MEMBERS OF THE Scientology movement in Ireland were asked to donate at least €1,000 to join an ‘Adventurers Club’ which was to help set up the newly-opened centre in Firhouse.
In screengrabs seen by this publication, members of the church are being asked to donate €1,000 to join the Irish Adventurers Club. Silver membership of the group costs €2,500 while gold will set you back €5,000.
It was not entirely clear what this money gets you and calls to Scientology’s National Affairs Office in Dublin went unanswered on Friday. However, a post on a members’ Facebook forum states that those who donate will receive a “membership card, special commendations and acknowledgements and a shamrock pin”.
In that group, a member of the church acknowledged that the Irish base is intended to act as a gateway to Europe. In a note seen by TheJournal.ie, he wrote:
The Org is very strategic due to Ireland’s position as a gateway to Europe. Ireland is a safe haven and a centre of excellence in technology and business for high-tech multinational companies as well as artists etc. It is also pro-American.
TheJournal.ie understand that a large number of auditors (counsellors) are being trained at Scientology’s base in Florida to staff the new Firhouse centre.
Aiming to ‘clear Ireland’
Senior members of the group have said that the new centre in Firhouse will be staffed by the elite-trained counsellors in a bid to “clear Ireland” as quickly as possible.
Clearing is a term used by Scientologists. According to them, it means that: “Scientologists want to rid the planet of insanity, war and crime, and in its place create a civilisation in which sanity and peace exist. In order to do this, they must help individuals become free of their own individual aberrations and insanities and, hence, regain their inherent goodness.”
One Irish member has said that apart from the auditors, over 100 staff from across the world will work in the centre which officially opened yesterday.
The centre is to be opened as an Ideal Organisation which the Church of Scientology (CoS) say is “configured to provide the full services of the Scientology religion to its parishioners, while also serving the community with social betterment and outreach programmes”.
According to its official website, the organisers are in a “mad fury to get everyone signed up, trained, and posted”. It added that new members are being sent every week for training “and people from all over the world are helping us to get this massive project done”.
The site at Firhouse will become a ‘Class V church’ meaning that those at the facility will have the authority to train and ordain ministers.
Class V churches are much larger than the religion’s missions. According to the official Scientology website “they are hubs for their community of Scientologists”.
Earlier this week, TheJournal.ie reported that the Firhouse centre was given the seal of approval by a senior member of the Nation of Islam.
The Nation of Islam (NOI) has been in operation for over 80 years. It is a group which promotes black nationalism in the name of Islam. It is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group due to the “deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders.
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