Tom Cruise: Mind wide shut...the truth about Scientology

I don´t remember the movie. Must not have been very good.

Isn´t he the guy (L Ron Hubbard) that is quoted as saying "the quickest way to make a million is to start a religion" and having said it, did precisely that.

His Sci-Fi was shite, long-winded, pointless and full on unnecesary sex scenes.

Having failed that^^ see above

It´d be interesting to know exactly what Cruise, Travolta, Kirsty Ally, et al get out of it. Obviously they deem it of great worth. I´m not defending it, just curious to hear all sides.

9143! RIGHT ON!!!

Finally someone who dares to write the truth! However, as hillarious at it IS, there really is a very dangerous aspect to Scientology! The brainwashing includes orders to do ANYTHING to get rid of dissenters or those who oppose it!

It´s not your Mama´s cult anymore...

Okay, so Scientology can be considered "whacky". So what? If these rich movie stars want to waste their money, let them. I couldn´t care less what they believe, as long as they aren´t trying to force their beliefs on us.

As for the organization itself, I received and studied their works on psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. I believe they are completely correct in this area, despite what other beliefs they may hold, Xenu or not. Cruise was right when he brought this issue up.

The fact is, psyciatric drugs are more damaging and have caused more societal problems than the pharmaceutical companies want us to know. They want to keep drugging us, make us pay for our demise.

Remember Lisa MacPherson.

I would be interested to know how Scientology has altered the personal behavior of its members.

I would be interested to know how Scientology has altered the personal behavior of its members.

For example, has it altered their sexual lifestyle? Has it caused them to quit coffee, tea, alcohol?

Right on 3141!
Beyond sad....

After this little rant I´ll refrain from adding my input anymore on this subject. I understand that the drug companies and the MEDS are bad for society...WAY bad! But the fact that they (Scientologists) condone a DIFFERENT type of drug known as INTENSE psycho-warfare and brainwashing won´t make up for their legitimate opposition to psychiatry and pharmaceuticals. After all, they are smart enough to know that they have to have some grounds for looking sincere and concerned! Sorry...can´t help but feel very sarcastic regarding their supposed concern for society! I don´t necessarily blame the members who are snookered into thinking they are going to get a better life, but I sure can fault those who KNOW BETTER and STILL recruit!

The RonBots are bad news, people.

Okay...´nuff said!

Sammie

But..isn´t that how all religions work. Some are just more successful than others.

I can´t believe anybody calls anything a "cult". Cult = infant religion.

Didn´t John Travolta make a stupid movie about this that totally flopped?

"Ronbots"!!!
Right on, Sammie! You´re a treasured voice of reason and love on this board...

Peace, laughter, love...








oh

King of Cups,

I am not one for organized religion, but I too have researched their stance on the overuse and abuse of psychiatric drugs, and do agree with most of what they say. In fact I contacted the organization (Lisa Presley is the spokesperson) to help fund my friend´s PHd thesis that shamanic drumming and imagery can work as well as psychiatric drugs.....did not get the funding for her, but I did learn a lot about how the scientologist believe. I am an ex-psychiatric nurse and administrator, and I did see a lot of medication over-usage as well as other things.

Quetz

hey what about that religion where there´s multi-headed monsters and giants that roamed the land. hahahaha, that one was pretty funny too. oh wait, that was the old testament, nevermind. that´s the real religion.

What the OP is talking about are the highest level most advanced courses of Scientology. For beginners, these are the courses you take first.

----------------

Scientology indoctrination usually begins with the Communication Course Training Routines or "TRs". These are supposed to enhance the ability to communicate, but have been called by one expert "the most overt form of hypnosis used by any destructive cult".


In the first TR, two people sit silently facing each other, with their eyes closed. In the second, they stare at each other, sometimes for hours on end, inducing hallucinations and an uncritical euphoria.

In the next stage, TR-0 Bullbait, the student has to sit motionless, while the "coach" does everything possible to disturb him or her. The student progresses to reading aloud disconnected phrases from Alice in Wonderland, and then to acknowledging statements read out at random from the same text. Then comes TR-3, where the student repeatedly asks the coach either "Do fish swim?" or "Do birds fly?". In the last "Communication Course" Training Routine, the student again asks one of these questions repeatedly, learning not to be distracted by anything the coach says or does.

