Scientology and Baseball
Did you know that in 2006 the minor league baseball team, the Newark Bears, hosted a scientology night? Now most people in North America are familiar with baseball, but fewer with the Church of Scientology. However, I believe scientology can be understood in an analogous way. First some questions for scientologists, and after that more on baseball.
First: Explaining the Seriousness of Engrams and the Importance of Auditing
Dianetics says that most people suffer from numerous aberrative engrams, which are not analytical mind memories, but rather reactive mind recordings stored at the cellular level (Dianetics p.184-185). Hubbard wrote that pre-natal engrams are often far more serious than post-natal engrams (Dianetics p.223) He wrote than an aberrant [non-clear] individual may have hundreds of engrams. (Dianetics p.110-111)
Q1.1. So on average, how many engrams do you think a typical thetan [roughly person] is "infected" with in their nine-months before their actual birth?
Q1.2 How many of those pre-natal engrams do you think clear up on their own? L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "The basic engrams or engrams in the basic area - around the embryo period - cannot vanish and will not vanish short of therapy,..." Dianetics p.310
Q1.3. How old do you think you, that is your thetan, is? One audited person said they lived nine galaxy periods ago, but they did not specify how long a galaxy period was. (Have You Lived Before This Life p.84) Another past life was claimed to be 78 trillion years ago (Have You Lived Before This Life p.87) though the auditor noted that he person might have been mistaken and was at least 2 trillion years too long. Another audited person apparently suffered mentally today because of the torture they had received 3 million years ago. (Have You Lived Before This Life p.191). So how old do you think your thetan is?
Second: Knowing the Cost
L. Ron Hubbard says that we have been around for 76 trillion years. (Scientology: 8-8008 p.76)
Q2.1. So in all your _____ past lives, if you had on average _____ engrams added pre-natally, (not counting the post-natal engrams here), how many engrams would have affected you by now?
Q2.2. How many engrams could an auditor be expected to clear in an well-spent hour of auditing. Auditing sessions can vary in price, but if the price were $100 per hour, how much would you have to pay scientology to clear all those engrams?
Q2.3. Given the number of engrams, some have spent $250,000 in scientology (Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality p.431), and one French scientologist spent $200,000 for a few weeks' services at a scientology center in Florida. (Scientology : What Do They Believe? p.13) When you joined, did they tell you how much you would need to pay, to not only be clear, but to also achieve the 15 higher OT levels?
Third: Advanced Outdates the Basic
Q3.1 I am sure you will agree that there are a lot of different styles of psychological counseling out there. If a person were to go to a counseling center, and not know anything about the different counseling philosophies, how could they objectively know if it was any good or not? How could they knew whether they were using outdated of bogus info, of they were making claims that were frauds?
Q3.2 Are you familiar with what L. Ron Hubbard subsequently wrote about Dianetics? He said that Dianetics was only an evolutionary step; scientology is much more embracing. Scientology: 8-8008 p.22
Q3.3 Why do you think towards the end of his life, L. Ron Hubbard had another organization, the Church of Spiritual Technology. It had assets of over $500 million. Should people be studying that, and not Dianetics or Scientology?
Fourth: Just How Important are Pre-natal Engrams?
Dianetics heavily emphasizes pre-natal engrams, such as on p.215. Dianetics p.223 says that a pre-natal engram is far more serious than a post-natal engram. Here are common pre-natal engrams that come up many times.
Mother's stomach hit or otherwise hurt while pregnant. Dianetics p.203-204,227, 261, 297 (2X), 305, 333, 338, 340, 367
Sex while pregnant. Dianetics p.227, 294-296, 311-313, 370, 370-371, 372, hint of possibility on p.464
Illicit sex by the mother while pregnant. Dianetics p.296, 501, 524
Illicit sex by the mother. Dianetics p.501
Father violent towards mother when she was pregnant. Dianetics p.414-415, 455-456
Talk of divorce. Dianetics p.378
Attempted abortion pre-natal background. Dianetics p.191, 227-228, 257, 263-264, 278, 296, 305, 315, 340,341, 342, 344-345, 367, 375, 380, 382-383, c.372, 408?, 427, 437, 444, 512-513, 518, 524, 539
Discussion of getting rid of the baby/fetus. Dianetics p.129, 258, 297, 334, 338, 381, 495-496, 500
Illness of pregnant mother. Dianetics p.372-373, 407, 445
Q4.1 According to the Scientology book Have You Lived Before This Life p.38, sometimes a person [thetan] who dies immediately grabs a baby's body after it is born. Similarly, a thetan without a body might follow a pregnant woman down the street (Have You Lived Before This Life p.40). Did the thetan experience the pre-natal engrams the baby's body had before the thetan possessed the body? Do you think thetans could be doing this regularly, to avoid those nasty pre-natal engrams?
