The Church of Scientology cries "Hate Group!"

The Church of Scientology has been throwing the term "hate group" around a lot. If two or more people dare to criticize the church, the Church of Scientology inevitably cries "Hate Group"!

And now it's reported that the Church of Scientology is supporting and advocating legislation to increase penalties and restriction on "hate groups".

Well, exactly what is a hate group? Who is a hate group?

Hate Group

The term “hate group” is used to describe any organization in any sector of society that aggressively demonizes or dehumanizes members of a scapegoated target group in a systematic way. (from PublicEye.org)

Hate Group

An organized group or movement that advocates physical or verbal aggression toward or refusal to interact with persons on the basis of those persons' possession and/or exhibition of a certain characteristic. (from Wikipedia.org)

These seem to be pretty clear and reasonable definitions of what constitutes a hate group. A group selects some people and declares that these people are evil, these people are beneath contempt, these people are sub-human, not deserving of decent treatment, these people are to be punished, perhaps even killed.

And the hate group's selection of the people to be hated can be, and usually is, quite arbitrary, based only on criteria unique to the hate group's beliefs.

OK, since the Church of Scientology appears to be accusing a lot of people as being "hate groups", let's hold up a mirror, as we like to do.

How does the Church of Scientology itself, under the leadership of David Miscavige, stack up against these definitions?

Do they arbitrarily select out people to hate? Do they describe these people-to-hate as evil, sub-human, beneath contempt?

Do they advocate punishment against these people-to-hate, not for any actual crimes proven in a court of law, but just for the crime of "being evil", whatever that means in their dogma?

Let's see.

The first example, and perhaps the oldest in the Church of Scientology's enemies list is psychiatrists.

Yes, the Church of Scientology declares, explicitly, that all, let me repeat that, all psychiatrists are evil. Through the church's front group, the so-called Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), the Church of Scientology has relentlessly attacked psychiatrists -- not for something they all do, but just because they are psychiatrists -- and, of course, "psychiatrists are evil" according to Scientology's dogma.

L. Ron Hubbard has declared that the Great Evil in this universe, down through millennia, has been directed by and carried out by psychiatrists. Yes, he did say this, quite a number of times. According to Hubbard, all the evil in the world has been and is being caused by psychiatrists.

As part of the Church of Scientology's hate campaign against psychiatrists, CCHR has "documented" a huge number of bogus claims, blaming psychiatrists for the Holocaust, for 9/11, for school shootings, and, well, for just about everything bad that has happened.

American Psychiatric Association President, Nada Stotland, M.D., recently noted that psychiatrist have their own "dedicated hate group" -- CCHR. And this is factually true. CCHR's stated purpose is to "destroy psychiatry", not for any actual crimes proven in any court of law, but just for being psychiatry, and for being the group-to-be-hated.

But that is not all. Not by a long shot.

The Church of Scientology has a lot more groups that, it has declared, must be hated, attacked and destroyed. Some years ago they even published a list of hundreds of what they called "Suppressive Groups". It is known that this list still exists, and has grown, but more recent issues are not publicly available.

The next group that the church absolutely hates are the many Church of Scientology critics. These people are not, in reality, an organized group, but the church has lumped them all together, so they can be properly hated and destroyed.

Now you may say that it is perfectly reasonable for the church to dislike its critics, and that is so, but the church goes far, far beyond what is remotely reasonable.

A normal, sane group, when faced with some kind of exposé, might respond in a number of ways. Perhaps they would point out factual errors and provide verifiable information in rebuttal. Perhaps they would give evidence that the critic was affiliated with some competitor. Perhaps they would provide ample evidence of their own actual good works. Or they just might ignore it.

Not the Church of Scientology. They don't operate in that realm. The church never, ever, ever provides any facts, evidence or proof of anything they claim. What they do is attack, by any means, fair or foul, in a never-ending attempt to literally destroy their critics.

Take for example Paulette Cooper and her exposé of the church, The Scandal of Scientology. When this book was published in 1971, exposing many of the abusive practices of the Church of Scientology, did the church respond in a reasonable, logical, sane manner?

