
Re: Why isn't "The Hole" being raided by the FBI?
Miscavige "began a tirade about the shortcomings of the infomercial." Then he beat the hell out of Hawkins leaving him "shocked, bruised, disheveled, humiliated, and staring up at the forty people who did nothing to support him."
 |  |  |
 | Quote: Even if he had access to a phone, Hawkins wouldn't have called the police. If a Sea Org member were to seek outside help, he would be punished, either by being declared a Suppressive Person or by being sent off to do manual labor for months or years. Far more important, Hawkins believed, was the fact that his spiritual immortality was on the line. Scientology had made him aware of his eternal nature as he moved from life to life, erasing his fear of mortality. Without that, he would be doomed do dying over and over again, "in ignorance and darkness," he said, "never knowing my true nature as a spirit." Miscavige, he concluded, "holds the power of eternal life and death over you." p. 276 |  |
 |  |  |
This is a key insight that I wish the author explored in more detail. This fear of enduring a sub-optimal afterlife explains the initial allure, why people stay, and why it is so difficult for abused Scientologists to leave the religion.
That
primal fear and paralysis applies to many other religions. The parallel to Buddhism is obvious, where failing to achieve certain insights keeps one on the wheel of reincarnation. Take Christianity, where being in the wrong denomination (let alone the wrong religion), or even slightly off as in the "right Church, wrong pew" could doom a fool to much more than seven trillion years of torture in the afterlife.