Ever had an experience with Scientology?

[mykpart]

I did about 1970 in Dallas. They had advertised a free personality test, so a friend and I went to the HQ to take the test. These people were like Stepford people. They wrote notes to each other signed "Love." Of course I was told my personality was all screwed up, but if I would sign up for their courses I could improve and also improve my physical health! The people stared deep into my eyes and it was very uncomfortable to say the least. I swear I could not leave until I had given them $10 (which they called "flow money"). I thought that I was rid of them and the $10 was worth it to be rid of them, but they started calling me with all kinds of wierd things. They called me periodically for the next two years. I remember one time they called to invite me to a party for some of their members who had just returned from the moon! I can't believe this religion has become popular among famous people. It is sooooo sick. Also the courses are terribly expensive, $10,000,
$20,000. Anybody else had similar experiences?

[babylonsister]

1. I was sent a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's book that

I never read. The friend who sent it never referred to it, but after she visited, never got in touch again. Our lifestyle wasn't OK, but it was never pushed on us.

[JI7]

2. yes

i hate them. i was about 18-19 and stupidly thought it had to do with science. but i did get out of it fast and knew it was crap throughout the time i spent there.

[mykpart]

3. Did it feel a little like a cross between Witchcraft and brainwashing?

[JI7]

7. it had an obvious culitish feeling about it

but i never actually fell for it. i paid for their first course to learn more. but the more i stayed the more i just saw it for the fraud it was.

they made me sign some privacy thing about how i'm not part of the govt or wont do this or that.

like you they told me i was pretty fucked up after the first personality test. when i took it after the first course they claimed i had improved some but needed more improvement and of course that's where the 2nd course would come in.

i remember i told them i didn't believe in what they claimed and they kept making me do their "test" or whatever it was over and over again. i finally lied and said i understood it just to get out.

[Nevernose]

4. People are gullible, or maybe just plain stupid

People right here on DU, for instance, believe that Atkantis was built by a race of psychic aliens. If it makes them happy, and they'er willing to pay, and no one forces them to cut off contact w/ their family, I really don't see the harm, though I could probably go on for hours about how a religion that claims to embrace "science" has nothing to do with the aforementioned subject -- Trekkies, a much more tolerable bered of weirdos, coined the most accurate phrase -- technobabble.

[Maddy McCall]

5. My crazy-ass ex-husband claimed, before we were married, that...

he had read Dyanetics and that it had changed his life.

That right there should have been a red flag to me that the guy was crazy as a loon.

[pinniped]

6. They pulled that same free personality test crap on my friend, but...

quickly lost interest when they determined he didn't fit their profile.

Edit.

[Systematic Chaos]

8. I almost went into the Vegas branch of that church once

It is (or was) located right across the street from what used to be the best video game and pinball arcade in town back in the 80's. We were just out of high school and walking back to his house and we ALMOST stopped by to see what was up. Since we were both lapsed Catholics we thought it would be interesting to examine another point of view.

My friend got cold feet, though. He was thinking that it was possible that they'd try a little too hard to convert us, keeping us longer than we wanted to stay or even detaining us. We had some pretty wild imaginations, but then it doesn't sound like he was too far off the mark now. :shrug:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. Not Scientology, but something similar called "EST"

Erhard Seminars Training, or "EST" supposedly combines scientology with Buddhism. The founder of EST, a man named Werner Erhard was influenced by both systems of thought (I'm not comparing Buddhism to Scientology).

Back in about 1980, I had lost my car and was hard up for money so I applied for a job at the neighborhood 7-11 as a clerk. The 7-11 company required lie detector tests from all their employees. A van came to the store where I was to be hired with the lie detector test equipment in the rear. The lady administering the test was gung-ho on this new age cult called EST. After my test was over, this lady began rambling on and on about the benefits of EST and how it had changed her life. The rear doors of the van were locked and she was barring the only egress in front of me. She described a 60-hour training marathon where some kind of tough awareness training took place meant to shock a person out of their complacent existence and wake them up to a new reality about their place in the world. It was a lot of mumbo jumbo for which she wanted $300 from me to join and attend the training. She wouldn't let me go and I must have spent an hour nodding politely in the back of that van. She seemed like a person possessed. I finally had to forcibly move her out of the way and leave. She came by the store one more time after I was hired to see if I wanted to join.

I googled "EST" just now out of curiosity and apparently it has renamed itself as the "Landmark Foundation" and it has spread throughout the world, operating in dozens of countries.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

10. Went with a new girl friend way back to a personality test thing

in Hollywood somewhere. The guy giving the test starts
looking at the audience and saying how beautiful everybody
was, looking at each person real slow and intense and phony.
So the first test question was something like, "Do you ever
feel like people are looking at you?" and I'm thinking, Yeah,
that phony oddball leading the meeting was just sure as hell
looking at me. So I didnt feel like taking the damn test and
ruin a good day so I get up and start wandering around the
joint while my gf took the test, but I wasnt going to wear
the damn nametag they give you, because I just got out of the
army and fuck nametags. So one of the pods rolls up on me
smiling and asks me if I have a nametage. I have one, I say, but I
just got out of the army to protect your freedom to believe this
shit, and I'm done with nametags. Could you put the nametag on?
No, didnt you just hear what I said? Youll have to leave. Oh,
dear, bye.

[Sgent]

11. My aunt (who I'm close to)

was heavily involved for a few years after her divorce, and spent a LOT of money -- although I don't know how much, it was well over 40k with them. This is a school teacher without much income, and I was truley sad to see it.

She eventually left and the guy she's been dating for a few years was the former treasurer of the international association (lived on the boat with L. Ron Hubbard, etc). He also left many years ago after L Ron Hubbard's death.

I think the whole thing is a bunch of crap, although I probably know more about it than most people actually in the religion(I'm close to her). They both left after they discovered it wasn't solving their problem's like its supposed to once you reach the higher levels.

They now do some scientology stuff, and a whole slew of other pseudoscientific stuff. I figure its probably not worse than many other religions, and if it makes them happy more power to them.

Surprisingly enough, I stayed with them for two months when I was going outpatient mental health treatment for 6 hrs/day at a hospital close to them (I had no hospital near me). I never heard a word of derision against psychiatrists or pschotropics. Although they both think they are overprescribed, they also believe their is a biological issue, and that many people with serious issues need them.

[LibDemAlways]

12. I used to work with a woman whose husband was

a character actor. They were approached by scientologists and offered a weekend aboard a yacht to learn more. The husband declined, but the wife was curious and went. She was locked in a cabin against her will and finally escaped by jumping into the waters of a Los Angeles area harbor in the middle of the night and swimming to safety.

[Tom Kitten]

13. yes

but I do not want to talk about it except to say they hoodwinked me at a low point in my life long ago... I never believed it but they harass you if you try to leave. They sent handwritten letters to me for years afterward. How they knew how to follow me I have no idea. And this was after being involved with them for a month.
Definitely not a fan