Honestly they sound like a group of very scary and dangerous people. I wouldn’t casually stroll into al-Quadar’s headquarters and I get the impression, however dramatic this may be, that they’re of a similar nature
We should be thankful that the Judeo-Christian religions are so outdated that most people feel inherently detached from it because when thats not the case, as is with scientology, fanaticism is more likely and, as a member, it can take you a very long time to realise just how much of a cult they are and by that time escape is nigh impossible. Honestly very scary shit
I stayed for a brief while near their headquarters in John’s Beg whilst working a short-term contract. My landlady was a scientologist, and kept trying to convert me. The local library had scientology DVDs available to borrow free. I used to download anti-scientology literature, print it out and put copies in the DVD cases. The headquarters house I called ‘the house on woo corner’ because opposite it was a pet acupuncturist, and on the other corner an aromatherapy clinic.
I happened once on a stall they’d set up at a flea-market in pta.
I watched the guy swindle people a bit, then asked some uncomfortable questions and chuckled at the responses in front of some clueless prospects and later left due to boredom after saving some clueless folks from further indoctrination. Fact: These guys get really, REALLY uncomfortable if they realise a critical thinker is within earshot.
These guys are truly insidious. It’s never mentioned as a religion: It’s all just self improvement, until it isn’t.
Edit: I even held the cans and had my thetan’s measured. All very impressive. :
That one simply won’t fly with anyone who knows the least bit about the Church of Scientology (CoS). In the US where scientology has the largest number of followers, the CoS is a religious entity for the purpose of tax exemption. Not too long ago, a French supreme court ruled that scientology was a fraudulent religion, much to the chagrin of its vocal proponents. But for some more heuristic substantiation that scientology is indeed a religion, one need look no further than tiny whiny Tom Cruise: If the maniacal-though-vacant intensity of his stare isn’t enough (which stare is identical to that of Jehovah’s Witnesses), he has yet to demonstrate any of the magical abilities (e.g., time travel, telekinesis, universal consciousness, cross-species communication, etc.) that should be a breeze for any eighth level Operating Thetan, no matter how short his or her stature, and claiming stuff without proof is the modus operandi favoured by religions…
Whenever I see Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics and/or Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu Li Masters on a Science shelf, I carefully and unobtrusively move all the copies to the Esoteric shelf. This in response to store managers who try to defend the placing by saying that those books say “Science” on their backs.
To their credit, some of the bookshops seem to have learned — or perhaps they just never noticed.
