Or is something bigger?
For six decades, a lot of conflict has centered around the question of Scientology’s religious status. Originally, LRH said Scientology was a science. He didn’t think too highly of organized religion:
“Society, thirsting for more control of more people substitutes religion for the spirit, the body for the soul, an identity for the individual and science and data for truth. In this direction lies insanity, increasing slavery, less knowingness, greater scarcity and less society.”
The original purpose of Scientology in 1951 was to open the gates to a better world. Scientology was not a psycho-therapy nor a religion. It was a body of knowledge which, when properly used, gave freedom and truth to the individual.
Later on LRH said Scientologists voted to qualify it as a religion.
But what something can legitimately qualify for, does not answer the question as to what it IS.
There is an advantage to pushing aside all bias and rumor and calling a thing EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.
Sometimes you have to lay aside fixed ideas and considerations and LOOK at a thing in a new unit of time.
Scientology has a word: itsa. Itsa is the natural process of identifying something, as when someone says “It’s a this!” or “It’s a that!” I suggest you run that little process on Scientology and if you do, and if you lay aside all bias, opinions and warnings you might have been given including the “but we’re supposed to say it’s a...” and just look at what it IS.
Suppose someone walked into a meeting. Someone could ask, “What is it?” An answer might be, “Clint Eastwood.” But that would be “who” and not “what.” You could say, “an actor” or “an American” or "an award-winning Director." But those would just be titles that Mr. Eastwood had qualified for. What if you set aside all the things Clint Eastwood qualified for due to lineage, or experience, or whatever, and simply asked yourself the question again, “What is that?”
The most basic and true answer is simply, “It’s a man.” There is no disputing that. That answer is not going to offend anyone.
Why can’t we get Scientology down to something for which there is no dispute?
Well, Miscavige can’t seem to do it. There remains a lot of dispute about what Scientology is. How can that even be possible? Why should it even be an issue? Does anyone argue constantly about what you are? What a table is? What a tree is?
What is going on here?
There is a virtue in trying to reach a point of agreement... since agreement is the basis of Reality, which is one of the three major components of Understanding: Affinity, Reality and Communication.Yet Scientology, which contains the very anatomy of Reality, can’t somehow establish agreement on what it is? Isn’t that just a little ridiculous?
Well, in sorting this matter out, I personally vote for siding with truth. Whatever it is, good or bad, truth is NOT going to lead anyone astray, create harm or damage anything.
Scientology was postulated by LRH as “the road to truth.” Isn’t it time we all took a good hard look at truth?
Economic buffoonery
At its core, most of the dispute revolves around Scientology’s status as a religion. Yet it’s only a religion in some countries. Is there any other religion like that?David Miscavige’s church argues for Scientology’s status as a religion in America. In Mexico, in the middle east and elsewhere, RTC argues for Scientology’s status as "not religious."
Perhaps there are advantages to making something into a religion. Saying there are financial advantages ignores economic reality. What financial advantage is there to driving away about 50% of your potential market and making a significant percentage of them into enemies because they now see you as a con? That is not sound marketing.
Maybe that’s why David Miscavige and his cowed worshipers now have to resort to straight criminality to stay afloat. They blame DM’s own victims of abuse who are now speaking out as whistle blowers. DM and his mob are incapable of seeing that they are causing their own problems. Typical of suppressive persons -- unable to spot the source of their own problems, but just blame others.
Handling originations
In auditing, when the preclear interrupts to ask a question (an origination), LRH stresses the auditor must answer the question. He points out that most arguments in daily life occur when someone fails to properly handle an origination.When people ask “What is Scientology?” and you answer with a statement of a “status” -- i.e., what Scientology has qualified for -- you actually haven’t answered their question as to what Scientology IS.
The common definition of “religion” in use
Additionally, when westerners use the word “religion” they’re talking about a system of belief -- faith, worship and reverence to God -- by whatever name. LRH said Scientology is not a belief system. He said it requires no faith. We don’t worship anything; in fact, we don’t worship, period. Non-Scientologists know that, so to them saying Scientology is a religion is offensive.Surveys show a large percentage of the population reacts with hostility toward any organization that calls itself a religion which is not in fact a religion according to the common definitions in use in their national culture.
