I knew some Scientologists in the late nineties, and there are many parallels. Ironically, they were also devout Christians, and one later became a priest.

Something very eye opening is know precisely who L Ron Hubbard is, what kind of person he was, and nonetheless seeing a real religion building up around him made me realise that all of the major religions must have started similarly.

Watching Trump's followers turning MAGA into a new political religion gives me the same heavy feeling of dismay.

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PaulHoule a day ago | parent | next [-]

Scientology has gone through phases. Up until the revelation of "Operation Snow White" [1] it was oriented towards recruiting large numbers of footsoldiers into "staff" roles and set prices that made their services accessible to a rather broad "public". Notably L. Ron Hubbard had written that it was immoral to ask for donations without giving something in return so it was all oriented around getting people to pay for training and auditing.

I don't know about the exact causality but in terms of chronology they started raising prices rapidly around the time Snow White broke eventually putting the auditing route out of reach for a lot of people.

Under David Miscavige the church made a transition to soliciting donations for "Ideal Orgs" [2] and to the IAS in general. The model now seems to be to get large donations from a few whales and if there is a role for less well heeled members it is to have extras to populate the scene and look as if there was a broad-based movement to contribute to.

One interpretation is that social inequality has increased and that the plain ordinary Joe doesn't have enough money to be worth soliciting and if you wanted to build a cult today it would be oriented 100% around finding people in the intersection of rich and vulnerable. Sometimes I think 'rationalism' is all about that -- there's no point in scooping up aimless students at airports in 2025 and making them live in communal houses making money selling candles when you could make a movement which is all about getting the rich to donate money, e.g. "effective altruism". You don't want people's time anymore, it just isn't worth anything.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White

[2] https://tonyortega.org/2021/12/23/insider-how-scientologys-i...

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foobarian a day ago | parent | next [-]

This seems eerily similar to modern churches. A UU group I have some exposure to is on the brink of going broke and only sustained by 1-2 really wealthy members, and from what they say it's not a rare case.

	▲	lostphilosopher 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think this is unique to churches, or even non-profits. Plenty of non-church non-profits rely on a few large donors for much or their funding (in fact plenty are designed that way out the gate - they're founded by one very wealthy individual to work on the projects they care about) and plenty of for profit businesses rely on a few large dollar clients for much of their revenue. Both could potentially be seen extensions of the same economic system that concentrates wealth for both individuals and businesses at top.

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kjkjadksj 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They still have slaves at least in LA. I’ve seen them at the L Ron Hubbard Life Exhibit building at around 3am. Probably a dozen of them in uniform still cleaning the first floor. One was featherdusting the brass bust of Hubbard you can see from the street. At 3am. At what is effectively a museum exhibit that no one goes to which closed 5 hours earlier. In a 12 story building where all the lights are on but all the curtains are drawn.

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mothballed a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Politics in general has a lot of parallels to religion.

People need to segment into belief groups, and politics is the new church.

Only this church is a popularity game to decide who controls a vast federal standing domestic army of armed police, as well as an outward projecting armed forces. The scary thing is that everyone seems to believe their church is correct, and willing to employ the machine of violence to enforce it.

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dbl000 a day ago | parent | next [-]

This is kind of one of the points Jonathan Rauch made in his book "Cross Purposes"[0]. He talks about how the common zeitgeist went from being christian and conservative to being christian because you were a conservative and because of that people are treating politics with the same fervor that they would have treated religion in the past.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Purposes-Christianitys-Bargain-...

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PaulHoule a day ago | parent | prev [-]

It's certainly true about a certain kind of evangelical Christian who doesn't go to church [1] but it's also true about many of the left-coded groups that started out on Twitter and Tumblr and moved on to Mastodon and Bluesky. For that matter it was true about Marxism back in the day, The God that Failed [2] was a criticism that took this tack.

My current feeling is that there's nothing more dangerous than "Man's Search for Meaning" and if people can't find meaning in the little things they do every day that search for meaning inevitably leads to trouble.

[1] often the ones who actually go to church are these kind of people: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:dx3ay6rcqediw2gbhb4bp76l/po...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed

	▲	mothballed a day ago \| parent [-]
		It's funny, Hoppe wrote a similarly named book about the same issues with democracy.