I think you asked about Scientology before and I responded that it's a cult.
I'm going to assume you don't know any of the history of it and you are asking a serious question. It was created by L Ron Hubbard, a prolific science fiction writer, and a known bullsh*t artist. These links will give you some info on him and Scientology.
Thank you @Harry. I was watching a documentary on Scientology and I saw some horrendous stories where they made a pregnant woman work in a parking lot as punishment.
It's essentially a personality cult, having nothing either religious or scientific about it, whatever the instigators and their more ardent followers of such cults may try to claim by pseudo-theological and pseudo-scientific ideas and language.
What I find is surprising and very hard to understand, is why so many people including ones you'd think reasonably intelligent and educated, are drawn into organisations like these.
No a scam to separate you from your money under the pretext of making the world better and making you a more effective person. Really totalitarian and unless you follow the party line they try and destroy you. Didn't make sense to me in the 1970s when I took the test and doesn't now as I have since learned about all kinds of horrors associated with it from people who were taken advantage of.
What sort of things does their "test" ask (apart from obvious personal and financial questions)?
I wonder how many of their followers leave not long after joining. Not something the cult itself would care to say, of course. But if a scam, why have its directors not been prosecuted on fraud charges?
Hi. If I recall correctly it was a personality test and good at pointing out your strong and week points. Then they take that and try to sell you a set of courses.
Don't know about how many people leave early on. Tends to attract intelligent hard working people who want to become better and make the planet better. This is what they promise but it doesn't happen and I understand their figures about how many outside the organization they help are inflated greatly.
Because they are accepted as a "church" then they can claim that what they do is religious ritual which the government has to stay away from. They have a lot of real estate holdings to deflect such charges but if you look at the total picture I think it does say fraud.
Harry 