> -----Original Message----- > From: Gruss Gott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 8:59 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: ::Sigh:: Tom Cruise Authoritates 9/11 > > > gMo wrote: > > Do you have a man crush on Tom Cruise? > > > > Well ... I did like Top Gun ... "you guys are dangerous" > > I guess I find the Scientology brain wash thing fascinating. How the > feck is it possible for ANY normal person to hear all this Xenu > bullshit and think it's anything other than a bad story from a > normally decent author? I mean volcanos with nuclear bombs? > Seriously? And you're saluting HIM??
Remember: they don't say that. In fact they litigate aggressively to eliminate any mention of that. Only high-level members of the church, "Clears" are given that information and by that time they'll essentially believe anything. To be honest despite its modern sci-fi wrappings the stories of Scientology aren't any more or illogical than the stories in most religions. I mean what's more believable: that space plans the size of DC-10's carried a billion dead alisn to Earth or that a guy built a boat that carried two of every animal and thus saved everything from a world-wide flood? Scientology is like any religion but also features many aspects of a cult. They approach people on their terms: do you have problems? We can help! Do you not understand why you're sometimes sad? We can help! Do you feel that there must be something more? We can help! They provide escape from uncomfortable reality and authority. Want to let go of traumatic events? Feel depressed? Need to lose weight? Your doctors mean well, but they're wrong: we can help! They (and I think this is a big reason for their success in Hollywood) provide alleviation of guilt. Don't understand why you have so much when others have so little? Don't understand why you're so often unhappy when you've so successful? Want to know how you can help others without actually, you know, seeing or touching them? We can help! There's also a huge amount of stroking going on. Do you want to live up to your potential? Do you know that you can do more, faster, better? Do you want others to tell you how smart you think you are? We can help! Scientology caters obviously to the wealthy and those with disposable incomes. Advancing in Scientology generally means taking "courses" (at a cost) and advancing very much like you would in a correspondence course. This directed aspect of study is attractive to some people: there's no real "mystery" and no real chance that you can fail since everything is laid out. The church bills all this as counseling, and it's often much cheaper overall than the psychologists many of the targets are used to paying. It's no wonder that a fundamental tenant of the church is that psychiatry and psychology are evil: they don't want the competition. For years scientologists see absolutely nothing about Xenu, the volcanoes or alien ghosts. Instead they get smart sounding babble about "engrams" and "clears". They call their practices "technology" and actually use impressive looking machines to "audit" their members health. For much of the early part the practices are essentially completely secular. Like any good cult they eventually provide a warehouse of secrets to their members. A secret language, secret concepts and terms which make it more and more difficult for the member to talk comfortably to non-scientologists. This can be see at a less damaging in almost any field: computer geeks find it easier to talk to computer geeks, horse nuts like talking to other horse nuts, etc. Once people begin to describe themselves using church terms it's very hard to come back. It's self-reinforcing. In short scientology grabs people like all religions: start out focusing on the person, on their problems and needs. Provide promise of an answer. Start slow and gradually shift that focus to the organization and the group. Catch people at the right time and work slowly and you can essentially do anything no matter how smart or skeptical they may normally be. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:251272 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
