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From: hutch@dadla-b.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Dianetics, Church of Scientology Want info.
Message-ID: <473@dadla-b.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Jun-83 14:19:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: dadla-b.473
Posted: Wed Jun 22 14:19:30 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Jun-83 12:09:50 EDT
References: orca.1325
Lines: 54

I hope you didn't pay money for the Dianetics book.

Scientology IS Dianetics.  Same organisation hiding under a different
PR hook so as to get more suckers.

It is a religion in the same sense that any cult is a religion.  What it
really is is a con game started some years back by L Ron Hubbard.
The "religion" part was invented for tax purposes.

They get their money by charging for "engram-removal" sessions.
An engram is supposed to be something similar to a displaced habitual reaction.
It is a pseudo-scientific explanation totally unsupported by experimental
evidence, for "neurotic" traits.  An engram is supposedly a physical or
bioelectric channel in the nervous system which is inflexible and which
can only be "cleared" by using the special feedback machinery that the
Scientologists own.  These machines are merely skin galvanometers.  They
charge (last I asked) about 250$ per "treatment" where a treatmetn lasts
from 10 to 30 minutes and includes (sometimes) questions intended to get
at the "engrams" so you can "clear" them.

It doesn't really work, but that is not too obvious to the suckers who get
taken in by them.  What it DOES do is to convince them that they are making
great progress.  In fact, some of the people who go through this nonsense
actually do resolve some problems, but most merely pick up another set of
new neuroses which overlay the old ones.

Yes, there IS a lot of pressure to get new victims.  There are discounts on
"treatments" for bringing in new suckers; there are even training sessions
where you can learn how to sell the stuff.

An anecdote:
  When I was living in Berkeley, I had occasion to be in San Francisco
one day.  I was taking advantage of the fact that I was alone to pray
about some personal problems, when a Castro Street Clone approached me.
He noted that I seemed preoccupied and, since I was not immediately rude,
suggested that I might try a free "treatment" at their clinic.  I asked
him if he was selling Scientology.  The fellow had the good grace to blush,
and we got into a discussion about the merits of his product (I did not
tell him that the "machine" is a fraud because I hoped to plant seeds of
a differnt sort in his mind.)  He ended up telling me that he was a
certified "second-stage Clear" which means he had finally learned to make
galvanometer respond appropriately to whatever questions he had asked, and
that he had started "learning to use the secret powers of the mind" for
things like "free walking".  The latter is a pseudonym for astral projection,
and we began discussing the dangers of this practice.
I finally got disgusted and steered the subject to Christianity, which
topic panicked the fellow and he suddenly had to go.

Beware of frauds posing as religion OR science.

Scientology (Dianetics) is one such.

Steve Hutchison
Tektronix Logic Analyzers