Andrew L. Urban
Just after the COP28 (Nov. 30 – Dec. 12) orgy of climate alarmism began in Dubai, the Church of Scientology celebrated the Grand Opening (Dec. 5) in East Grinstead, England, of a brand new, purpose built 20,000 sq ft (1,860 sq m) facility for counselling and training in the UK. It was launched by David Miscavige, ecclesiastical leader of Scientology. “The new building is both energy-efficient and eco-friendly, constructed with sustainable materials to minimize environmental impact,” says the website.
Another 10 such large centres are being readied for a Grand Opening in the months ahead across North America, Africa and Europe.
That “unrelenting” expansionary fervour also characterises the momentum of climate change advocates, whose numbers have swollen from 33,000 at COP27 in Egypt last year to 70,000 in Dubai.
COP28 at EXPO City
Perhaps it’s a good time to examine how the Church of Climate Change (aka Climatology) owes much of its modus operandi to the Church of Scientology? The cashed up fake echoing the cashed up weird?
We all accept that ‘climate change’ is the short form label for a belief system, the new religion in which belief (faith as in ‘do you believe in climate change’) is equated with ‘the science’, claiming scientific superiority. Perhaps on the mistaken assumption that evidence has been provided some time in the past 30 years.
Q: On what basis can we compare the Church of Scientology to the Church of Climate Change?
*Both belief systems claim a superior moral authority;
*Both claim infallibility;
*Both impose severe penalties on non-believers and apostates. In the case of Climatism, the penalties include public vilification and career damage, whether in science, academe, politics, most of the media … and in many corporations who have signed up to it. In the case of Scientology dissent provokes intense long term harassment and intimidation;
*Both try to enforce their belief system aggressively in any society that allows them to thrive;
*Neither of them countenance dissenting views and arguments; in the case of Climatology, science is actively and regularly abused to falsely support it;
*Both threaten their critics with derogatory excess;
*Neither of them tolerate satire and generally lack a sense of humour;
Under the circumstances, it’s a blessing (sorry) that governments have not made belief in Scientology the basis for policy making. Climate Minister Chris Bowen eat your heart out. The Church of Scientology, unsurprisingly, has nothing to do with science.
The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954 by Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911 – 1986), a writer mostly for pulp magazines devoted to westerns, horror and science fiction. According to Britannica, during World War II, Hubbard served in naval intelligence in Australia and aboard several vessels off the U.S. coast. Hubbard ended the war as a patient at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, apparently suffering from several war-related ailments, and it was during his hospital stay that he gave systematic consideration to his earlier ruminations on the human problem. After the war he began a personal quest for a “science of the mind.”
Each individual, he believed, possesses a mind that under normal conditions operates analytically to make survival-oriented judgments. However, when the mind is not fully functioning, a part of it, the reactive mind, takes over. It stores images of experiences, called engrams, which contain not only strong negative emotional content but also unrelated elements of the experience. A later encounter with these unrelated elements may bring forth negative emotional reactions from the stored engram and lead to countersurvival actions.
To help people bring engrams to their consciousness, confront them, and thereby eliminate them, Hubbard developed auditing, a one-on-one counselling process in which a counsellor, or auditor, facilitates individuals’ handling of their engrams. A key aspect of this process is use of an E-meter, an instrument that measures the strength of a small electrical current that passes through the body of the person undergoing auditing. According to church teachings, E-meter readings indicate changes in emotional states that allow the identification of stored engrams. In Dianetics the goal was to rid the mind of engrams, and individuals were said to have reached a major goal when they became “clear.”
He saw the spiritual self, the thetan, as the true self that can exist apart from the body. Hubbard suggested that thetans had originated billions of years ago with the original Cause, whose entire purpose was the creation of effect. Thetans emerged early in the process of creation, and their interaction led to the creation of MEST (matter, energy, space, and time), thus making the visible universe possible. Over time, the thetans fell into MEST and were trapped. Eventually, the thetans experienced events that stripped them of both their creative abilities and the memories of who they were. Their movements through the MEST universe eventually brought them to earth.
The church asserts that, through Scientology training, its members come to understand both themselves as spiritual beings and engrams as energy clusters that inhibit the thetan from functioning freely. For Hubbard, the process of freeing the individual is the fundamental purpose of religion.
I have gone into some detail here (thanks Britannica) for the purpose of extending the analogy between Scientology and Climatology as belief systems that exist in a sort of scientific vacuum while they claim the authentication of science.
Both generate billions of dollars (arguably for the wrong people), but there is, of course, one major difference between Scientology and Climatology: the former is impervious to scientific analysis, nor is it the basis for formulation of public policies.
A sign at COP28
On the other hand, Climatology’s claims to ‘the science’ are bogus and have been debunked by hundreds of credible, sophisticated scientists who are not captured by the ruling orthodoxy. They are ‘bogus’ to the extent that they disregard natural variability and misidentify the cause of global warming, apportioning the carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels as the driver. This has never been shown by scientists; it is propaganda propagated by climate activists relying on other propaganda that has convinced many people that there is a consensus of scientists who believe the assertion.
As Scientology and Climatology show, it is obviously true that you can fool some of the people all of the time.
Andrew L. Urban is the author Climate Alarm Reality Check (Wilkinson Publishing)