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A load of crap IMHO. The way it was started with LRH saying "I'm going to start a false religion and make a shed load of money too" was incredible :eek!!!!:

Check out the webby here. I tried reading it for longer than 5 mins but couldn't stomach it.

Personally, I have nothing against LRH, he makes money - and has done a good job, but making money from other peoples insecurities is not palatable.
 
I once spent a rather entertaining afternoon at the Scientology 'celebrity center' in Hollywood. I was travelling and running out of money, and two very friendly young men invited me in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. In return I had to watch their video. It was all very happy stuff, but not for me so I thanked them and went on my merry way. I don't know what it's like when you're actually a member, but they did make it clear it was my choice if I wanted to find out more or not, and no one stopped me leaving. That said, the website does make it all sound a bit intense.

The biccie was nice, though. Mmm.:)
 
schnor said:
Personally, I have nothing against LRH, he makes money - and has done a good job, but making money from other peoples insecurities is not palatable.

For anyone else the above should be in the past tense as LRH is dead. In LRH's case sadly it is true. Even death didn't prevent him from churning out some of the worst science fiction to have ever darkened a published page.:)
 
May the Farce be with you

Has anyone heard of Jedi leaping off the census form to become a religion in more than simply name after its recognition as such following the recent national census?
 
Has anyone heard of Jedi leaping off the census form to become a religion in more than simply name after its recognition as such following the recent national census?

Wasn't it just that they had to give it a code of its own for the sake of the poor data inputters?
:confused:
 
Jedi Census

Sadly, although some ten thousand or more people /did/ put 'Jedi' as their religion, the idea that it was being added formally is an UL (..or NL? Net-Legend?). Check out snopes, they have an entry for it.
 
One of the reasons I was asking was because of something someone (who would likely wish to remain anonymous, so thus will here) told me once -- that the highest echelons of Scientology messed around with blood sacrifice and other 'black' rituals of that sort. Obviously without actually /being/ in those echelons it'd be impossible to tell, but I was just curious as to whether anyone had had any personal experience with Scientology other than 'here, buy this book' or a public seminar.
 
Hmmm.... I haven't read Bare Faced Messiah in a while but IRC that LRH worked with John Whiteside Parsons in performing "The Babylon Workin", some sort of 'satanic' rite which had been designed by good ol' Crowley.

Crowley thought they were bonkers and told them so.

This, of course, was before the invention of Dianetic. So who knows.

Niles
 
phgnome said:
I don't really know anything about Scientology but I stumbled across this one day and I found it a little disturbing

Ugh! Sorry I didn't catch that this was a autopsy film... Now I'm gonna be haunted for a few days - thanks... :(

Mayby you could write a summary for those of us with weak stomachs.

Niles "I see dead people" Calder
 
Loads of 'stars' advocate.Agree, absoute *oo. 2nd rate author,2nd rate writing,3rd rate theology.Stopping now
 
Sorry about grossing you out, Niles...yeah, I shoulda said it was an autopsy thing.

If I haven't misread too much through the legal jargon, I think it was saying that this woman had dealings with the church of Scientology and she went for treatment for a month (after which she was admitted to their treatment facility, she died). The autopsy showed that the woman had been tortured and died from effects of severe dehydration. I don't know how long before the first picture of her was taken from the time of the autopsy but it did not look like her at all (she looked like another person/creature altogether at the autopsy). She had cigarette burns on her, lacerations, bruises, broken bones, etc. (you get the picture). The woman had not left the facility in the month before she died but during the course of the "treatment", the woman had lost something like 20 lbs. and all these signs of torture were on her body.

I think the judge threw the case out of court even before it made it to trial because there wasn't enough evidence (?).

(I might be wrong because I've misread the legal jargons)
 
Niles Calder said:
Hmmm.... I haven't read Bare Faced Messiah in a while but IRC that LRH worked with John Whiteside Parsons in performing "The Babylon Workin", some sort of 'satanic' rite which had been designed by good ol' Crowley.

Crowley thought they were bonkers and told them so.


Niles

That was Babalon, a powerful female entity. Parsons invoked Babalon as part of rituals intended to create first an elemental being and then a "moonchild".
I get the impression that Crowley was annoyed at Parsons' audacity in performing rituals which Crowley thought only he was powerful enough to do.
And then LRH ran off with Parsons' money and the woman whom Parsons saw as the recently-invoked elemental.
 
the way I read it was that the judge threw the case out because presentation of the Medical Examiners evidence would have thrown doubt on the forensic evidence. As the only forensic evidence was the ME's own I am left to wonder why the judge decided this not the jury.
I sometimes think witch hunts are a good idea
 
I read on, I think, the Spotlight magazine that scientology is really a money making pyramid scheme run by powerful lawyers. the story was something along the lines of: LRH dies, there's an argument over the estate and some well placed lawyers (probably masons ;) ) bought the rights to the scientology name, all of LRH's books and even his signature. If that's true (which I doubt!) it makes Travolta look even dafter than he did in that klingon outfit in Battlefield Earth ;)
 
SAINT HILL, a place like no other on earth.

