My Fascination with Cults and the Absurd reactions to them
July 3rd 2009 06:01
My Fascination with Cults and the Absurd reactions to them
There are very few organizations in this world like the so called Church of Scientology. To call this a religion is a grotesque perversion of the term. We do have extreme rationalists like Richard Dawkins who are happy to tar them all with the one brush but this is hard an intelligent or effective answer to a serious problem. For materialist rationalist like Dawkins all religion is the same even the pseudo religions that have their feet squarely in the atheist camp.
Some years ago L Ron Hubbard created his society based upon a concept that he called ‘Dianetics’ The science of the mind. Within months of his publication of the book it was condemned by Psychiatrists as being pseudo quackery and potentially dangerous. There no was talk of religious meaning at this stage of L Ron Hubbard’s career. Instead this was in his view a ‘science’ that he himself had discovered through deep research and experience. Dianetics can be compared to Richard Dawkins concept of the Meme in many ways. They both deal with the function of the mind; they are used to explain problems in their evidence with singular reference; they are both non material and essentially cannot be tested scientifically; they both require faith as the key reason for following them. Yet Dawkins is able to sell his pseudo science to the unsuspecting with a lot less skepticism. We may wonder what would happen if L Ron Hubbard tried to promote the Meme theory and Dawkins Dianetics.
The shift from being a pseudo psychology cult to a pseudo religious cult came as L Ron Hubbard was being investigated for fraud. L Ron had been interested in getting into the religious world for purely financial gain. He confided to a friend that ‘he was interest in starting a religion, rather than existing as a penny per word author because that was where the real money was.’ It was not just a cynical leap but one that protected him from losing assets as he donned the religious veneer. Suddenly all his pulp science fiction novels became holy scripture and his creating called Dianetics became the centre piece of an oppressive cult designed to systematically fleece people of money. When people refer to oppressive cults the usually refer to Scientology as the worst example possible. Its activities have been well document and exposed in various court cases. The most significant case occurred when Scientology agents infiltrated the FBI headquarters to chase after their enemies. Several high ranking Scientologists, including Lon Hubbard’s wife were convicted and sent to prison over that incident.
The biggest giveaway that something is not right about any movement is the level of deceit that it blatantly displays. Scientology is no different. Their symbol is designed to look like a Christian cross. However Scientology is in no way a Christian religion and rejects the Christianity as a false and destructive influence implanted by the evil Xenu. The other deception is that people must pay thousands of dollars to learn their beliefs. It is an incremental scale of payments that has been calculated to be around $300,000 to reach a point where you are permitted to know the secret truths. Even to learn about Xenu will cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of auditing (brainwashing). Legitimate and safe religions do not engage in this sort of practice. Most will provide you with the books and learning material free. Their beliefs are readily available for scrutiny and examination. Unlike deceptive cults they do not try to hide information and charge thousands of dollars to reveal it. If you can go to a library and read the entire doctrine of a particular religion then that is an indication that they have nothing to hide before you join them.
Oppressive cults are called so because they do oppress people in a several and often cruel manner. They engage in deceptive behavior to trick people into joining them; they hide their agenda and doctrine; they also engage in mind control and manipulations like ‘love bombing’ and ‘ego stripping’. They also seek to destroy perceived enemies and see all those that are not in their little club as no trustworthy. L Ron Hubbard called his outsiders WOGS and independent media the ‘Wog Media’. They were no to be trusted under any circumstances. He also had a policy of ‘Fair Game’ that was to ruthlessly hunt down and destroy people he called ‘Suppressive Persons’ ie: enemies and the enemies of Scientology. People who fallen victim to this policy have had their lives destroyed under a relentless barrage of smear campaigns false police reports and framings. The people arrested infiltrating the FBI were doing just that.
Scientology is not the only cult to have an equivalent of the ‘Fair Game’ policy. Political cults have also engaged in this practice of destroying perceived enemies or running smear campaigns against those who they think lack sufficient loyalty to their cause. The idea of having a rival viewpoint is not some esoteric question for oppressive cults, rival viewpoints are bad for business because they distract potential victims.
An absurd notion at this point is to take all associations and tar them with the same brush. This is not only wrong but can often be an intentional deception. People who want to promote their narrow policy will try to employ the ‘straw man’ version of what they oppose rather than the true version. Rather than say that they oppose something because it conflict with their personal doctrine and dogmas they try to use sweeping generalizations to make the case. Poor inductive thinking stands out like this: Scientology is bad; Scientology is a religion; Here is another religion therefore it must also be bad. Yet this is exact the kind of thinking that people like Richard Dawkins present to world as brilliant wisdom. I shudder to think that there are people who swallow this line.
The possession of one crazy notion is never nullified by an equal and opposite notion. That only leads to more craziness in the world, not less. Perhaps we should be looking harder at the policies of these new saviors from religion. What do they really represent and what policies are they trying to promote?
I am always fascinated with the workings of cults and mini cults.
