The weekly show where I answer your questions based on what is left for me in the comments section of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email at AskChrisShelton@gmail.com.
Link to the Tony Ortega article here
This week, the questions I answer are:
(1) Please enlighten us on the subject of commissions in Scientology. Does Scientology really pay out cash commissions like Amway or Avon or Nuskin? Who gets how much for what? Is this official with receipts, etc. or is it “under the table”?
(2) If you had never heard of Hubbard and Scientology growing up, how would your life have been different? I like to imagine, given your curiosity, penchant for critical thinking and philosophical inclinations, that you’d have made a good student at university. With your natural charm and ease with people and your desire to be helpful and make things better for others, I wonder if you’d have been attracted to fields such as medicine or psychology. Or maybe you like the idea of teaching?
(3) I watched your mom’s interview and I think she and I would have been friends had we met when I became a Scientology student in the early 1970’s. So much of her viewpoint on the missions, tech and ethics is very real. I just wanted to know what your opinion is on spiritual abilities which are said to be obtained from auditing and training? That is why I stuck with Scientology for so long. The frustration caused by organization is mostly why I haven’t done any services since about 2001 or so.
AND
During a picket protest at a Church of Scientology, some Scientologists came out to block us. Once I had established that they were OTs (I asked them and they told me) I asked them if they had real OT powers. Of course they said they did. So I consulted with the other picketers and asked them if they were willing to call off the picket for that day if one of these OTs could demonstrate clear OT powers in the form of levitating a penny off the palm of my hand using thought alone…. Do you know, they actually tried! Can you imagine it? Adults thinking they could perhaps lift a penny with their thoughts. Chris, are Scientologists really that delusional?
(4) With all the shouting of people I hear about inside Scientology, how is this reconciled with the idea of treating people with ARC? It’s as if what I call “entry level tech” – what is taught to new members and described on Scientology.org is understood to be fluff for public. But ALL of LRH’s writing is supposed to be gospel, right?
(5) I have always wondered what makes people act in ways that are sometimes very opposed to what their education and sensibility would dictate when they are under a powerful emotion or belief. I think that most Scientologists are generous people that want to help others and change the world for the better, so when you said that you heard from current members a reasoning such “I don’t care if David Miscavige beats people because I have gains from Scientology”, wouldn’t this ring some kind of bell in their brains? Doesn’t these conflicting ideas – being generous and altruistic and being selfish – makes some kind of short circuit that gets people started to at least want to investigate more or to do some introspection about the purpose of what they are doing?
(6) Have you walked by your local org recently to see if any people are there?
(7) Has Scientology began the process of selling off empty orgs as a means of economic survival?
(8) Who are the billionaires still financing and keeping alive this crazy organization? Why do they do that? Are these people totally brainwashed or under some sort of wicked threat and so unable to stop feeding the monster?
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video is marked as private…..can’t view.
Sorry about that. Timing error. Fixed now.
Chris, I think that you are an exception. Most people into Dianetics and Scientology were after OT Powers. Hubbard only told people not to display these powers because no one has them.
https://leavingscientology.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/ot-abilities/
Thank you. Interestingly enough, there are still things Scientology that are not so clear or completely in the dark. For example “Sunday Services”. What do they do, when they pretend to be a church on Sunday?
BELIEF IN SUPERHUMAN POWERS
I think you are being a bit disingenuous here Chris. Surely the whole lure of Dianetics and Scientology is the promise of superhuman abilities.
In Dianetics, Hubbard absolutely guaranteed that a Clear would be able to recall anything he had ever studied. Who wouldn’t want that? He said a Clear could do mental computations which a normal would do in a half an hour in 10 or 15 seconds. He said a Clear could do a swift study of anything within their intellectual capacity, and the study would be the equivalent to them of a year or two of training when he was normal. Who wouldn’t want that? He said a Clear would have a vigor, persistence and tenacity to life which is very much higher than anyone has thought possible. He said a Clear would be ENTIRELY WITHOUT psychoses, neuroses, compulsions, repressions and psycho-somatic ills. You would never get sick! A Clear would have an IQ rise of as much as 50 points. Again, who the flip wouldn’t want that! These are flat out unambiguous promises that Hubbard made. They had no effect on you?
Then there are the vaunted OT powers: the ability to communicate over long distances through telepathy, remote viewing, extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, the power to influence matter, energy, space and time as a spirit, supernatural healing, the ability to predict future events, remember past lives, deal with ghosts, extra-terrestrials and so much more. Who wouldn’t want that? This is far-out, heady stuff! The fact is, Hubbard flat out promised Scientologists that they would become superhuman beings. After all they do call it the “Super Power Building” not the “Feeling Better About Yourself Building.” If you didn’t pick up on this Chris, you just weren’t paying attention. This is the carrot that keeps the money coming in.
I honestly can’t believe that all you wanted out of Scientology was to be was a nicer guy who got along better with people. If so, I feel really sad for you. If that was all you wanted you could have just taken “The Dale Carnegie Course.”
Keep your pity and condescension to yourself. Seriously – where do you get off judging me over something like this? I explained my position pretty clearly and also explained how some people come in to Scientology totally electrified to gain these powers you are referring to whereas others, not so much. My statements were the truth as I saw it over 27 years and no, I was not being disingenuous.
On further investigation I have discovered that it is no longer called the “Superpower Building.” They have renamed it the “Flag Building,” whatever that means.
Perhaps the Flag Building is where they keep the flags.
Okay Chris, message received. I’m a fan of yours, and I bought your book. Pity and condescension — not so much. Perhaps just surprise and I might be being a bit too subjective.
I dabbled in Scientology in the 70s and can’t imagine anyone ever getting into the subject without wanting the goodies that Hubbard promised and raved about. I didn’t continue with Scientology when it became abundantly evident to me that no one had these superpowers. This difference of opinion might even be a generational issue as the vaunted superpowers were gradually played down in the 90s and 00s. In the 70s, they were front and center.
https://therealaskthescientologist.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/scientologists-the-disappearing-states-of-clear-and-ot/