Critical Q&A

The weekly show where I answer questions left to me in the comments section of my Q&A episodes or sent by email to AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week, the questions I answer are:

(1) Question: I have heard from you and others that when Scientology is trying to sell people on the cult they say there is no problem with already being religious. That you can be Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or anything and still join Scientology, that the religions will not conflict. This is obviously not true, especially with the upper levels beliefs on Jesus. So I have a couple of questions relating to that. When and how does the switch happen? When are people no longer allowed to participate in their old religion and how does Scientology get them to quit? Have you ever witnessed or hard about a hardcore member of another religion giving it up for Scientology or is it usually people already dissatisfied with their current religion. I am curious because the promise of keeping your current faith seems like it would be a major selling point for some but I assume Scientology has to quickly break that promises and I would think that could be tricky to do with many people. Thanks in advance for your answer.

(2) Hi Chris, I know that the cult opens and reads the mail of its members. That is a federal offense. How do they get around that?

(3) The Sea Org took my childhood away (I was there from 10 to 20 y/o) and at one point it even took my will to live, along with my self esteem, self worth and dreams. Sadly they also took my belief that I could actually have dreams and reach them one day. So I lived on a hamster wheel for a very long time (until last year). I’m in my 40s now. Happily I now believe that I do deserve good things, but the scars are still there. I know that if it hadn’t been for all the psychological damage, I would have had a different/much better life right now. I can’t help but to blame them. So I guess my two questions are: How can I forgive and forget and move on without feeling any more resentment towards the Church? And why hasn’t Scientology paid yet for what it has done to so many people’s lives?

(4) Thanks for all you do, especially your book Scientology: A to Xenu; it really detailed some things about Dianetics when it first appeared and then went away that just were not detailed before. My question is this: before you left Scientology, you had mentioned you started seeing indicators (e.g. internet, other research) that led you to believe that Scientology wasn’t all that ‘they’ wanted you to believe it was, and you left, but can you please explain how long these thoughts were there before you left Scientology? Also, did you plan your departure hours, days, weeks, months before you finally left? And, if you did plan this, did you have any internal Scientology person(s) help?

(5) I enjoy your Q+A videos and hope you will answer my question one day. Do ex Scientologists go into sales after they leave Scientology? I wonder this because I hear so much about how Sea Org people have to sell books, auditing sessions and ask for donations. I figure they must be good at sales and enter into MLM’s or some other sales type of business.

(6) Is the Truth Rundown a major part of getting out of the RPF? Do you have to “re-understand” that you the individual were at cause over matter and ultimately you are responsible?

(7) You say LRH believed some of his own stuff. I just listened to the recordings Tony Ortega uploaded, where LRH talks about the invader forces. I’m assuming he was bullshitting people and didn’t believe any of it. But it actually takes guts to talk that much bullshit. Wasn’t he scared that this is just too much and people might turn away from him after listening to this ridiculous tale?

(8) Are all psychiatrists intrinsically and irredeemably evil, according to Hubbard? If so, how do Scientologists square this with the fact that CCHR was cofounded by a psych?

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