Is Scientology a scam?

By Roland Rashleigh-Berry more
22 January 2007

Source: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/browse_thread/thread/6c4c654e1a5826ed#fcedee68fbaf8b27

Is it a scam? Lemme think this through...

1. You are told that Scientology is a way of improving people's lives by making the able more able.
2. You are told that Scientology is not a religion but rather "an applied religious philosophy".
3. You are told about a state of Clear whereby a person has perfect recall, immunity from accidents and flu, a longer life and the ability to solve chess problems in a fraction of the time and that you can reach this state by inexpensive Dianetics auditing.
4. You pay for the auditing and after a few hours of it it is stopped because you don't seem to be getting enough benefit from it.
5. You are told you need Scientology auditing rather than Dianetics auditing which is 100 times more effective. Trouble is, it costs 20 times the price. You can't afford it so you are persuaded to learn to be a Scientology auditor yourself where you can co-audit and therefore do it cheaper.
6. So you are sold the courses and the e-meter and you hope to go Clear at half the price. But you so much want to have those powers as a Clear that you press on.
7. Two years later and you are getting nowhere. You are frustrated. The auditing your twin gave you doesn't work. What you need now is "repair auditing" done at the cost you were trying to avoid.
8. You get the repair auditing and you are now back on course. Several months later you are getting nowhere.
9. Your only way to make any progress at all is to go for the full priced auditing you were trying to avoid. You are told that the "professional" auditors will give you more benefits in an hour than you have ever got in your life from doing Scientology.
10. You get "professional" auditing. You are pleased to have a chance to progress at last. A few weeks later you realize you are getting nowhere. But you want to be a "Clear" so you shut up and get on with it.
11. You have the elusive Clear cognition that basically says that a person realises that they are mocking up their own reactive mind. You go to "attest".
12. You attest but wonder why you haven't got immunity from colds and flu, perfect recall etc. Just that you are "mocking up your own reactive mind less". The goal you aimed for is not there. You express your concern but are told that all those goals and so much more are there on the OT levels.
13. Having gone Clear and hoping to have greater abilities, you are now told that "you are at risk and must rapidly move up to OT III". So having gone Clear and paid money for Dianetics auditing, then training, then repair auditing and then having paid for the too expensive "professional auditing" you tried to avoid in the first place you reach the stage after paying more money where you have no extra abilities — worse still, you are at risk.
14. You have learnt by now that Scientology IS a religion and anyone who says otherwise is an SP and an enemy of the Church and mankind. You hand over money to help them in their legal battles to keep Scientology running as a religion even though you were told it was not a religion but rather "an applied religious philosophy" yourself when you asked.
15. You do OT III and the self-help group you thought you joined now takes on a new turn. You learn that you are full of the souls of dead space aliens named "body thetans" and it is they who are holding you back. You have to telepathically audit these dead space aliens to make them go away and then you will get super-powers like being able to leave your body at will and fly around the universe.
16. You do the expensive OT III and you attest to being free of body thetans. You wonder why you can't "exteriorize" or fly around the universe.
17. You are now told that you are still full of body thetans but the nearly dead or unconscious ones that didn't respond to OT III. You now have to do the OT IV Drug Rundown to take vitamins to wake up these body thetans so they can be audited.
18. Now comes OT V audited NOTs. This is really expensive at double the cost per hour of the "professional auditing" you were trying to avoid when you got in and wanted to become Clear. And you are audited on this for many many hours. It seems like the richer you are, the more body thetans you have, so all your money goes away and you go deep into debt.
19. After OT V you at last get onto OT VI. Guess what? More body thetans need to be handled but you can "solo audit" them away.
20. So you finally finish OT VI. Guess what? More body thetans need to be handled on OT VII. This is going to take many years and all the money you could ever get from anywhere. On top of this a "six month sec check" has to be performed that you have to pay for.
21. Few people finish OT VII but if they do they get onto OT VIII. The final blinding "cognition" of this level is you realise "now I know who I am not and am interested in finding out who I am" when you realise that all your supposed memories were not real but belonged to the body thetans you got rid of. And as for the OT powers, there are none because you are a "baby OT" now. No immunity from colds and flu and perfect recall that you were told about when you came through the door. You have parted with perhaps $350,000 for "now I know who I am not and am interested in finding out who I am".

Is it a scam? I'll let the reader decide.