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...]
Ron: The Epic Saga of BS
The smoke and mirrors game that scientology plays concerning L. Ron Hubbard is pretty remarkable. This "monumental hardback collection" is hardly a recounting of a "life like no other." It is a carefully selected collection of anecdotal stories about things L. Ron Hubbard said or claimed about his life. Many of them are unverified, unable to be documented because they didn't happen. Charitably, Hubbard told "tall tales" about his life and exploits. Realistically, he simply lied about himself. The author of these "books" (they were originally "magazines") is Dan Sherman. The "LRH … [Read more...]
Tampa “Ideal” Org and Ron’s Fiction
These are the last two Tampa "ideal" "St Hill Size" "newsletters" that are sorely lacking in news. You can compare this one immediately below to the previous one that follows. They’ve only got some extension course "successes" to report, but they're promoting a different video about how viruses spread... It's pretty harmless, giving rudimentary information about bacteria and viruses, though it's oddly "scientologese" with constant reference to "the body.” What it doesn't do is explain what scientologist actually believe about illness -- that it all comes from connection to Suppressive … [Read more...]
The Black Bag Department
See my announcement on Friday -- I am revisiting earlier posts during my vacation. Each day there will be a different one. Marty has been doing a good job of exposing the unalterable policies of the church concerning dealing with perceived enemies. One aspect not much discussed is who are the "outside professionals" hired to do the dirty work. And while there is a lot that is done by Sea Org OSA staff, Class V (local DSAs like Mark Warburg and John Carmichael) and public Scientologists (John Allender, Ed Bryan and Co) there is work that requires specific skills, including licenses to … [Read more...]
In the Footsteps of Ron
This is a pretty sad commentary on the brainwashed sheeple of scientology. CST bought this house in Bay Head NJ where Hubbard wrote Dianetics and his house in Phoenix where he "developed/discovered" scientology. They were "restored" to their sort of original state (can't be too authentic as wouldn't want Ron looking "tacky" or "cheap" even if he was) and are both available for "tours" that promise you can "walk in the footsteps of Ron." Of course, the only people that would be interested in such a thing are scientologists. Nobody else cares. And certainly nobody else aspires to "be like … [Read more...]
The Final Aftermath Smears?
With two specials in 3 days, scientology has been working overtime on concocting smears about the show contributors. Of course, they NEVER respond to anything the people say, never dispute the abuses or the lies exposed by any of the contributors or on the show in general. They just sling mud. They have nothing they CAN dispute, so their only avenue is to try to "discredit the source"... Let's take their smears in sequence. Tony Ortega Of course Tony has long been a target of the scientology smear brigade. But they have nothing new so they roll out their moldy old … [Read more...]
The L. Ron Hubbard “Biographer”
Someone sent me a new promotion for the "L. Ron Hubbard Series" which prompted this post. Dan Sherman has been working on the "L. Ron Hubbard biography" for more than 25 years. Imagine anyone else getting away with no product for that long? And being paid handsomely to boot.... Sherman's problem is that he can NEVER produce an actual biography. He would have to omit so many things from the book to satisfy the condition that there be nothing negative included about Hubbard that it would be a running joke. Everyone who can use Google would tear it to pieces. A very cursory list of … [Read more...]
The Black Bag Department first published March 17, 2014
Marty has been doing a good job of exposing the unalterable policies of the church concerning dealing with perceived enemies. One aspect not much discussed is who are the "outside professionals" hired to do the dirty work. And while there is a lot that is done by Sea Org OSA staff, Class V (local DSAs like Mark Warburg and John Carmichael) and public Scientologists (John Allender, Ed Bryan and Co) there is work that requires specific skills, including licenses to carry and/or needs more distance from "the church" to afford a measure of plausible deniability. There are quite a number … [Read more...]