Repetition is another way of inducing an altered or trance state. Following these procedures definitely makes the individual more susceptible to direction from Scientology.

From the Communication Course, the new recruit will usually go onto the "Purification Rundown", after a meeting with a Scientology salesperson, who convinces the recruit that the Rundown is well worth the high price demanded for it. Those on the "Purification Rundown" take extremely high doses of vitamins and minerals, and combine running and sauna treatment for five hours each day. Such high doses of vitamins can create various physiological reactions, including drug-like experiences. Hubbard attributed these reactions to stored drugs and pollutants being removed from the body. He even made the ridiculous claim that LSD lodges in fatty tissue. As LSD is both highly unstable and water soluble, this is impossible, but it shows Hubbard´s usual scientific ignorance. The heat exhaustion brought on by the sauna can lead to euphoric experiences, yet again weakening critical thinking.

The sequence of steps on the Scientology Bridge has changed from one year to the next. After the "Purification Rundown´ - and another interview with a salesperson- the recruit might well go on to the "Hubbard Key to Life Course" (at a cost of [£] 4,000 or $8,000). This supposedly undercuts all previous education by returning the individual to the basics of literacy. Factually, because it treats all clients as pre-school children, it tends to cause age regression, making people yet more susceptible to Scientology.

From the "Hubbard Key to Life Course," the individual moves on to the "Hubbard Life Orientation Course" and thence to the "Objective Processes."

There are several hundred Scientology counselling procedures or "auditing processes". The "Objectives" were first introduced in the 1950s. Hubbard asserted that it is necessary to show the individual that reactive impulses can be controlled by being put under the control of another person (the Scientology "auditor"). This might be more simply termed "mind control". On the Objective Processes, the individual is given strict orders to repeat an overwhelmingly tedious cycle of behaviour.

In "Opening Procedure by Duplication", for example, the auditor and the client or "pre-clear" are alone in a room with a table at either end. On one table is a book, on the other a bottle. The preclear will be instructed, with unvarying wording, to look at the object at the other side of the room, to walk over to it, to pick it up and to identify its colour, weight and temperature. Sessions often run to two hours, and cases of 18 such sessions for this single "process" are not unheard of. Eventually, this arduous ritual leads to a sensation of floating, believed to be "exteriorisation from the body" in Scientology- but a common side effect of hypnotic trance. The Scientology Bridge is laid out in a series of steps, or grades, each with a purported result. On Grade Zero, for example, clients are meant to achieve the ability to "communicate freely with anyone on any subject". A Grade One "release" is supposedly without problems.


In 1959, Hubbard introduced "security checking", where Scientologists are interrogated, having to answer long, prepared lists of questions about their moral transgressions. The E-meter is used as a lie detector throughout these "sessions". A careful record is kept of all confessions, and this has proved to be a highly effective means of silencing dissidents.

This procedure, renamed "integrity processing", using exactly the same lists of questions as the earlier "security checks", finds a place on Grade Two, and is frequently repeated beyond it (at a cost ranging from [£] 130 to [£] 260, or $250 to $500, per hour). Scientology presumes that any of its members might become a security risk at any time. There is justification for this suspicion, as thousands have left the movement, including many leading lights.

There are two further release grades, before the "preclear´ starts on the current form of Dianetic auditing. In New Era Dianetics, the preclear is asked to re-experience incidents from "past lives", which can lead to strange delusions on the part of Scientologists, compensating for the shortcomings of their real lives. Through Dianetics, preclears are supposed at last to become Clear, with the realization that they no longer need their "Reactive minds", where engrams are supposedly stored.

Once "Clear", they are ready for the Advanced Courses of Scientology, the "Operating Thetan" or "OT" levels.


www.xenu.net

I would be interested to know how Scientology has altered the personal behavior of its members.

For example, has it altered their sexual lifestyle? Has it caused them to quit coffee, tea, alcohol?




