Read Stranger in a Strange Land, read about Hubbard and Heinlein's friendship, and look at the timeline of when Scientology started and Stranger in a Strange Land was published.
I mean, it shows how much intel agencies can "screen for high intelligence individuals" ?
But if you're looking for a club you can advance it, I highly suspect Scientology is as quid pro quo as anything else out there. In other words, it's more of a social function than a religion.
>Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
>First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
>Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
>The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.