patch@orca.UUCP (06/22/83)
I just recently picked up the "Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health" book. I was wondering if anyone out there can answer a few questions about Dianetics and the Church of Scientology: 1) What is the affiliation (if any) between Dianetics and Scientology? 2) Is this a "religion" or a "science"? 3) How do they get their money, and how well does Dianetics work? 4) Is there a lot of presure to get others "into" Dianetics? Just curious, tektronix!tekecs!patch (Pat Chewning)
hutch@dadla-b.UUCP (06/22/83)
I hope you didn't pay money for the Dianetics book. Scientology IS Dianetics. Same organisation hiding under a different PR hook so as to get more suckers. It is a religion in the same sense that any cult is a religion. What it really is is a con game started some years back by L Ron Hubbard. The "religion" part was invented for tax purposes. They get their money by charging for "engram-removal" sessions. An engram is supposed to be something similar to a displaced habitual reaction. It is a pseudo-scientific explanation totally unsupported by experimental evidence, for "neurotic" traits. An engram is supposedly a physical or bioelectric channel in the nervous system which is inflexible and which can only be "cleared" by using the special feedback machinery that the Scientologists own. These machines are merely skin galvanometers. They charge (last I asked) about 250$ per "treatment" where a treatmetn lasts from 10 to 30 minutes and includes (sometimes) questions intended to get at the "engrams" so you can "clear" them. It doesn't really work, but that is not too obvious to the suckers who get taken in by them. What it DOES do is to convince them that they are making great progress. In fact, some of the people who go through this nonsense actually do resolve some problems, but most merely pick up another set of new neuroses which overlay the old ones. Yes, there IS a lot of pressure to get new victims. There are discounts on "treatments" for bringing in new suckers; there are even training sessions where you can learn how to sell the stuff. An anecdote: When I was living in Berkeley, I had occasion to be in San Francisco one day. I was taking advantage of the fact that I was alone to pray about some personal problems, when a Castro Street Clone approached me. He noted that I seemed preoccupied and, since I was not immediately rude, suggested that I might try a free "treatment" at their clinic. I asked him if he was selling Scientology. The fellow had the good grace to blush, and we got into a discussion about the merits of his product (I did not tell him that the "machine" is a fraud because I hoped to plant seeds of a differnt sort in his mind.) He ended up telling me that he was a certified "second-stage Clear" which means he had finally learned to make galvanometer respond appropriately to whatever questions he had asked, and that he had started "learning to use the secret powers of the mind" for things like "free walking". The latter is a pseudonym for astral projection, and we began discussing the dangers of this practice. I finally got disgusted and steered the subject to Christianity, which topic panicked the fellow and he suddenly had to go. Beware of frauds posing as religion OR science. Scientology (Dianetics) is one such. Steve Hutchison Tektronix Logic Analyzers
tbray@mprvaxa.UUCP (06/23/83)
The 'Church' of Scientology is, in most jurisdictions, regarded neither as a 'religion' nor a 'science' but as a profit-making enterprise. It's raison d'etre, viewed objectively, seems to be to sell to its members a series of increasingly expensive courses. The actual content of the courses is wildly controversial - suffice it to say that Charles Manson, during one of his early prison stays, took enough of them to advance to one of the Scientologists' highest spiritual levels, 'theta clear'. Scientology's claim to be a religion, and therefore tax exempt, is under legal attack in various parts of the United States and Canada. Who knows, mebbe they've got the answer, but take several grains of salt before ingesting... tbray
tim@unc.UUCP (06/28/83)
Scientology is pretty absurd. Among other things, it claims that
Mars and Venus have been populated by sentient races; that we are all
really "Thetans", several-inch-long little souls that are trillions
(yes, trillions) of years old; that the E-meter, which is not even a
reliable skin galvanometer, can lay bare the deepest secrets of
Thetans; and that it is perfectly all right to harass enemies of the
cults by whatever means are available.
You can find some amusing material on Scientology/Dianetics in
Martin Gardner's excellent book "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of
Science", available from Dover Books. The book is worth getting in
its own right.
Tim Maroney