Exposing Scientology
columnist: Gregg

Topic: Scientology Scientology's "Pay to Pray" Practice How the Church of Scientology bilks its followers out of thousands of dollars by promising superpowers and threatening disconnection. by Gregg (centrist) Thursday, September 11, 2008 The embattled Church of Scientology has a lot to answer for, according to its critics. One of the chief complaints of many anti-Scientology groups, and the vast majority of ex-Scientologists, is the Church's system of "fixed donations." It is typical for any religious organization to ask its members for donations, and in many churches it's part of the regular weekly worship. Within the Church of Scientology, the term "donation" takes on a whole new meaning. Much of the structure of Scientology is based on advancing on what they call the "Bridge to Total Freedom." To continue making progress, the Scientologist must take classes and do "auditing" sessions, a practice likened to confession or therapy, in order to get control of one's Thetan (similar to soul). To participate in Scientology courses or receive auditing, the prospective Scientologist must pay a "fixed donation." No money, no services. Scientologists are offered a lot in exchange for their well earned dollars. At the entry levels, the Scientologist is told that they will be freed from what is called the "reactive mind," a quasi-psychological notion based on L Ron Hubbard's works. It is believed by Scientologists that all thoughts exist in the mind as images which have weight. The reactive mind contains all of the negative "mental image pictures" and causes a person to behave in moody or irrational ways. The "analytical mind" contains only those "mental image pictures" that have been properly processed by the mind and can be dealt with in a sane and rational manner. When the reactive mind has been banished, the Scientologist is then considered to be "clear." A conservative estimate of the cost of coursework and auditing necessary to reach this level? $128,560 [1]. And "clear" is only the first step. After attaining the status of "clear," the Scientologist is then pressured to continue taking courses and auditing sessions, now referred to as "Operating Thetan" levels. At this stage, the Scientologist learns more about the history of this and other Universes as told by Lafayette Ron Hubbard, and learns different spiritual strategies for dealing with common problems. When the Scientologist was "preclear," the auditing sessions were being done on the Scientologist directly by another member of the Church. As the OT levels progress, the Scientologist begins auditing the souls of aliens massacred by the galactic warlord Xenu. These "body thetans" are different from the souls of Scientologists (also called "thetans") because they are still traumatized and confused. These "body thetans" must be audited by the Scientologist as was done when the Scientologist was "preclear." [1] Operating Thetans are purported to have a number of astonishing powers, from perfect recollection of all past lives to the ability to "externalize," that is to leave their physical bodies, for brief periods of time. There are currently eight OT levels available to Scientologists, with levels nine and ten pending. Church leaders say that the organization must grow to a certain size before these "higher levels" can be made available. Each of the OT levels costs thousands of dollars, in addition to preparatory course work and auditing sessions. The estimated total to reach OT VIII is $277,010 [1]. Sources: 1 Price List [link edited for length] Ex-Scientologist interviews [link edited for length] Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 58 thumbs so far Share this article on Facebook: Share Share on Twitter Other social bookmarks for this article BlinkList Blogmarks Bloglines Buddymarks CiteUlike del.icio.us Digg It Diigo DZone Ekstreme Facebook Google Gravee ISEdb Linkagogo Linkroll Maple.nu Mr. Wong Netvouz Newsvine Onlywire PlugIM reddit Segnalo Simpy Sphinn Squidoo StumbleUpon tagtooga TalkDigger Technorati Yahoo MyWeb ©2008 Gregg, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work. Published: Thursday, September 11, 2008 Last modified: Thursday, September 11, 2008 The views expressed in this article are those of Gregg only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Gregg is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist. Report violation by Gregg of Nolan Chart LLC's terms of use policy. More Articles By Gregg Be A Columnist Tell A Friend About This Article Leave A Comment Reader Comments: Posted By: CommentOpener Date: 2008-09-12 06:10:24 Scientology is a scam.  The main purpose of the free personality test is to recruit people into the cult.  This personality test is designed in such a way that a person fails when doing it.  Using the e-meter and cold reading, the Scientologist then tells the person that Scientology can help with that particular problem with their life.  This is a scam on a global scale that has survived for far too long.  Get informed at xenut dot net. Report violation Posted By: mark tomles Date: 2008-09-12 18:14:25 "Churches" don't have a price sheet for "religious" services. Scientology has a price sheet. http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Scientology_cult_pricing_2007 Report violation Posted By: Anonymous Date: 2008-09-24 09:45:21 How can you call it a religion if you NEED to pay for it? Report violation Posted By: Terryeo Date: 2008-09-28 23:01:27 You don't need to pay for it.  Of course, I understand, Anonymous wants the rumor running about, but any glimpse at youtube, or scientology.org or walking into any Church, or walking into any large public library will disabuse a person.  The 18 basic books are available in all the public libraries in Ireland, for example.  They are present in the USA in larger city's libraries.  And are becoming more and more placed into libraries all over the globe, including South Africa, and in appropriate languages, too.  No, it has long been untrue that you have to pay to read it, but with the internet and books in libraries, it is more untrue, today. Cute turn of phrase though, Pay to Pray. Happy Ho Ho's Report violation Posted By: Henry Talyor Date: 2008-10-27 13:21:29 Hi Terryeo, I wanted to find out if this Gregg was talking about. So i did a little look see myself. So what are these OT level that I find have price tags on