For one, they ask tons of sexual questions of you over and over and record these answers where they will hold them against you later on. Plus, homosexuality is a big no no. And you can only marry or be around other scientologists. And it costs LOTS of money before you ever hear the Zeno story (who by the way is locked up in some mountain out west somewhere). If you don´t have the money you sell everything you have and enslave yourself to them willingly. It is a total mindtrip that does blow some peoples minds wide open. Psycho drugs are much safer (tongue in cheek) then what they are going to do to you.

Anyway, you can agree with them that drugs are bad but don´t get involved in the religion at all. Remember they snag you with some truth and then pull you in until you believe the sky is yello and the grass is purple.

my uncle was into this way back.......more into the book dianetics.....remember those commercials?

well he died 12 yrs ago and they wont stop sending crap in the mail even after providing a death certificate to prove he was dead

they want money.....thats all......it was an organization that became a religion so they didnt have to pay taxes anymore

Even Tom Cruise said it really wasn´t a religion on TV and that a person could still remain a Christian. Right....Anyway if it is not a religion like he says then they should start paying their fair share of taxes. No matter, anyone can start a religion these days. Think up one and no more taxes, ever. Anyone think the governments are going to get sick of this soon?

The Church of Enron, the Church of ZHalliburton.

That´s next. The government will just be jealous and tax thouse making 30,000 a year even more.

Wouldn´t it be something if everyone just got on the internet and figured out how to start a religion and just became ordained and used their house as a base if it is allowed and badda bing no more taxe. It can all be done on the internet from what I have heard. Wouldn´t the government just have a cow!!

What do people like Cruise and Travolta get out of it? Simple. They´re stupid enough to believe all this "insane garbage", as one writer called it (exhibiting considerable restraint).

15079!! By George you´ve GOT IT! How about GLP? It´s already got the proper name and everything!!

hi 15079
actually tom did not call scientology a religion.
he said you could be a christian and still be a scientologist.

i have to admit.
i am interested in their ideology. but not enough to convert or add on to my spiritual beliefs.
i remember when ´hubbard´ was a buzz word even. looked at the book (dianetics) to see if i wanted to buy it , but i did not.
quite frankly it did not make enough sense to me at the time. hell i have looked at it over the years with many different eyes. still know interest personally. yet, i would like to know the basics.

thanks for bringing the topic up.

AND. i have had several friends in the ´industry´ who swear that not only tom is gay, but travolta as well.

<>


The basics are as we have presented them. There is nothing else to Scientology teachings.

Think it was easy for Scientology to get its tax-exempt status? They fought the IRS for years.

Timeline of Scientology versus the IRS

Dec 1953
Church of Scientology, Church of American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering incorporated in Elizabeth, New Jersey by L. Ron Hubbard. Co-signatories were Mary Sue Hubbard, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. and Henrietta Hubbard.

2 Jan 1957
The Internal Revenue Service grants a tax exemption to the Church of Scientology of California (CSC).


18 July 1967
The Internal Revenue Service revokes CSC´s tax-exempt status, citing three reasons:

Scientology practitioners are profiting from the "non-profit" Church;
The Church´s activities are commercial;
The Church is serving the private interests of L. Ron Hubbard (a practice known as inurement).
Scientology denounces the revocation, declares its intention to ignore the decision and withholds payment of taxes for the next 26 years.

1970s

20 April 1973
L. Ron Hubbard devises the Snow White Program for Scientology´s intelligence agency, the Guardian´s Office (GO), in an effort to root out and remove "false files" about the Church and Hubbard held by governments around the world. This becomes a sophisticated worldwide espionage operation targetting 17 governments and three international organisations.

Early 1974?
Kenneth Urquhart, "LRH Communicator", overhears L. Ron and Mary Sue Hubbard discussing infiltrating the IRS in Washington, DC.

Summer 1974
Cindy Raymond (Collections Officer in the US Information Bureau of the GO) in Los Angeles, California, sends a directive to Michael Meisner (Assistant Guardian for Information, Washington, DC) ordering him to recruit a loyal Scientologist to be placed as a covert agent at Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C. The agent is to obtain employment with the Internal Revenue Service for the purpose of taking from that agency all documents which dealt with Scientology, including those concerning pending litigation initiated by Scientology against the United States Government. A number of Scientologists are interviewed as prospective agents. However, none are found to be suitable.

