking for answers and things to solve their problems.

It's just more profitable to target rich.

Social Security says Hi.

>people on the bottom getting suckered in to paying large amounts of cash to people at the top for a part in a nonexistant enterprise
that seems like a ponzi scheme to me

>It wouldn't persist if people didn't get some form of practical or functional gains

Have Tom Cruise and John Travolta attend your local Baptist church regularly, and see what happens to the size of the congregation.

When fame and fortune are based on who you know, especially in Hollywood, there's no need to look for any spiritual significance in Scientology.

Ponzi schemes involve gathering new people to pay money to the old people, and eventually working their way up the ladder to have the now new people pay money up to them.

Like Social Security.

I'm the only one on this newfag board who was here before project chanology, aren't I? It's stunning to think that some of you have no idea of this site's relation with Scientology.

>they actually believe in Xenu, DC-8 jets flying across galaxy and alien souls
Sounds just as retarded as rising from the dead, turning water into wine and cutting up your dick.

>ALL people are often unhappy and spend a lot of time looking for answers and things to solve their problems.
True, but the rich often have enough money and free time to dabble in the kinds of things average people have much less access to. That includes seminars, retreats, crystals, books, pyramid shit, fancy yoga, auditing, and a ton of other stuff that most people just can't afford to try out with as much frequency as the rich.

That's why Scientology centers usually offer free auditing sessions to get people in the door.

It's basically a gnostic myth (A long time ago, things were perfect and non-material, but then evil materialistic forces came and dragged the soul down from its perfect state, but with OUR SYSTEM, you can regain your perfect pre-material soul state).

It's just wrapped up in sci-fi imagery instead of more classically religious imagery, so it seems stupider, but it's really the same kind of mythological construction that's been around for at least 2,000 years and probably longer.

Its simply not the subject of the thread you pretentious fuckwit
You're not special for having been here before 2008

>lmao dude Christianity which is over 2000 years old is exactly the same as 70 years old cult created by a literal scammer xD
>inb4: did you know that JEWS are JEWISH?!

I wonder when they'll pull the "it's a metaphor" card.

If you're a fucking retard, sure.

youtube.com/watch?v=OypJljqNT34

youtube.com/watch?v=fqzmbnrglUg

>he's been on Veeky Forums for 10 years
rethink your life

Top lel.

>implying you can ever leave

Back in my day you didn't "respect" the "intended topic". It's all fair game.

And your 'special' comment shows you know nothing of how much this site has 'changed'.

Who said I used it every day? What, you want me to just forget this place exists?

Or religious.

>back in my day
wow, you really sounds like some butthurt 30 year old loser

Pretty much this. The Xenu stuff sounds weird and crazy to us, but that's only because it uses scifi imagery and isn't a story we've heard since childhood. There's really nothing about it inherently more ridiculous that the mythology behind any other religion. If you tell a person the Xenu story from childhood, as a adult, they would think the idea that God created Earth and placed man in paradise, then kicked them out after Eve created original sin by eating forbidden fruit because a snake told her to sounds just as ridiculous.

literal interpretations of the genesis are a relatively new thing

>Have Tom Cruise and John Travolta attend your local Baptist church regularly, and see what happens to the size of the congregation.
Except the only interaction that "normative" Scilons get with TC or whoever is seeing them at the New Year's thing, maybe, in the front row and being slave-labor to build stuff on their property.

Mormons aren't even that crazy. They're weird, but not that weird.

Right lmao

Well, that's not the thing which conditions kids though, since they'll never hear about Xenu unless they climb rank in the church.

What conditions them is Hubbards "whole track" space-opera bullshit, his idiosyncratic take on past lives and the underlying agency of being, and introductory scientology materials and/or speculation between adults as to the contents of grade and auditing levels and the application of the basics books.

Talking about Scientology coldly, mechanically, and factually in the public does FAR more to "fair game" Scientology than any raid where we clog the St. Louis Org's faxlines. I was fucking there too; it ain't a badge, it ain't gold age, it's a time and place that came and went. If you want to preserve the legacy of Chanology get your ass involved with the post-Scientology movement and help dissidents exit the fucking Church.

Hey my time's comparable and things are pretty great mate.

Sometimes I worry about Rinder's psychological makeup. Given his in-church behaviors I woulda thought he would crack long before Rathbun.

Anyway I'm going to try to dig out some interesting vids I've got stuffed up my ass.

An example of how unfuckinghinged Miscavige is:
youtube.com/watch?v=7eW7_7XSvuI

Speaking of unhinged, Rathbun there went fucking sideways and is posting videos against Leah Remini, hundreds of them, in small clips, probably on the Scilon dime:
youtube.com/channel/UCGrXXr75epcf3ndBHjWD6NA

But that's not super unexpected. Covert Scilon espionage, but that don't change the fact old boy was a powderkeg:
youtube.com/watch?v=VS2X1nrbzDA

This is probably why he went sideways:
youtube.com/watch?v=tI8nohsFO8Q

Some people saw this coming:
youtube.com/watch?v=xqBA9qcu0Ws

These two have great vids if you need rundowns on the mechanics of Scientology. Shelton's a megafedora, so forewarned:
youtube.com/channel/UCD8AAvA3_JDFeOps-HzPPHg
youtube.com/channel/UCF326xyA0QHI7Z5xAwKQDJg

Here's audio of the first time Hubbard figures out his space-cooties doctrine with his wife on a first gen e-meter where he references Lemegeton and the demons of Solomon:
rutube.ru/play/embed/7040361

Tony Ortega's site, good for staying current, most of the "old guard" sites don't update too often these days:
tonyortega.org/

Supposedly, new information came out that claimed that the religion's higher-ups quit for Chef's VA without Isaac Hayes (Chef's VA) saying much. The source? Isaac Hayes' son, Isaac Hayes III.
hollywoodreporter.com/features/south-park-20-years-history-trey-parker-matt-stone-928212

I heard they thought Hayes was a leaker (that’s how they did the episode) and had him killed.

I can't find a single bit of information that claims the son as a Scientologist, so I'm more inclined to take III's word.

Leaker?
Wall of Fire's been public since Usenet and the Scilons are perfectly aware of this because they fought the legal battles.

Sounds more or less par for the course, you can assume any document that has a Scienotlogist's signature was obtained under duress.