
Scientology, at first, offers to help you improve your relationships, communicate better, and become more effective at handling life. They interview you to find your "ruin" - the thing that you feel is your biggest downfall in life.
They then tell you - no matter what it is - that Scientology can handle that. Or, "something can be done about that".
Let's take a typical new recruit: a twenty year old male, whose ruin is that he feels he is shy with girls. He is told that "Scientology can handle that". He is told that if you purchase a communications course, you will become less shy when talking to girls.
So the guy signs up and pays for the course. He now has a purpose that he wants Scientology to help him to achieve. He feels that if this works, then Scientology will have improved his life in a very specific and measurable way.
He does his course and realizes some things about himself. He improves his skill at communication. He might be out at a bar one night, and he has learned about "confront" - the ability to be there and comfortably perceive. He talks to a girl and it goes well. He attributes his "win" to his study in Scientology. He begins to feel that Scientology is improving his life (and it very well may be).
But as he continues to participate in Scientology, he is told about Scientology's version of ethics and the need to take more responsibility in his own life. He begins to be sat down and talked to about bringing in more people - his friends and family - and getting them on course. He is told that this is the way to a better life, by taking more responsibility for others than just yourself.
Scientology salesmen sit him down and start to sell him on his next course or auditing. Usually it costs much more than his first course. He is told he'll need to apply "confronting", what he learned on his last course, to figuring out how to make some more money to pay for his next course in Scientology.
If he starts to feel shy with girls again, and he brings this up, he will be told that his next auditing will address the mental causes for that shyness - which he very much "needs to handle".
So he comes up with the money and buys the auditing. What he isn't told is that the drills he did for communication were hypnotic techniques which made him more suggestible to statements like "You are a thetan" and "a thetan can handle anything".
He starts to see himself more and more as a "thetan". He is now told that he is a "thetan". And thetan is defined by L Ron Hubbard for him. Now he is being defined by L Ron Hubbard, and he loos more and more to L Ron Hubbard tapes and writings to tell him who he really is.
He sees himself changing. His self-identity is being re-defined.
The Scientology auditing he is getting is hypnosis. He is given suggestions by his auditor "we're going to handle your shyness with girls" and he is sent down into his mind to find the "causes" for this shyness. He is positive that the causes for his shyness are there because all of Hubbard's books say they are.
He comes up with mental incidents during these sessions and these are all accepted, no matter how wild, and he is even praised for having them. As he digs around more in his mind, he is learning more and more about himself as a "thetan". Every new incident he digs up from his mind is related to what LRH says about it. He is fitting his own self-identity into the concepts and cognitive structure of what a Scientologist is supposed to be. Now he is really looking very different to himself. The old self was shy - but the new Scientology Self self CONFRONTS!
As he continues to reshape his personality to be more and more of a Scientologist, he begins to become more and more committed to the various causes and crusades that Scientologists set out upon. He may be recruited for staff to "clear the planet" or "create a new civilization". Now, though, when he talks about how he still has his problems with girls, he is distracted off of that and onto the importance of clearing the planet.
Knowing what is wanted from him by his new group, and even being told that increasing his responsibility level will help him with girls, he may bring some people in to the organization. He may hand out flyers to help promote it. And if he really gets gung ho - he may go ahead join staff.
If so, he is now working for free 12-14 hour days and being pressured to keep his stats up week after week. All with the highest of ideals - to clear the planet.
Has he found a mate yet? Usually, no. Is he still shy with girls? Usually yes. But now he's playing a
bigger game - not that old irresponsible wog game of finding a mate and settling down with her, either.
He's clearing the planet!
He now wants to use Scientology to clear the planet, not handle his shyness with girls.
Now he wants IMMORTALITY, and A CLEARED PLANET and A NEW CIVILIZATION. The human race is a bunch of "wogs" and they live pointless lives of nothing important. He sees his goal of finding a mate and getting married as just so self indulgent now.
He has completely forgotten why he came in in the first place. His goals have now all shifted from improving his own life to what Scientology says his goals are.
Yes, Scientology offers something completely different than other religions or self help groups.
Scientology offers a personality shift to a whole new you!
He has become an artificial, implanted personality, made up by L Ron Hubbard for the purpose of gaining greater control over his thoughts, feelings and behavior. In other words, he has become a Scientologist.