How does one find out about it?
If you wished to know about Christianity or Socialism (or even Freemasonry to some extent) you would simply approach a believer and ask them. You could be sure that any believer would actually know what the whole thing was about. Freemasonry is a little more difficult but it is possible to get some idea about it from public literature- and the remainder is fairly well known from other sources.
Scientology is quite different in that it is possible to be engaged in Scientology full time for many years and still have no real idea of what it is all about. In fact a Scientologist is always in a 'mystery sandwich' they have always discovered some big secret and they are always about to discover another one. Every time they go up a level their idea of Scientology completely reverses. First it is a therapy, then a religion. Finally it becomes some sort of secret magical brotherhood cum political conspiracy. Nobody really knows what it may become on the higher levels that have not yet been released.
This means that it is impossible to find out about Scientology from the organization itself or from believers. You could spend five years studying it and still have no idea what the beast really is.
There is also the fact that Scientology distorts perceptions. An active Scientologist becomes lost in a maze of mirrors. He cannot be honest either with you or with himself. In fact Scientologists know less about the subject that anyone.
Former Scientologists are also bad at explaining what really goes on. They talk a lot about the OT levels, exploding volcanoes and so on but the average clam never learns of these things. Scientology is not really about Xenu. Many former Scientologists are also driven half mad by the experience and invent their own private religion of 'chlorine eating remote control germs' that change peoples hair to various bizarre colors on the orders of the German Secret service.
We can learn far more by looking at the way the organization behaves.
1) The cult is highly deceptive in all its dealings. It may try to lure you in with promises of employment or of personality tests. These 'Oxford Capacity Analysis' tests have no connection with Oxford University and are not actual tests (nobody gets a pass). They are simply ploys to obtain your personal details.
2) It is impossible to get any indication of what the organization believes from the promotional material.
3) Church spokespeople combine paranoia, aggression and defensiveness in equal measure and storm out of media interviews when questioned.
We may study real life Scientologists in greater depth on Alt Religion Scientology.
Scientologists on ARS fall into the following groups.
1) CCHR (Citizens Commission on Human Rights) shrills. CCHR is a front group that claims to be concerned with the reform of Psychiatry. In reality they attempt to prevent discussion of Scientology by posting off topic and slanderous posts about psychiatry on ARS. This is an abuse of charitable status.
2) OSA volunteers. OSA has a history of deceptive and underhand activity on ARS. Currently they seem to employ a creep who makes obscene and slanderous sexual allegations about female posters. He also trys to insult male posters by claiming they are female and insults female posters by saying they are male, fat, and living on welfare. The self hating tone of these posts suggests he may be dangerous to women.
3) Child pornography and spam possibly initiated by the church. I am not suggesting that the church is involved in the production of child pornography but it is possible they have some way to add ARS on to span lists. It is also possible that individual Scientologists have done this without the knowledge of management.
4) Independent Scientologists, many of which have mental problems.
In short- the only way to find out about Scientology is is to look at the activities of individual Scientologists and of the cult itself.
It is not pretty.
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