SCIENTOLOGY'S THETANOLOGY OF THE INFLATED EGO

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I encountered an exchange between an intelligent Scientology law student and critical commenters on Georgetown University's Hoya article, Anti-Scientology Protests Continue in Dupont. I was impressed that he wasn't simply spouting the latest PR line, nor was he engaging in bullying his interlocuters by bull baiting them, an aggressive technique designed to humiliate and crush an opponent. It is taught, along with how to lie, as a tax-exempt religious service of the Church in the spiritual formation of its adherents.

One thing that snagged my attention was his reference to Scientology's "theology". I have been mulling over this assertion. Theology takes one to the core of a religious community's ideology and belief system where the fundamental reality is God, known under many names, and loved in many forms.

By contrast, there is no God at the core of Scientology. God is not found anywhere in Scientology's ideology except as a vague "infinity". God simply is not a part of Scientology's belief system. At the level of practice, there is no worship of God, devotion, prayers, or hymns to God. I have yet to hear of any Scientologist who has left the Church say anything other than "Scientologists do not believe in God."

What, then, is at the core of Scientology's belief system? At its core is the thetan, the soul, eternal and uncreated. The thetan has always existed with no creative agency on the part of God, and will continue to exist forever without any reference to God. Scientology's foundation myth of how evil came into the world is a science fiction account of thetans being indoctrinated with every false belief system we know as the great religious traditions and then entering into human beings with the falsity of religious belief.

The core of Scientology's beliefs is getting rid of the bad thetans that enslave an individual's own thetan. The end point is the exorcism of all evil thetans so the individual human thetan can reach its full powers. For Scientology these are the same old psychic powers known from the beginning of recorded history. The goal of Scientology's practice is to escape the human condition by liberating the ego's psychic powers like telekinesis, bilocation, and the ability to influence reality by acting outside the body. These are the OT (Operating Thetan) powers obtained by completing Scientology's highest-level course. The journey to this exalted state costs around $350,000.

None of this has anything to do with God whatsoever.

As fascinating as psychic powers are, the profound mystic traditions consider them unimportant - merely a novel allure to be gotten over and gotten free of in the journey to spiritual freedom. What is primary in authentic spiritual practice is awareness, the dropping of attachments, and handling everything in life with care and compassion even in situations involving the most horrendous evils the self-centered mind can create. The freedom of enlightenment is the ability to be whatever life asks one to be, free of thousands of attachments to ideas, people, things, power, control, and wealth.

Scientology has no adequate theoretical understanding of human functioning let alone the dynamics of spiritual development. Scientology cut itself off from the genuine insights that psychology has given us through experimental and clinical psychology. By designating psychology is the enemy of the human race, Scientology's anthropology has returned man to the age of primitive superstition. Everything is under the influence of evil spirits within a human being; and at work in the world through "psychs" and others in opposition, not to God, but to Scientology. Not only is there no God here, Scientology itself is the God of Scientology. There is no God but Scientology, and L. Ron Hubbard is its prophet.

Scientologist revere LRH as the Source. The source of salvific knowledge whose junk psychology plus exorcism are the only salvation of the human race. God has traditionally had the function of enlightening and saving the human race. So now we get Ron as God. That is the promise and allure of Scientology, "You shall become like gods." In a world of superhuman thetans there is no need for God. Indeed, God is an enemy and threat to that world.

In the realm of ethics and morality, all evil is attributed to evil spirits inhabiting our bodies. You are not responsible, the body thetans made you do it. The prime ethical imperative is abject submission to the ideology, practice, and organization of Scientology, not God.

No God, no theology. Thetanology is all about thetans, body thetans, exorcism of bad thetans, and liberation of the psychic-powers-on-steroids thetan. No theology, only a thetanology of the inflated ego.

