Why scientology is bad

I was shocked how accurate it was for not coming from Scientologists," she wrote. The systematic recruitment of members' children. I wish it would have told the story of how Scientologists give their children to the 'Church.

But, I think they did an amazing job and they cleared the path for people like me to speak about it. HBO was very brave in taking it on. Leah revealed that Scientology basically brain washes you to keep you in the religion. Part of the doctrine, she wrote, is that any information that doesn't come from a Scientologist source — like outside books, magazines, newspaper and the internet — is forbidden.

The church teaches members that any outside sources are lies designed to destroy Scientology by people who don't want others to be happy. Ron Hubbard's 'technology' teaches you that outside sources i.

The AMA, and APA, and all 'governments' do not give scientology its due because they have a vested interest in not healing people and not helping people. And Scientology is in the business of making people better. Often, the other members would resort to using violence on the targeted member, the insiders say. It was literally 'I'm going to beat the crap out of you before I get the crap beat out of me.

Miscavige's father, Ron, says he and others were monitored around the clock at the headquarters in Hemet, California. He described locks on doors, sharp spikes on the gates — both facing out and in — being chaperoned by other members when exiting the facility, the internet being severely filtered and monitored, and eavesdropping on all calls. He decided to leave the church after what he said was a critical error by his son.

David Miscavige gave his father an Amazon Kindle, which was connected to the internet and unfettered by the church's filters. Ron "just Googled 'Scientology,'" Remini said. He found all the bad things. In , after 42 years as a Scientology member, Ron left. He and his wife planned their escape for six months. They were finally able to do so during a routine trip across the street to the only refrigerator available to them on the campus. The guards were used to them making the trip and let the couple pass through the gates.

David, Ron's daughters, and their children ended their relationship with Ron and his wife after they left Scientology, part of an alleged church policy about former members called disconnection. In the early s, Miscavige established "the Hole" at Scientology's headquarters in Hemet, California, according to Rinder.

It was a detention center for high-ranking members who displeased him. Rinder said he and as many as people were held in the Hole. He described the conditions — having to eat "slop," security bars on the windows, guards to keep people from leaving.

He also said members beat each other up until they confessed their supposed crimes. Ron Hubbard that every Scientologist must follow in order to attain the ultimate in spiritual enlightenment and in spiritual freedom," Rinder said. Scientology teaches that reaching the top of the "Bridge" means being able to use the mind to do powerful things like "move things, cure cancer in yourself," according to Remini.

Rinder and Remini both reached level two of the "Bridge," though both say they feel as if they didn't achieve the level's goal of "relief from the hostilities and challenges of life. Mary Kahn was a devout Scientologist for about 40 years and completed all the courses required by the "Bridge. But like the books, courses are often updated.

That means they have to be repeated by members whenever Scientology says there were changes or a mistake was made when a member was taking a course. Kahn had to repeat the "Bridge," but she says she became fed up with the constant pressure to pay more exorbitant fees. At one point, she says a fellow Scientologist charged her credit card without her knowing because he needed to meet his financial goal for the church.

Remini showed off a large bookcase in her home filled with Hubbard texts. And a member will often have to buy the books multiple times whenever Scientology says they've been updated, she says. Additionally, Scientology tells members that libraries have a demand for the books and encourages members to buy multiple book packages to donate to libraries, she says. In addition to books, Remini said Scientologists must buy Hubbard's lectures and various audio CDs, donate to the church's causes, and pay a membership fee.

She said they're meant only to bring in new members and "indoctrinate" them to the church's terms. These expensive auditing sessions can last a minimum of two and a half hours each, Remini said.

They involve an auditor who listens and helps members "find and handle areas of distress," she said. They're done with what's called an E-meter , which measures electrical activity on the skin.

According to the church, it aids the auditor in their work. According to the show's contributors, "security checks," or "sec checks," are administered on members who are suspected of breaking a church rule or having doubts about the organization.

