ftp.pasteur.org/FAQ//ftp-pasteur-org-FAQ.zip/FAQ/scientology/users/welcome

Internet Message Format | 1995-03-06 | 16.0 KB

Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: [e-mail] (Scientology Information Server)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: Welcome to alt.religion.scientology
Supersedes: <scientology/users/[e-mail]>
Followup-To: alt.religion.scientology
Date: 5 Mar 1995 13:19:51 GMT
Organization: (none)
Lines: 349
Approved: [e-mail]
Expires: 26 Mar 1995 13:19:14 GMT
Message-ID: <scientology/users/[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu
Summary: This article is a Welcome message to alt.religion.scientology. It
  contains a list of periodic postings to alt.religion.scientology, as well
  as a list of files on Scientology at ftp.pcnet.com /users/brianw.
  Additionally, this article contains two introductory essays on Scientology.
Keywords: faq scientology dianetics
X-Last-Updated: 1995/02/08
Originator: [e-mail]
Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.religion.scientology:36918 alt.answers:7861 news.answers:36351

Archive-name: scientology/users/welcome
Last-modified: 1995/2/7
Version: 1.7


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             W e l c o m e !

...to the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup. This article (posted every
week) is one of several that will be posted periodically. The list of other
periodically posted articles includes:

      A Scientology Catechism (Parts 1, 2 and 3)  [Every two weeks]
      The Codes and Creeds of Scientology         [Every two weeks]
      Scientology Users FAQ                       [Every two weeks]
      List of Books and Tapes on Scientology      [Every two weeks]
      International List of Scientology
            Organizations (Parts 1, 2, and 3)     [Every three weeks]

In addition to these periodically posted articles, there is an FTP
site which contains a great deal of information on Scientology,
Dianetics, and L. Ron Hubbard. It is located at FTP.PCNET.COM in
the directory:  /users/brianw  (If you are new to the Internet and
are not familiar with how to FTP, see the instructions for FTPing at the
end of this file.)

The files available via anonymous FTP at the FTP.PCNET.COM site include:

/00INDEX                        Descriptions of the following files.
/WELCOME                        A "Welcome to the FTP Site" message.
/cchr/                          Citizens Commission on Human Rights files.
/dianetics/medical-opinion      Medical Opinions of Dianetics.
/lrh/lrh-faq                    Biography of L. Ron Hubbard.
/lrh_essays/                    Essays on life by L. Ron Hubbard.
/misc/                          Miscellaneous files related to Scientology,
                                including Scientology's responses to critics.
/purif/                         Scientific studies of Purification Rundown.
/scientology/books-tapes-faq    Books/Tapes on Scientology (same as above).
/scientology/catechism          A Scientology Catechism (same as above).
/scientology/codes-faq          Scientology Codes and Creeds (same as above).
/scientology/orgs               List of Scientology Orgs. (same as above).
/scientology/scn-helps-quake    "Volunteer Minister's Corps" newsletter; 1/94.
/scientology/users-faq          Scientology Users FAQ (same as above).
/successes/                     Successes from Scientologists.
/wis/                           The "What is Scientology?" book. (Most chaps.)
/wise/wise-bbs                  World Inst. of Scientology Enterprises BBS

There currently is no charter for the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup, and
it is unmoderated. An Internet mailing list (e-mail discussion group) for
Scientologists has been established. For more information and/or to subscribe,
send a message to:

                           [e-mail]
-------

But what exactly is Scientology? What is its philosophy? What are its aims?

The above files will begin to answer these questions for you, but below, I've
included two essays -- "My Philosophy" and "The Aims of Scientology" -- writ-
ten in 1965 by the founder of Scientology,  L. Ron Hubbard.  (Note: Grateful
ackowledgement is made to the L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to re-
produce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          My Philosophy

                        by L. Ron Hubbard

                             [1965]

  The subject of philosophy is very ancient. The word means: "The
  love, study or pursuit of wisdom, or of knowledge of things and
  their causes, whether theoretical or practical."

  All we know of science or of religion comes from philosophy. It
  lies behind and above all other knowledge we have or use.

  For long regarded as a subject reserved for halls of learning and
  the intellectual, the subject, to a remarkable degree, has been
  denied the man in the street.

  Surrounded by protective coatings of impenetrable scholarliness,
  philosophy has been reserved to the privileged few.

