too many drugs.

We don't seem to have any Scientology practitioners or experts here. Questions come up about Scientology from time to time, and mostly it just turns into a bash-the-weirdos party with nobody taking the weirdos side. I'm not an expert on it either, but I have some tidbits floating around: - The story (perhaps urban legend) is that Hubbard told Isaac Asimov at a party that "all the real money is in religion", and that they made a bet related to Hubbard's ability to start a religion of his own and get people to join it. - Scientology has a lot of psychological-healing processes which are intended to allow a person to uproot and purge old traumas (i.e. from childhood), whose residual effects are keeping one trapped. This material seems to be lifted from various psychological methods, and I suspect it has enough validity and effect to account for much of the positive effects reported by members. - There's a whole metaphysical explanation for reality which posits that a human in "original form" is a quasi-spiritual being called a Thetan, and loses his or her power by being drawn into the drama of life -- believing themselves to be merely mortal and limited. The goal of Scientology is to recover one's true power ("Thetanness"). You'll hear people talking about "operating Thetans" -- a person who's made enough progress to have some sort of supernatural powers while still being in their human body. - A LOT of money changes hands, it flows to the top of the organization, where it seems a select few enjoy lavish lifestyles. - The organization has a very nasty reputation in it's relationship with the rest of the world: persecuting critics, even burglarizing the offices of federal prosecutors to dig up "dirt", etc. They used to have a policy called "fair game", which suspended ethical constraints for members who were dealing with Scientology's enemies. This policy has supposedly been terminated. - L. Ron Hubbard is dead. For a long time, it wasn't clear whether he was dead or merely in hiding. I don't know who runs the show now.

I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is." - L. Ron Hubbard to Lloyd Eshbach in 1949, quoted by Eshbach in OVER MY SHOULDER: REFLECTIONS ON A SCIENCE FICTION ERA. Donald M. Grant Publisher, 1983

Scientology has a lot of Buddhism's concepts in it. I've started reading a bit on the latter and I've been seeing so many things that Hubbard must have borrowed. Hubbard also was into occultism before that, Jack Parsons and the OTO stuff. I can see some of that in the "postulate setting" stuff in Scientology. (To set a postulate means to make a decision that will come true.) Also see Hubbard's affirmations- that can be found in google. Hubbard didn't admit to the occultism but did admit to having been interested in shamanism. There also is a bit of early psychoanalysis in Scientology and Dianetics. He started with Dianetics and in 53 came out with "Scientology". His son claims that Hubbard was obsessed with soul splitting. I'm not sure how truthful LRH Jr was, however, the OT levels seem to deal with a type of soul fragmentation of sorts. To sum up, Scientology is a combination of Eastern thought, occultism and early psychoanalysis plus Hubbard came up with his own theories about things. The Church of Scn is cultic and problematic, to put it mildly, which in my opinion is unfortunate. For me- finding that out was heartbreaking.