I have a number of bizarre tales about my experiences with some of the cults that reside in East Grinstead. However I need to be careful what I write here, some cult members may cry "harassment!" or "persecution!". I've known a number of people who have been adversely affected by offending these sad individuals.

I hasten to add, I have never been a cult member but I do know a lot of people who are.

I grew up in East Grinstead (Apparently Britain's cult capital) where the UK headquarters for the Church of Scientology is based, and heard a lot of weird stories and had some first-hand experiences of strange goings on.

In fact, shortly after leaving school in the late eighties, I went to work for my dad in the building trade. The cult had commissioned an imposing modern day castle to be built to house the College of Scientology (Apparently castles are exempt from tax in the UK), and we were contracted to do some work here (There were a large number of people in the trade who had nothing to do with Scientology working here also). Anyway, during those few months, we witnessed some very odd goings-on.

The castle is built next to Saint Hill Manor, which is also owned by the church, and nearby is Greenfields Primary School, which teaches cult members children. From the outside it's a picture of peace and tranquillity. But after stepping behind the walls of the castle retreat for the first time, I got a shock.

I saw people dressed in black uniforms with peaked caps running to and fro and were obviously members of the lower ranks because people wearing high ranking military-style uniforms were barking out orders and talking into walkie-talkies. These low ranking guys were called runners. Apparently the hierarchy mirrors the U.S. Navy: petty officers, midshipmen, warrant officers, ensigns, lieutenants, commanders and captains. They call themselves the Sea Organisation.

One day I was in the castle doing some work in a hall, and there were a number of kids, aged about 9 or 10, sitting opposite each other staring into the opposite kids eyes. A woman was sitting in front of them in silence. They weren't allowed to talk or move… just stare! They did this for about an hour!!!

Another time I was working late in a boiler room with a bunch of other workmen, when two officers walked past us down the corridor, holding a runner by each arm. They stopped at the far wall and told the runner to, "Look at the wall - now say hello to the wall".
The runner responded with a very monotone, "Hello wall".
They carried on walking into another corridor and we could distinctly hear them ordering the runner to say hello to every wall they walked past.

Apparently, Scientologists believe that if you hurt yourself, you should touch the object that caused it, so as to suck out the pain. Anyway, whilst working at the castle a number of runners were involved in some rather unfortunate accidents, partly because they were told to work to hard for to long.

I witnessed one runner, a girl of about twenty years of age, fall twenty feet from a pitch roof and although not badly injured was in obvious pain and had sustained a number of cuts and bruises. A couple of hours later, after being patched up, she returned and proceeded to lie on the spot were she landed - first on her front then on her back.

On another occasion I saw a runner carrying a large sheet of wood through a doorway, he managed to trap his fingers between the wood and the door panel, partially severing his little finger. He simply dropped the sheet of wood and proceeded to rub his bloody finger up and down the edge of the wood, splattering blood everywhere.

Every morning the higher-ranking officers would gather the runners up and hold a motivational meeting on a grassy knoll on the castle grounds. They would also try and round up all the contract workers who, not having anything to do with the cult, refused, preferring to read the paper and eat bacon sarnies.

This caused friction between the contractors and the Scientologists, and when building materials started to disappear from the store, the Scientologists accused the contractors of steeling.

In an attempt to find the guilty party the Scientologists proposed that all contractors take part in a lie detector test. Apparently the test was rather primitive and involved holding onto two tin cans, each attached by a wire. Obviously the contractors refused, but when they were threatened with the sack, one burly Eastender, who had obviously had enough of their accusations, decided to head-butt one of the officers, bloodying his nose. After that nothing was said about stolen materials and lie detector tests and everyone kept their jobs, including the Eastender. Apparently (but this isn't confirmed), the officer asked him afterwards if he could place his nose to his forehead.

LOL.

The last straw came one day when I went to plumb in a water pipe at a portacabin where some of the runners were sleeping. Before entering the cabin I noticed this horrible stench, and as soon as I walked through the door I noticed this young guy dressed only in a T-shirt smearing shit over the walls and windows, obviously suffering from some form of psychological breakdown.

Being young and naïve, and understandably shocked I ran to one of the officers and informed him of the situation. He looked utterly blasé about what I told him, and simply got on his walkie-talkie and ordered some of his colleagues to go down, and in his words, "sort the f*%#er out".
Knowing what I now know about this cult, I can only guess that the poor guy was punished and maybe even physically and mentally tortured… Who knows?