Now if you ask most people what is a religion, they will say something about God. Hey, the official word in Scientology is that it is up to each individual to decide what the 8th dynamic is. In most people’s books, that alone is enough to demonstrates it’s not a religion. Scientologists have no official belief in God. It’s not a belief system: it’s a philosophy. Spiritual yes. Religious? No.
Go into a Scientology church and find someone wearing a robe. You can’t because they don’t exist. Find a candle. You can’t because there aren’t any except for when the electricity gets turned off because the Idle Org can’t pay their bills. Oh sure there’s a token cross symbol here and there, an odd mix in a building that otherwise looks “corporate Miscavige” -- that’s their art motif. That’s why many people -- the very people the Church is supposed to help -- look at the CoS and think “%@&# fraud!”
Go into any house of worship and observe. You will see people worshiping. None of that exists in Scientology except at the Int base where they slavishly worship Adolf Miscavige.
Phony Sunday services
In the Christian church, Sunday services are the primary service they deliver. We as Scientologists don’t attend Sunday service. LRH expected a Scientologist to get trained as an auditor in the Academy and go up the Bridge to Clear and OT. These days, even Miscavige’s unfriendly but glitter-laminated “Idle Orgs” have few to no students on Academy training, much less people coming in for “Sunday services” that nobody in Scientology has any interest in.The implementation of “Sunday services” was put in by the old Guardian’s Office to “church up” Scientology so it could qualify as a religion.
Attending Scientology Sunday services isn’t even on the radar... unless it’s your BS radar. So who is the “Church” of Miscavige kidding?
Loyalty
But it goes deeper than that. Let’s examine the subject of loyalty.Scientologists who joined staff in years past dedicated their lives to something. And if you asked them, they might answer different allegiances. Some people apparently dedicated their lives to the Sea Org. Some dedicated their lives to expanding Scientology. Some dedicated their lives to helping LRH. But if you want to know who your loyalty should go to, why don’t you look at whom LRH dedicated his life to helping.
We live on a planet full of people. The purpose of Scientology is to help the world one individual at a time.
It’s not about DM, the Church or LRH. It’s about the human race because Scientology is an effort to help the human race one by one.
That concept in inherent in LRH’s earliest writings. The only way to ensure a sane planet is to start making sane people, one at a time.
That’s why LRH cracked the table with his fist when officers of the Wichita Foundation suggested he outlaw mention of past lives.
So loyalty in Scientology has nothing to do with Adolf McRunt. It has everything to do with people -- your own 4th dynamic family. It’s all about helping them, because them is we.
Admin scale
Scientologists have a piece of technology called an Admin Scale. It is a hierarchy of elements relating to an activity: goals, purposes, plans, projects, orders, statistics, valuable final products, ideal scenes, etc. When trying to improve an activity, one of the things you can do is make sure that all elements of the activity are in alignment.Here’s an example of an activity that doesn’t align within itself: We have a goal of helping people, so the people are threatened, offended, insulted, cheated and robbed of their money. Staff are beaten, threatened and treated like slaves... that is an example of an organization whose Admin Scale is not in alignment.
The goal of Scientology is to help individuals one at a time, to make a safe environment, and thereby to make a better, happier, saner world where people can flourish and prosper, where war is a thing of the past, where people are free to rise up to greater heights.
Therefore if our purpose is to help as many people in the world as possible, it behooves us not to poison the well of public opinion by calling Scientology something other than what it really IS. Why obfuscate reality? Affinity, Communication and Understanding depend on it!
Calling Scientology a religion is a deal breaker for many people who could otherwise use a hand. Even worse, to many the claim is not only a deal breaker but fighting words. We are now talking about actually creating hostility among the very people Scientology philosophy is supposed to help.
Let’s say some people needed your help. So the very first thing you do is throw scalding water in their faces. Wow, now they are hostile. Does that make the job easier? I’m going to say no.
Generating hostility
Now what the Church of Miscavige manages to do is perhaps the number one stupidest piece of mental idiocy in the history of Scientology. It convinces itself the reason for the public’s hostility is because “the public respond reactively and with hostility toward anyone who would try to help them.”In short, the Church of Scientology believes the world is populated by suppressive individuals -- a bank dominated mob -- who instinctively want to destroy anything good.
