The weekly show where I answer viewer questions left for me in the comment section of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email at AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week, the questions I answer are:
(1) Scientology seems to be really bad at public relations. The Church presents itself in an incredibly awkward, belligerent and alienating way. I remember you mentioning on the podcast that Scientologists honestly don’t know how creepy they come across. What surprises me is how bad they are at this despite having had so many high-profile celebrity members. I would think someone like Will Smith would take David Miscavige aside and be like “Hey man, we gotta talk about our presentation to the world….” I find it so weird that celebrities who carefully manage their image don’t get how crummy the Church is at doing that. Do you have any thoughts? Keep up the good work!
(2) What are your thoughts on Steven Anderson and the likes of the NIFB movement (the group that is hosting the Make America Straight Again conference on June 16th in Orlando)? Are they just an ultra-conservative Baptist sect or have they moved past that into the realm of dangerous cults?
(3) Recently I found a paper in my family’s house with a long quote from LRH on it: “In Scientology you are dealing with a specialized group, specially selected. Actually, these people are all preselected out of the races on earth today. It isn’t a cross selection of the population at all. It’s a very great minority of the population…. As these people move up to more advanced levels of training, a further selection takes place. Their confront, their persistence come up. Just look at the things that are required of one of these people. Look at the things that have been required of you in actual fact: as sticking with it despite the disappointments and upsets and trouble you’ve had. If you don’t think that’s a process of pre-selection, you should take a look at it someday. Just going on being in Scientology is a process of pre-selection. It has its rewards, but it also has it’s liabilities and those that have survived this particular process have simply demonstrated the fact that they will obviously someday make OT.” -The Relationship of Training to OT (lecture of November 7, 1963)
Is Hubbard implying that Scientologists are “pre-selected” by a higher power? (I know they don’t believe in God but my family believes in a higher power of some kind). And if that’s what he’s saying, was I not meant to be a Scientologist? And wouldn’t the logic there be that people who aren’t Scientologists or those who leave, aren’t supposed to be? Additionally, the section with “disappointments, upsets and trouble” is pretty interesting – it would seem as though being dissatisfied with Scientology is built into the core of the religion. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
(4) There’s something that has been bugging me recently, in regards to OT 8 specifically. It is my understanding, that at the inception, or perhaps at the end of the course, that a person going through OT 8 at some point, comes to a realization that it was them all along who was responsible for these thetans latching onto our spirits, and it was us that were creating them all along. My question is this: how is this in any way not contradictory to what is established in the doctrine of OT 3? In OT 3, it is revealed that by using several means, Xenu trapped the souls of the inhabitants of the planet Teegeeack, thus making them body thetans and it is they that are responsible for humanity’s endless suffering, roughly speaking. So does this mean that OT 3 was just a made up story, from the perspective of the now enlightened OT 8 member, meant as nothing more than a foreshadowing of how immoral actions can have such devastating effects? Are we supposed to sympathize with Xenu for being locked up for all eternity? Is this perhaps a metaphor for how all of us are locked up spirits, and that we must atone for our wrongs indefinitely in order to obtain a state of Clear? Am I missing something here?
(5) For you personally, do you have any more or less personal satisfaction generating Scientology-related content, other Destructive Cult content, or Critical Thinking content? I enjoy all three but I was wondering what was more fulfilling for you (if any).
(6) I’ve watched all the Q & A videos and I don’t remember seeing you ever talk about mind-crushing BOREDOM as a factor in Scientology and cults in general. As I’ve learned about cults from you and John Cedars and others, I’ve learned that boredom seems to be a tactic, rather than an aberration. I first got interested in cults on the 30th anniversary of the massacre at Jonestown in Guyana. I found Jim Jones’ sermons on the internet, expecting them to be captivating and enticing. In fact they were incoherent and mind-crushingly dull. That was actually what began to intrigue me most, and sent me on the path of investigating more. I’d be interested in how BORED you were in Scientology, and what you think about boredom as a feature of Scientology and other cults. Thanks for your great work.
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