Suffice to say, I didn't want to have anything more to do with these people and left the job shortly after, for pastures more mundane.
 
Curzone, interesting stuff about Saint Hill. I too am from the area, (still work in East Grinstead). You’re right, the surrounding area does indeed have more than its fair share of…er cults and so forth. Apart from the “scienos” there is the Rosicrucians, Rudolph Steiner schools and the Mormon Temple, there are others whose names escape me. A few years ago Channel four had a good documentary about it entitled “Why East Grinstead ? “. There are frequent reports of ABC’s at Dormans, Lingfield and out towards Uckfield. – Must be something to do with Ley Lines or something.

I was at school with a number of kids who were themselves Scientologists, including two brothers who were allowed home early every Wednesday to ‘phone their Mother who was in prison.(She was among those Scientologists caught red handed breaking into Federal buildings in Washington trying to steal papers. I believe the US Government of the time was looking at taking “church” status away from them, thus making them tax liable.)

My father met Lafayette Ron Hubbard while working at Saint Hill, (Dad was a carpenter and in no way connected to them !). Apparently Ron was in a greenhouse cutting up tomato plants that were wired to some sort of electric meter, intently watching the meter needles wave back and forth as another frond was removed.

Your lie detector device sounds like their famous “E-meter”.
Someone told me that castles are exempt from planning permissions, rather than tax. (Although I doubt it.).

Cheers.
 
I was talking to a friend about them 'scienos' the other day, and you know what, I have no idea what they believe in! That science is god? That man is god? That Casey Kasem's or the guy from the twilight zone's god? Who the f**k knows! I mean, it's not as if they actually try and explain it to anyone, they're too busy trying to make you take 'personality tests'. I'll tell you one thing, my personality does not require testing by people moronic enough to believe some crazed old bad science fiction writer. If you don't have the strength of personality to resist Scientologist mumbo-jumbo, your not in a good position to criticize others, non?

If anyone actually knows anything about their belief system, I'd be interested to know.
 
In reply to Marble,
I wonder whether the number of cults in any one area is proportional to the number of bored, middle class, commuters, who get their escapism through being 'weekend wiccans' or 'cardboard pagans'?

Add to that the profusion of woodlands and out-of-the-way places around East Grinstead and you may have an answer of sorts.
 
If you walk around East Grinstead town centre on a weekend, you will see these smiling religious fanatics pestering shoppers in the street with clipboards. But my advice to anyone is never say yes to the question: "Do you have time for a survey?", even if you do fancy a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

Sometimes you will see children promoting Narconon (Scientology's bogus drug rehabilitation designed to draw you in to the cult). You will see Dianetic centres and shops. In fact the town does appear to be overrun by this cult.

Most of them live in hostels in and around East Grinstead. The biggest is
Stonelands, a ramshackle country mansion in nearby West Hoathly. Although Scientologists reside all over East Grinstead and the surrounding area. Members are bussed to Saint Hill each day. On Saturday morning, they are allowed into East Grinstead -- liberty time.

Obviously many locals object to their presence and in some cases legal proceedings ensue. The local press are often caught in court battles regarding something or other.

Quote: Scientology is a paranoid cult - it sees enemies everywhere, and they are assiduous in seeking out and neutralising threats, from without or within.

I'm not prejudiced or a bigot. Most of the new age cults around EG appear quite harmless and unlike Scientology, don't impinge on people too much. However, I do feel sorry for anyone gullible enough to believe in Scientology, and judging from what I do know, I would strongly urge people to stay away from the cult.

I mean… How could anyone believe that the spirits of little fluffy extra terrestrials, who ruled the earth 75 million years ago, still inhabit the bodies of contemporary human beings and must be exorcised before they can discover the secrets of the universe and, eventually, be given the key to eternal life. Crazy!!!

Be gone with you cute fluffy Ewok! Back to Endor whence you came!
 
I know a seem fairly intolerant when it comes to Scientology. I just can't understand how anyone can justify ostracising people from their families, friends and the rest of society, suppressing most of their human rights and privileges and take all their money and possessions in the process!

I've known a few Scientology members: One who is living in virtual obscurity, with a new identity after her parents successfully abducted her. Apparently she and her family were sent hate mail and her house was picketed for a number of weeks after the abduction. Fortunately for her, she managed to escape the cult's evil clutches and is living a happy, cult free life, far away from East Grinstead.

Unfortunately , another person I knew wasn't so lucky, he killed himself… At the time it was attributed to depression and a drug problem. However it later emerged that he had some dealings with the cult shortly before he died.

