This verse says it all about this so called religion. People who refuse to accept and believe in Jesus Christ become susceptible to all kinds of false religions and lies and schemes devised by the great deceiver himself.

So repent and turn away from these falsehoods and receive your salvation!
John 3:
16 “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

I think that all thought is amorphous and that our beliefs are subject to our environmental conditioning, our biology/physiology and our free will which is arbitrary.

It sounds like a “How many (insert group to be mocked here) does it take to change a lightbulb?” joke…

Agree. Garbage in, garbage out.

Hmmm….. Peter, your response above might not have been directed to me, but some other commenter. There are some people here who go down the Skeptic path, and the materialist bent that is taught in universities. That’s ok, but I don’t share that at all, I am a fan of Lipton, and I certainly recommend Rupert Sheldrake’s book The Science Delusion to you, or that you find him on youTube. In fact, I think it is an amazing startling universe, and that the universities have made science so boring that nobody studies it anymore, and a lot of decent progress and understanding has stopped while we Monsanto-ize and frack it with our mechanistic practical use of science. Tesla and many great original men of science spoke of the mystical connection or continuum. Quantum physics, not as a metaphor but the actual theory, shows how wild the real nature of what we live in is. In fact, the lack of creativity and openness has at times left an open playing field for guys like Hubbard to exploit people’s natural sense that there are great invisible forces at play, the Seeker sense, and turn it to his own ends.

I’m not suggesting that this is a complete explanation in itself – but I do think it is a significant part of one. Neither did I suggest that anyone was ” worshipping”, “lording it over” or “expecting to become Superman”.

Both Claire and I are suggesting that a lot of people suppressed their doubts because they appeared to be the only ones not experiencing ‘wins’ when, In actual fact, hardly anyone was really seeing any benefit.

You have have a good subjective experience (a ‘win’) which endured for some time, but his does not mean it was brought about by Scientology practice. I have not yet heard a coherent description of a ‘win’, let alone an explanation of how Scientology might achieve this.

There are other,simpler, better, explanations for ‘wins’. For example, in an emotionally charged, closed environment, people often become more suggestible, and take emotional cues from each other. You expect a good subjective experience, because that is what you are being prepared for. You believe that you are thinking independently, but you are not. This thesis is supported by a lot of psychological research.

You attribute your ‘win’ to Scientology, because that was what you were doing at the time. In actual fact, it was probably a release brought about by an extended an enjoyable social interaction – from what you say there seems to have much more of a ‘friendly family’ atmosphere in the early days.

It’s a very good feeling when (for example) social anxieties fall away – but this experience can be brought about more cheaply and easily that through Scientology practice.

Finally, I doubt either of us will change our opinions…. but it’s good for both of us to try and understand the other.

You are welcome, Peter. I do get it, mainly from talking to the ones who had had similar experiences to yours, and some early wins and camaraderie in their youth.
Those people all became terribly disillusioned or were hurt badly by disconnection or fraud if they hung around too long, or had children coopted by the sea org, I’m sure. But the tale properly told would remind us a bit of Orson Welle’s Citizen Kane, I bet, where there were happy days to look back upon for many, before the darkness of obsession set in. And that is human nature. For most who served in WWll, those days of sacrifice and horror were the best years of their lives, and they sat and told war stories forever…. LRon created, like Barnum, something that seemed like an adventure for a while. I don’t see any of that now, and only caught a faint scent of the old days when I was there, so I asked the oldest ones I knew how it used to be. I am sure that you and I will get slammed a bit for doing this…..and I am willing to put up with that for the price of being honest about it, filling in the whole tale.

To me, a very simplistic argument/explanation. I was happy for others who’d gone clear, but hardly worshipped them. I didn’t take my opinions from what others were thinking very much. When I did go cldear, it was not in session or on the CC. It was much more a sense of leaving a huge weight behind, though I could not now tell you the specifics. I never expected to become Superman…nor have I done so. But a huge mental weight was lifted, never to return. And, like most clears I knew back then, we really didn’t care what others thought or believed. We got what we got and were happy for it. Then moved on to the next target. It was all quite personal and I can’t recall anyone “lording” it over others due to their own auditing achievements. Maybe there was less “ego” being fed back then? I really don’t know.

Sure sounds like my own experiences. We seemed to get a lot done in a very short time. As well, sec checking was very rare unless bumped into something which wouldn’t seem to budge. Back in my very early auditing, I ran into such a bump and, when we sec checked it, it turned out to be my mother. So I called her and told her I’d have to disconnect. She replied, “That’s fine dear”. I did, we finished up that particular auditing and I called again and reconnected. Got the same reply. LOL Disconnection back then simply wasn’t the horror which it became and still exists.

Thank you, thank you. thank you. You “got it”, though I couldn’t really speak for the 70s. Your description did fit the 60s very well and would have included the the NY
org. That one was always cooking and with a close knit group, including public and FSMs. Very “family” feel and no sense of authoritarian rule as developed later. I
recall we had a few visits from SO members on missions and found them more than a bit “odd”. Mostly, they disrupted the established and successful “flow” and we
were always very happy to see them leave! LOL (I’ve a great story about one of those missions, but I’ll save that for another time.)

I felt that beginning in the early 70s, a definite shift had begun and I faded out for awhile. Later got involved with one of the missions, but there sure wasn’t any wild sex going on then though the “family” feel definitely remained. In the late 70s and beginning of the 80s, the military feel had definitely taken over and I quietly terminated any connection.

And so, for me, the organization which was and the one regularly discussed on this blog, were very different animals getting very different results. I’m sure a lot of crap was going on all the way through, but we didn’t really know about or feel it in the earlier years. If we had, I like to think we’d have exited even sooner than we did, as the many did in 1980 and beyond.