They attacked the Internet critics, shut down the famous Penet remailer, tried to ruin the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, got federal marshals to raid the homes of the more vocal critics, and filed lawsuits against the Washington Post, Netcom (now part of Earthlink), and the Dutch ISP XS4ALL because of Xenu.

I’m aware of all that, yes. Be that as it may, I’m trying to look at what the actual purpose of the story of Xenu is. My point is that it doesn’t matter that it’s absurd or that its “out of touch with reality” because the basis of scientology is not the belief system, but the actual practice.

As best as I can tell, Scientology’s rationale to keep Xenu a secret is because of their belief that OT III can only be delivered to Scientologists in its “original form” (i.e. Hubbard’s writing and nothing else) in order for it to work. The wide exposure of Xenu has tainted the minds of those who’ve read the story, and they are less likely (or unable) to accept OTIII in its pure, unsullied form because of this. Critics, on the other hand, state that Xenu is so ridiculous and so unbelievable, most rational persons would walk away laughing if they knew that all the time, effort, and especially money invested in Scientology courses and training eventually leads to Xenu.

Personally I agree with the critics: it’s a ridiculous story, and it’s proof of how far out of touch with reality Hubbard was by the time he “broke through the wall of fire” and discovered Xenu. Yet, I also sympathize with Scientologists who honestly believe the critics are out to “destroy” their religion by exposing its secrets to ridicule.

When a planet had been engulfed, the Helatrobans would attack it with “little orange-colored bombs that would talk” and the clouds themselves would talk: “And here you’d have a gray cloud going by and it’d be saying, ‘Hark! Hark! Hark!’ you see? ‘Watch out! Look out! Who’s there? Who’s that?’”

*boggle*

and then this past weekend i was over at the MET and wnadering around that neighborhood and came across the “Scientology Celebrity Center”… pretty high class neighborhood… they were offering “Free Somethingorothers” and my girl almost convinced me to go inside and tell them i felt like i had a whole alien race attached to me and what can i do to get rid of them…. i decided id come back another time with something more clever to say…

one
human?

L-RON on the other hand was basicly creating a mental lockdown that renders people helpless trying to resolve internal paradoxes.

Well, it’s hard for me to talk about his motivations. But it seems like with Dianetics, he was more into letting people understand how to imprint themselves. This is why we saw so many offshoots earlier on in the practice. I think at some point when he incorporated as the Church of Scientology, he began to see the (financial) value in imprinting people into a closed system, rather than an open one. At least, that’s how it seems from the outside reading all the negative press about Scientology functioning as a cult. It seems that the core personal power aspects of Scientology though were liberated from the system by the Free Zoners, but based on what I’ve read by and about them, their explanations and language of all this is really confusing. They don’t seem to realize certain key elements of the communication disconnect that people have about Scientology in the first place. In other words, if people just think it’s a “cult” and that’s that, then there would be no point for them to engage in any of the practices on their own.

Anyway, yeah, I really like this:

a legimate spiritual practice creates that same state of imprint vulnerability but leaves you free to re-imprint yourself, or at the very least furnishes you with a imprint that frees you up to reimprint yourself at a latter date

Is that a description that other people would agree with? Is this something that we can use as a criteria for evaluating the “worth” of spiritual traditions? I kind of like this, but feel like we could maybe refine the language of it so it’s more specific and could be more easily communicated. What is imprint vulnerability? Why would somebody want to enter that state? How does a spiritual practice help one achieve it? Are there non-spiritual ways to achieve it?

PS. I’m about 1000% sure Robert Anton Wilson studied Scientology, though I’ve not seen mention of it anywhere. Anybody have any info on this?

a legimate spiritual practice creates that same state of imprint vulnerability but leaves you free to re-imprint yourself, or at the very least furnishes you with a imprint that frees you up to reimprint yourself at a latter date. L-RON on the other hand was basicly creating a mental lockdown that renders people helpless trying to resolve internal paradoxes.