HelluvaHoax!
Well-known member
maybe not later, as things changed. when was the period you had experience with?
this is the sort of thing i find:
1969:
'Even its members will concede that it is far out. After a hurried interview with Miss Anne Ursprung, top executive of the Founding Church, I managed an extension of time by driving her and fellow staff member Esther Mangold to the airport to pick up a couple of Scientologists, Leon and Mitch, who were arriving from New York. As we returned to the city, I asked if it were true that many hippies are interested in Scientology. Leon explained that hippies, having been turned off by the churches, are drawn to Scientology because it represents a radical departure from tradition. Magazine articles denouncing Scientology have elicited an enthusiastic reaction from the hippie community. “If the establishment is against it, it must be good,” they reason.' Scientology: Religion or Racket?: First of Two Parts
Jeff Hawkins:
'He joined because as a self-proclaimed hippie in the late 1960s, he liked the idea of Scientology’s antiwar stance and spiritual component, particularly the strong belief about the afterlife.'' https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/12/21/ex-scientologists-tell-disturbing-stories-about-david-miscavige-the-pope-of-scientology-on-ae-series/
Tina Phillips, writing for CoS' STAND:
'I was the one, back in the day, who fully embraced being as much of a hippie as possible'
Tory Christman:
'Christman had left home for California with the intent of becoming a hippie.'
Patty Pedniaz:
'There was quite a bit to accomplish in two weeks because NN UK was more like a bunch of ex hippies and druggies sitting around drinking tea and doing TR's.' An Ex-Scientology Office of Special affairs Volunteer - Pattie Pieniadz, starts telling her story
Roger Weller:
'“In 1967, Scientology was a natural to go to from the drug culture. The New York org, it was a cool thing,” he says. “There was something interesting about it. Here I was, all freaked out on acid, and here were all these people who seemed so focused. I told them I wanted to go to India. They said I needed auditing.”
He was brought into the org by a good looking girl. “The chick is looking at the e-meter, the needle going back and forth. ‘Do you do any drugs?’ she asked me. I said, ‘Not really, I smoked a little pot this morning.'” Roger was told he’d need to be off drugs for six months before he could get any benefit from Scientology. He decided he could do that.
[Weller sent this photo of himself with Mick Jagger at a 1972 forum, where he said he gave the singer a Scientology book]
“There were all these hot chicks. I bought this book 88088. It had all this out-of-body stuff. ‘This is cool,’ I thought. I can fly around the universe and not have to take any drugs.”
The young men, meanwhile, also struck him in interesting ways. “There were guys a few years older, wearing ascots — Hubbard wore an ascot. I thought it was odd, but they were really friendly to me. They were listening to me. It was just a very cool experience,” he says. “Haight Ashbury had been all about crabs. It was not as great as everybody thinks it was.”
Roger became an ardent member of Scientology and would stay in it for another 19 years. “I disseminated Scientology to so many people in the 60s, and the whole time I was in Scientology I was in the counterculture,” he says. “I did have fun, going to lots of parties, and it wasn’t so expensive when I was in. I met lots of people in Scientology in the 19 years I was in. Most of them are out now,” he adds.
Roger himself left Scientology when L. Ron Hubbard decided to change planes of existence and left his body in 1986.
“I’m still a hippie today. I don’t smoke pot or take drugs, and my hair is short, but I still do my own thing. I meditate. I’m still living outside society,” he says.' When Scientology Was Hip: E-Meters in the Village - The Village Voice
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Nice! That's a whole lotta deep-dive data on Scientology's connection to the Hippie world!
There are remarkable similarities and parallels between the Church of Scientology and the Hippie-ology. First of all, both are cosmic religious organizations that each do a lot of recruiting. Very early on, one has to make a decision to convert and "come to Jesus". We call this the "CONVERSION STAGE". While still in school as a young teenie, I was first contacted by the Hippie movement after which they began to groom me to become an ideal & standard hippie.
I clearly remember the day I announced my conversion decision to my mom so that she could do the "conversion" of my regular straight-legged Levis to bell-bottoms. I watched in wonder as she cut out a triangular-shaped piece of jean material and cranked the sewing machine into action to secure it in place. Voila! When they do the movie version of my life, I am fairly sure that during that scene when I first put on my new bell-bottoms and step out into the outside world, Hendrix's "VOODOO CHILE" will be begin blaring!
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