I never found the promo appealing. It was too "slick" for me. It was too "glossy", and simply felt like it could just as well be selling insurance, mutual funds or a fancy new car. The "presentation" was always, YES, so incredibly "MESTY". I would much prefer a simple and plain little booklet with a title like "Sitting at the Feet of the Master" (or something like that).
Take a look at any of the endless glossy promotional magazines that come out of the various large MLM outfits, and I see the SAME sort of stuff. Lots of pictures of groups of happy smiling people. Pictures of people making money. Pictures of people LIVING THE DREAM!
I find also that the contrived enthusiasm so common to MLM organizations is also alive in Scientology.
I pretty much always found the over-the-top slick promo of Scientology to be distasteful and even contrary to any legitimate aim of "spiritual growth". The only publication I ever liked was "Advance Mag", and then I only liked the ONE main story and the OT success stories. The rest of it was shit.
Yes, the images are of a facade, or the external. I see it as a LURE, as a bright and flashy thing used to ATTRACT interest (and of course MONEY).
In this modern age of high-tech printing and computer graphics, it is routine to see everything and anything packaged and presented in
pretty packaging. Aesthetics is used to sell unhealthy things to the general public, as "beauty" has always been a "theta-trap".
Scientology does exactly what much of modern advertising attempts to do. It conducts surveys, tells you that what you want is exactly what they have, and spends fortunes trying to ASSOCIATE (in your mind) all of the pretty sounds and images with THEIR PRODUCT. The cigarette industry does this, though less these days due to laws. The alcohol industry does this. The fast food businesses do this. Much of what gets sold to you is NOT good or healthy for you, and these companies continue to spend huge amounts of money convincing you that these things ARE good for you in some way.
I was a hippie back in the early 70s, and being an intelligent person, I had then already read much about the deceit of modern industry and advertising. When I got into Scientology, it saddened me to see much of the same.
There is much written on how modern advertising firms utilize the modern subjects of sociology and psychology to form, activate, manipulate and adjust "desire". The desire for what they are selling. Scientology does exactly the same.
The problem with Scientology, as with so many other modern things promoted and sold, is that the products are either unhealthy in some way, or don't really do what they are purported to do.
In truth, when I was involved with Scientology, I never paid much attention to the promo. I had friends who also threw most of it in the garbage. The promo seems more aimed at the "new" person, or as a tool to push you up to the next step. Yes, promo is very much used in reg interviews.
I find that the magazines and such are part of the illusion, existing as part of the created lies of Hubbard.
One doesn't "live the dream" in Scientology. One gets tricked into attaching
ones own glorious hopes and wonderful dreams to this
empty shell of a system and movement known as Scientology. And, like in any MLM outfit, Scientology heavily pushes ideas such as "living the dream", "flourishing and prospering" (enjoying a better lifestyle), and "no free lunch" (people often pay TOP dollar for products in MLM outfits).
I have the view that Scientology, more than anything else, succeeds because it involves a very effective scam that encourages each member, without his or her conscious awareness, to attach ones own high and lofty ideals to a subject and system that is largely devoid of these things.
What decent person wouldn't want to help create a
world without war, crime or insanity? That is a wonderful goal. Such a goal might/will attract similarly-minded people. The big problem being that Scientology can't actually bring about that world, no matter how well any of the data is applied, and most likely Hubbard NEVER himself ever had
any intention for it to do that. Like so many things in Scientology, these things are assertions, claims and statements, with little or no basis in fact, that are used to encourage you to DEVOTE your time, energy and money to Hubbard's scam.
Many of the stated "ideals" and "goals" are placed there to trick and trap you into participating. They do sound good. But these ideals and goals will
never come about through involvement with Scientology!
The fish chasing after the bright and shiny lure has the idea that it is going to soon be enjoying a wonderful meal. It is quite SURE of it. But sadly, the end result is not AT ALL as imagined. Such is the nature of lures and trickery. The aim is to deceive. Hubbard did his job well in this regard. Much of what appears as "ideals" and wonderful "goals" in Scientology are of the nature of "lures". They are designed and intended to attract you into some trap. They are placed in front of you to mislead you, and these things pretend to be what they are not. Of course, we each make the mistake of following anyway, because we WANT TO BELIEVE that the statements are true and that they do exist as the "lures" that they actually are.
Yes, Scientologists ARE "living in a dream", as in "deluded" or "living in a dream world".
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