|
The Secret of the Secret Church: Scientology |
|
|
|
|
Written by Editor
|
First Response
March 2006
The Secret of the Secret Church: Scientology
By Don Williams
If you live in Hollywood, New York City or Clearwater Florida, there is
a chance you have been exposed to Scientology. If you watch Oprah and
see Tom Cruise ranting, there is a chance you have heard of
Scientology. This “new religion” claims to be the fastest growing
spiritual adventure on the planet, with over 10 million followers and
billions of dollars in assets. Rolling Stone Magazine did a feature
article on the movement in its last issue (March, 2006). Let me
highlight its claims and then get to its “secret.”
Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, an off-beat genius, who,
among other things, wrote science fiction. His most famous work,
Dianetics, published in 1950, claims that the source of mental and
physical illness is due to psychic scars called “engrams.” These scars,
which may even go back through trauma in past lives, remain locked in a
person’s subconscious or “reactive mind.” The goal then of Scientology
is to free us from our reactive minds through a regressive therapy
technique called auditing. The process, which likely will take many
years, involves re-experiencing our painful past and erasing our
engrams. The goal? To become “clear.”
Most auditing takes place in the presence an auditor through an
electronic device called an e-meter. It functions like a lie detector,
measuring the changes in small electrical currents in the body in
response to questions asked by an auditor. These questions dig
relentlessly into a person’s family life, sexual life, etc. The
e-meter, Scientologists hold, registers the thoughts of the reactive
mind and can root out unconscious lies. Auditing is the route over the
Bridge to Total Freedom which is the devotee’s goal. There are specific
grades or stages on the bridge and the key to progress is hundreds to
thousands of auditing sessions. Janet Reitman writes in her Rolling
Stone article, “The ultimate goal in every auditing session is to have
a ‘win’ moment of revelation, which can take a few minutes, hours or
even weeks – Scientologists are not allowed to leave an auditing
session until their auditor is satisfied.”
The average Scientologist pays a fee for each auditing session. This
can be $750 for introductory sessions to between $8,000 to $9,000 for
advanced sessions. Unique among religions, Scientology charges for
virtually all of its services. It is a therapy based upper-class
movement. S. Scott Bartchy, director of the Center of the Study of
Religion at UCLA notes that what makes Scientology so controversial is
its claims that auditing is “scientific” and that the truth will only
be revealed to those who have the money to invest in advancement
through various levels to becoming “clear.” The process will probably
cost tens of thousands of dollars to over hundreds of thousands of
dollars. This makes Scientology a business as much as a religion.
The religious character of Scientology is apparent in its uncritical
adulation of L. Ron Hubbard, now deceased, as its true prophet. This
means that Scientology cannot be self-critical and is frozen in time,
making Hubbard’s teaching absolute and unalterable. The name itself
means “the study of truth.” Scientology is also a “Gnostic” sect,
teaching that “salvation” comes through knowledge (becoming clear and
being initiated into its higher secret truths). The knowledge of the
eternal self and the removal of “engrams” puts one on the road to
perfection. In essence, we are immortal beings, or “thetans.” We have
lived trillions of years before and will continue to be reborn again
and again.
Salvation is also regressive – rather than going on to
perfection, we go back to perfection by removing past pain. (Here you
can see why it competes with psychiatry which it disdains.) Again, the
goal is to become an OT, an “Operating Thetan.” These make up
Scientology’s elite: enlightened beings who have total control over
themselves and their environment. Reitman writes, “OT’s can allegedly
move inanimate objects with their minds, leave their bodies at will and
telepathically communicate with, and control the behavior of,
both animals and human beings. At the highest levels, they are
allegedly liberated from the physical universe, to the point where they
can psychically control what Scientologists call MEST: Matter, Energy,
Space and Time.”
The cult-like aspects of Scientology include its secretive nature, its
authoritarian control of its followers, absorbing them into a life of
total obedience to its teachings, its absolute defense against any
leaks of information or apostasy of former members, and its secretive
finances and financial arrangements. At the same time, Scientology has
an “eschatology.” Its followers are on a mission to save the planet and
the universe. They also use cultural issues such as drug-addiction or
disaster relief to spread their message and make themselves credible to
the public. Hubbard wrote in a policy paper titled “Keep Scientology
Working”: “The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman
and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of
years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology. This
is a deadly serious activity.”
At its higher levels, Scientologists learn the cosmic secrets of the
universe. Former members have made them public. In essence,
Scientologists hold that 75 million years ago an evil galactic warlord,
Xenu, controlled seventy-six planets in our galaxy. They were severely
overpopulated, so Xenu gathered thirteen and a half trillion beings and
dumped them into volcanoes on planet earth. Vaporized with bombs, these
radioactive souls (thetans) were caught in electronic traps in the
atmosphere and implanted with false ideas, including God, Christ and
organized religion. Many of these entities attached themselves to human
beings and are the root of all the evil in our lives and in the world.
UCLA’s Bartchy comments, “What Hubbard seems to be saying is that human
beings are really something else – Thetans trapped in bodies in the
material world – and that Scientology can both wake them up and save
them from this bad situation.” Gnostic radical dualism is at its core.
The material world is not God’s good creation. It is a trap to be freed
from. Salvation is not the removal of God’s just judgment through
Christ’s death for the forgiveness of sins. Salvation is deliverance
from error and the evil material world. The roots of this go back
through Christian Science to Gnosticism to classical Hinduism where the
material world is illusion and all that exists is undifferentiated
spirituality. Scientology, however, cannot surrender the Christian and
Western understanding of personality. Thus it mixes eastern and western
concepts to form its own peculiar stew.
What then is the “Secret of the Secret Church”? It is simple – healing
past pain in order to become whole again. Because most of Christianity
gave up the healing ministry long ago, it is no longer a threat to
Scientology. [See Francis MacNutt, The Nearly Perfect Crime: How the
Church Almost Killed the Ministry of Healing] So the real bad guys are
the psychiatrists who offer healing through medication and therapy.
They are the true competitors with Scientology. They adjust us to our
pain or mask our pain (through drugs) rather than releasing us from our
pain so that we can become “clear,” the thetans we really are. Tom
Cruise, a lapsed Catholic, credits Scientology for his healing from
dyslexia. Now he is their most prominent evangelist.
Scientology works. This is its problem. Drugs also work as every addict
will tell you. While we must expose the alien worldview of Scientology,
its greed, class status and cultic control, we must do more. Jesus
entrusts his church with his power and authority to heal. The true
kingdom is here in him. There is no secret for special Christians, the
spiritual elite. The secret is open and out. Paul writes, “I have
become its [the church’s] servant by the commission God gave me to
present to you the word of God in its fullness – the mystery, that has
been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the
saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the
glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you the hope of
glory.” (Colossians 1:25-27) Let’s get this mystery, this secret out to
a waiting world. Let’s pray for the sick and invite Jesus into our
trauma from past pain. Simple exposure through Scientology doesn’t
heal. But Jesus does by the power of his Spirit. It’s all by grace! And
it’s free!
|
|
|
First Response 
