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It's a sect. Their beliefs are completely ridiculous and don't really matter much.
What matters is that they aggressively recruit new members into their cult, preferably people who don't fit in well in the "real world".
They promise that all problems you may have (psychologically, health or financial) can be solved by learning how to "free your soul" from past trauma.
You learn this in extremely expensive internal workshops (the first ones are free, but to raise to higher levels, you need to pay more and more money). The money goes directly to the leaders of the cult.
The methods are presented as scientific, but they are all 100% based on one book written by the founder L. Ron Hubbard, who was a third rate sci-fi author.
Members are encouraged to cut contact to all non-members.
If you try to leave, you are put under extreme pressure, harassed, and even threatened.
Honestly one of the most freakish things I’ve heard from my daughter is that even though her boyfriend’s family’s rich, they don’t employ actual household staff, but they use volunteers from an internal organization of the church (Sea Org I think?), and volunteers don’t get paid except for food, board and small allowance - it’s “a life of service”. Which sounds uncomfortably close to slavery to me…
It's more than a life of service, the Sea Org sign a billion year contract to include any resurrections.
Are you joking or do they actually do that??
Not joking. Obviously it's unenforceable, but when you're already ensconced in the larger organization and made the choice to join Sea Org, you're really committed to Scientology and I'm sure the contract feels real. Makes it pretty hard to leave your cushy $10/day job scrubbing one of their cruise ships.
I believe they only have one cruise ship, and from reports I've heard it's dilapidated and getting worse