Repost from a couple years ago:
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I've researched scientology and find it pretty sneaky. It works very well on levels easy to see and grasp by the average 3D person. Doesn't take much intelligence, insight, or wisdom to understand its principles or see its technology producing the desired results. So yes, it does work in the sense that you get what you are told to expect. It seems that is enough for members to stay members. But stopping there and not questioning the metaphysical side-effects of a cookbook guide to material and psychological success leads to glib propagation of the "It just works!" meme.
From what I've seen of it, Scientology is technology, and as such it leverages freewill, intent, and effort. It's sort of like an escalator where the process of getting on brings you to the top. An escalator just works. Most of 3D society is like a crowd of obese people barely able to make it to the top of a flight of stairs... scientology offers the escalator pathway and being able to ride it up without losing breath can be pretty amazing. If relied upon as a substitute for personal effort, insight, and discovery, the tools of Scientology do nothing about the "obesity" of the soul -- in fact it might atrophy the soul but mask this with overwhelming psychological, social, and material success. So what seems like becoming free from the matrix might actually involve the opposite, only that the first is visible while the latter is kept below the member's threshold of awareness, a trojan horse basically. Just my observations, though.
(from the Mind Controlled Celebrities Thread -- visit for more viewpoints and debate on the merits and downsides of scientology.
Acquiring fringe knowledge is like digging for diamonds in a mine field.