  The first principle of my own philosophy is that wisdom is meant
  for anyone who wishes to reach for it. It is the servant of the
  commoner and king alike and should never be regarded with awe.

  Selfish scholars seldom forgive anyone who seeks to break down the
  walls of mystery and let the people in. Will Durant, the modern
  American philosopher, was relegated to the scrap heap by his fellow
  scholars when he wrote a popular book on the subject, _The Outline
  of Philosophy_. Thus brickbats come the way of any who seek to
  bring wisdom to the people over the objections of the "inner
  circle."

  The second principle of my own philosophy is that it must be
  capable of being applied.

  Learning locked in mildewed books is of little use to anyone
  therefore of no value unless it can be used.

  The third principle is that any philosophic knowledge is only
  valuable if it is true or if it works.

  These three principles are so strange to the field of philosophy,
  that I have given my philosophy a name: Scientology. This means
  only "knowing how to know."

  A philosophy can only be a *route* to knowledge. It cannot be
  crammed down one's throat. If one has a route, he can then find
  what is true for him. And that is Scientology.

  Know thyself...and the truth shall set you free.

  Therefore, in Scientology, we are not concerned with individual
  actions or differences. We are only concerned with how to show man
  how he can set himself free.

  This, of course, is not very popular with those who depend upon the
  slavery of others for their living or power. But it happens to be
  the only way I have found that really improves an individual's
  life.

  Suppression and oppression are the basic causes of depression. If
  you relieve those a person can lift his head, become well, become
  happy with life.

  And though it may be unpopular with the slave master, it is very
  popular with the people.

  Common man likes to be happy and well. He likes to be able to
  understand things, and he knows that his route to freedom lies
  through knowledge.

  Therefore, for 15 years I have had mankind knocking on my door. It
  has not mattered where I have lived or how remote, since I first
  published a book on the subject my life has no longer been my own.

  I like to help others and count it as my greatest pleasure in life
  to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days.

  These shadows look so thick to him and weigh him down so that when
  he finds they *are* shadows and that he can see through them, walk
  through them and be again in the sun, he is enormously delighted.
  And I am afraid I am just as delighted as he is.

  I have seen much human misery. As a very young man I wandered
  through Asia and saw the agony and misery of overpopulated and
  underdeveloped lands. I have seen people uncaring and stepping over
  dying men in the streets. I have seen children less than rags and
  bones. And amongst this poverty and degradation I found holy places
  where wisdom was great, but where it was carefully hidden and given
  out only as superstition. Later, in Western universities, I saw man
  obsessed with materiality and with all his cunning; I saw him hide
  what little wisdom he really had in forbidding halls and make it
  inaccessible to the common and less favored man. I have been
  through a terrible war and saw its terror and pain uneased by a
  single word of decency and humanity.

  I have led no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who
  has not *lived* and the scholar who will not share.

  There have been many wiser men than I, but few have travelled as
  much road.

  I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it
  looks both ways. And I know there *is* wisdom and that there is
  hope.

  Blinded with injured optic nerves, and lame with physical injuries
  to hip and back at the end of World War II, I faced an almost
  nonexistent future. My service record states: "This officer has no
  neurotic or psychotic tendencies of any kind whatsoever," but it
  also states "permanently disabled physically."

  And so there came a further blow...I was abandoned by family and
  friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple and a probable burden upon
  them for the rest of my days. I yet worked my way back to fitness and
  strength in less than two years, using only what I knew and could
  determine about man and his relationship to the universe. I had no
  one to help me; what I had to know I had to find out. And it's
  quite a trick studying when you cannot see.

  I became used to being told it was all impossible, that there was
  no way, no hope. Yet I came to see again and walk again, and I
  built an entirely new life. It is a happy life, a busy one and I
  hope a useful one. My only moments of sadness are those which come
  when bigoted men tell others all is bad and there is no route
  anywhere, no hope anywhere, nothing but sadness and sameness and
  desolation, and that every effort to help others is false. I know
  it is not true.

  So my own philosophy is that one should share what wisdom he has,
  one should help others to help themselves, and one should keep
  going despite heavy weather for there is always a calm ahead. One
  should also ignore catcalls from the selfish intellectual who
  cries: "Don't expose the mystery. Keep it all for ourselves. The
  people cannot understand."

  But as I have never seen wisdom do any good kept to oneself, and as
  I like to see others happy, and as I find the vast majority of the
  people can and *do* understand, I will keep on writing and working
  and teaching so long as I exist.

