All of them, those in power, and those who want the power, would pamper us, if we agreed to overlook their crookedness by wilfully restricting our activities.
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The Church of Scientology is a cult interested in making money, claims a local cult expert.
Gordon Gillespie of the Manitoba Cult Awareness Centre calls Scientology — which is linked to the drug-rehabilitation program Narconon, currently fund-raising in the city — the "daddy" of cults.
Gillespie said Scientology's church status gives it tax breaks, but it doesn't have churches and services like other religions.
"I'd like to say 'No, they're not successful,' but they're still here and they're persistent."
Winnipeggers who find flyers in their mail advertising a book called Dianetics, written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, should be aware it's a big money-maker for the organization, he said.
And people who get involved in the controversial group could end up in expensive training courses, he said.
"What they attempt to do is make you a better person. They have their own funny system for evaluating you. They say, 'We see all these weaknesses,' and they get (money) from you and they sell you a course to improve yourself," Gillespie claimed.
"That course leads to another and another."
And once a person becomes heavily involved in Scientology it's very difficult to get them out, he alleged.
"People who counsel kids coming out of cults are really reluctant to deal with Scientologists," he claimed. "It's really difficult."