Michigan's Otherside Paranormal Forums

I work at a library and recently, the Church of Scientology sent us two of everything L. Ron Rubbard every wrote. I was stunned that they would spend all that money on sending all kinds of hardcover books to libraries. We took a few to add to our collection and to replace old ones like his most well known "Dianetics," but they were planning on just junking the rest.
Well as a book fanatic, I can't see any book go to waste so I took a bunch of them. I've always been interested in religion and what people believe in. It was my emphasis on my degree at Grand Valley and I didn't know much about Scientology at all so I started to read some of the books. One of the librarians I work with said "it gets stranger as you read more into it..." So far from what I've read, if anyone here follows a lot of the new age thought going around right now about the power of intention and thought, it sounds very similar to that stuff. Taking your life into your own hands, creating your life, yada yada yada.
I remember watching that infamous South Park show about Scientology and at one point, I said out loud, "That's what they believe?" And then all of a sudden (just like they did with the Mormon episode), they flashed, "This is what they really believe." I can't remember what exactly it was but it sounded really Sci-Fi.
If anyone has ever read anything about Edgar Cayce, Hubbards stuff sounds similar to Cayce's ideals as well.

The jist of it is that the evil lord Xenu froze these aliens and melted them in volcanoes on Earth and their desceased souls escaped, but were collected in soul-collecting machines and re-educated with a false history. Then they were put in the new humans on Earth. Yada yada yada.

Yeah...that was it! How strange......A lot of it seems really interesting and a useful way of thinking about things, then Xenu enters the picture. That's what I always thought was strange with the whole thing, with Hubbard being a Sci-Fi writer to begin with. It just sounds like something out of one of this books.

I've always thought that L Ron was putting everyone on about Xenu and when people started to espouse his views and creating a cult around it he must of thought that it was a great way of getting rich . My grandfather used to talk about a Dr. Hubbard and how loony tunes this guy was , don't know if it was L Ron he was talking about but I suspect it was. My grandfather knew a LOT of people., Famous and otherwise.

Oh My Goodness..... That's seriously what they believe? I dont want to be dis-respectful to anyone who follows this but I had to re-read this entire topic just so I knew I was reading it right. It is very Sci-Fi and very "out there"....to each your own I guess. I had no clue Scientology was that extremely weird.

Yeah, it's worth glancing at the Wiki page for Scientology to check it out. There's definitly a lot more in it that the media doesn't always talk about, which surprises me. Nothing against the Mormon's either, because I know some very nice Mormon's, but the two seem similar in how they got started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology

That sounds weird!