Scientology Misconceptions Revealed #2

source: http://www.scientologytoday.org/Common/question/index.htm#misconception

*fair use policy dictates that I can use this text in my Cross-Examination and rebuttal of your claims.*

Question: Why has Scientology sometimes been considered controversial?

Scientology's Reply: Like all new ideas, Scientology has come under attack by the uninformed and those who feel their vested interests are threatened. As Scientologists have openly and effectively advocated social reform causes, they have become the target of attacks. For those vested interests who cling to a status quo that is detrimental to society, Scientology’s technology of making the able more able and teaching people to think for themselves poses a serious threat.

This conflict dates back to 1950, a time when psychiatry was entrenched among the United States intelligence services and living off the fat of government grants. In May of that year, L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Not only did Dianetics contain the first workable technology of the mind that anyone could apply, but it also labeled their “state-of-the-art” psychiatric drugs as dangerous. Moreover, it decried the inhuman use of electro-shock treatment and lobotomy—then the mainstay of psychiatric treatment”. One cannot overestimate the threat that Dianetics posed to that medical/psychiatric establishment, both in terms of its inherent message and its
unprecedented popularity with the American public; for suddenly here was a work that
effectively ripped away their pretense of authority.

The response was immediate and considerable. Less than a month after the publication of Dianetics, psychiatrists on government payrolls were denigrating the book as a hoax, while admitting in the same breath that they had never even read it. A handful of influential psychiatrists used their government connections to spread lies and false reports through media and government files, escalating into an all-out attempt to close down the Dianetics
foundations which had sprung up across the country and later, after its formation in 1954, the Church of Scientology. The issue was clearly financial: how long could psychiatrists continue to convince the American taxpayer to foot the bill for multimillion dollar psychiatric appropriations when Dianetics provided a means to greater happiness and ability for only the price of a book?

TRUTH: Notice how the author keeps going back to psychiatry instead of answering the question? Scientology has been and still remains controversial because of its numerous practices which violate human rights and place its own members in harm. These include but are not limited to child labor, coerced disconnection from family members, coerced abortions and harrassment of former members. High ranking members, including Hubbard's wife, were caught infiltrating the IRS to steal anti-CoS documents. They were sent to prison. It wasn't a scheme set in motion by overpaid psychiatrists. These sceintologists broke the law and they were arrested. Thus the "controversial past". Scientology's controversial past has to do with their own actions, not those people have taken against them.

In response to all of the propaganda surrounding Hubbard's pseudo-scientific novel, Diantetics, none of what is said there is true if not skewed. Psychiatrists do not see and never have seen this book as anything more than a farce. No scientific study was ever researched nor were any of the "techniques" discussed in this text ever proven useful. In fact, the e-meter used to do these "techniques" bears a warning label that reads "The e-meter by itself does nothing..." because part of Scientology's controversial past includes several lawsuits against auditors from the church lying to patrons and making false medical claims about the e-meter.

For more information: http://www.xenu.net/