W
_By Chris Duncan
Science_
eird
A
s the only religious group to appear in the 20
th
century,
a lot has been said about Scientology. With celebrity
supporters such as Tom Cruise, Beck and Isaac Hayes
the movement has gone from strength to strength in
recent years. Of course, not everyone has been pleased
to see the group gain power.
This year both the human rights group Liberty and the
City of Edinburgh have backed the rights of protesters
who use the word ‘cult’ to describe the Church of
Scientology. During a protest against Scientology on May
10
th
in London, police confiscated a 15 year-old boy’s
placard which read “Scientology is not a religion. It is a
dangerous cult.” He was issued with a court summons
but no further action was taken.
The internet based protest group Anonymous have been one of the fiercest critics of
the Scientology movement, often holding protests at headquarters across the world.
Wearing the mask of V from the movie V for Vendetta, protesters hold signs about
Scientology being a cult; prevent members of the Church from carrying out stress
tests and aim to warn the public about the Church’s disconnection policy.
Anonymous’ ongoing protests are part of Project Chanology, a war against Scientology
that began in response to the Church’s attempts to remove an interview with Tom
Cruise from YouTube. The project formed in response to Scientology’s supposed
attempt to “censor the internet” and Anonymous are aiming to “expel the Church
from the internet”. Project Chanology uses non-violent protest and disruption of
service tactics to prevent the Church from carrying out their activities. Anonymous’
tactics have ranged from protests outside headquarters, prank phone calls, website
attacks and black faxes.
The main areas of Scientology’s operation that Anonymous are concerned about are
its disconnection policy, its religious tax avoidance status and its censorship about
information surrounding the Church. Their disconnection policy is designed to make
followers cut themselves off from friends and family who are not deemed as having
a positive effect on the Church. The disconnection policy has ended marriages and
separated children from their parents. In 1996 the Daily Mail newspaper reported on
a disconnection letter that Scientologist Karen Henslow had sent to her mother. A
section of it read;
“Dear Mother, I am hereby disconnecting from you because you are suppressive to
me. You evaluate for me, invalidate me, interrupt me and remove all my gains. And
you are destroying me. I [unreadable] from this time consider myself disconnected
from you and I do not want to see you or hear from you again. From now you don’t
exist in my life.”
Due to Scientology’s religious status they are not required to pay any taxes,
something which had lead to fierce criticism of the Church by those who see it as a
cult and not deserving of such benefits. Critics of Scientology believe that followers
of the group should not need to pay to reach the later levels of the Church and
discover its teachings. These secret teachings were what intrigued most people
about Scientology.
However, after decades of using copyright laws to protect their secrets, the teachings
of Scientology are now available to anyone who cares to carry out an internet search.
Scientologists are told that if they hear the secret teachings too early then they will
become sick and die. Paying thousands of pounds to reach the next level of their
faith, in order to arrive at the so called “Bridge to Total Freedom” followers could end
up parting with hundreds of thousands of pounds.
For a “religion” created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, it may not come as
a surprise that the “Bridge of Total Freedom” is a little hard to believe. Scientology
teaches that humans first came to the earth from outer space 75 million years ago,
sent into exile here by an evil warlord named Xenu, according to church documents.
Xenu transported human souls to Earth and dropped the souls - called “Thetans”
- into volcanoes on Hawaii and in the Mediterranean, before blowing them up with
hydrogen bombs.
With claims such as these it is easy to understand why Scientology has received
such negative from various people. But with a large following and an even larger
bank balance it looks as though their presence will be felt for some time yet.
_www.scotcampus.com
_29_Substance
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