Daughter and this classmate of hers have been dating since August. She told us him & his whole family are Scientologists. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t know anything about it until she mentioned it, my first thought was “oh, they believe in science? That’s cool”. Then I looked it up online… and I still don’t understand anything. Most sources say it’s a bad thing, but I don’t get what it’s all actually about, as in doctrine, beliefs, activities, etc. I don’t even understand if it’s an actual religion or one of those pay-to-level-up self-care courses. One of the most confusing things I’ve ever read about. So if anyone could explain it straight to the point, I’d be very grateful.
If I had to chose between my daughter being addicted to drugs and living on the streets, or being entrenched in Scientology, I’d be handing her the heroin and the sleeping bag.
Louis Theroux tried to make a documentary about them. He’s done some really good work showing the worst groups in the world as, you know, actual human beings. Like the westboro baptist church.
The Scientologists refused to talk to him. Him talking to ex-members unleashed a stampede of harassment both against them and him.
The result is called “My Scientology movie”. It’s worth a watch if you’re interested in their techniques to keep people from leaving.
Everyone else has covered most of it, but another “neat” tidbit: To my knowledge, 4chan’s protests and hacktivism against scientology was the largest coordinated action that community has ever taken.
Fucking 4chan. Land of the worst the public facing internet has to offer. Despite all their fucking racism, sexism, homophobia, supremacists… just overall despicableness… they came together in united action against this group.
Some cults are understandable to a degree such as Mormonism, Jehovahs Witness, and Soka Gakkai but I can never understand people who are actually Scientologists.
High end cultists, get her out. NOW.
Get your daughter way from that kid as fast as you can.
| I don’t even understand if it’s an actual religion or one of those pay-to-level-up self-care courses.
yes, at about a ratio of 1 to 8. There’s a mythology that these people fervently believe in, but pay-to-level-up is the core tenet. Distilling this down a bit, they believe that any problem you have is a ghost of long dead aliens clinging to you, and with enough abuse they can be scared away leaving behind the pure human.
When first you encounter them they seem to be offering self help courses or books. “Having trouble quitting smoking? Buy our book, join our class.” For some these do genuinely help, if through no other mechanism than peer pressure. Then they pull out a bullshit device called an E meter and start talking about alternative therapies to realize your true potential, and then they’ve got you.
They are a high control group; they’re like Mormons on amphetamines. Your life is centered on the church, people are kept in line through threats of destroying their families and support groups. They’re particularly vindictive and are well documented to attack anyone critical of them.
Avoid these people with extreme prejudice, they are genuinely dangerous.
A cult
It’s an acronym.
The S stands for “Scam”.
the rest stands for bullshit.
L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer. He made a bet with another science fiction writer that he could get rich quicker by starting a fake religion, and collecting tithes, than he could selling science fiction stories. Scientology is the resulting pyramid scheme/ cult.
Depends a lot, whether you are in Usamerica or not.
They are the classical gang of cultists who manipulate people into donating all of their money (by buying “courses” and reaching “levels”), and then some more. People who have escaped are seriously damaged, emotionally.
But if you are in Usamerica, they have made some courts grant them full rights like any real church.
Teens can be complicated. I know. I have 5 kids. Youngest two are 14 and 12.
How close is your relationship to your daughter? If you are close, you can probably do nothing other than point out how weird things are, such as they way they won’t discuss their beliefs, or the slavery thing. She’ll probably eventually exit the situation on her own.
If you aren’t close or you are prone to flying off the handle, that can be used as a wedge between you and your daughter.
Either way, this only ends in a few ways:
- Your daughter indoctrinated into a cult with you cut out of her life and labelled a “subversive person” (unless you decide to join, too)
- Them splitting
- Him leaving and losing all of his family, connections, and support
Scientology is a cult. And not just a cult, it is a vicious cult who take revenge on anyone they perceive as an enemy. People have found themselves surveilled and having their bosses called making things up to try to get them fired. They are extremely litigious.
Obviously I wouldn’t want my kids in any cult, but Scientology would probably be the worst one. At least most other cults, if you make yourself available to help when they decide they need to leave, they can escape. Scientologists will literally house them on a prison ship.
Good luck, friend.
We’re close, and both my wife and I talked with her. She says she doesn’t care about religion, she just wants to be with him. She doesn’t seem to be able to understand that both him & his family care a lot about their “religion” though. His family won’t even acknowledge her as his girlfriend. They say “she’s a friend”, even though they’re not even a PDA discreet couple. My wife says they most likely view her as just someone who their son is fooling around with at the moment - they don’t take her seriously or see her as a “real candidate”. Wife believes she’ll most likely get angry about it all once the infatuation ends and break it off with him. The surveillance thing is scary, I wonder if we’ve already been “looked into” due to daughter’s association with this family…
Based on your description, I’d doubt any surveillance so far rises above going through any of your socials they can find. AFAIK, that sort of thing is generally for someone who has really pissed them off. Like if you were to become outspoken about them.
I’d probably just keep the whole affair (pun intended) at arms length and let it blow over. Chances are this will be an amusing anecdote in a few years.
I don’t have much new to offer here, but it’s 100% a cult and please be very careful with regard to your daughter. My impression is that any relationships with people outside of the cult will result in them trying to bring the outsider in and once they’re in, it can be difficult to break them out. They’ll have information on their members that they’ll use against them leaving, and they’ll at best be labeled a suppressive person and then harassed if they try to leave and at worst further isolated from their outside relationships, including family as their sucked further into the cult that drains them of their money and/or basically uses them ad slaves. Since the family is rich, they may have a little more freedom and be a little more laid back about the religion, but if they have slaves working at their house, they’re probably higher up and may be discouraged from dating outside their cult since they seem to place very high value on money and fame and likely don’t want significant others to break those people out of the cult.
His family won’t even acknowledge her as his girlfriend. They say “she’s a friend”, even though they’re not even a PDA discreet couple. My wife says they most likely view her as just someone who their son is fooling around with at the moment - they don’t take her seriously or see her as a “real candidate”. Wife believes she’ll most likely get angry about it all once the infatuation ends and break it off with him.
Oh ok, not an ideal situation under normal circumstances, but it might be for the best if they don’t take the relationship seriously. It might be a good idea to check out some of the resources others have posted in the comments with your daughter just to prepare her. The Leah remini series is a great, comprehensive look at how it affected former members. The South Park episode shows how ridiculous the mythology of their religion is, but from what I understand, most people in the cult don’t even learn about that until you’re higher up and I guess by that point, they’ve invested so much money and resources that they just go with it. There are a few documentaries on streaming services like Netflix and max that cover a lot of it too. It might be worth getting ahead of it in case they start seeing your daughter as someone they can recruit. I don’t see how anyone could join them after watching the Leah Remini series, so that’s probably best.
A doomsday cult set up as a religion so they can dodge taxes.
Read this book, it’s the story of L. Ron Hubbard, the god of Scientology and tells you everything you want to know.
Watch this series about life in Scientology and you’ll get the idea pretty quickly.
TL;DR/DW: Get her away from him asap
I would just like to note that we’re on Lemmy, the land of 100 different opinions, and yet everyone has said the same thing about Scientology. That should be a huge flag there.
