The more I learn about Scientology, and I have their materials, the more I am in favor of the latter.

Fortunately, here in Brazil, they are nearly non-existent. Any that approach me will wish they were.

If you aren’t familiar with Scientology’s war on the Internet in the mid-1990s and how it relates to the more recent battles with Anonymous, check out my “Scientology Sampler” blog post from 2006 (and especially the link to the Skeptic magazine article Jeff Jacobsen and I wrote) and Jeff Jacobsen’s article from last year on Anonymous:

http://lippard.blogspot.com/2006/03/scientology-sampler.html

http://lippard.blogspot.com/2008/12/jeff-jacobsen-article-on-anonymous.html

It’s not my place to judge but guys seriously think about the purpose of your mission before you do something uncalled for.

Other than that;
Love you all.

I agree that intent of most subscribers to the organisation calling itself the church of scientology is to do good. The problem is their intention to do good has been abused by the organisation to turn them in to revenue machines for the organisation.

Subscribers to the organisation calling itself the church of scientology have been taught and sincerely believe that the only way to help is to spread scientology tech; it’s the only hope for mankind.

They are also taught and sincerely believe that not only is the organisations’ tech the only way to help but that other forms of help, especially but limited to psychiatry, are actually damaging and must be stopped.

It is this kind of programming that has subscribers to the organisation turn up and disaster zones armed only with a yellow tent and scientology literature, including “anti-psych” literature, in order to help. They believe they are helping but all they are doing is selling scientology tech at disaster zones; they even have a PR hatted person to ensure good coverage.

Of the many subscribers to the organisation I have known most have been decent people. However as time goes on either more and more demands are put upon them to buy courses and materials or more and more demands are put upon them to sell more courses and materials, or both.

Many become disillusioned with the organisation and see the scam for what it is, an expensive form of self improvement that like most others only works to some degree on some people.

Those it works best with often become disillusioned with the organisation but think it is the problem with the management. They hold out hope that a change in management will result in improvements, what they don’t realise is that the core policies are the real problem and the only way to ditch those is to break up the organisation because the organisation is built upon them.

Sadly there are those who end up having some kind of psychotic break; often the nicest of people because they are unable to reconcile the supposed beliefs and ideals with the common practices. Here I speak not just of the likes of Lisa McPherson and Greg Bashaw, who ended up dead, but the many others who ultimately survived but only after many months, often years of tailored counselling.

You say the problem with the Freezone is its lack of facilities. Why does scientology need to be like a Toyota car plant? This is part of the problem, the factory mentality of the organisation. It isn’t enough that one goes at one’s own pace and cherry picks what works best for them, it is vital that they do more courses and buy more materials in order to keep the organisations stats up and, more importantly, keep the money flowing in.

If people want to embark on a journey of self discovery and improvement and choose to study scientology as part of that then they should not be pressured in to taking courses or buying materials. The Freezone operate reading rooms and there are independent auditors who provide auditing for a modest fee.

The problem is that Aaron’s accounts are not an example of the organisation calling itself the church of scientology going wrong, they are an example of exactly how it operates, which is exactly how Hubbard intended it to operate as documented in the myriad of special Sea Org eyes only policies.

As an ex-Sea Org member, I can tell you, the truth is much worse than you can glean from hearing it second hand.

Suffice to say, the ex-members’ critiques are quite accurate. Sometimes critics who have never been sScientologists err in their enthusiasm, but we ex members lived it.

Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder are two great examples of this, but there are countless others. Only Scientologists believe they are liars.