Scientology Blog

Anonymous vs. The Church of Scientology

April 11, 2008 on 3:38 am | In anonymous, church of scientology, cia, david miscavige, freezone, irs, philosophy, religion, scientologist | No Comments

I have a lot of respect for anonymous and their campaign against the Church of Scientology, and hope they continue and win in their stated aims. They have seemingly come out of nowhere to take up the task of dismantling the out of control machine that is the Church of Scientology…

But one must realize a few truths about the church if the campaign is going to be successful in the long run. Anonymous may have won the first few battles, but the war is a long way off from victory.

Firstly, the church is a very centralized organization and is to all extents and purposes controlled by one person, David Miscavige. There is much speculation amongst Scientologists outside the church about whether Miscavige is the true controller of church organizations, or whether he is merely a puppet…

Speculation aside, being the leader of the church, Miscavige is the correct target for attack in this campaign. He is the one not following Scientology policy, he is the one altering the tech so it doesn’t work as well (thus people feeling cheated about it), and he is the one who is doing most of the abuse, whether physically to his closest staff at Int, or mentally, to church members at events, with his lies and spin.

Once the person who controls the machine is removed, the machine comes to a halt. Thus victory.

There is a mass of material about Miscavige to use in the attack against him, so I won’t go into this now. I include in this focus of attack the protest of the church’s tax exempt status as being an attack on Miscavige, RTC and the Church of Spiritual Technology (who OWN the copyrights of Scientology materials and license them to RTC/Miscavige).

Another important challenge that Anonymous faces is that of the Church of Scientology members. This needs a bit of a preamble…

There are thousands of church members. And from what I saw at my local church org, and at an advanced org, most of these members had 2 characteristics:

1. They are young, mostly under the age of 50, probably most are between 20-40. I didn’t see many older Scientologists in the church (most of them are in the freezone.)

The fact that most church members are younger than 50 means that they can be members for many decades. They can fight for their organization, grow their organization, and gain a larger influence on society during this time.

2. They KNOW they are spiritual beings who live forever. And they know they are powerful. And they have great motivation and dedication in changing the world using Scientology as their philosophic machine.

This one is quite heavy, and it may go over the top of some people’s heads. The realization that one is a spiritual being and not just a one life body is a deep and powerful one. It’s important that everybody realizes that they are a spiritual being, and that the physical universe is our playground, our videogame. Unfortunately, this game has turned into a Matrix-type situation – people are trapped and they don’t know it.

This is the modus operandi of a Scientologist: realize you are a spiritual being with infinite creative potential and help others do the same. And that’s all a Scientologist is trying to do, including the one’s in the church.

So although it looks like they just want your money, the average church member doesn’t actually benefit financially from people’s donations. They want people to get auditing and training so they can realize their own spiritual nature and potential. For more information about this check out The Philosophy of Scientology.

The people in the church are having out of body experiences and recalling past lives, despite the degradation of the tech. Most of the staff, who are extremely dedicated to the church, are so because of their spiritual gains (although some were born into the organization who haven’t had much spiritual gain).

The combination of their young body age and high spiritual awareness means they have some horsepower as people. Add to that the mental manipulation that goes on in the church, the cult trappings most hate about it, and you’ve got a deadly combination.

The church has been slowly decreasing in numbers since the late 80’s due to internal factors – people getting expelled at the drop of a hat and off-policy and out-tech practices. I doubt Anonymous’ current protests are going to make church members quit the organization, it’s the church that makes people quit the church. I can guarantee that the average CofS member thinks the protests on the church are attacks on Scientology (not helped by signs during protests that read Scientology Sucks etc). So Anonymous probably won’t help shrink the numbers of church members using it’s current strategy.

Generally, members aren’t likely to just up and leave the organization because it means the loss of the tech (they don’t know the tech exists outside the church.) Thus the church will continue to persist, and it’s potential of expansion and a widening influence on society is always going to remain, at least for the next 30-50 years…

Will Anonymous guard the entrances to the church for 50 years?

Will they stay legion for the long haul?

There is another option. There is no need for a long drawn out war. Anonymous needs to win the trust of the church members, whilst at the same time attack the source of the problem – Miscavige, RTC and the Church of Spiritual Technology.

The big question then is how to win over the trust of the members of the Church of Scientology?