Not at all. First, they declared Ms. Cooper a "Suppressive Person". This is a wholly fabricated category and group that is the Church of Scientology's primary group-to-hate.

Let me explain. A "Suppressive Person" is Scientology's Ultimate Evil Person. While, in theory, there are certain specific criteria that supposedly describe a Suppressive, in practice it boils down to one simple criteria: If you have, in any way, offended the Church of Scientology, then they will declare you a Suppressive Person.

According to the church, a Suppressive Person is evil, sub-human, beneath contempt, and all who have been "declared Suppressive" by the church may be, according to L. Ron Hubbard, "deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed".

And, trust me, the church carries out these instructions religiously.

Understand that the only "crime" is that they offended someone in the Church of Scientology. There are no actual, real crimes -- but the church's punishments are very real. No matter how or why a person gets "assigned" to this group by the Church of Scientology, once you are in it, you are in serious danger of becoming a victim of hate crimes by the church.

There are many, many, many stories of people in this pseudo-group who can attest to the Church of Scientology's hate crimes against them. Getting back to Ms. Cooper, she provides a prime example of the kinds of hate crimes the church commits.

Paulette Cooper was the target not only of harassment-by-litigation but of several other harassment campaigns including a Scientology campaign known as Operation Freakout, the goal of which was to have Ms. Cooper "incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks." In a previous campaign titled Operation Dynamite the church sent itself forged bomb threats, purportedly from Cooper, using her typewriter and paper with her fingerprints on it; further plans included bomb threats to be sent to Henry Kissinger. The Church's campaign was discovered when the FBI raided Scientology offices in 1977 and recovered documents about the operation.

Don't think this was an isolated incident or "isn't done any more". Check out the illegal actions the church took against Gabe Cazeras, the then mayor of Clearwater, attempting to frame him for a (fake) hit and run accident and to otherwise defame him.

It has also been reported that the Church of Scientology has distributed libellous fliers about various critics to their neighbors, has made false accusations to critics' employers in an attempt to get them fired, has filed frivolous lawsuits to try to bankrupt critics, and other hate crimes.

Psychiatrists and critics. Outside of Scientology's dogma and paranoia, these people have committed no crimes. These people have done nothing deserving of punishment -- not to mention "destruction". These people are, as a group, innocent. Yet the Church of Scientology is relentless in its vicious attacks and its corrosive lies.

Are these the actions of an honest organization? Are these the actions of a sane organization?

Or are these the actions of a hate group, with an agenda to destroy selected people?

Is the Church of Scientology a hate group? The answer is obvious.
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Scientology's "Mental Manipulation"

In the recent news about the Church of Scientology on trial in France, one of the lawyers for the church, Patrick Maisonneuve, said:

"We will contest every charge and prove that there was no mental manipulation."

Oh, really?

That is going to be a very, very hard thing to prove. After all, Scientology is all about mental manipulation!

How do you suppose the lawyer is going to prove that an organization that boasts that its "technology" can handle any and all "mental problems" does not practice mental manipulation?

Let's see. L. Ron Hubbard's book Science of Survival, a rather large book, is specifically and only about how to use Hubbard's "Tone Scale" to evaluate and control people using mental manipulation.

Hubbard's extensive issues about surveys and marketing are all about how to control people without their consent or knowledge. His advices to "registrars" (salesmen) are all about how to use tricks and how to persist until they "get the sale".

Hubbard carefully selected the images for his book covers because, he believed, they would mentally manipulate people so they would buy his books without knowing why they felt compelled to do so. The most famous image is, of course, the "Dianetics volcano" on Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, which was supposed to trigger OT III and force people to buy the book.

Hubbard's famous "TR" drills are all about controlling people. These drills are billed as "communication drills" but that isn't what they teach. Their purpose is to teach a person how to control others. The TR0 drills train the person to not react in any way to what others might say. The rest of the TR drills train the person to get an answer or, especially, to get compliance from others by means of mental manipulation. These drills have nothing to do with how to have normal, social conversations, they are all about control and how to force compliance.