Sept 1974
Gerald Bennett Wolfe is selected by Raymond to infiltrate the IRS on behalf of the Church of Scientology.

21 Oct 1974
Jane Kember, the Guardian World Wide (based in East Grinstead in England) issues Guardian Order 1361. Its "operating targets" include the following:
10. Immediately get an agent into DC IRS to obtain files on LRH, Scientology, etc. in the Chief Council´s [sic] office, the Special Services staff, the intelligence division, Audit Division, and any other areas.

16. Collect data on the Justice Dept. Tax Division for the org board, the current terminals, and the people handling Scientology.

17. When the correct areas are isolated, infiltrate and get the files.

It also calls for the planting of "an agent, trustworthy and well grooved in, to infiltrate the IRS LA office" (target 2). That agent is "to obtain any files on LRH, Scientology", etc. from both the Intelligence Division (target 3) and the Audit Division (target 4) of the Los Angeles IRS Office. It also calls for the location (target 20) and infiltration (target 22) of the IRS office at the US Embassy in London, England in order to "obtain all documents" (target 22).

1 Nov 1974
Michell Hermann, the GO´s Information Branch I Director, plants an radio transmitting bug in the conference room of the IRS´ Chief Counsel, where a confidential meeting is to be held concerning Scientology. The meeting is to discuss pending legal actions involving the various churches of Scientology and to establish general guidelines for determination of what constituted a "religious institution" entitled to exemption from taxation under the Internal Revenue Code. The entire meeting is recorded and transcribed by GO agents in a car outside the building.

18 Nov 1974
Scientology agent Gerald Wolfe obtains employment at the IRS as a clerk typist.

4 Dec 1974
Using fake passes, Hermann and Meisner illegally enter the Exempt Organization Division of the IRS and steal a file on Scientology, which they describe in a telex as "two shipments from DC . . . about ten inches" thick.

around 30 Dec 1974
Hermann orders Wolfe to obtain all documents related to Scientology from the IRS office of Barbara Bird, an attorney in Refund Litigation Service.

Jan - July 1975
Wolfe steals thousands of documents, totalling some 10 feet in height, freom the offices of Barbara Bird and Lewis Hubbard of the Chief Counsel´s Office and from the Chief Counsel´s file room, as well as from other offices within the suite of offices comprising the Office of the Chief Counsel.

May 1975
"Project Horn" is devised by Greg Willardson (Deputy Deputy Guardian for Information) and the order to implement it given to Meisner. Its aim is to "provide a cover for PR [Public Relations] and legal for the way they obtained IRS docs." This project further implements Guardian Order 1361, Target 6, which already provides for the creation or a "suitable cover" to disguise the true manner in which stolen documents have been obtained from the IRS so that the Public Relations Bureau can use them without fear of being connected to the thefts.

Meisner is ordered to steal documents concerning organizations other than Scientology. Thus, whenever any stolen IRS documents are later released, those other organizations will also be perceived as having received them and their publication will not point to the Church of Scientology alone. Additionally, the project orders the theft of IRS stationery so it might be used by the GO to draft false letters from a fictitious IRS employee disgruntled with the organization. Wolfe is tasked with the actual thefts and accomplishes them successfully.

7 May 1975
Willardson requests the Guardian´s Office World-Wide to approve an additional expenditure of funds for the excerption, xeroxing and cross-filing of 15,000 documents stolen from the IRS. This is so that Mary Sue Hubbard and other senior GO personnel can be advised "as fast as possible as to the IRS´s intentions in regards to the Church during the ongoing IRS tax exemption negotiations." The letter adds that "[t]his was a valuable action in that it resulted in a more real estimate as to the IRS scene than was visable [sic] from the Legal viewpoint."

27 May 1975
Mary Sue Hubbard writes a letter to her deputy, Jane Kember, on Scientology´s "IRS Strategy". It states:
Our overall strategy with the IRS shall be as follows:

1. To use any method at our disposal to win the battle and gain our non-profit status.

2. To buy all the time we can in terms of years ... So we work to win, but also to delay as time works on our side, not theirs ...

