The recent New Yorker article piece by Michael Shulman has resulted in a ton of media pickups, mostly focused on her responses to questions about scientology. There have been a number of takes on this of interest: Martha Ross wrote an excellent piece in the SJ Mercury News Martha quotes journalist Yashar Ali who tweeted: And Tony Ortega added some thoughts from Geoff Levin who was extensively interviewed for the story, but little of it made it into print: Now, let me add some of my thoughts, as it was my job back in the day to … [Read more...]
Scientology Celebrities — Where Are You?
The recent article about Laura Prepon where she announced she had not been in scientology for 5 years made me wonder how many of the other scientology celebrities may be "out." It's pretty common in the scientology world for people to simply stop participating, without making any big announcement. There is even a term for it these days: "under the radar." It spares the person the harassment that comes from declaring you are done, and in many instances the loss of friends and family or jobs. Laura Prepon hadn't made public statements about scientology for many years. But … [Read more...]
The Failed Scientology Mission Network
The Mission network, once the front line of scientology dissemination, is a broken down, tiny shadow of its former self. Back in the bad old days, Missions were large, prosperous and brought in the majority of new people to scientology. In his infinite wisdom (really his growing paranoia), L. Ron Hubbard decided the Missions were seeking to rip off "his" orgs. They were "stealing" public and making too much money, so the infamous Mission Holder Convention of October 1982 in San Francisco was the beginning of the end. Some think this was all the work of Miscavige. They would be incorrect. … [Read more...]
RAW Meat: It’s a Real Homor
More weirdness from inside the bubble. The language of scientology often reveals so much. "Raw books"? She means books sold to "raw" public. Hubbard called the "wogs" (non-scientologists), "raw meat." Not being educated in scientology qualifies them as "raw," like untouched, as in raw materials. And they are "meat" like "flesh" because they are not yet aware of being a thetan. It is a derisive term, though less so than "wog" -- but whether more or less derisive, the real point is what it reveals about how scientologists view the world. There are scientologists, and then there are … [Read more...]
Scientology Deaths and Suicides
People are asking for our thoughts regarding recent tragic events. We can only offer facts about scientology teachings and our opinions on them -- we don’t have firsthand information concerning the details of Kelly Preston or Benjamin Keough’s deaths, though, when it comes to scientology and scientologists, there are other factors that come into play - factors that are contained in the “scripture” of scientology that give a particularly dark tint to these terribly sad events. The heartbreakingly unfortunate truth is people commit suicide every single day, and people die of breast cancer … [Read more...]
Jenna Elfman — A Good Scientologist
A recent article in US Weekly quotes Jenna Elfman about "the controversy" around scientology. She is a shining example of how a good scientologist acts and speaks. Foolishly. While scientologists proclaim they have "the tech" to protect them from suppressive influences and they learn to "confront and shatter" this sort of thing, in fact, they avoid "suppression" at any cost. And by "suppression" they mean anything that is negative or even questioning about scientology. When they are confronted by such things, they run from it. Close their eyes. Hold their hands of their ears … [Read more...]
Scientology TV — What’s Missing?
Scientology is making a really big deal about their new episode featuring Chick Corea. Chick is an interesting story that has been mentioned before. He got into financial troubles when his wife was hammering his credit cards. David Miscavige had known Chick for a long time because his father, Ron, was good friends with Ron Moss, Chick's manager. (Ron Moss is father of Elisabeth Moss of Handmaid's Tale fame). Miscavige was alerted to the problem and not wanting a "flap" with one of scientology's longest term celebrities, brought in Lyman Spurlock as a CPA to look through his finances. … [Read more...]
Stand Double Standards
Not that this is big news... scientology is operating on a blatant double standard. I saw this on the STAAD twitter feed. Now of course, we could do an even better headline -- SCIENTOLOGY SUPPORTS ALLEGED RAPIST DANNY MASTERSON. The difference in the two cases is rather striking. The accuser of Haggis NEVER FILED a police complaint. In fact, the main accuser tried to get money from Paul Haggis to remain silent. HE went to law enforcement to report this. Masteron's victims all went to law enforcement -- and there are 4 of them of have filed police complaints and now after … [Read more...]
Ideal Missions – Ocala Fail
Scientology are exposing themselves again. Years ago, the Ocala Mission was opened with great fanfare as the first "Ideal" mission. It has been promoted this way since. I visited this Mission some time after it was declared ideal and the Hungarian receptionist was unable to help me when I asked some questions about Dianetics and told me to come back on Tuesday evening (it was a Saturday afternoon as I recall) when the Mission ED would be there and that he could help. There wasn't anyone else in the place. Now this: They don't have the staff to be "ideal" -- apparently they don't … [Read more...]
Celebrity Round Up
The wreckage from Hurricane Leah is evident everywhere you turn. Scientology's PR geniuses are frantically trying to figure out how to respond to the avalanche of exposure. Their "responses" consist of A. "dead agenting" the source of the problem (see earlier post that defines and describes this: Scientology Dead Agents Itself), B. seeking to destroy the "enemies" who are exposing their abuses (see this article: Dealing with Critics of Scientology: the L. Ron Hubbard Playbook) and C. "Filling the vacuum". This is described by L. Ron Hubbard in his "scripture" about how to deal with … [Read more...]