In fact, when you get right down to it, there isn't any part of Scientology that isn't about mental manipulation. Scientologists are all busy being controlled and working to control others through their "superior mental technology".

So, just how is it that this lawyer thinks he can prove that mental manipulation wasn't involved?

Ah! Perhaps he will contend that, because Scientology's attempts at mental manipulation are so feeble and ineffective, it really shouldn't count. In other words, their only defense will be to prove that Scientology doesn't work!
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Scientology Agree/Disagree

In the Philadelphia Doctorate Courses, L. Ron Hubbard spoke quite a bit about agree and disagree. Agreement is effect and disagreement is cause. If you agree with someone, you are the effect of what they say. If you disagree with someone, you are at cause. According to Hubbard.

He also stated that the basis for controlling people is agreement. The basic principle of hypnotism is agreement. If you enforce agree-agree-agree on someone, you will, eventually, completely control them.

Well, guess what is not allowed in the Church of Scientology? You may not disagree with anything Hubbard or David Miscavige has ever said. Period.

In Scientology, if you say you disagree with Miscavige or Hubbard, it means you are wrong, you "have misunderstoods" (words you do not understand), you must be handled until you agree. Everything stops for you until "your misunderstoods are handled" -- meaning, until you agree.

You cannot say, "Oh, I don't agree with that, but this seems OK." No, you are required to agree with everything in Scientology.

Scientologists are very fond of saying "In Scientology, what is true is what you, yourself have found to be true." And they are quite adamant that they "didn't agree" until after they studied and tried some bit of Scientology.

And this is true. They studied something, they tried it, and they agreed that "it worked."

But understand this very, very clearly. That agreement is not a decision or a choice. That is a specific, required sequence. After the Scientologist tries something from Scientology, he or she must agree that "it works".

If the Scientologist finds that something from Scientology doesn't work, it means, according to Scientology, that the Scientologist is wrong and must be corrected and corrected, until the Scientologist "finds it works".

An Instructor or Supervisor or Executive must challenge with ferocity instances of "unworkability". They must uncover what did happen, what was run and what was done or not done.

L. Ron Hubbard - Keeping Scientology Working

As a Scientologist travels deeper into Scientology, further "up The Bridge", their agreement becomes more set. They are more and more at effect. No disagreement, no cause -- just agreement. How odd for a methodology that is supposed to be making people more at cause.

For a Scientologist to try something from Scientology and find it doesn't work is forbidden.

For a Scientologist to disagree with anything Hubbard or Miscavige has said is forbidden.

With Scientology, you do have enforced agreement.

In Scientology, you very specifically have agree-agree-agree.

Every Scientologist, then, agrees with every other Scientologist about Scientology. They are all in perfect agreement on every little thing that Miscavige or Hubbard ever said. No matter what, they all agree.

Isn't that amazing?

Here is a quote from Hubbard on that subject:

The common denominator of a group is the reactive bank. Thetans [people] without banks have different responses. They only have their banks in common. They agree then only on bank principles.

L. Ron Hubbard - Keeping Scientology Working

Ah, the irony! A group that is in total and complete agreement is a group agreeing only on bank (bad, unevaluated) principles. And a group that suppresses disagreement and enforces agree-agree-agree is working very hard to hypnotically control its members.

According to L. Ron Hubbard.
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Scientology: "Saving the Planet"

If I had to select the absolute worst thing that the Church of Scientology claims, I'd say the claim that they are "saving the planet" is the very, very worst.

Yes, they really do claim exactly that.

This is what L. Ron Hubbard says:

We're not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn't cute or something to do for lack of something better.

The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.

This is a deadly serious activity. And if we miss getting out of the trap now, we may never again have another chance.

Remember, this is our first chance to do so in all the endless trillions of years of the past.

L. Ron Hubbard
HCO PL 7 February 1967 - KEEPING SCIENTOLOGY WORKING

This statement is taken totally at face value by all Scientologists. This is, to all True Believers, totally true, very serious and very, very important.