Q4.2 Have You Lived Before This Life p.40 gives another very interesting fact. Sometimes thetans without a body might hang around an accident section of a hospital, and find some body that is hurt and the previous thetan has taken off, and so they will pick up the body. Then they pretend to be a person's husband, wife, or similar. How could you tell if that happened to your husband, wife, mother, or father. If that happened to your own body, would you be aware of it?
Q4.3 In one case a thetan can take control of a mother and father and throw them into sexual frenzies, and presumably conceive a child. Then the thetan took over the baby's body at birth to torment the mother. Have You Lived Before This Life p.154. How can you or I know if we were thetans like that?
Fifth: Lessons Learned from Auditing
Dianetics p.27 says that the thetan [roughly person] is utterly incapable of recalling error, at least when it is fed good data?
Q5.1 How could an auditor discover that a person was the leader of a sector of the Roman Army in North Africa 3,225 years ago, or about 1225 B.C.? (Have You Lived Before This Life p.100) The Carthaginians occupied North Africa before the Romans ever did and the Carthaginians did not come until around 750 B.C.
Q5.2 How could a person have died at Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 500 B.C.? (Have You Lived Before This Life p.136,141) He said there was a five mile wide flow of lava, which geologists today should be able to pick up. There was no eruption of Vesuvius in 500 B.C.. Instead, a major eruption was in 79 A.D.
Q5.3 How could an audited person in a past life encountered a Turkish man named Mustaph in the Mideast in 750 B.C.? (Have You Lived Before This Life p.170-173) The Turks did not enter the Mideast until after Mohammed's time.
Sixth: Scientology and Medicine
"Ron attempted to make all his discoveries available to the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. Despite the fact that his work would have benefited them and thereby society immensely, his offers were refused. These same vested interests decided that Dianetics could harm their profits (which were and still are based on the amount of illness and insanity in our culture) and began to attack Ron and his work." Advanced Procedures and Axioms p.172-173
Q6.1 Do you believe almost childhood illnesses are caused by engrams? "Almost all childhood illnesses are preceded by psychic disturbance and if psychic disturbance is present - keeping an engram restimulated - such illnesses can be far more violent than they should be." (Dianetics p.145). If so, couldn't thetans avoid all this by only going into babies when they are born? Then there should be almost no childhood illnesses.
Q6.2 Do you believe that Pre-natal suggestions of father to kill the baby if it does not look like him can make noses long or hair absent, or make someone go into a profession they do not want to do, as Dianetics p.495-496 says?
Q6.3 Over 25,016 years ago a person was zapped with beams that produced commands [engrams]. He was zapped in his forehead and below. Do you agree that his scientology treatment improved his resistance to colds? ( Have You Lived Before This Life p.263-265)
Seventh: Scientology vs. Reality
"Reality could be defined as 'that which appears to be.' Reality is fundamentally agreement. What we agree to be real is real.'" The Components of Understanding p.6
Q7.1 Scientology: 8-8008 p.6 says that there is the universe created by one's viewpoints, the universe created by every other viewpoint, and the universe created by the mutual action of viewpoints. Do you believe are have your own personal universe?
Q7.2 Scientology: 8-8008 p.50 says that thetans above a tone level of 40.0 can create space as they wish. Do you believe that you have created space before, or that you will be able to create space in the future?
Q7.3 Do you believe that if someone burns their fingers, they can mock up their fingers four times, that will make the pain subside? (Scientology: 8-8008 p.59)
Eighth: Scientology and the Law
Q8.1 Are you aware of all the legal judgments against the Church of Scientology?
The IRS denied tax exempt status to Scientology because it said the profits were for the benefit of L. Ron After more than a decade or court battles, the Church of Scientology lost in September 24, 1984
In California, Judge Breckenridge said the following in the Gerald Armstrong lawsuit: "In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the organization over the years ... has harassed and abused those persons not within the Church whom it perceives as enemies. The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH [L. Ron Hubbard]. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile."
He also said, "After the within suit was filed . . . Defendant Armstrong was the subject of harassment, including being followed and surveilled by individuals who admitted employment by Plaintiff; being assaulted by one of these individuals; being struck bodily by a car driven by one of these individuals; having two attempts made by said individuals apparently to involve Defendant Armstrong in a freeway automobile accident; having said individuals come onto Defendant Armstrong's property, spy in his windows, create disturbances, and upset his neighbors. During trial when it appeared that Howard Schomer (a former Scientologist) might be called as a defense witness, the Church engaged in a somewhat sophisticated effort to suppress his testimony." Why would people try to run the defendant off the highway?
