PC: More mainstream Scientology

Hmm it might have been more mainstream if Hubbard himself was more mainstream. Of course he was a airport novel quality at his best, but if he was a better author, say on par with the big 3, his creation of such a movement could reach a broader audience
 

DougM

Donor
You need to remove the founder from the religion, not sure how you do that and keep it the same religion. But the founder had a few things that reflect badly on the religion. Not being a member much less “in the know” the issues at least as a typical person hears them is that the founder was doing this at least in part because the US tax system gave big advantages to religions. So the religion has always had a perceived connection to basically being a money-making venture.
On top of this the founder was a 2nd rate sci-fi writer and that gives the whole religion a bit of a “it’s a joke” reputation. Hard to take a guy seriously that invents new societies and aliens and such when he is talking religion.
This is made worse by the reasonablely wide spread roomer that the whole religion was nothing but a joke or a bet between the founder and others (usually rumored to be various well known sci fi authors). It gives the whole religion a bit of a “here, hold my beer” kind of feel.

So it is hard to take the religion seriously. Add in that a lot of Hollywood types are involved and that it tends to be those with a bit of a questionable rest and you are not helping. On top of this the reputation for “cult like practices” and that various other countries have issue with it and it is just looking worse.
Of course starting a new religion not related to any other religion in the mid 20th century is a bit hard.

Add this all together and I think if someone posted this idea to this forum it would be considered all but ASB I That it has doom as welll as it has. I mean have you been in Clearwater lately? And they are opening a place in Detroit soon. Not counting all the other places they are. So it is not like they are doing bad all things considered.
 
Hmm it might have been more mainstream if Hubbard himself was more mainstream. Of course he was a airport novel quality at his best, but if he was a better author, say on par with the big 3, his creation of such a movement could reach a broader audience
You makin' me think about a cult run by Asimov.
 
Only way I see this happening is with Hubbard being less...Hubbard. But that of course changes things to the point that Scientology probably doesn't exist. As was said earlier in the thread, high birthrates would help, I remember hearing somewhere that female members of SeaOrg (basically the church's clergy) are told to have abortions if they're in residence on the HQ ship. Replace that with a fertility cult type arrangement and it'd "help." Other than that I would say a more successful celebrity push (they've been lucky historically with it) could help push things forward. If they changed their rhetoric and had a halfway decent spokesperson to represent a less crazy version of their religion it would probably be viewed as a fairly mainstream, if a bit whacky, kind of thing.
 
@Veiovis is right, let Scientology have greater focus on expansion through by birth rates. If we mix this with the Scientology setting up "communes"/"kibbutz", where the member can live, work and raise their children. We would see the religion being bigger, and the bigger it becomes, the harder it becomes for people like Miscavige to monopolize power in the Church, which would lead the cult becoming somewhat normalized.

Not really, Miscavige's takeover was very methodic and thorough.

From purging all officers and replacing them with henchemen, to destroying the organization ran by Hubbard's wife and ousting her, to controlling the flow of information from and to Hubbard, to the swift takeover of Hubbard's seat after his death and the supression of Hubbard's order indirectly naming his successors (not him).

Those methods working pretty will in monopolizing power in the largest country on Earth, there is little reason to believe they would fail at a Church just because it got too big.

The only way I could see it happening is by Hubbard clearly naming his successor in a tight undeniable document that Miscavige cant call false, like a his legal will and a video, and Hubbard's successor not being a madman like Miscavige and having the foresight to boot him out of the Church.

It seems to do better in USA than in the rest of the world, maybe the rest of the world simply values FREEDOM(tm) more than Americans does/s

Because USA is very wierd and apparently having your own micro city-state (gold base) where people are locked up and abused, is okay as long as you fall under "Muh 1st amendment!" protection.

Still, just because US laws allow for a stalinist-like micro parallel state to exist within its borders, doesnt mean most of the population or even a sizable part would wish to subject themselves to it.
 