11 June 1975
The GO gets wind of a major financial audit to be made by the IRS of the Church of Scientology of California. Accordingly, the GO decides to obtain as much inside information as possible on the IRS´ "line of attack". Meisner devises "Project Beetle Cleanup" for obtaining "all DC IRS files on LRH, Scientology, etc., in the Intelligence section, OIO [Office or International Operations], and SSS [Special Services Staff]".
The project proposes the placement of "FSMs" (Field Staff members, or agents) in the "required areas or good access developed", and further that "Pitts" (the code name for Nancy Douglass - a GO agent who had infiltrated the Drug Enforcement Agency) and "Silver" (Wolfe) attempt to obtain employment at the Internal Revenue Service Intelligence Division and Office of International Operations respectively.

July 1975
The Church of Scientology brings a Freedom of Information Act suit against the IRS. Raymond orders Meisner to obtain information from the office of Charles Zuravin, the IRS attorney who would be defending the FOI case. This establishes a pattern: Scientology systematically sues the IRS and other Federal agencies, then penetrates the agencies´ attornies´ offices to steal the papers which Scientology was trying to access through FOI in the first place.


11 June 1976
Meisner and Wolfe are caught by the FBI after a security guard at the US Courthouse becomes suspicious of their (forged) IRS credentials. Meisner escapes and is hidden from the FBI by the GO, but eventually turns himself in.

June 1977
Wolfe is convicted of the forgery of credentials and is sentenced to probation and community service.

7 July 1977
The FBI raids Scientology´s headquarters in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. The GO is taken by surprise and tens of thousands of incriminating documents are seized, including complete records of the infiltration and burglary of the IRS and other government departments.

October 1979
Eleven Scientologists, including Mary Sue Hubbard, are convicted of conspiracy and imprisoned for between two and six years. L. Ron Hubbard goes into hiding in California and does not reappear again until his death in January 1986.

1 Nov 1980
The IRS places a lien on the Scientology´s Los Angeles headquarters, the Cedars of Lebanon complex.

Mid-Nov 1980
Scientology appeals against the IRS tax assessment for the years 1970-72.

October 1982
The corporate structure of the Church of Scientology and associated entities undergoes radical restructuring. At a Mission Holders´ Conference held in San Francisco, Warrant Officer Lyman Spurlock is introduced as the "Corporate Affairs Director of the Church". Spurlock starts his speech by saying "Prior to the end of 1981, a few of us from the CMO got together and took a look at the corporate structure of the Church with the view in mind of making it more defensible and more regular and particularly not understandable by the traditional enemies of the Church such as the IRS, and to make an overall improvement" [my underlining]. The phrases in italics are omitted in the transcript, but exist in the tape of the Conference.

24 Sept 1984
Scientology loses its appeal over the IRS tax assessment for the years 1970-72. The Tax Court judge documents in detail how huge sums were moved out of Scientology accounts into those of L. Ron Hubbard during the period in question. The judgement also describes the obstructionist tactics used by Scientology to thwart the IRS - for instance, deliberately jumbling two million pages of tax-related material, so that IRS officials would have to sort it out at the cost of a great deal of time and US tax-payers´ money.

Late 1984
The Church´s new intelligence agency, the Office of Special Affairs (which superceded the discredited Guardian´s Office), strikes back at the IRS with the creation of a front group - "The National Coalition of I.R.S. Whistle-blowers". According to ex-OSA member Stacy Young, Scientology´s aim was to undermine the agency´s credibility. The group´s president, Paul J. DesFosses, says Scientology provided substantial financing, but denies that the church ran the group, which helped fuel Congressional hearings in 1989 into accusations of corruption at the I.R.S. Kendrick L. Moxon, a longtime church lawyer, acknowledges that the coalition was founded by Freedom Magazine. He says its work was well known and part of a campaign by Scientology and others to "reform" the IRS.

Summer 1989
Scientology hires private investigators to investigate the personal lives (and, as L. Ron Hubbard´s theories on "suppressives" would have it, the "crimes") of senior IRS officials involved in the ongoing Scientology litigation.
According to Octavio Pena, a private investigator in Fort Lee, N.J., a Scientologist identifying himself as Ben Shaw visits him in the summer of 1989 to explain that the church was concerned about IRS corruption and would pay $1 million for Pena to investigate IRS officials. Pena refuses.