In Great Britain, here is what Justice Latey, ruled in the High Court in London in 1984: "Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious... it is corrupt, sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is based upon lies and deceit and has as its real objective money and power for Mr. Hubbard, his wife and those close to him at the top. It is sinister because it indulges in infamous practices both to its adherents who do not toe the line unquestioningly and to those who criticize or oppose it. It is dangerous because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult, withdrawn from ordinary thought, living and relationships with others." Why would he think that?
In France in the 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard was sentenced in absentia to a prison term for fraud, or that in July 1990 the president and other offices of the French Church of Scientology were arrested in France. Charges were related to fraud, financial dealings, and practicing medicine without a license (regarding what they call a "Purification Rundown")?
In Canada in March 1983, the police raided the Church of Scientology offices in Toronto, with a 158 page warrant, resulting in charges in December 1984. Charges included stealing psychiatric files from a hospital in Ontario.
Q8.2 Are you aware of the many lawsuits Scientology initiated against others?
In 1983, the Legal office of the Church admitted that it did not know how many suits were outstanding in England alone. So many writs had been issued for libel it had lost track. In 1968, thirty-eight libel suits were dropped by the Church in England. Cases which continued were uniformly lost by the Church.
Boston attorney Michael Flynn won fourteen of the sixteen complaints brought against him by the Church, the remaining two being withdrawn. The Church has from time to time filed suits against the FBI, the IRS, the Justice Department, Interpol and even against Henry Kissinger (for $800 million).
Scientology has filed hundreds of cases over the years. Most have been withdrawn before trial, and most others have been lost.
Q8.3 Are you aware of the many media articles on Scientology? Here are a few of them.
Time Magazine May 6, 1991 cover story "Scientology : The Cult of Greed"
Reader's Digest May 1980 and September 1981
United Press International. Scientology May Be Monitored in Berlin. Jan. 10, 2007
Evening Standard (Great Britain) "Labour given thousands by Scientology charity" 12.01.07
The Mercury News (San Jose, California) "Scientology Groups to Pay Back $3.5 Million from Slatkin Scheme"
BBC "Police Scientology Gifts Inquiry" Nov 22, 2006
The Sunday Times (Great Britain) "Revealed: how scientologists infiltrated British schools" Jan. 28, 2007
Many others at http://www.clambake.org/archive/media.html
Ninth: The Veracity of L. Ron Hubbard
Contrary to what Hubbard claims, The Reader's Digest May 1980 found that U.S. Navy records do not indicate Hubbard saw combat, much less taken crippled and blinded. He was discharged and given a 40% pension because of an ulcer, arthritis, and other problems. He also was not a nuclear physicist, but rather took a course in molecular and atomic physics, which he failed. He was also arrested for petty theft. Mary Sue Hubbard was his third wife. Scientology : What Do They Believe? p.11
Q9.1 If Hubbard lied about his war record, and he lied about scientology helping cure his own non-existent wounds, would that reduce his credibility in his claims to cure others?
Q9.2 Were you aware that L. Ron Hubbard made medical claims about the purification program, that not only are wrong, but can be fatal? Hubbard was sentenced to prison in France in Absentia for practicing medicine without a license.
Q9.3 Are you aware that Hubbard eldest son (not a Christian) called his father "one of the biggest con men of this century". He has written a book exposing scientology called "Madman or Messiah? by Ronald E. DeWolf. (He changed his last name to not be associated with Hubbard.)
We could probably agree that it is important to go to an honest person that will not lie about their record, or teach things to millions and then change their mind. Jesus was sinless and His teaching is a valuable today as it was when He first came.
Baseball and Scientology (finally)
In baseball, even if a batter gets out, the team still gets to bat until there are three outs in an inning. In professional baseball there are nine innings. When a team gets out that many times, and loses, the game is over.
Now the preceding was three questions for "inning" and nine "innings". Now if someone finds a piece of evidence contrary to their belief, they might tend to ignore the evidence; perhaps it is bad data. But if there are at least 3 X 9 items that question the truthfulness of scientology, then it is time to quit and hit the showers. Stop playing games, and get back to reality.
There is one original, supreme being, who is far more than any thetan you could imagine. If you are like an ostrich with its head in the sand, reality can bite. Look at reality with your eyes open, and seek its maker.
For more info please contact Christian Debater™ P.O. Box 144441 Austin, TX 78714 www.BibleQuery.org
by Steven M. Morrison, PhD.