Marble, do you know who the ASL (Anti-Scieno-League) are? On occasional visits back to EG I see "ASL" graffiti scrawled on walls etc… Do you know if they are an official group or is it just local kids with a grudge?
 
No, sorry I don’t know who the ASL are, I suspect local kids with mischief on there minds. The Scientologists do seem to have a number of fingers in various pies with regards to busineses within East Grinstead, including a financial brokers, bookshop (other than their own), etc…Your tales have a sinister edge to them, and I have to echo pretty much all you’ve said about them. I also remember (with a certain amount of childish glee), that their blue bus that used to ship them in and out of town, was regularly stoned by small kids when it passed through Dunnings Mill !…The local glaziers must have done well, as their bookshop window was trashed almost weekly when it first opened.

Cheers.
 
I wouldn't put it past the Scientologists to create an Anti-Scientologist group just to justify their own paranoia... although mayby I'm just paranoid

Niles "Better Income Through Religion" Calder
 
of Scienos and their habits

I don't know about their specific belief system (the scienos), but I do know that Scientologists can get pretty ugly when things aren't going their way. In Austin Texas there is a big Scientologist reading room on Guadalupe. Apparently, the scientologists there are prone to putting rattlesnakes in the mailboxes of anyone foolish enough to publicly oppose them. Nice way to operate!
 
dot23 said:
If anyone actually knows anything about their belief system, I'd be interested to know.

Curzone has it right, writing "I mean… How could anyone believe that the spirits of little fluffy extra terrestrials, who ruled the earth 75 million years ago, still inhabit the bodies of contemporary human beings and must be exorcised before they can discover the secrets of the universe and, eventually, be given the key to eternal life. Crazy!!! ", although it is hard to believe that anyone would buy that.

But buying, i.e. being conned into shelling out increasing amounts of money for self improvement, is the key into trapping people at weak points in their lives, forcing them to make more money to invest into further courses. This continues ad nauseam, until either the scientologist has acquired eternal life plus supernatural powers. Or has ruined his/herself pursuing this quest. Or risen highly enough in the scheme's hierarchy to be accounted for the money coming in from others. You chose the more probable outcome.

For more info, go to http://users.one.se/~chribesk/sects/index.html, which also provides links to warnings about other cults, including nazism.

Being German, this brings me to another point. Germany has been under harsh criticism by the Church of Scientology (COS) lately because several politicians have challenged COS's religious status, which grants them tax exemption. COS has reacted by placing page-size ads in US and German newspapers, signed by prominent Scientologists like JohnTravolta and Tom Cruise, comparing the German resentment against COS with the persecution of the Jews. Contemplating the millions of victims of Nazi terror, this outrageous and tasteless comparison makes you think about the minds of the people behind such a campaign.

COS recruiting centers are quite active in cities with wealthy professionals, such as Hamburg and Munich. COS is not openly active in smaller cities or the countryside, but new members are often sent there to start businesses and influence their employees. I have gained some knowledge about these proceedings because my closest school buddy has been entangled in this web.

COS's fixation on moneymaking becomes obvious when you keep in mind that no prominent scientologist ever considered to boycot Germany when it comes to release or promote their films or records. Comparing this to the performing artists's boycot of Apartheid South Africa or Bob Dylan's decade-long refusal to play Germany, you may draw your own conclusions.

Fascism I know only from experiences told to me by my parents and other relatives, family records, history books and documentaries, and hopefully believe that it belongs to the past. But I also believe that no attempt from any neonazi group, or National Front or White Aryan Nation propaganda, can match the merciless approach and cunning mind control techniques of this so called religion.
 
Part of the COS's control over its members lies in collecting large amounts of personal data on them. The Scientology 'therapy' consists of relieving all of your traumatic and upsetting moments, right from earliest childhood on. All of this highly personal stuff gets written down. I had a friend who was involved in Scientrology for a couple od years. Years later, he was still frightened that they would somehow use these highly private secrets against him.
 
Annasdottir said:
The Scientology 'therapy' consists of relieving all of your traumatic and upsetting moments, right from earliest childhood on.

Which would mean I would be reminded of watching 'Battleship Earth', aargh. As I said, merciless mind control. Boycot my country, please...
 
I don't remember much about this but the COS were also in trouble for forming a very sinister intelligence agency, recruited from within its own ranks, which, as stated before, was responsible for breaking into Federal buildings in Washington. I think they also tried their luck at infiltration, but were apparently disbanded (maybe after gaining too much independence from the COS itself). Anyone know any more about this?
 
Surely those ads can't come as a surprise. Everyone who is being prosecuted these days will claim it is like they did during WWII. It has become a stereotype of evil.
 
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