scientology hides its true, greedy, virulent intentions

I am truly sick of seeing Tom Cruise's face everywhere, and I especially hate hearing him speak. He seems like the sort of person who thinks he knows everything but actually knows next to nothing, exactly the kind of person that would fall for the pseudo-science and pseudo-religion of Scientology. In this article from The Triangle, Aaron Sakulich exposes the greed and deadly ways of L. Ron Hubbard's cult.

But, surely, perhaps even such a nutcase like Hubbard could have started a decent group. Not so. Scientology is complex, but the basic structure seems to be something like this: everyone has problems. Some of these problems are just the problems of daily lives, while others come from past lives whose troubles still haunt us. The way to get rid of these troubles is to undergo "auditing" sessions with Scientologists. After a certain number of sessions, you've been cured of some of your troubles, and you get to move up the "tone scale." If you're near death, you're at the "chronic apathy" level of .05. You can move up through anger, grief, boredom, conservativism, all the way up to enthusiasm, at a tone-scale rating of 4.0. Most people, of course, are pretty low on the scale, and the only way to move up is through Scientologist training and auditing sessions.

So why does this sound so bad? Because these sessions aren't free. It's like a modern day Indulgence system: you pay out more and more money to Scientology, and you rise higher and higher in rank. But is the tone scale really that bad? Surely, it's just a tool to gauge a person's level of happiness? The words of L. Ron Hubbard himself say it most succinctly:

"...any person from 2.0 down on the tone scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind" (Science of Survival, Part I, Page131)

Feeling nervous yet? Again, in his words:

"There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the tone scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the tone scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow." (Science of Survival, Part I, Page157)

Scary stuff. Somebody ought to tell Mr. Cruise what Scientology is really all about. And maybe somebody can teach him how to act, too. Real acting, that is, not just mugging the camera.