Two more PIs, Michael L. Shomers and Thomas J. Krywucki work for Scientology for at least 18 months in 1990 and 1991. Working from his Maryland office, Shomers sets up a phony operation, the Washington News Bureau, to pose as a reporter and gather information about church critics. He infiltrates IRS conferences to gather information about officials who might be skipping meetings, drinking too much or having affairs. Scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon - one of those cited in the Snow White scandal in 1979 - admits the use of private investigators but claims that they are needed to counter lies spread by "rogue government agents".

October 1991
Scientology leader David Miscavige and Marty Rathbun, another senior Scientology official, claim to have held an unscheduled meeting with IRS Commissioner, Fred T. Goldberg Jr. Miscavige offers to drop all the suits against the IRS if Scientology is given tax exemption. Goldberg agrees and creates a special five-member working group under Howard M. Schoenfeld to resolve the dispute, bypassing the agency´s exempt organizations division, which normally handles those matters - an exceptionally unusual arrangement.

19 Jan 1992
John E. Burke, the assistant commissioner for exempt organizations, agrees to Scientology´s demand that its the bulk of its financial details should be kept secret.

29 June 1992
The US Claims Court upholds the IRS´ longstanding denial of a tax exemption for Scientology´s Church of Spiritual Technology. The ruling strongly supports the agency´s concerns over the commercial nature of Scientology and other matters. It states that the corporate structure of Scientology was "something of a deceptus visus. Real control is exercised less formally, but more tangibly, through an unincorporated association, the Sea Organization..."
Scientology claims that the ruling has ignored the facts and is filled with "gratuitous comments".

13 Aug 1993
The IRS agrees to grant tax exemptions to every Scientology entity in the United States, plus foreign entities based in the UK and Cyprus. The Church files new applications for exemptions as part of the agreement.

10-14 Sept 1993
Two IRS tax analysts write internal memoranda saying that they have been instructed to ignore substantive issues in reviewing the new Scientology applications.

1 October 1993
The agreement comes into force. Scientology pays the IRS $12.5m in back taxes and drops all the lawsuits brought by Church entities and individual Scientologists against the IRS.

8 October 1993
David Miscavige holds a "victory rally" attended by 10,000 cheering Scientologists in the Los Angeles Sports Arena. He declares that "the war is over" and explains that he has defeated the secret "master plan" of the psychiatrists - or rather, the "pea-brained psych-indoctrinated mental midgets" - namely, to use the IRS to destroy Scientology.

15 October 1993
In Washington DC, the IRS formally announces exemptions for about 150 Scientology entities. Remarkably, this includes at least one body which is an explicitly for-profit commercial organisation: the IRS accepts that the publication of Hubbard books by Bridge Publications is a charitable activity. The IRS declares the agreement secret, despite its legal obligation under Internal Revenue Code section 6104 to disclose information submitted to the

10 Nov 1993
The consumer affairs group Tax Analysts submits a Freedom of Information request to obtain the exemption agreement.

7 Feb 1994
The IRS refuses the FOI request, and Tax Analysts files suit.

15 March 1996
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia orders the IRS to release to Tax Analysts field service advice memorandums (FSAs) prepared by the IRS Office of Chief Counsel.

30 Dec 1997
The secret agreement is leaked to the Wall Street Journal, which promptly puts it on its Web site and leads with a front-page story. Newspapers across the United States report the story.

31 Dec 1997
The IRS announces that it is to hold an internal inquiry into how the agreement was leaked. The Church of Scientology denounces the leak. Scientologists accuse unnamed participants in the Internet newsgroup
alt.religion.scientology of being involved.

[link to www-2.cs.cmu.edu]

hi 15079
actually tom did not call scientology a religion.
he said you could be a christian and still be a scientologist.





Yes, that is what I said. Tom does not call it a religion. So how in the heck are they getting tax exempt status as a religion when their spokesperson says it isn´t?

WOW!! That is WACKY!!

Sammie
User ID: 1655
7/15/2005
8:28 pm EDT



Now that would be funny if GLP passed the test to become a religion.

Cruise packs the fudge.

and thas all there is to it.

i would be willing to accept tom´s methods.
but he does not speak the truth of himself.
therfore i reject his beliefs