The article "Scientology's Secrets" described ex-members of the Church of Scientology printing online the closely guarded secrets of the religion, glorious tales of aliens and kidnapping and taking schizophrenics off of their medication... although that last bit is a tad more reliable. When the Church of Scientology sued the ex-members to cease distributing what they called 'trade secrets,' the ex-members claimed protection under the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, and the CoS claimed freedom of religion.
When I was doing research for my paper, the phrase that kept coming up in most of the books I used was, information wants to be free. Any attempts to keep information closed off will be, and have been, met with fierce opposition and impossible obstacles. Scientology is not a group of Hari Krishna style harmless weirdos. It is a dangerous cult with strong legal and psychological control over its members. It is impossible to keep secrets on such a large scale with all the available media for its spread. Information wants to be free, and a religion that depends on keeping that from happening is doomed.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
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