Reddit reviews Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

I'm sorry, this is more than just a few sentences, but it's the simplest (but most complete) explanation I can manage:


Scientology began in the 1950s as a mode of self-improvement therapy called Dianetics, which was invented by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Dianetics is a series of visualization techniques where two partners do a form of guided meditation through painful memories, aided by an "E-meter," or electro-galvanometer, which practitioners say can detect stressful thoughts.

As Dianetics became popular and the public swarmed to pay for lessons, training, books and seminars, Hubbard regrouped and reformed his original organization into something more like a system of franchises. Individual Scientology centers could sell therapeutic sessions (called "auditing"), books, training, etc., and send money back to the central office. These individual centers (called "orgs") also took on volunteers who would trade hours of work for auditing or courses. According to Scientology, these philosophies and techniques (called "technology") can save the world from all ills, so they encourage people to proselytize.

Hubbard continued to write higher and higher levels of teachings, which devotees could sign up to learn (for a fee). Hubbard also demanded intense loyalty from his followers. Because Scientology was taking in a lot of money, Hubbard moved in the 1960s to establish it as a church, which in the USA does not pay taxes. Thus was born the Church of Scientology.

Hubbard's tight control of the church, his personal grudges and paranoias, suspicion of outsiders, and his conspiracy theories all led over the years to a hostile and insular "us vs. them" spirit in the Church of Scientology. Governments are suspect, and psychologists/psychiatrists are considered the enemy of mankind. Committing crimes to interfere with these enemies is quietly tolerated and even encouraged.

After Hubbard's death, a young Scientologist named David Miscavige took control as head of the Church and its various other groups (things like anti-psychiatric advocacy groups, drug rehab programs which preach Scientology doctrines, and many more). He, like Hubbard, is a paranoid and hostile leader.

Many Scientologists have left the church in recent years, dissatisfied with one or more of the following things:

• David Miscavige's emotional and physical abuse of church followers
  
• Disciplinary action for church members which includes indefinite forced hard labor
  
• The high price of Scientology auditing and courses
  
• The lack of charitable outreach in the church
  
• Deception about the true content of Scientology beliefs to the public
  
• Policies which amount to excommunication of members or their families and friends
  
• The prohibition against most forms of medical treatment
  
• A secret requirement for female inner-circle members to get abortions
  
• The church's refusal to take responsibility for all of the above abuses
  
  Janet Reitman's book Inside Scientology is a great guide if you want to know more.

Scientologist are crazy. Read this book

If you read this book, it will give you a better experience and explanation of it.

How about a Book if you are interested. Or you can Wiki it.

basically, it is a "religion" that is based on hogwash that you have been brainwashed and not remember your past life-s. And that we are created from aliens...Well, just the delusions of a charismatic mad man. The funny thing is how they treat their followers. Which include, brainwashing, beating, spying, abuse, torture etc...and that's to their own, not the people who are against them. Very very interesting on their Modus Operandi but it gets dark very fast. i spend some time reading about them out of curiosity but i had to noped the fuck out before i go mad.

Ah, I was going to say if you were, I was told this book is the best one out there about Scientology.

I am almost done with the book, "Inside Scientology." It's a great read if this is something you are interested in.

she doesn't know anything about the CoS that isn't already out there. the problem is that if she were a member of the CoS (not sure if she is/was) then through the auditing process she would reveal lots of personal skeletons in the closet in order to be "clear", everything from secret sexual thoughts to every lie you've ever told. the CoS then uses this as leverage against members who quit. Not many people are strong enough to allow all their dirty laundry to be aired out in public.

For a fascinating read, check out the book Inside Scientology:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Scientology-Americas-Secretive-Religion/dp/0618883029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341483367&sr=8-1&keywords=inside+scientology

>Journalist Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion, out this month

Its an article about this book https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Scientology-Americas-Secretive-Religion/dp/0618883029

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

Page 181:

'Originally conceived of in the 1960s by Charles and Ava Berner, Scientologists and teachers in California, "study technology.' was co-opted and launched by Hubbard as his own during a series of lectures he delivered at Saint Hill in 1960. Over the years, it would become Scientology's main form of indoctrination and a central facet of the church's ongoing strategy to use what, in a mainstream context, might seem valuable, or even progressive,* to draw people deeper into Scientology's alternative universe. It was based on three principles: students learn at their own pace, use physical examples — pictures, marbles, or clay models — to help work out complex concepts, and need to focus intensely on vocabulary, never skipping an unfamiliar word without looking it up in the dictionary. Anyone who wanted to move up the Bridge was required to master study technology, which was defined to Scientologists as a method of 'learning how to learn."

At the Dallas mission, students busied themselves with studying what seemed to be ordinary concepts like affinity or communication, and then with modeling them in clay, a process known as "clay demo". To make sure they understood every Avoid and concept they read, they were instructed in a process known as 'word clearing,' which entails relearning the definitions of even basic words, such as a or on. There are nine distinct types of word clearing, some done with an E-meter, some without; the most rigorous is called "Method 9," or M9. This required students to work with a partner, reading aloud from a book or, more often, from Hubbard's policies, in alternating paragraphs. Each time one partner blinked, twitched, yawned, or simply mispronounced a word, the other was required to stop, yell "Flunk!," and instruct the person to go back and find the word he or she didn't fully grasp, look it up, and then use it in sentences until the partner felt the confusion had been "cleared." Then the partners would resume reading aloud. Some critics of Scientology maintain that study tech, particularly its word-clearing and clay-demo processes, is harmful, as it essentially breaks down the entire semantic and thought structure of the individual, reducing a person to an almost childlike state. Lisa, however, loved her Scientology studies. She felt smarter, more competent. To her friends, she expressed a sense of being in control for the very first time in her life. Scientology was an adventure, and the people she met through the church were bright, friendly, easy to talk to, and united in the sense of being on a mission of self-discovery. "Nobody else that [Lisa] knew of with the exception of the woman that she worked with was involved in Scientology," said Carol Hawk. "Her family was not aware of what Scientology was ... and to be honest, I'm not sure Lisa was either. At the point, she was very young, and she was very excited about the process of learning about it, and feeling like she was doing something for herself!

Lisa began spending long hours at the mission, forgoing personal pastimes like country-western dancing, once her favorite activity. She stopped drinking and smoking pot; she also left off attending parties and family functions. Her vocabulary changed. People were "terminals". Cars, houses, clothes, jewelry, and other physical or material goods were "MEST" — matter, energy, space, and time. A person with a positive attitude was "uptone". Someone who worked hard and did well was "upstat." She was a 'thetan, and her life was not singular — she had lived many lifetimes, she informed her old friends.

Lisa's odd behavior worried Hawk. "I would say, 'Who are these people, these auditors. They're not psychologists, they're not doctors ... what happens if you're in this auditing session and this person who has no formal training gets you to a place that you can't handle?

But Lisa was sanguine. "Oh, they know how to handle any kind of situation. They know exactly the right questions to ask."

"It got to the point where we weren't really communicating because you are just kind of looking at her thinking, 'What are you talking about?'" Hawk recalled. One by one, friends drifted away. By 1984, virtually everyone left in Lisa McPherson's life was a Scientologist.'