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Kevin asked:

Yesterday, I was introduced by my brother to the ideas of the Church of Scientology. I looked for the
online websites, and I found first the anti- sites, who have some very disturbing things to say about
them. I am not sure what to think about it. I was wondering if you could provide me with a summary of
what is exactly, your opinion of its practices, and your professional opinion on the philosophical
concepts on which it is based.

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First, the story I heard was that Scientology was started by L. Ron Hubbard, a hack science fiction
writer (known and deified within Scientology as "Elron"), on a bet, at a party, that he could fool people
and start a cult. He was successful.

As you can see from the above, I believe (and have seen a lotof evidence) that this is a cult, that it is
based on deceit, manipulation, and junk science. In addition, members of this cult have resorted to
physical violence and intimidation against people who question it (I'm actually risking this, to some
extent — but not much, at this point, because of publicity of past incidents — by responding in this
way to you).

As far as I can tell (and since it's basically junk, I haven't spent much time on this), it is based on a
kind of Westernization of Zen, where the goal, instead of "enlightenment" is to be "clear". This means
something like being self-aware, knowing what your goals, motivations, etc., are, getting
"unblocked"... all fine-sounding stuff, right? The problem is that first, the wayto do this is very
specific, cut and dried, and you cannot question it. Second, you must devote your life to it, basically.
It's done through the use of a crude type of lie-detector, which (supposedly) indicates when you
answer questions unspontaneously... you're inhibited, so you're "blocking". Ugh, that kind of thing is
so ridiculously unreliable... not to mention that the construction of the questions is amazingly easy to
bias toward whatever the investigator wants... junk, as I say.

There have been NO, I repeat, NO unbiased (i.e., done by people not members of this cult) studies of
this that I know of that have said anything positive about it. Licensed and qualified therapists do not
practice it. No legitimate schools teach it. STAY AWAY. Get your brother out of it.

If you want enlightenment, find some way that doesn't require your unquestioning devotion and entire
resources. There are LOTS of legitimate teachers and schools of Zen, Yoga, etc., around.

Steven Ravett Brown