The latest in my ongoing series where I answer questions left for me in the comments section of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email at AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week the questions I take up are:
(1) After Going Clear and the media backlash, the image of the Church is all but destroyed. However shadow organizations, such as Narconon, still lure in unsuspecting public. What other organizations exist that the public should be made aware of?
(2) Is there any chance of the Church of Scientology becoming a hot political item, perhaps being championed by a particular politician? Isn’t it time a well-known politician took a stand and made it clear to the Church of Scientology that it’s living on borrowed time and needs to initiate its own reforms or face investigation?
(3) Does Dave have any humanity or kindness in him? I mean look how he has treated Shelly. Do you think that he may have been a decent person if he hadn’t become a Scientologist or if he would have still been a little arsehole but maybe on a smaller scale?
AND
I’m interested in learning about David Miscavige’s “human” side – and whether he even has one – because I don’t believe anyone can be all bad or all good. Is he ever seen to laugh – like a proper side-splitting laugh – or does he, as I picture, only do evil Mutley snickers into his sleeve while watching high ranking publics’ videoed auditing sessions? Has he ever been known to show kindness to anybody? Is it the worst-kept secret amongst the Sea Org that Laurisse Stuckenbrock is more than a glorified PA? Has anyone seen them skipping, holding hands, through the detritus of Tom and Nicole’s wildflower meadow? Does David Miscavige ever “give” or does he only ever “take away”?
(4) Did you recall much in the way of past lives in your auditing? Any past life that was really outrageous or incredible? Did the memories feel real, and now that you’re out, what are your views on the past lives that you remembered?
(5) Hi Chris, you said that believing there is no god is a belief that requires faith. What about Russel’s Teapot and the knowledge that belief is a comforting and pleasant thing for poor, rather smart mammals that are burdened with self-awareness and knowledge of their future death? In science there is never certainty (theory of gravity) but the evidence and the historical evidence seem to show that religion and the idea of god is man-made, and therefore although not 100% certain, the default position until data supports the hypothesis of theism, is atheism. I know atheism is a dirty word these days thanks to militant atheists, but what are your thoughts on being tolerant of non-harmful belief but not believing?
(6) Being as the Church of Scientology believes that the universe is trillions of years old instead of the 13.5 billion it actually is and given the whole Xenu story in OT 3, how does the Church of Scientology deal with natural history as has been deduced through science?
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Thank you for your tireless efforts in bringing critical thinking to the masses. I appreciated your take on atheism and religion. Tou are correct there ia no real proof on either side. Thinking critically, leaving the door open on either side of the equation seems to be the way to go.
The reality is there ia no real proof for anything we believe as human beings.
ON PAST LIVES
“Recall an earlier similar incident.”
This was a common command, if not the central command in Scn. auditing. The idea was to run down the chain of mentally connected events, releasing the negative energy as you went and thus “clearing” the mind.
The auditor will press you, over and over, after recalling one event and another to then again recall an earlier similar incident.
“What do you see?” says the auditor.
The time will come where one is sitting in the auditors’ chair thinking, well, the last thing I just recalled I was an infant… so… hey, now I’m “recalling” an earlier event in which you see yourself as an adult and, Oh My My, I’m seeing myself as an adult again and so this is a recollection of a past-life I’m having here!!!
Or, maybe, the auditor will tell you flat out that, yes, that had to be a past life memory.
You might see your auditor getting visibly excited for you, if this be your first time or whatever.
The whole philosophy of Scn. is based on this past-life concept. An auditor would be rewarded for a “successful” session, quite punished for failure…
Well,
I got in trouble pretty fast one day (this is 1974) when I came out of auditing and I casually started talking to a fellow Scientologist, saying, hey, my auditor thinks I had a past life recollection and I don’t think so at all. I mean, how are we supposed to know whether the mental image pictures are anything other than the manufacture of imagination? In other words, not a recollection at all? The auditor firmly believes that it IS a recollection and there I was, thinking the story I just told was simply a newly created mental image cartoon.
It is noteworthy to say at this point that the rules do forbid a “Preclear” from talking about his case (auditing) to anyone, including other Scientologists. Don’t want to get everybody all stirred up,
…right?
Absolutely right…
“Why should we ever think otherwise… How could we ever know a past life “memory ” was or wasn’t real?”
I do remember feeling uncomfortable in the moment I was saying this, just barely realizing I was actually asking a fellow Scientologist whether the whole deal could be fake. This is a religion and i was challenging the founder now, a guy who books like “The Fundamentals of Thought”, such we were all quite familiar with.
And soon after I was out. Foolish me, I stuck to my reasoning. They just didn’t know how to handle me, nor this sort of thinking, back then.
Somewhere along the line they came up with ways to handle it;
– you may have heard of “ethics checks” and terms like “thought crimes”.
But, back then, well, they just had me leave. I was heartbroken, actually.
But I relate the story because I think it illistrates the stark reality of the true nature of Scientology and what all the tech and policy is really, truely about, and that it is indeed mind control. And when the suggestions in auditing don’t grab well, then that’s when things start getting more and more extreme.
Such is the nature of Scientology.
Now it is how many years later and, what do you know, Scientology just gets more and more extreme as keeping this mind-control game became more and more important towards
“Keeping Scientology Working”,
( Google that, to learn how threatening policy can be. )
I can only hope, that stories like mine and/or any ex-Scientologist soon reaches the intelliegent, reasoning minds of all the people inside. What is that number now, 30,000?
That may be a puny quantity on the world scale, but we need to put 30,000 faces on the number.
That is 30,000 potentially ripped up families, or more.
IT SHOULD BE A LAW, that no cult member be forbidden to look on the internet. Maybe that’s a start.
A cult, after all, is a form of incarceration. The argument that it is voluntary doesn’t hold up, if you can consider mind-control to be a real thing. There is so much flat-out deceit going on. I mean, back to the beginning, how could LRH not be … a cunning and brilliant liar?
…
Meanwhile, Scientology will tell you that they are here to rescue you.
Honestly, I wonder how they still get away with it, passing themselves off as a church.
We’re not in 1950 any more.