Re: OP on scientology and feelings:
In terms of scientology culture, I know the fact that psychologists ask the question "How did that make you feel?" was the brunt of many a laugh and joke in scientology. It was considered really really wrong to ask such a question. The scientology culture "said" that psychology spent way, way too much time worrying about people's feelings. I see it as just another way to put down psychology. As if that was all psychology ever did, was ask for peoples feelings. The idea was that this kind of questioning by psychologists turned the person into a "victim" who was nothing more than his emotions.
Ironically, in scientology "two way communication" (an auditing and interviewing technique) you ask, "Do you have any feelings about (blank)?", among other questions. Why is it wrong when psychologists ask for feelings and right when scientologists ask for them? They are two different wordings of the exact same question.
"Emotion" is considered a negative in scientology, if it's not high on their tone scale, and especially if it's outside of an auditing session. Hence the term "mis-emotion" which is defined as any unpleasant emotion. So if you cry or get angry or any such thing, it is considered that there is "something wrong with you", you need a session, you have overts, etc. In the system of scientology hierarchy, negative emotion may flow down the command channel, but not up. Even though all "emoting" supposedly comes from the "reactive mind", scientology's version of the sub-conscious, it is not considered bad if an executive gets angry and berates or even beats up his junior in the way David Miscavage does or Marty Rathbun did. If your senior is screaming at you, you are expected to show no emotion and just take it (the screaming is called face-ripping) and if you react, it is because "you have undisclosed crimes" against scientology. In a mind control system, everything you think and feel, must be controlled, must fit into the "box" of approved or disapproved emotions, all at the approved or disapproved times. And yes, it was this way before David Miscavage came along, for those of you who want to blame all this on him. At my org, over the years and going back to before DM, we had at least 2 Exec Dirs who physically abused their staff. Another who face ripped as a daily routine. The scientology system, exactly as LRon wrote it, breeds this kind of behavior from executives. Along with a robotic and unresponsive sub group of underlings and and yes-people, all "making it go right!", all carrying out "command intention!"
If you cry too much at a funeral, you must get a session to "run it out". If you cry for hours and hours in an auditing session, it's okay because it's all on your paid hours and it just means that you will have to buy more auditing. The validity or invalidity of feelings or emotions in scientology depends solely on whether or not they support the scientology system in some way, or go against it. There is no other criteria. That's a mind control system- part of the milieu control.
The scientologists on this board will tell you "Oh yeah, emotions are cool in scientology". Only in the glib and deluded world they live in. Their emotions may be cool now, but only because technically they're out of scientology, practicing their very own home made version of the subject, where they may have decided to place emotions back on a level where they belong. But that's because of them and who they are and it has nothing to do with "scientology", really.