Now that Ron Miscavige's book has been announced, I am offering some predictions on how his son will respond. This is based on past experience and reading Martha Stoutt's The Sociopath Next Door. David Miscavige fits the personality traits profiled in that book as if it were written exclusively about him. More than likely, the responses will come from "Karin Pouw," "Freedom" magazine or lawyers, even though dictated by Dave. He doesn't like to soil his image by commenting on things that are beneath his lofty station in life like a book by his father. But regardless of whom utters the v … [Read more...]
Still Milking It After All These Years
There is apparently no limit to the hype. "You gotta see this to believe it... The FUTURE really is now. Seriously? And what do you have to see that is the future now? SPOILER ALERT! Miscavige announcing the "imminent" opening of KCET. You got it right. Things have gotten so bad that he is AGAIN announcing the imminent opening of KCET. It's already been shown and endlessly pitched and the "Big News" for the March 13th event was something that is "going to be" done. In fact, if you look at the scientology.org website, it tells you everything you need to know and even … [Read more...]
Thursday Funnies
Come To The Flag Dear me, it just cannot be this hard to get all the words onto a poster I did something which truly helped... No you didn't. Babe watch Still saying Tampa "is making" staff a viable career. It should be that by now. These are really becoming like the prude version of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover. They have nothing to do with Sports. And this has nothing to do with Orgs/being on staff/SO. Discounts. Discounts. Hurry. Hurry. Nothing like "Ron's Birthday" as a reason to give discounts on the money they will never … [Read more...]
OT Wins at the Bottom of the Bridge
What scientology is willing to promote gets crazier and crazier by the week. They are beginning to read like Weird Al Yankovic parodies. The ramblings are virtually incomprehensible. And it appears they don't even read them with any perspective about what they actually SAY before they send them out to the world. As long as they are over-the-top and kowtow to Dear Leader Miscavige they are good to go. With success stories like the one below, I don't understand why anyone bothers spending the time and the money to go to the "top of the Bridge"? This guy, who is an OT VII and "old" Class VI … [Read more...]
Scientology’s Freedom of Speech: Out of Both Sides of its Mouth
"Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Scientology is fast to claim protection under the First Amendment to the US Constitution -- when it serves their purpose. Either to avoid responsibility for their actions or to try and claim some PR points as "champions of human rights." (See Freedom magazine as Exhibit 1) Yet they are not so quick to a … [Read more...]
Channels Onto “The Bridge”
Scientology repeatedly denies this, but here it is in black and beige. The "Director of Clearing" of the Portland "ideal org" is proudly announcing how the "4D campaigns" (anti-drug, education, WTH, human rights, Volunteer Ministers) are really "dissemination tools" to get people into the org so they can be "closed" to buy scientology books and services. They are even conducting a seminar on "how to disseminate with these campaigns." The truth is these campaigns are ONLY supported for two reasons: For photo ops to try to present the image that scientology is selfless and provides … [Read more...]
The Real State of Flag and LA Orgs
People send me information routinely on their visits to orgs, and I happened to get several recently from people who were in LA and also at Flag. I accumulate these because individually each one is not worth a whole post, but when there are a few they tell a story. In this case, apparently the rudderless ship is all but abandoned. And it is interesting how the stories from different people in different orgs are all pretty much the same. And align so well with the information being imparted on the "Oh No Ross and Carrie" podcasts about their investigation of scientology at Los Angeles org … [Read more...]
More on Google Trends
An interested reader sent this in after the recent posting on the subject of Alexa and Google trends. I found it interesting to see the correlation between "interest" in scientology and interest in Tom Cruise. And I thank Why Bother for bringing the Google Trends data to my attention. The graph shows the US trends and the following one shows the worldwide trends: And this one is Worldwide trends: The first spike in the infamous Oprah Couch jumping followed by the "glib" Matt Lauer commentary. April 2006 Suri is born. August 2006 Paramount terminates t … [Read more...]
Thursday Funnies
Oh No Ross and Carrie Love these two. The second installment is worth listening to, just like the first. Smart, funny people explaining their experiences being sucked into the scientology bubble, including attending the New Year's event. It is humorous to get their take on how things come across to normal people that walk in the door. Listen here. The IAS "Inglewood Edition" Featuring the incomparable Jackson Wyan (whoever he is) rather than the full time IAS Reg Michael Roberts, one of the VERY few African Americans in scientology. So what makes the presentation from … [Read more...]
Scientology Ad Fail
There has been plenty of discussion about scientology's ads during the Super Bowl and Grammy's. Much of it very derisive - the twittersphere lit up with comments as soon as the ads appeared. Many of them were pretty humorous. They have run two ads -- and neither sell anything. Instead they ask a lot of questions and direct people to scientology.org website. Maybe this is modeled on the original Jeff Hawkins Dianetics "question ads" that sent Dianetics back onto the NY Times bestseller list. Back then, the success of the ads was measured by the number of books sold in bookstores (today, … [Read more...]