Cults & Religions Cults - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Cults & Religions

Cults

Religions

Difference between cults and religions

Deceit in recruitment

Totalitarian

Destroys the family unit

Isolates its membersKeeps non-believers outLeader and follower consider the Leader to be above reproachCommitment is encouraged during the recruitment process

Information offered up front

Allows freedom of thought

Promotes the family unit

Works within society

Open to general community

Clergy are expected to be responsible for their words and actions

Thought before commitment is encouraged as part of the conversion process

Scientology

Scientology means “knowing how to know”

Founded by Robert Hubbard in the early 1950’s

Was previously a science fiction author.

1948: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.

Symbols

Thetans

The source of life; or life itself

Commands the body through communication points

In the primordial past, according to Scientologist teachings, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure

Thetans are believed to be reborn time and time again in new bodies through a process called "assumption"

The universe is thought to have no independent reality, but to derive its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists.

Scientologists believe that thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity.

Eventually, they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

75 million years ago, an evil galactic ruler named Xenu, loaded billions of “people” onto DC-8 space planes and brought them to earth. He placed them all by volcanoes, and then exploded a hydrogen bomb, and killed all the “people”.

The “souls” of these people were then boxed up and taken to cinemas where they were showed films that lied to them about their past lives and about life here on earth.

The thetans have by now become so enmeshed in the physical universe that many have identified themselves totally with it, forgetting their quadrillions of years of existence and their original godly powers.

Death, or, in Scientology terms, when a thetan abandons its physical body — they go to a "landing station" on the planet Venus, where the thetan is re-implanted and told lies about its past life and its next life. The Venusians take the thetan, "capsule" it, and send it back to Earth to be dumped into the ocean off the coast of California.

Hubbard, "If you can get out of that, and through that, and wander around through the cities and find some girl who looks like she is going to get married or have a baby or something like that, you're all set. And if you can find the maternity ward to a hospital or something, you're OK. And you just eventually just pick up a baby." This is the basic belief of reincarnation in Scientology

Dianetics

The basic idea in Dianetics is that the mind consists of two parts: the "analytical mind" and the "reactive mind." The "reactive mind" (or, "unconscious mind") acts as a record of shock, trauma, pain, and otherwise harmful memories. Experiences such as these, stored in the "reactive mind" are dubbed "engrams". Dianetics is a proposed method to erase these "engrams" in the "reactive mind" to achieve what is referred to in Scientology as a state of "Clear". A "Clear" is one who is thought to no longer possess his reactive mind.

The unconscious or reactive mind is described as a collection of "mental image pictures," which contain the recorded experience of past moments of unconsciousness, including all sensory perceptions and feelings involved, ranging from pre-natal experiences, infancy and childhood, even the traumatic feelings associated events from past lives and alien cultures. The type of mental image picture created during a period of unconsciousnes

s

involves the exact recording of a painful experience. Hubbard called this phenomenon an engram, and defined it as "a complete recording of a moment of unconsciousness containing physical pain or painful emotion and all perceptions.

Auditing

Scientology asserts that people have hidden abilities which have not yet been fully realized.It is believed that increased spiritual awareness and physical benefits are accomplished through counseling sessions referred to as auditing.

E-meter - a device that measures minute changes in electrical resistance through the body when a person holds electrodes (metal "cans"), and a small current is passed through them. Scientology asserts that watching for changes in the E-meter's display helps locate engrams. Once an area of concern has been identified, the auditor asks the individual specific questions about it, in order to help him or her eliminate the engram, and uses the E-meter to confirm that the engram's "charge" has been dissipated and the engram has in fact been cleared.

Jesus

"Man is basically good but he could not attain expression of this until now. Nobody but the individual could die for his own sins -- to arrange things otherwise was to keep man in chains.“

"Scientology's upper-level materials tout the concept of Jesus as God as being a fiction that ought to be removed by 'auditing'"

Heaven and Hell

There's no heaven and no hell in scientology. Scientology is logically incompatible with belief in heaven and hell since its beliefs involve re-incarnation - if your spirit or soul gets re-incarnated perpetually, there's no need or place for either heaven or hell.