Her experience is a common one. The scale was developed by Scientology founder L. The current scale goes from , or Total Failure, to 40, Serenity of Beingness, ranking emotions from grief and anxiety to cheerfulness and enthusiasm. The solution was to go through a series of communication drills, or Training Routines, some of which critics say are designed to leave believers in a state of hypnotic calm—and then to keep the effects of those TRs in , or contain them.

The result? A generation of children who grew up numb, unable to feel or even recognize basic emotions.

Gordon, 52, first stepped away from Scientology 31 years ago, but it took her decades to recognize her emotions. People called her flat, superior, condescending, cold. When she fell into an abusive relationship, she had to learn to react when her boyfriend hit her, because her natural reaction — to do nothing — made him even angrier. But eventually, her emotions started leaking out.

She felt like an alien amongst enemies, afraid to reveal her true self. She wanted to heal, but she had no idea who she was. Where did Scientology end and her real self begin? Christi Gordon in California, May Photograph by Justin Kaneps for Rolling Stone.

Over the course of several years, she got in touch with a few Second Gen ex-Scientology friends and eventually proposed a radical idea: getting together. She called the group Children of Scientology, and she envisioned it as a place where SGAs could come and get support, building an ad hoc family where they could learn to feel, think and survive in safety.

So Gordon and Silverman are playing it loose. When I get back to the house an hour later, people are drinking Chardonnay and smoking obsessively outside. Finally, Susan gathers the group, being careful to not herd too hard.

As soon as she starts speaking, a man starts moving toward the door. She gets it, after all. Nobody here would say sharing is their style. So she starts them off easy.

The first few people follow the prompt, but then someone breaks down. But he never hears back. A thin blond woman next to him nods. Her family was recruited into Scientology from Russia when she was little. She had a stillbirth, and is raising a child with autism. People who join and leave as adults have the luxury of connecting with their past selves, she says. Their identity is the cult.

This makes it harder to make friends, which makes it harder to transition out. At the retreat, the intros are still going. More than one Scientologist explained to me that they don't have the financial resources of the Catholic Church that come from thousands of years of donations. They have to charge. Well, that's not the whole truth. The secrecy surrounding Scientology's higher levels of knowledge has no apparent analogue in the Abrahamic faiths, and the steep financial outlay to get higher knowledge also seems unique.

Catholicism doesn't charge people to become learned, nor does Judaism. In fact, the greatest scholars in those faiths are often revered paupers: penniless rabbis and voluntarily poor priests, monks and nuns. Poverty is not Scientology's style, to say the least. That leads me to my second criticism: bad aesthetics. Whether the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles, or the church off Times Square in New York, Scientology buildings are filled with garish colours, flat-screen TVs showing silly, dull videos, and glossy pamphlets recycling the legend of the overrated Hubbard, whom Scientologists revere as a scientist, writer and seer of the first rank.

In my opinion, his books are bad, the movies they inspire are worse and the derivative futuro-techno look that Scientology loves is an affront to good taste. It's a religion that screams nouveau-Star Trek-riche. For those of us who seek mystery, wonder and beauty in our religions, Scientology is a nonstarter.

But good taste, as art critic Dave Hickey says, is just the residue of someone else's privilege. Catholicism has its Gothic cathedrals, Judaism its timeless Torah scrolls. Scientology is new, but it has played an impressive game of catch-up. In its drive to be a major world religion, it will inevitably go through a period when its absurdities and missteps are glaringly apparent. But someday it will be old and prosaic, and there may still be Scientologists. And when some embezzle, lie and steal - as they surely will - they'll seem no worse than Christians, Jews and Muslims who have done the same.

The Dublin Mission of the Church of Scientology declined an offer to participate in this debate. Mark Oppenheimer is an American critic. This piece first appeared in the Washington Post. Rising infection rates in central and eastern Europe suggest a correlation between vaccine scepticism and populist politics. The plan for the capital looks too much like another aspirational plan, not the inspirational one it should be. Please update your payment details to keep enjoying your Irish Times subscription.

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