Scientology makes a fundamental category error. It mistakes the ego for the spirit. Jung understood the distinction between the self and the Self, and Buddhists distinguish small mind and big mind. The ego is where all the drama of the human condition rages with our wants, desires, stress, fear, and rage occur as the result of delusional and dysfunctional thinking. he The Buddha said, "Life is suffering." Not just some of the time, but all the time. Why? We don't have what we want so we suffer. Even if we get what we want, we know that we can lose it. That is the human condition.

In authentic religions, the way to enlightenment and liberation from the tyranny of the ego is dying to the ego . It is the work of a lifetime. It cannot be accomplished by the ego for small mind cannot heal small mind. Only big mind, the higher power that people in 12 Step programs well know, can bring about death to ego for freedom for life.

There is no big mind in Scientology, just a human thetan encumbered by thousands upon thousands of bad, or body thetans, as Scientology calls them. What is left when they are gotten rid of? The naked thetan-ego with its greed for power over others and ultimately over all human beings. Scienology's grand plan is to clear the planet, destroy its enemies and install its psychotechnology in every realm of human life.

This is grandiosity of the inflated ego at its most grandiose. It is the thetan as God, and thetanology as theology.

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DAVID MISCAVIGE'S PERJURIES: KEY TO REVOKING SCIENTOLOGY'S IRS TAX EXEMPTION?

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News of the multiple perjuries of David Miscavige, head of the Church of Scientology, in obtaining its charitable tax-exemption have been rife among ex-Scientologists for years. Now Lawrence Brennan has stepped forward to testify in an affidavit to the Church's creation of religious cloaking and corporate obfuscation to avoid having to pay taxes and obey labor laws for its staff, and particularly its elite Sea Organization, the worker bee core of zealous and loyal Scientology employees who form its upper management. Brennan has also laid out Miscavige's multiple perjuries to the IRS upon which its granting of religious tax-exemption was based.

The survival of Scientology and the destruction of its enemies takes priority over absolutely every other consideration and the dictates of common human morality and decency. It overrides the law when they are in conflict. "Under oath doesn't mean shit, " as the Reverend Jeff Quiros, Head of the San Francisco Org said.

The Brennan Affidavit destroys any notion that the Church is a religious organization. Brennan should know. He was in charge of creating the whole elaborate scheme of deception. Brennan is an important figure because he was a high-ranking executive who serve right through the fiasco of Operation Snow White, Hubbard's going into hiding, and the palace coup by the 23-year old David Miscavige who has reigned for nearly 30 years as ecclesiastical head of the Church. It was the careful planning of Miscavige that lured Tom Cruise into Scientology. He has become such a powerful figure that Miscavige will not cross. He has, in effect, become the unofficial head of the church.

Miscavige is officially the Chairman of the Board of the RTC (Religious Technology Corporation), a Californian 501 (c) (3) charitable organization that holds the trademarks and copyrights to Hubbard's writings, considered to be sacred scripture in Scientology's representations to the IRS. Under the Miscavige regime Brennan also created an elaborate complex of corporate entities to channel tax-exempt funds first to Hubbard and then to Miscavige.

A key issue is whether Miscavige's perjuries and misrepresentations to the IRS are sufficient to undermine and invalidate its tax-exempt status. More to come, pro magna justitia.

An anonymous has produced this invaluable YouTube guide to the affidavit which is profitably viewed before reading the affidavit. Video is below the following update.

August 11, 2008 Update:

There are several approaches to eliminating Scientology's religious tax-exempt status in the United States. One is to bring pressure upon the government to have the IRS investigate current violations of tax laws for exempt religious organizations and revoke it on that basis. Another is to have the Justice Department investigate alleged RICO crimes. Another is to agitate for congressional hearings and legislation.

No one wants to get into a protracted fight with CoS, particularly not the IRS who lost corporate Scientology's twenty-five year assault on it, and granted exemption in highly suspect circumstances involving the Church's fair gaming IRS officials. Of late, the IRS has shown less spine in coming down on religious groups engaging in things like partisan advocacy forbidden by religious tax status. It is unlikely they have the courage to revoke exemption based on the cult's current violations, which are manifold.