So what is left is the perfect vicious circle: the Church offends and repulses its own public and creates hostility toward Scientology by masquerading as a religion which it is not. Then the Church mis-assigns the reason for public’s hostility to “reactive impulses” and then the Church treats the public it is supposed to be helping as though they are hostile to the philosophy, which further inflames and infuriates them.
That translates into this: the Church views all public as suppressive persons because they are hostile to the Church. But the public are hostile to the Church because the Church lies and treats the public like suppressive persons.
In other words, instead of being auditors to the world, the Church itself has become the reactive mind it was designed to handle and is now busy blowing people off the route, handing out wrong indications en masse and treating people as suppressives. Thus the Church is creating the very hostility it suffers from which further convinces them that the world is populated by enemies.
Seeing suppressive persons everywhere, the Church has truly gone Type III.
Ideal scene
Imagine an operating climate for Scientology that lacked animosity. No allegations of a cult, because David Miscavige and his corrupt DBs (degraded beings) were thrown out en route to prison, where they belong.Imagine a philosophy that didn’t create anger and hostility because it simply called itself what it was, thus mirroring its own ideal of “truth” in its very description.
And so we come finally to what Scientology is: a spiritual philosophy. That’s what it IS.
Tax exemption
Let's discuss Scientology's tax exemption.
Let’s take a drive down reality street. Reality street is paved throughout every town in the world. You can go clear across the United States. Pick any route you like. Pass through any towns, small or large. Wherever you go, you will see churches. In every neighborhood you will see churches.
And not one of them will be a Church of Scientology.
Thirty one years ago when I got into Scientology there was a tiny mission in Houston. Today, there is still a tiny mission in Houston. Do you know how big Houston is? Thirty one years ago Dallas had about 75 full-time staff members. Today there is a great big empty building out in the sticks (Idle Org) and about 35 actual staff.
The Church of Scientology, “saving” all that imaginary money on taxes, has become so tiny as to be almost imperceptible in the general landscape. Compared to any other church, Scientology isn’t even on the map.
They aren’t “saving” anything. In San Francisco, they are giving away compact fluorescent light bulbs as a means of getting people into the Church for a “tour.” Can anything be more pathetic?
When you create mistrust among 50% to 75% of your public, when you offend people and create an operating climate of hostility because they see you as a fraud, the waste is nearly 100%.
Which would you rather have: an ocean of money but pay taxes on it, or two pennies in a tin teacup and not pay taxes?
If you selected the ocean, you could pay a lot of taxes and still have plenty. If the tin tea cup, well, things are kind of tight. Maybe that’s why Miscavige just shakes people down for cash and doesn’t even bother making auditors?
Personally, I’m not interested in Scientology’s tax exempt status, but since so many non-Scientologists bring up the subject as if Scientology is saving a bundle, I just wanted to point out the obvious omitted income which dwarfs any ignominious savings.
Besides, there is no reason under the sun that Scientology couldn’t be a nonprofit. And donations could still be tax deductible without having to have a religious status.
Coming out of the pigeon hole
Considering the definition of “religion” used by most of the Western world, Scientology is not one even remotely. It's bigger than that.
Trying to force fit the spiritual philosophy of Scientology into being a religion is like trying to jam a whole city into a parking lot. Why pigeonhole it?
Sure, Scientology deals with the soul. It rehabilitates spiritual abilities. It definitely can legally qualify as a religion. There is no disputing that. There is no reason Scientology can't have ministers. Can't offer Sunday services. Can't perform marriages and funerals and all the rest. But let's not dumb it down by calling it a "religion."
Scientology requires no faith, no belief. It just works. There are no candles, crosses or incense; no hymn books; no Sunday School teachers, robed preachers or solemn Latin phrases. No pews of people with nothing to go on but faith alone.
That faith is what sustains them. Yet they could surely use a few answers to questions like why are we here? What happens after we die? Who are we? Where do we come from? Those are philosophic questions that are answered in Scientology.
But by placing those answers in a jar labeled "religion" we would force people to violate the terms of their own faith, to violate their own religion that they already have in order to reach for Scientology. If we put the correct label on the jar by calling Scientology what it actually is -- a spiritual philosophy -- then the whole world can reach freely for those answers and benefit from them.
Scientology IS a living vibrant spiritual philosophy.
Simple.
Written by Thoughtful