Scientology's Unwanted Relatives

Avatar – This seems to be the most successful Scientology spin-off around. The web site is quite alluring and aesthetic; looking over their web site there would seem to be practitioners and groups all over the world. According to an e-mail recounting of events that lead to the formation of Avatar, (on one of the Standard Tech Groups’ lists), Mr. Palmer was a Scientology Mission Executive Director / Auditor / Case Supervisor who went independent after the Church of Scientology tried to reign in his and other independent Scientology Missions. The story goes that neither the Church of Scientology, nor Mr. Palmer took responsibility for a number of Advanced Payment accounts at the defunct mission. Avatar is reputed to be as litigious as the Church of Scientology.

Metapsychology – "Metapsychology is an off-shoot of Scientology, yes. However, they left out a lot and also altered a lot. For example, they have a positive tone scale, but the negative tone scale is dropped. A lot of things are altered, not only the terminology but also the theory. The ARC=U triangle was altered too, R is replaced by U. Metapsychology was discussed on the freezoneamerica forum (click on archive to see the start of the discussion).
Some people who did both metapsychology and Scientology commented, and the overall conclusion was that metapsychology is an incomplete, watered-down version of Scientology that is less workable. Things that clash too hard with the paradigm of psychology (which is stuffed with false data and ineffective methods) are dropped. As a result, its aim seems to be to make a better psychotherapy, not create OT`s. It may attract some people who are afraid of the "reputation" of Scientology with the "general public" (which is heavily influenced by suppressives), but personally I don`t care about that and would rather get the 'real thing'". - Peter Steenkamp.

Updated on Dec 23 2003