Sorry to double post, but I just wanted to explain some of the Scientology stuff, why people fall for it.
People have to approach Scientology with the mindset that they want to be helped, they want it to help them. If you go in and read Dianetics with a critical mind you'll of course think it's total bullshit because it is. But if you're seriously looking for help and want that book to help you you'll find things of worth in it. It especially caters to a certain kind of person, because Dianetics basically tells you that you've always suspected you're unique and special and guess what? YOU ARE. That was basically how people got in in the days of yore.
Now people are drawn in by free personality tests. Scientologists ask you hundreds of questions and of course there is ALWAYS something drastically wrong with you... but guess what? They can fix it all! They show you their introductory movie which can be found on youtube and isn't too crazy (although I literally snorted water out of my nose when they claimed that religion is generally peaceful. Because, you know, it's not like any major wars were ever started over religion). If that doesn't scare you off, the cult behaviour begins. The love bombing in particular, where they flatter and cajole and encourage. They get you doing (and paying for) the basic coursework and of course you get massive "wins" in Scientology lingo,. This is in stark contrast to when you are in deep, where you basically never get enough stats.
It is VERY gradual. We all know about the crazy Xenu shit, but they don't tell you about that until you are literally at the highest level of financial obligation spiritual enlightenment and you're in so deep you've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (bare minimum) to get there. Also, they teach the members that if they expose themselves to the super sekrit shit they will quite literally die. LRH only survived because he's LRH. So that's a good incentive to not spoil yourself.
There is also a MASSIVE culture of 'don't ask questions' in Scientology and most of their drills are about letting go of the critical mind and just accepting things as they are. If you ask questions you're labeled PTS - potential trouble source - and you're likely to be booted off to Clearwater to pay thousands of dollars to be audited to sort out your "problems".
So thanks to careful use of classic cult tactics - the love bombing, encouraging with big spiritual gains, only releasing so much information at a time, only letting members learn the most insane shit when you're sure they're in deep - people do believe and they believe hard.