For another view on this subject you can go here:
Really Long Link
Absurb responses do not help.
There are very few organizations in this world like the so called Church of Scientology. To call this a religion is a grotesque perversion of the term. We do have extreme rationalists like Richard Dawkins who are happy to tar them all with the one brush but this is hard an intelligent or effective answer to a serious problem. For materialist rationalist like Dawkins all religion is the same even the pseudo religions that have their feet squarely in the atheist camp.
Some years ago L Ron Hubbard created his society based upon a concept that he called ‘Dianetics’ The science of the mind. Within months of his publication of the book it was condemned by Psychiatrists as being pseudo quackery and potentially dangerous. There no was talk of religious meaning at this stage of L Ron Hubbard’s career. Instead this was in his view a ‘science’ that he himself had discovered through deep research and experience. Dianetics can be compared to Richard Dawkins concept of the Meme in many ways. They both deal with the function of the mind; they are used to explain problems in their evidence with singular reference; they are both non material and essentially cannot be tested scientifically; they both require faith as the key reason for following them. Yet Dawkins is able to sell his pseudo science to the unsuspecting with a lot less skepticism. We may wonder what would happen if L Ron Hubbard tried to promote the Meme theory and Dawkins Dianetics.
The shift from being a pseudo psychology cult to a pseudo religious cult came as L Ron Hubbard was being investigated for fraud. L Ron had been interested in getting into the religious world for purely financial gain. He confided to a friend that ‘he was interest in starting a religion, rather than existing as a penny per word author because that was where the real money was.’ It was not just a cynical leap but one that protected him from losing assets as he donned the religious veneer. Suddenly all his pulp science fiction novels became holy scripture and his creating called Dianetics became the centre piece of an oppressive cult designed to systematically fleece people of money. When people refer to oppressive cults the usually refer to Scientology as the worst example possible. Its activities have been well document and exposed in various court cases. The most significant case occurred when Scientology agents infiltrated the FBI headquarters to chase after their enemies. Several high ranking Scientologists, including Lon Hubbard’s wife were convicted and sent to prison over that incident.
The biggest giveaway that something is not right about any movement is the level of deceit that it blatantly displays. Scientology is no different. Their symbol is designed to look like a Christian cross. However Scientology is in no way a Christian religion and rejects the Christianity as a false and destructive influence implanted by the evil Xenu. The other deception is that people must pay thousands of dollars to learn their beliefs. It is an incremental scale of payments that has been calculated to be around $300,000 to reach a point where you are permitted to know the secret truths. Even to learn about Xenu will cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of auditing (brainwashing). Legitimate and safe religions do not engage in this sort of practice. Most will provide you with the books and learning material free. Their beliefs are readily available for scrutiny and examination. Unlike deceptive cults they do not try to hide information and charge thousands of dollars to reveal it. If you can go to a library and read the entire doctrine of a particular religion then that is an indication that they have nothing to hide before you join them.
Oppressive cults are called so because they do oppress people in a several and often cruel manner. They engage in deceptive behavior to trick people into joining them; they hide their agenda and doctrine; they also engage in mind control and manipulations like ‘love bombing’ and ‘ego stripping’. They also seek to destroy perceived enemies and see all those that are not in their little club as no trustworthy. L Ron Hubbard called his outsiders WOGS and independent media the ‘Wog Media’. They were no to be trusted under any circumstances. He also had a policy of ‘Fair Game’ that was to ruthlessly hunt down and destroy people he called ‘Suppressive Persons’ ie: enemies and the enemies of Scientology. People who fallen victim to this policy have had their lives destroyed under a relentless barrage of smear campaigns false police reports and framings. The people arrested infiltrating the FBI were doing just that.
Scientology is not the only cult to have an equivalent of the ‘Fair Game’ policy. Political cults have also engaged in this practice of destroying perceived enemies or running smear campaigns against those who they think lack sufficient loyalty to their cause. The idea of having a rival viewpoint is not some esoteric question for oppressive cults, rival viewpoints are bad for business because they distract potential victims.
An absurd notion at this point is to take all associations and tar them with the same brush. This is not only wrong but can often be an intentional deception. People who want to promote their narrow policy will try to employ the ‘straw man’ version of what they oppose rather than the true version. Rather than say that they oppose something because it conflict with their personal doctrine and dogmas they try to use sweeping generalizations to make the case. Poor inductive thinking stands out like this: Scientology is bad; Scientology is a religion; Here is another religion therefore it must also be bad. Yet this is exact the kind of thinking that people like Richard Dawkins present to world as brilliant wisdom. I shudder to think that there are people who swallow this line.
The possession of one crazy notion is never nullified by an equal and opposite notion. That only leads to more craziness in the world, not less. Perhaps we should be looking harder at the policies of these new saviors from religion. What do they really represent and what policies are they trying to promote?
I am always fascinated with the workings of cults and mini cults.
For another view on this subject you can go here:
Really Long Link
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