Buttoned up church – glam for the bucks

A Scientologist learn very early on what a “button” is. At the first communications course one learns how to get less touchy and irrational when others try to push your buttons. Hubbard defines the term as it is used in Scientology: “Things in particular that each human being finds abberative and has in common.” (Handbook for Preclears), and “Items, words, phrases subjects or areas that cause response or reaction in an individual…” (Scientology Abridged Dictionary). So anything that a person reacts irrational about is a button, it could be sex, spiders, blood, money or anything else.

Everybody have buttons. Some less, some more. Groups have buttons, and some groups react heavily when their buttons are pushed. A few obvious examples comes to mind; Iran has a button on democracy. The same with North Korea. A few groups off the coast of Somalia seem to have a button on ownership. And there are puritan groups with a button on sex – having unsuccessfully tried to put pants on Donald Duck. What about the Church of Scientology. Any buttons there?

Sure, plenty. But I have given some thought to the biggest buttons and here is my conclusion: PR and Money.

There are few groups if any that spend so much effort into polishing their PR as the Church of Scientology. It’s meticulously created, varnished, polished, and nurtured. And the PR front is created both for the outside and for the public inside the church. It’s a piece art. And it has to be – to cover up the real scene. The more crazy the real scene, the more effort is put on the PR to cover it up. And PR is heavily used in defending itself. I bet the Dalai Lama doesn’t deem it necessary to spend anywhere near as much thought and action into PR. Because his intentions and results have their own legs to stand on. The Church of Scientology could have opted for the same – to focus on delivering good service to help people become more themselves and exercise their free will, be more happy and have more energy to live an exciting and fulfilling life. Instead the focus has become the glamour.

And then there is Money. The church is constantly running the errand of Mammon. It used to be fair exchange or better. The church used to deliver service for the money donated. Since 1984 with the formation of the International Association of Scientologists, there has been an ever increasing focus on “pure donation” – taking money for no service. It falls under the category of “Criminal exchange” defined by Hubbard in the policy letter titled “Exchange, Org Income And Staff Pay” (Finance series 36).

Combine these two buttons and you get the recent Freedom Magazine. Someone scratches the PR of David Miscavige, and public are immediately shaken for money and a new PR piece is sent to a million people to restore the precious facade.

PR and Money are the Achilles heels of the church. Keeping the light on the true scene will dissolve the PR. Internet is the is the ultimate tool in this regard. Pulling the money flow from underneath the church is like pulling cards out from the bottom of a house of cards. This is why it is important to make the OTs see the real scene going on in the church. They are the primary income.

I get new OTs every day that are joining the purpose of shedding light on the lies. The purpose is simple: To rid the church of human rights violations. Whatever comes after that is junior to stopping the abuses. Want to help shedding light and pushing buttons? Drop me an e-mail: g_@_is_ene.com (remove the underscores)

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