The first book I purchased at a Scientology Mission was “Hymn of Asia”. And that is because it was the first book on Scientology offered to me at the mission to buy.
They offered it to me because I told them that I was interested in and studying Buddhism.
I was told that Scientology is Buddhism, updated, with meters and science, and shown Hymn of Asia as proof. The person talked to me about what they knew of Buddhism and it appeared to me that they knew quite a lot. I, of course, did not know much about Buddhism, being in my early 20’s and having just started to study it.
There being a paucity of Buddhist texts in the Cornfields in the early 80’s, and no Buddhists for me to talk to, I did not know that what the mission staff member had told me of Buddhism came from the few lectures Hubbard gave on the subject. I also did not know that what Hubbard said about Buddhism was wrong. I did not know, for instance, that the whole concept of a “thetan” in Scientology was completely contradictory to the fundamentals of Buddhism.
So when I studied Scientology, I thought I was studying Buddhism.
Scientology mimics Buddhism in order to attract a person to it. In fact, Scientology mimics a lot of things. It mimics a science to attract people interested in scientific evidence, too. It mimics Taoism. It mimics psycho-therapy. It mimics the US Navy. It mimics a business college, a detoxification center, and even Christianity.
LRH used mimicry to deceive people about the true nature of Scientology. Only after you have been involved and become much more deeply entrenched, does Scientology ever reveal to you what it really is all about.
But Scientologists still believe the mimicries, even after Scientology reveals its true self. When you realize the mimicries in Scientology are just mimicries, you discover the truth about Scientology, and usually leave it – if they can’t hold your job and your family and everything of value that you’ve built in your life hostage against you.
Scientology is, fundamentally, a spiritual deception.
Hubbard used mimicry to attract and trap people into Scientology.
I clicked on this article because it had a picture of a coral snake and two milk snakes. I like snakes.
But you’re article is spot on.
You got “in” in your early 20’s. So now I know another piece of your history. I was 26 or 27.
You address the scn problem from many different angles.