In the heart of Los Angeles, nestled between the glittering facades of Hollywood and the nondescript office buildings of downtown, stood a building that was neither here nor there in terms of architectural beauty or significance. Yet, it was whispered about in hushed, reverent tones among the hopeful and the curious: The Church of Scientology,…
Category: Cults
Off the Beaten Path: Discovering Cults Far From the Spotlight
A cult typically refers to a group bound by a shared, often extreme, set of beliefs and practices. Frequently, these beliefs revolve around an exaggerated focus on religious or cultural ideals, elevating one particular notion above all others. The critical distinction between cults and conventional religions often lies in the cult’s tendency towards isolation and…
Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Cult or a Misunderstood Faith?
In the tapestry of 19th-century religious movements, the Jehovah’s Witnesses stand out, woven from the threads of Charles Taze Russell’s theological explorations. Much like Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism by declaring existing Christian denominations as corrupted, Russell too embarked on a journey of spiritual questioning, only to conclude that none of the established faiths held…
The Peerless Military Commandership of Scientology’s General Douglas MacHubbard.
Ha ha … just kidding. At first, you thought that read Douglas MacArthur, who served as a career Army officer for the majority of his life. MacArthur, one of the few individuals to achieve a five-star rank, notably served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Scientology websites paint their founder’s wartime exploits…
Battlefield Earth … the kinda-sorta “Scientology” movie that swept the Golden Raspberry Awards claiming victory in 7 “Worst of” categories.
Battlefield Earth: A Scientology Saga of Cinematic Disaster Who can resist a good Scientology roast? Especially when it involves the perpetually tanned John Travolta and his passion project, Battlefield Earth. Based on L. Ron Hubbard’s sci-fi novel of the same name, this movie was a cinematic train wreck of epic proportions. Hubbard sent Travolta an…
All About Radiation, by Scientology’s nuclear physicist and medical doctor, L. Ron Hubbard
Click the LAUGH TRACK, just to get it over with… Hey folks, let’s dive into a wild story combining bad science, questionable credentials, and a generous dose of audacity. I’m talking about L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, and his outlandish claims about radiation poisoning. Hubbard, in his infinite wisdom, wrote a book called…
The E-Meter … Scientology’s answer to the “Magic 8-Ball.”
When we think of technology, one of the latest topics of conversation is in the fast-evolving field of artificial intelligence. A company at the forefront of this space is OpenAI, a machine learning, and artificial intelligence research laboratory, co-founded by Elon Musk and others in 2015. In 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), a…
And just like that, the bright star in the Scientology galaxy, Mary Sue Hubbard had her light extinguished.
There was no candlelight vigil following her indictment in the notorious Operation Snow White case, which involved the infiltration of government agencies to obtain classified information … a secret program authored by L. Ron Hubbard in 1973. Her husband never issued a public statement of outrage. Perhaps as a rehearsal for the next wife of…
L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics: An Exposé of Unsubstantiated Claims and Plagiarism.
Unveiling the Influences: Examining L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics and Its Plagiarized Philosophies Wikipedia: The emergence of Dianetics. In January 1949, Hubbard informed his literary agent, Forrest J. Ackerman, that he was writing a book on the “cause and cure of nervous tension”, which he was going to call either The Dark Sword or Excalibur or…
Understanding the Enigma: Why Good People Conform to Scientology’s Bizarre Beliefs
Introduction Research suggests that a large majority of those who become involved with Scientology leave within a short timeframe, often due to unfulfilled expectations regarding personal improvement. This raises the question of why a small percentage remains devoted despite significant evidence contradicting the organization’s claims. While cognitive dissonance theory can partially explain how individuals rationalize…