Do you mean it is free to join, but it cost to spiritually improve yourself. That feels kind of business like, you know what I mean. Aren't religions about saving your soul and doing god work. And I must say , the price tag is kind of steep. I think this what this guy Gregg kind of pointing at. To become OT8, you need to pay $277 grand.

That is a lot of money for people like me. Don't you think this is abit excessive. Can't you improve people spiritually without costing so much. Maybe run donation or something. I guess that is why Scientology is so popular with the Hollywood. They can afford it.

As scientology has 6.5 million members, Scientology must be rich. That's like $1.8 trillion in donations.

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Posted By: Terryeo
Date: 2008-11-06 08:25:48

Henry Talyor - Hello Henry, how are you?  The Church has a number of locations, Google maps calls out thousands.  Those operate in a similar manner, where a portion of donations are routed up the line to support organization. This is much like the Catholic Church or other organizations.  Businesses too use this framework, do you follow, where you sell Honda Motorcycles, but to do so, you pay some sort of fee to Honda.  This gives people access to good quality, to the actual product, so they know what they are getting.

The Church's locations offer similar services, these include training and auditing, but larger Churches offer some free services, such as Sunday services that would be found in other religions.  And, after talking and familarizing yourself with what the Church is about and what it offers, if you wish to train or be audited, well, that costs the Church some money.  Because it must necessarily pay for building, lights, water, sewer, it must support the staff who work there, and so on.  These sorts of costs are familar to everyone, and training is fairly inexpensive.  A beginning course that might last a week, might cost $50.00. 

You list auditing donations, fixed donations that vary a little from one Church to the next and from one individual to the next.  The reason has to do with how much training and organization is needed to deliver a Life Repair, or to deliver  Grade 3.  A trained auditor is required.  A second trained auditor, who has trained further and become a supervisor (case supervisor) is required.  A third auditor is required, he checks the outcome of every auditing session.  In addition, if everything doesn't go completely right in an auditing session, additional segments of the Church are trained to handle such a difficulty.  And all of these need the same building, lights, staff's food and other support.  And this explains why many people prefer to train and audit, rather than just donating to receive professional auditing (an exception being Hollywood stars).  It is much less expensive.  Your next question might be; how much training is required to audit?  To audit a Life Repair, an individual might train for 6 months to 2 years.  This is my personal rough estimate and should not be taken to be any sort of official estimate.  You're better off asking a staff member at a Church, really.

And then too, should you wish to audit Dianetics without the oversight of the Church, you can.  By reading and applying Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health.  Many would tell you (as would I) that professional audting results are well worth the donation.

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Posted By: Jack Parsons
Date: 2009-01-28 16:09:15

Religion is free. Scientology, not so much. Tax the cult like the profit-oriented secular organization it is.

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