This message is actually repeated many times and in many ways by Hubbard. The message is:

• Scientology is the only path to salvation for not only the Scientologist, but for "every man, woman and child" on this planet.
• It is the only chance for salvation in "trillions of years".
• If Scientology does not take over and "save" the planet "we may never again have another chance."

Wow! Those are some heavy claims, aren't they?

So, how is this used by the Church of Scientology?

The Church of Scientology demands that every Scientologist go deeply, hopelessly into debt and give all their money to the church. After all, what is one little insignificant Scientologist's survival when compared to such an important goal!

The Church of Scientology demands that every Scientologist spend every moment working to expand the Church of Scientology. They must be on course; they must be reading Scientology books or listening to Scientology lectures; they must disseminate Scientology to friends, family and strangers; they must volunteer at the local church, join staff, join the Sea Org, make their children join the Sea Org ... there is no end to what is demanded -- after all, the Church of Scientology is saving the planet!

Scientologists must buy everything offered, every course, every book, every CD, and then buy them all over again.

And nothing is forbidden to the Church of Scientology in carrying out their all-important mission. The church can commit any crimes, any abuses, any fraud and it is excused because they are saving the planet! They can and will lie and cheat and steal to forward this all-important purpose.

If you object to anything the Church of Scientology says or does, if you work to expose these crimes, these lies, these abuses, they will destroy you, as is their right because their mission is more important than anything else on the entire planet!

Yes, anything is permitted to the Church of Scientology. Anything. Just look at their goal! They're saving the planet and you aren't.

Yet there is something very, very important that is missing from the Church of Scientology's work. If the Church of Scientology is, indeed, "saving the planet", then why is nothing associated with the church getting any better at all? As the old expression (that I just made up) goes, "Saving the planet starts at home!"

At what point does any part of the planet start getting "saved"? So far, the Church of Scientology has collected hundreds of millions of dollars and claimed to have done things, but there is no evidence that anything associated with the Church of Scientology is getting any better at all. (Once again, for you True Believers, I'm not talking about whether Scientology makes you "feel better" or not, I'm talking about its big claims.)

• There are no Clears per Hubbard's definition.
  
• There are no OTs -- Scientology is supposed to be a "gradient to OT", but zero at the bottom and zero at the top isn't a lot of progress.
  
• Narconon has been exposed for lying about its success rate -- its actual results are much lower than other drug rehabilitation programs.
• Hubbard's "Study Tech" has been found, in real classrooms with real students, to be far inferior to many other educational methods.
• Independent scientific analysis has found the "Purification Rundown" to be completely ineffective.
  
• Their "Volunteer Ministers" are just Scientology sales reps in yellow shirts, unwelcome at disaster sites by the real relief agencies.
• And so on...
  

Demanding Scientologists make huge sacrifices for the Church of Scientology would be a bit questionable even if the church were doing some good -- but when the church's results are so mediocre, so lacking, such demands for huge sacrifices are unconscionable.

May I gently suggest to Scientologists that they support the Church of Scientology only to the degree that the church shows that it actually is doing some good for some portion of the planet? Empty promises and big claims don't count. Actual improvement of something (besides the church's bank account) must be demonstrated and verified. If the church can't show they've made anything really better, then they don't deserve anyone's support.

And, may I make a few suggestions to the Church of Scientology, since they are inexperienced in this?

First, they should stop doing bad things. It's hard to do good when you are committing crimes, fraud and abuse. And that "demanding Scientologists make those huge sacrifices just to enhance the church's bank account" thing? In case you guys didn't know, that's a bad thing.

When the church has that down pretty well, they could try and do something good -- something small and local until they learn how to do it. It might help them to know that real organizations, that do actual good work, do not consider doing good things to be a money-making operation. Just so you know.

And Church of Scientology? Please lay off the "saving the planet" crap. You're not doing that, you've never done that, and you show no sign you'll ever make any progress in that direction. So just stop saying that, OK? It just screams "fanatical cult!"
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