Read about It. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 40 стр.

                                    TEXT X                                                 Matthew glances around a fluorescent-lit, drop-ceilinged room
                                                                                   that looks like a driving school – all motivational posters and video
       Do you find the new religious organizations to be a dangerous               equipment shoved into corners. Matthew sighs. «This,» he says, closing
movement?                                                                          the book, «is the ideal org.»
       Can we consider them cults?                                                         «This» is New Haven’s Church of Scientology, a squat office on
       What causes the appearance of sects and cults? Have you heard               Whalley Ave. that looks more like one of the city’s storefront churches
anything about Scientology Church?                                                 than the site of a new civilization’s inception. In a city founded by per-
       Have any of your friends or acquaintances joined scientology?               secuted pilgrims, it’s easy to dismiss just another religious sect, espe-
       Read the definition of the term «scientology» given by the                  cially one so often characterized by the media as a kooky, anti-
Wordsworth dictionary of beliefs and religions.                                    psychiatry prayer group. But Scientologists like Matthew claim to be
       A movement on the fringe of Christianity, developed in the USA
                                                                                   part of the «world’s fastest growing religion» and describe the era to
by L Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, which strives to open the mind of ad-
                                                                                   come as a sort of Golden Age for Scientology. Now, New Haven’s Sci-
herents to all great truths and to self-determination. Jesus is seen as
                                                                                   entologists are constructing a multi-million dollar church. Just down the
one of several important teachers. The Church’s scientific and religious
                                                                                   road, Yalies remain blissfully unaware of the movement starting in their
claims have given rise to much controversy, as have its methods of fi-
                                                                                   own backyard.
nancial management, and in the 1980s it defended several lawsuits in
the USA. Nevertheless it has a wide following.                                             What most passesby know about Scientology they’ve gleaned
       Now read the Internet site article about this organization and do           from supermarket tabloids. But, the facts of this religion are far stranger
the tasks below.                                                                   than a 300 pound baby. Followers believe in an Overlord, or Creator-
                                                                                   figure named Xenu, who, 75 million years prior, sent his planet’s excess
  MOVING OUT OF A STOREFRONT INTO A TEMPLE,                                        population, or Thetans, on space planes (modeled after Douglas DC-8s)
     NEW HAVEN’S CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY                                             to the planet Teegeeack, or Earth, for extermination. Loading the
                  IS BOOMING                                                       Thetans into Earth’s volcanoes, he pelted them with hydrogen bombs –
                                                                                   such that their exploded corpses adhered to the flesh of the native earth-
                                              The Yale Herald / October 1, 2005    lings. According to Scientologists, this cosmology is really no less be-
                                                             By Adriane Quibly     lievable than the Virgin Birth or Jesus’s resurrection. But what seems a
                                                                                   little bit strange is that all this was prophesied in the «50s by an entre-
                                  Matthew has a scrubbed, clean face. He           preneur named L. Ron Hubbard, who is best known outside the church
                            smiles a lot. He can’t be older than 23, 24. His       as the author of hundreds of sci-fi pulps.
                            cornflower blue polo has been ironed. It matches               New Haven’s Scientologist clan plans to move from the former
                            his eyes. On the left breast, his shirt is imprinted   furniture store that they currently occupy into the former 1926 Olive
                            with the phrase, «This is it! / The Ideal Org! /
                                                                                   Branch Masonic Temple, a space three times as large. A display case in
                            We’re putting it here!,» just over the heart. If
                                                                                   the present office showcases the impressive refurbishment plans – all
                            you ask him what the «Ideal Org,» refers to,
                                                                                   plush velvet, scrollwork, and mysterious symbols carved like Wedge-
                            Matthew will pull a book off a shelf of leather-
                                                                                   wood onto dimly lit, buttery walls.
                            bound volumes, flipping to a page he has already
  A Scientology Center on                                                                  Though symbolically this new facility marks their «Golden Age»
  Hollywood Boulevard in    memorized: «One would look at this ideal org
   Hollywood, California    and know that this was the place a new civiliza-       in New Haven, its interior is currently gutted and empty. Just last week-
                            tion was being established for this planet.»           end, a modest tag sale aimed to raise the last of the funds: L. Ron Hub-

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