You need to remove the founder from the religion, not sure how you do that and keep it the same religion. But the founder had a few things that reflect badly on the religion. Not being a member much less “in the know” the issues at least as a typical person hears them is that the founder was doing this at least in part because the US tax system gave big advantages to religions. So the religion has always had a perceived connection to basically being a money-making venture.
On top of this the founder was a 2nd rate sci-fi writer and that gives the whole religion a bit of a “it’s a joke” reputation. Hard to take a guy seriously that invents new societies and aliens and such when he is talking religion.

Hubbard was very closely connected to Aleister Crowley, a major occultist. Perhaps you could have Hubbard's and Crowley's cults merge, though it would be a completely different religion and unrecognizable.

Or have Hubbard die early, when he is just laying Scientology, and through Crowley's cult attribute to him all sorts of supernatural claims, this spin out of control and Hubbard's fame and cult eclipses and hijacks Crowley's.

Hubbard gets attributed more and more feats and claims. Eventually he becomes pretty much the symbol of the "American Superman". The US government actively builds on the myth and spread it to create a culture of the "American Superman" in the context of the Cold War.

Scientology very early on becomes simply a self-improvement religion as there is nothing to go by except a primitive and general sketch of Dianetics.
 
Because USA is very wierd and apparently having your own micro city-state (gold base) where people are locked up and abused, is okay as long as you fall under "Muh 1st amendment!" protection.

Still, just because US laws allow for a stalinist-like micro parallel state to exist within its borders, doesnt mean most of the population or even a sizable part would wish to subject themselves to it.
It's not the 1st amendment, it's the 4th that protects them. Their veil of secrecy makes it hard to find probable cause for a warrant to search their property and get absolute confirmation of what is going on. Nobody wants to go after them without an airtight case, as they have deep pockets and a reputation for ruining people. They have been fairly successful at ensuring any witnesses to their wrongdoings are not seen as credible. While the US system is sometimes willing to skirt the edges of such protections, they usually have national security grounds, or go after targets that cannot defend themselves

One day it is likely the Scientologists will mess up and come tumbling down, but that may take awhile
 
Hubbard was very closely connected to Aleister Crowley, a major occultist. Perhaps you could have Hubbard's and Crowley's cults merge, though it would be a completely different religion and unrecognizable.

Crowley's relation to Hubbard and Parsons is detailed here. Apparently, after some initial enthusiasm, Crowley wrote the duo off as "louts" spewing "idiocy", figured out that Hubbard was a con artist before Parsons did, and was apparently supported by the American wing of the OTO in these views. Given that the Crowleyites had reached these conclusions prior to the founding of Dianetics, it's unlikely they would have joined up with him later on.
 
It's not the 1st amendment, it's the 4th that protects them. Their veil of secrecy makes it hard to find probable cause for a warrant to search their property and get absolute confirmation of what is going on. Nobody wants to go after them without an airtight case, as they have deep pockets and a reputation for ruining people. They have been fairly successful at ensuring any witnesses to their wrongdoings are not seen as credible. While the US system is sometimes willing to skirt the edges of such protections, they usually have national security grounds, or go after targets that cannot defend themselves

One day it is likely the Scientologists will mess up and come tumbling down, but that may take awhile

The FBI had a case for human trafficking against Scientology.

It was dropped becuase of a 1A case where the judge stated that..... churches were pretty much allowed to treat the members however the fuck they wanted, at least from what I recall reading.
 
The FBI had a case for human trafficking against Scientology.

It was dropped becuase of a 1A case where the judge stated that..... churches were pretty much allowed to treat the members however the fuck they wanted, at least from what I recall reading.
If that's Headly v. Scientology sort of. The Plaintiffs claimed psychologically coerced labor. The statue they tried to use was Human Trafficking Related, but requires Force, Physical Restraint, Harm, Threats or Improper Schemes, which could not be proven, and other facts related to the case ( the Headlys having the ability to leave and communicate with the outside) meant that Human Trafficking did not apply. The Ministerial Exemption that the Court only barred the court from examining certain supporting factors which would require them to look at Scientology's Doctrine and Scriptures, which they are barred from. It also is a sort of loophole in labor laws, which does apply

Its worth noting that the Judges say the Plaintiffs chose the wrong statue to sue under, and that Assault, Battery, False Imprisonment, or Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress among others would have probably fared better

The First amendment would not have protected Scientology if they had been able to prove use of force or imprisonment
 
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