[extropy-chat] You must be willing to give up everything (2nd try)

[Keith Henson]

At 09:59 AM 10/31/2006 -0800, Jef wrote:

snip

>While Scientology and Avatar promise (and deliver) growth within a
>limited, internal, context, they are dangerous because they restrict
>growth beyond their own context.  [I know, they have polished and
>emotionally persuasive arguments to the contrary.]

I don't know that much about Avatar except it is a scientology splinter 
like EST/Landmark.

But I do know scientology and a *long* list of former scientologists.

The main psychological mechanism used by scientology and (as far as I know, 
*all* cults) is a perversion of attention reward.

In the stone age, people got attention for activity that fed the tribe or 
otherwise improved genetic survival for self and kin.  Over evolutionary 
time attention became extremely rewarding.  It is still a good part of the 
drive that makes Nobel prize winners.  But cults pervert it with "empty" 
attention, such as scientology "auditing."

I wrote a lengthy article you can find with sex drugs cults in Google or 
here:  http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html  (Google claims 11,800 
links on that article.)

>Buddhism, on the other hand (if you can escape the traditional
>trappings), provides similar benefits of realization while insisting on
>openness to the greater, external context.  L. Ron and Harry Palmer
>might say (as did Buddha) that "it's not about me", but the Buddha never
>insisted on secrecy and payments.

Scientology gets huge amounts of money out of people (essentially for 
releasing brain chemicals with the same effect as addictive drugs).  They 
spend a lot of it harassing the media and people like me who try to expose 
them.  (Google my name and look at the Wikipedia page about my adventures 
with the clam cult.)  They have spent upwards of a million, on me by their 
own admission.

Keith Henson