The answer is actually very simple: give them a Scientology alternative. This is where the freezone and independent field comes into the equation…

The church members need to be engaged personally about the church and the tech. They need to know that the tech exists outside the church. This can be done by signs that promote this fact, and by engaging with them on a more two-way basis.

Remember, church members won’t use the internet or at least won’t look up anything online about Scientology, and they certainly pay little attention to the mainstream media. So even if anonymous became headline news for the BBC and ABC, chances are, Scientologists in the church wouldn’t find out about it. This means a new type of operation needs to be conducted. A peaceful engagement in conversation with church members as civilians (not masked anonymous protesters.)

Obviously this needs to be done at a different time to protest dates, otherwise it looks suspect in the eyes of the church member (if they know that protests have been going on that day, they are likely to be in high alert mode to people’s behaviour around them.)

Now to engage in conversation with a church member doesn’t mean to stalk them and “accidentally” bump into them at a coffee shop or convenience store. It means that one would have to engage in conversation when they are disseminating – i.e. when they are doing stress tests, or when they are in their orgs and you want a “tour”.

During their dissemination one could engage in a serious conversation about scientology, the church and the freezone. Be sincere, state you think the tech sounds great, but you have your concerns about the church. Be totally positive about the tech, but raise serious, but not hostile reservations about the church…

Ask questions like:

“Is there other places to get auditing?”

“How does the church differ from the freezone?”

“Considering we are dealing with my spiritual freedom, why should I trust you more than Scientologists outside the church?”

Be genuine, non-hostile and sincere in these “innocent” questions and the barrier the CofS member might put up if you are hostile or sound insincere, might not go up, and the communication might penetrate and have an effect on them…

This, to some degree, is an operation of infiltration.

Now I’ve heard rumours that Anonymous plans to infiltrate the church and gain powerful positions in order to try and destroy it from the inside. Well, if this is true, it seems that it would be the second campaign of infiltration the church has suffered from: the first in the 70’s, meant the church got taken over and controlled by the CIA and IRS, and now the second “wave” of infiltration, if there is one, could possibly succeed in destroying the church completely. I personally feel that infiltration of this magnitude is unnecessary and that the following strategy is all that is needed for a successful and fast campaign…

Strategy Summary for a Successful Final Victory Against the Church of Scientology

1. Attack Miscavige, RTC and Church of Spiritual Technology. The material is there and Miscavige should be behind bars. Though he won’t be captured until he loses support from church members, who are his only protection. Remember, get the madman who operates the machine and the machine will come to a halt. Supporting this angle of attack is the fight against the church’s tax exempt status.

2. Win the trust of the church members. They need to know there is a scientology alternative (standard tech of course) for them if they leave the church. The freezone is a safe place for church members, and they will be welcomed with open arms. Signs at protests are one way to get that message across. But actual two-way communication with them when they have their guard down is required, and it needs to be done very subtlety.

Without handling the church members the church will always be a threat, for decades to come.

3. Continue with the campaign of alerting the general public about the dangers of the church of scientology. However, Anonymous needs to tread more carefully than it has done, as the general public is alert to religious intolerance. For example, see the tibet issue across the globe right now. So don’t lose the support of the general public by protesting against the religious beliefs of scientologists. Signs like “Scientology Sucks” negate this important factor.

Generalizations like “Scientology is a cult” and other such things again negate the aims of Anonymous. People are aware that the church is not quite right, but they also realize that the the subject is probably valid in some aspects. Using the word Scientology when referring to the Church of Scientology minimizes the focus of the protest message, and comes across as either ignorant and rude, or “not quite right”.

Additionally, when/if a church member sees that kind of message, they are going to think it’s the tech that’s being attacked, and the chances of winning their trust deteriorates.

Yet another factor about using these anti-scientology messages is that it offends, or least loses the support of freezone scientologists.

The fact of the matter is that there are more Scientologists outside the church than inside. And during the last protest there was even some support and presence from these Scientologists, but what I feel is stopping ALL freezone scientologists from lending a hand in this campaign is that they are not sure whether Anonymous REALLY means what it says when it states that it is NOT against the beliefs or practices of Scientology. There’s been too many signs that contradict that statement.

Thus, Anonymous really needs to clean up this part of their campaign and REALLY focus their message on the CHURCH of scientology.

This ends my discussion on Anonymous’ campaign, and I hope this has proved useful and thought provoking to those interested in Anonymous vs. The Church of Scientology.

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