BasicQuestions:

> Let's turn it completely around. For purposes of this experiment, let's
> assume you are completely ruthless and willing to do whatever it takes to
> make as much money as possible. You light upon the idea that if you want to
> get rich, you should start a religion.
>
> What would you do from there?

In the first place I won't be starting from where Hubbard started. His religion was founded in the 1950s, mine will be a 21st century one, a Religion for the New Millenium. I need a catchy name, but let's use 'Millenium' for the moment.

My objective is to get rich. OK, so I'm not going to make poverty virtuous or being wealthy sinful! Millenium will claim to be aimed at improving peoples spiritual lives, and as a perfectly natural spinoff to this my followers will become successful and better able to get good jobs and they will attribute this to their use of Millenium networking. Hey, that's a good word - Networking!

To ensure that my followers are successful, I need to have a mechanism for dumping the unsuccessful. In the CoS this is achieved by charging large sums of money for courses, the poor don't belong because they can't afford it. I'll go along with that, though I'll carefully adjust my price list so as to give the maximum sustainable revenue rather than simply hiking up prices whenever I want a new yacht.

I think I'm going to treat my staff better than than the CoS does, since happy people work better. They will be getting average wages plus cut price Networking when there is spare capacity, as happens in other organisations. The staff I want are the kind of people who enjoy being part of a group. They will be *gushingly* nice to members, charming the money out of their wallets rather than regging them.

I just thought of my slogan! 'Doing good makes you happy'. Well it does doesn't it. We'll have lots of Networking (TM) courses on how to be nice to people, anger management, that kinda stuff. The emphasis will be on this being a *personal* thing, Millenium itself won't be a big donator to charities but it will encourage its members to do voluntary work.

Millenium only needs to last for my lifetime. I will be in total control and what happens after I drop my body is not my concern. If I can get away with it I will do a runner with my millions at some point, and I will ensure that none of my underlings is capable of assuming my role of leader so the whole thing quickly falls apart.

I'm going to need Enemies. Since my followers will be idealists (easier to delude) I'll pick some popular targets. Perhaps Millenium will be pro- ecology, so an enemy is the Multinational Oil Cartel that secretly controls Everything.

Millenium will include a belief in God, a benign Creator that has some Ultimate Purpose for us. There will be an afterlife, and the Big Question you get asked for admission to Heaven will be 'What did you do to make other people happy?' Millenialists will believe that the complex mythologies of other religions are mostly distractions from what God really wants us to focus on, pushing the human race forward.

Dissent will be dealt with very simply - I'll be willing to listen to ideas and criticism, but my word will be final. If people don't like that, then they are welcome to leave.

Millenium will go international as soon as possible, since that makes it easier to divert the money into my Swiss Bank Account.

This all fiction of course. There is one vital ingredient Hubbard and the other gurus had that I don't - charisma.

-- "I think of my beautiful city in flames"

http://www.newsfrombree.co.uk A medieval spreadsheet, enturbulating entheta and how to outrun Thread.

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