One significant effect of this approach is that it places the churches and other religious organizations on defensive alert. Any inquiry into CoS's violations brings into scrutiny their own legitimate rights and privileges as authentic religious organizations. They may even in self-interest become amici curiae on behalf of CoS, distasteful as they may find it.

The support of the churches is critical to the success of the movement to unmask what is essentially a multinational corporate enterprise and bring it to justice. The churches alone can make it acceptable to attack another church, something that is a sticking point for many. The churches are major institutions for formation of moral sensibilities for millions, particularly the hunger and thirst for justice.

Social justice requires the dismantling of unjust systems and structures that oppress and victimize people. The intra-totalitarian system of corporate Scientology has victimized and abused individuals within it, and has systematically suppressed free speech in society as a whole in its intimidation and shuddering into silence the government, the media, the mental health professions, and the entertainment industry. And probably the churches. One suspects that one has not heard from them because they have been intimidated by the cult's successful bullying of other important social institutions.

The approach to revoking the tax exempt that places the churches firmly in opposition to corporate Scientology is exposing David Miscavige's perjuries upon which the exemption is founded. This is not just a tax-exemption that is being criminally abused. It is a tax exemption that never should have been granted in the first place. If Miscavige's perjuries are the prime target then the churches are in solidarity with the rest of the pubic in disgust and outrage.

The churches are also in a position to righteously denounce the mendacity, corporate obfuscation, and cynical religious cloaking which allowed a corporation selling delusions to desecrate profound universal human values that ground our culture. The way is opened for them to denounce vigorously in human rights violations in Sea Org and the Miscavige regime.

There is much work to be done in recruiting the churches to the anti-Scientology cause. The issue is barely known and ways and appeals need to be found to persuade them to speak up and show solidarity with the victims of corporate Scientology. That is their vocation.

SCIENTOLOGY'S LONG WAR AGAINST THE INTERNET

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Helena Kobrin - the face that launched
Scientology's Long War Against The Internet
on January 11, 1995

June 21, 2008 marked the sixth anniversary of the Anonymous Insurgency against the Church of Scientology's Long War Against The Internet. The sudden appearance of Anonymous has been startling. 10,000 anons have been carrying on a successful insurgency both in the streets and on the internet for six months.

This is a new campaign in the Church's on-going war against society and human rights that began in 1950 when L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics. Corporate Scientology declared war on the internet on January 11, 1995, when Helena Kobrin, top Scientology lawyer and Queen of Mean, attempted to delete the entire Usenet news group alt.religion.scientology, the main site critical of Scientology at the time. Though the Church had been harassing a.r.s since its inception in 1991, Kobrin's audacious attempt at complete destruction of critical voices on the internet fittingly marks a date for the beginning of Scientology's assault and war against the internet.

L. Ron Hubbard exhorted his followers to seize control of all domains of power within society. Scientology initially succeeded spectacularly in its attempt to control the government in the 1970's through its notorious Operation Snow White, which fielded more than 4,000 covert agents. It also succeeded in winning a long war with the IRS, most probably, through corporate obfuscation, religious cloaking, massive perjury by David Miscavige, the head of the Church. The seduction of Tom Cruise and other celebrities is an ongoing operation to achieve control over Hollywood.

Fortunately, in 1977 Operation Snow White ended with the conviction of eleven high-ranking Scientology executives, including Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, whom he sacrificed to save his own skin. In its war against the media, which Hubbard called "merchants of chaos", The Church seized control of the domain of the national media by flooding Time magazine with lawsuits for its 1991 cover story "Scientology: the Cult of Greed and Power". Its author, Richared Behar was savagely fair gamed to intimidate the entire press into silence. Only the bravest of journalists have dared to speak again.

The rise of the internet created a new domain and challenge to Scientology's iron imperative of infiltration and control of the institutions of national life. We will further examine the major nodes in Scientology's internet war to give a context to understanding the Anonymous insurgency.

To be continued pro magna justitia.

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