Marlow Stern has written an excellent piece in the Daily Beast concerning the relationship between David Miscavige, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman: How Nicole Kidman Almost Got Tom Cruise to Leave Scientology. It is the 20 year anniversary of Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick film that was the catalyst for them nearly breaking away from scientology. There is little to add to Marlow's excellent reporting other than to reiterate that this piece highlights the inhumane practice of disconnection in scientology. Scientology claims disconnection is a "personal choice" -- but in reality the … [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...]
The “Tech” of Marriage
The amazing hypocrisy of scientology is no better illustrated than with this promotional piece. Here is the "tech" of L. Ron Hubbard being sold as the way to attain happiness in life -- in this case success in marriage. This is a classic case of "Do as I say, not as I do..." L. Ron Hubbard was married 3 times -- each ended in disaster. He left his first wife (Polly) with his first 2 children (Katie and Ron Jnr) to pursue other "interests", including a relationship with the woman who would become his 2nd wife Sarah. He married Sarah bigamously. She bore him a daughter … [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...]
Why Dublin??
We keep seeing promotional pieces from Dublin "ideal org" that features people from other countries around Europe and the world. Almost every one of their "public" is NOT Irish. The absence of Irish completions in the Dublin "ideal" org is hardly surprising. Dublin only ever had a small, failing mission that was propped up by the Sea Org in order to keep its doors open. It suffered a massive blow from a legal case and the disclosure of its bankrupt condition. But why invest enormous sums in a country that could not sustain a single mission? There are a couple of possible … [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 … [Read more...]
Why Bogota?
If it was a puzzle why Bogota Colombia "ideal" org was done before say Harlem or Auckland or Silicon Valley or Valley or any of the others we have been hearing about for some time as being "next" and "most important." I think Ethan Hunt accidentally spilled the beans at the world premiere of MI5 as he explained to the The Hollywood Reporter. Of course, there is a long history of ideal org planning being done so "Mr. Cruise" would not have to be ashamed by the state of the local small and failing scientology outpost -- all the way back to the very first "ideal orgs" in New York (where … [Read more...]
Tom Cruise — The Best Scientologist I Know
Well, subtract one from the 2 billion people Tom Cruise has "disseminated" Scientology to. Simon Pegg revealed in an interview yesterday that Tom Cruise has never spoken to him about Scientology. And this stretches back to around the time Mr. Cruise was presented the Freedom Medal of Valor for being the greatest disseminator in the history of history. Except he doesn't do one on one apparently. Or perhaps Simon Pegg wasn't a big enough being to deserve it? After all, it is a privilege to call yourself a scientologist. But doesn't Miscavige want MORE celebrities? This does raise an … [Read more...]
CC Gala — What’s Missing?
Here is the latest promo piece for the annual CC Gala. JT is featured prominently - twice. Is he doing another ethics handling and has committed to attend for sure as part of his amends? Jenna Elfman and Laura Prepon, Mark Isham and Chick Corea are also shown. Jenna, Mark and Chick are card-carrying Kool Aid drinkers. Laura may be in the same boat as JT -- in a bit of trouble for being gay in Orange Is The New Black, or they just happened to use a photo of JT that she is in from a previous Gala. But the real issue here is who they are NOT showing... The greatest disseminator in the … [Read more...]
Tom Cruise and Disconnection
There is a rash of media articles following the disclosure of parts of Tom Cruise's deposition in the lawsuit he filed against a magazine for saying he "Abandoned" Suri. The media is of course focused on the sensational aspects, including the fact that while he apparently didn't have time to visit Suri he flew from the US to the UK for the annual IAS Event to show his support for his BFF. I read the excerpts of his deposition that are on the internet and was struck by the arrogance he displayed in responding to the questioning. Very reminiscent of his BFF. He snapped terminals with Dear … [Read more...]