We continue with our deep dive into the life and lies of Hubbard with Jon Atack. Once again, we have quite a lot of documents to include -- but always at the top of the list are Jon's Let's Sell These People A Piece of Blue Sky and Barefaced Messiah by Russell Miller. I should also note that though we didnt mention it, for those of you interested in what Hubbard did or didnt do in the war, Chris Owen's excellent and thoroughly researched Ron The War Hero: The True Story of L Ron Hubbard's Calamitous Military Career is essential reading. Hubbard told so many lies about his naval … [Read more...]
Episode 46: The Life and Lies of L. Ron Hubbard Part 1
Tonight we begin a new series of episodes we are calling "Deep Dives," where we take a detailed look at specific areas of scientology. It seemed only appropriate to begin with L. Ron Hubbard -- the "Source" of scientology and "Founder" from which everything flows. There is no way to cover his entire life in a single episode. Or even 5 episodes. We broke this into 2 parts, the first focused on his life and claims up to Dianetics. Even in two episodes we can only touch upon some of the highlights (lowlights?) as there is a great deal to know. If you have not already done so, I … [Read more...]
The Great Wisdom of Ron
Every day, Tony Ortega has a piece of Hubbard wisdom from the same date in history. The one from May 28th struck me. “Now, you’re a registrar and somebody is coming in, or you’re signing up PCs. (All of you have to wear a registrar’s hat at one time or another.) And you’re trying to get somebody to get some auditing, you’re a registrar, see? And there you are one fine day with a yow-yow-yow and a scream-scream-scream standing in front of your face: Seventy-five hours of auditing have been delivered — he feels terrible! He says, ‘Oh, I could kill everybody in the place,’ and he ought to go out … [Read more...]
Thought Reform and Scientology
On one of the recent Fair Game Podcast, Chris Shelton recommended Robert Jay Lifton's book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism . Then Mockingbird posted a comment concerning this and I thought it important to include it as a post, as he summarizes the eight criteria for Thought Reform isolated by the author. I should note, there are many excellent articles at Mockingbird's Nest blog. Here is his comment in full. I have highlighted the 8 criteria. Mike Rinder recently pointed out something that most people miss, even experts. He pointed out that the E meter is used … [Read more...]
Episode 27: Jon Atack — OG Scientology Whistleblower
This week Leah and I welcome the insightful and wonderfully well-informed Jon Atack. (If anyone doesn't know the term OG, it comes from "Original Gangster" and means "someone who's incredibly exceptional, authentic, or “old-school”" and Jon certainly fills the bill). Way back in the 1980's, Jon was a pioneer whistleblower about scientology abuses. He wrote a seminal book "Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky" which was first published in 1990. He has since written two other books on the subject of scientology. Jon was a "public" Scientologist for nine years, until 1983, when … [Read more...]
Recent Podcasts with Jon Atack
I have done a couple of podcasts with the wonderfully informed Jon Atack. The second of them went live yesterday and Tony Ortega included it on his site. I am including it here also, as well as the earlier one, as I think the discussions are illuminating. Jon is such a wealth of information. And has such good takes on all things scientology. Leah and I are planning on talking with Jon on our fair Game Podcast soon. That should be a treat. This is the most recent episode of Jon's podcast. I recommend you subscribe to his YouTube channel too: This is the one we did about 6 … [Read more...]
Spiritualist Movements
This is a rather lengthy dissertation by long term commenter George M. White, who was one of the first OT VIII completions (that is him above on the Freewinds at graduation). I am publishing it as he sent it to me. He mentioned this when I saw him at a party recently and I offered to put it on the blog. It makes reference to a document called "Student Briefing" and I have included that for your reference at the end of his piece. Spiritualist Movements, Hypnotism, and the Natural Science Model used in the development of Scientology ©by George M. White, 2020 George M. … [Read more...]