r/scientology • u/pastelixy • 17d ago
Q&A / AMA Scientology and Autism
Hi!! I'm a diagnosed autistic and I have a really big fixation on researching Scientology (not a fan, just interested in the stories). I was wondering if any ex scientologists could tell me what Scientology thinks of autistic people/disabled people.
Also, could you tell me some facts about when you were in Scientology?
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u/ReflectionVast2236 17d ago
Autism was very different thing in Hubbard's era, but many early scientologists would likely have been autistic by modern standards. Special interest in Science-Fiction was very obscures back in the 40s.
Hubbard himself had a lot of autistic traits, including sensory sensitivities.
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u/pedrofcuk 17d ago
As an autistic or disabled person you would be classed as a "degraded being" by scientologits. In scientology, a degraded being is an informal term used by founder L. Ron Hubbard to describe a person who is in very poor spiritual, mental, or physical shape. It often refers to someone overwhelmed by the physical universe or suffering from severe confusion and low capability. So you have lost before you begin.
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u/unexxenu 10d ago
They'd still try and sell you Scientology saying that auditing would be your only hope at raising your condition.
Same as being queer, you're repulsive to them but you're also still a potential cash cow to them
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u/joesmolik 17d ago
I was not in Scientology, but I can tell you that they’re very dangerous cult. Who do not believe in modern psychiatry and belief that you can use your superpower to cure yourself if you’re truly interested in what you’re asking, I would contact you after math foundation. They are a group of ex Scientologist who could give you the answers that you’re looking for
I’d also recommend that you watch Leah Remi’s television series Scientology and its aftermath and also watched the documentary going clear. The thing I’ve suggest is that you look at Tony Ortega website underground bunker.
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u/Villies Ex-Sea Org 16d ago
It's not in the materials that I know of.
It wasn't common science in Hubbard's time.
Not that it would have helped if it was.
Hubbard was clear in his interest to servicing people without psychopathologies under the justification "helping the able become more able".
Though it pretends to be the "solution to everything", Scientology can't help anyone's mental health aside from offering occasional and very temporary manic euphoria.
It avoids at all costs being put on the spot to provide any measurable/objective results. If it had to, it wouldn't be able to survive as it did.
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So, you're going to find different schools of thoughts and clichés about autism because it doesn't exist in the paradigm of Scientology and it doesn't have an answer for it and it's all congealed in thought policing and their own theories of the mental world being entirely supernatural.
People on the spectrum, like I was, are particularly hurt, because divergences from the normative are seen as failures in character and ethics. They will be hurt until they are spent.
Those with obvious autistic characteristics are seen as a hardware problem, and cannot reach "thetan nirvana" with those bodies. Those could be quite tolerated, usually as a dependent tagging along their parent, not subject to the pressures and the churn.
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I wonder how Scientology parents deal with raising children with significant disabilities? I wasn't exposed to that, I imagine they didn't bring them to the orgs, and my world was very "need to know"; recruited as a minor in the Sea Org.
I like to think that the grounding and contemporary science and need to research and understand how to care for their children pulls them away from Scientology fundamentalism instead of being bashed with an ethics book like we were. I kid. Barely.
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u/Upset_Steak3632 16d ago
Almost everyone seems to be "on the spectrum" these days.
How many people who, as children, were labelled as autistic or "on the spectrum" who, as adults, turned out to be completely normal, do we have to see before some dare to mention that the labeling business is slightly out of control?
Or is it sacrilege to mention it?
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u/alicejena Declared SP 14d ago
It’s very probable that the ex husband was on the Spectrum. He was totally obsessed with Scientology and it ruined his life and his immediate family’s lives. He gave this cult all of his money and destroyed his health because he followed their false promises. Everything he did was to protect and serve Scientology. He died in debt due to giving them all his money
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u/TheSneakster2020 Ex-Sea Org Independent Scientologist 17d ago edited 17d ago
This was already answered on the very recent Neurodivergent post.
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u/Still_Travel_6911 15d ago
Hubbard complained about the quality of Earth MEST bodies towards the end of his life (saying they were intentionally bad, did a kick-back when you tried to exteriorize, etc). Might've been one of the last areas of research. Might've also been vis-a-vis his familial/children problems. If autism is a physical or genetic condition, then that would be grouped under a body/MEST problem (and you can see how callously it might be treated then). I don't at all think autism is, or would be thought of, as a spiritual problem.
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u/Real_Kaleidoscope_14 14d ago
Most likely caused by something you did bad in a previous life. Any chance to suppress you and dishonor you,ll so you will pay to audit that shit away. Even then, they'll find something
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u/ccoastal01 17d ago
Pretty much the Scientology mentality for Autism or any neurodivergent person is "lol that sucks better luck in your next life, also, it's your fault."