Re: Squirrel Busters
Great point!
And for many years since leaving the Good Ship ThetaPop, one of my primary realizations is that Scientology (and many religions I am familiar with) have as their dynamic goal simply this:
TO GET PARISHIONERS TO THINK THE SAME RIGHT THOUGHTS.
Nothing really happens from thinking those thoughts. Nobody actually goes to Paradise with 72 virgins. Nobody factually is granted passage to Heaven by doing what the local priest tells them. No one ever arrives at Operating Thetan exterior with full perception and Eternal Total Freedom.
The thought is the object of desire by the Church. The sameness of thought by individuals.
For what reason?
The only one I can think of is power over others.....which begets the flow of money & indentured servitude of others.
First, I am laughing my ass off on this one:
Good Ship ThetaPop (who was that - Shirley Temple?)
I coined a term many years ago, "human belief syndrome", possibly on BeliefNet or Factnet when discussing Scn in earlier days. It never caught on, but it describes the easily observable tendency of people to desire and possibly need that others agree and believe the SAME thing. It involves especially the behavior where one goes to great and varied extremes to foist these ideas upon others.
I don't doubt that people have used and continue to use "ideas" as a way to control others. Manipulation through belief has a LONG history.
But, I think it is more basic than that. Again, Hubbard talked about some of this - correctly as I see it - and then used it AGAINST his followers.
People, maybe as egos, seem to desire, require and even demand "being right". It is a fundamental urge, possibly that ties into basic survival as an organism, because if your are NOT "right", then you are DEAD! It seems the human person manifests/dramatizes this urge along the mental lines as "I am right" (and you are NOT). In the wild fight for raw physical survival in the animal kingdom, it is very much "me against everything else". THAT factor may translate over into the human being, mentally, as a version of "I am right" (and everybody else is NOT).
A basic aspect of nearly any ideology is that "it contains the ONLY truth", and all others do NOT. From the viewpoint of the participant, he or she truly believes that he UNDERSTANDS the "way things really are". He doesn't see his or herself as
holding a belief, or that other views may be correct, but instead, he experiences it as "I see the truth", "I observe the true nature of things", blah-blah-blah. A "true believer" does NOT recognize this in his or herself.
And, people who think that they truly see and understand the TRUTH often have an honest and sincere desire to
share this with others - because "it is the truth". EVERYBODY seems to have a concern for "truth" - the problem is that it is so differenly defined by so many different people and groups.
See, if you know that the local Nazi group down the street in Muchchen in 1937 was rounding up and killing Jews, as a FACT, as "truth" of the way things ARE, you might want to do something about it.
Just as, if you "know" that Ron Hubbard developed a "path" out of the eternal trap of the MEST universe, well then you, of course, want to spread the word and get others to benefit from the same.
The problem is that ANY person who "knows" anything, first ALWAYS sees self as "right", and second, wants to share this "right understanding" with others.
It gets tricky with religion because WHAT any person "knows" has much more to do with the imagination than with anything real or verifiable. In the case of the Nazi, one can locate and VIEW the tortured dead bodies. One can SHOW these dead bodies or pictures of these dead bodies to others. It is indisputable. But, when it comes to the subject material of much philosophy and religion, the OBJECTS and IDEAS are NOT able to be viewed - not outside of the MIND or IMAGINATION.
I don't doubt that some slick manipulators, like Hubbard, USED/USE the fact that all people demand to "be right" as a way to create agreement over some set of ideas, AND to benefit with power, money, fame, etc. But also, people will demand that they are "right", naturally, and as a matter of normal behavior, whether any person takes advantage of that tendency or not. And, if a person cares about others and has a desire to "help", he or she may also PUSH and WORK to get others to discover and understand "the facts" just as does he or she.
It is "natural" - like a hurricane or tornado. Just stay OUT of the way of such natural disasters (like Scientology).
Few people can TRULY see how every other person is just a version of
yourself with a different viewpoint and set of personal life experiences. We may be evolving to THAT understanding - and maybe not. This "I am right" vibe runs DEEP in the souls of the members of the human race. Possibly, this demand for "sameness of thought" is an INDIVIDUAL URGE, that gets taken advantage of, both naturally and accidentally, and intentionally at other times and places by scammers and manipulators.