  For I know no man who has any monopoly upon the wisdom of this
  universe. It belongs to those who *can* use it to help themselves
  and others.

  If things were a little better known and understood, we would all
  lead happier lives.

  And there is a way to know them and there is a way to freedom.

  The old must give way to the new, falsehood must become exposed
  by truth, and truth, though fought, always in the end prevails.


-------------------------------------------------------------------
                     The Aims of Scientology

                        by L. Ron Hubbard

                             [1965]

  A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war,
  where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and
  where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of
  Scientology.

  First announced to an enturbulated world fifteen years ago, these
  aims are well within the grasp of our technology.

  Nonpolitical in nature, Scientology welcomes any individual of any
  creed, race or nation.

  We seek no revolution. We seek only evolution to higher states of
  being for the individual and for society.

  We are achieving our aims.

  After endless millennia of ignorance about himself, his mind and
  the universe, a breakthrough has been made for man.

  Other efforts man has made have been surpassed.

  The combined truths of fifty thousand years of thinking men,
  distilled and amplified by new discoveries about man, have made for
  this success.

  We welcome you to Scientology. We only expect of you your help in
  achieving our aims and helping others. We expect you to be helped.

  Scientology is the most vital movement on Earth today.

  In a turbulent world, the job is not easy. But then, if it were, we
  would not have to be doing it.

  We respect man and believe he is worthy of help. We respect you and
  believe you, too, can help.

  Scientology does not owe its help. We have done nothing to cause us
  to propitiate. Had we done so, we would not now be bright enough to
  do what we are doing.

  Man suspects all offers of help. He has often been betrayed, his
  confidence shattered. Too frequently he has given his trust and
  been betrayed. We may err, for we build a world with broken straws.
  But we will never betray your faith in us so long as you are one of
  us.

  The sun never sets on Scientology.

  And may a new day dawn for you, for those you love and for man.

  Our aims are simple, if great.

  And we will succeed, and are succeeding at each new revolution of
  the Earth.

  Your help is acceptable to us.

  Our help is yours.

----------------------------< End of Essays >---------------------------------


------------------------------< How to FTP >---------------------------------

FTP is a method of transferring files from one place on the Internet, to
another place. The usual use of FTP is called "anonymous FTP" in which one
site holds software, documents, programs, etc. and people at other sites on
the Internet login as "anonymous" to copy those files to their own account.
Following are the steps that you can use to FTP to the FTP.PCNET.COM site,
and download the files listed above to your account:

 1. At your system prompt, type:  FTP FTP.PCNET.COM   (If you are working
    from a menu, choose the FTP choice, and enter FTP.PCNET.COM when it
    asks for the FTP address. If you are not sure if you have access to FTP,
    ask your system administrator.)

 2. At the FTP.PCNET.COM> prompt, type:  login anonymous

 3. At the Password: prompt, type in your e-mail address. (It will not show
    up on the screen.)

 4. You should then get the message: <Guest login ok, access restrictions apply
    followed by the FTP.PCNET.COM> prompt again.
    Type:  cd /users/brianw

 5. This will put you into our directory. You can type:  dir   to get
    a listing of files and directories. Lines that begin with "d" are director-
    ies, and lines that begin with the dash ("-"), are files.

 6. To download a file, type:  get filename1 filename2   (where 'filename1' is
    the name of the file you are downloading, and 'filename2' is name you'd
    like the file called in your account.) For example, the command:
    "get 00INDEX index.txt"   would download the "00INDEX" file into your
    account and call it "index.txt". [Note: For 'filename1', be sure to use
    the same case letters as appear in the directory in step 5.]

 7. To change into a directory, you can type:  cd dirname   (where 'dirname'
    is the name of the directory you are changing into).  Once into the new
    directory, follow steps 5 and 6 again to get a listing of and to download
    files.

 8. To back out of a directory, use:  cd ..

 9. To exit from FTP, type:  quit

NOTE: All of the files in the /pub/users/brianw directory are ASCII, and are
      not compressed. They can be read by any standard word processor or
      text editor.

----------------------------------< End >------------------------------------

For more information, send e-mail to :  [e-mail]

==============================================================================
"Dianetics," "Hubbard," and "Scientology," are trademarks and service
marks owned by the Religious Technology Center and are used with its
permission. "Scientologist" is a collective membership mark designating
members of the affiliated churches and missions of Scientology.
==============================================================================