scientology & celebrities

First Scientology piece I've read that addresses its latent/blatant homophobia, not to mention explicitly alludes to certain high-profile closeted gay Scientologists, which would be merely salacious were it mentioned in a publication other than the New Yorker.

Waiting for my hard copy to show up, I'm still not keen on reading articles that long on screen.

I'm not either, but I just couldn't stop...

this has article has occupied my evening.

Woah 26 page article. Have to wait til I get home to read this one.

holy shit this article!!!!

Miscavige’s official title is chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, but he dominates the entire organization. His word is absolute, and he imposes his will even on some of the people closest to him. According to Rinder and Brousseau, in June, 2006, while Miscavige was away from the Gold Base, his wife, Shelly, filled several job vacancies without her husband’s permission. Soon afterward, she disappeared. Her current status is unknown. Tommy Davis told me, “I definitely know where she is,” but he won’t disclose where that is.

labor camp

i will admit to looking at gmaps around hemet CA to see if anything stuck out...

i got bored after 7 pages

I read the whole thing. Nothing new (if you've been following this stuff) but it's great to see New Yorker publish an expose like this. Most journalists (see Matt Taibbi's mailbag recently) won't touch Scientology. I've got some crazy personal stories about ppl my family knows who got involved in Scientology and they did evil shit to them. The more exposure, imo, the better.

Wright's on Fresh Air today.

Cool, that's on in 25 minutes on WHYY.

They have labor camps with kids in them! These camps may produce gifts for Tom Cruise occasionally!

These facts seem like parodic worst-case scenarios but it's apparently true. Wtf.

when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack

weird that such an exhaustive article skips over Operation Snow White

I don't think I've ever mentioned this on ILX but a very good friend of mine was a product of a Scientology family. She worked at the Sea Org in Clearwater, FL as a child/young teen. Very little schooling, mostly working long days and being bunked with 6 other people in a tiny room. She eventually ran away and was threatened by the Church and her parents to come back which she never did. Her parents were ordered to disconnect from her and they are straight wacked. Her and her parents have an obvious very strained relationship as her parents are lifers and that's probably never gonna change at this point.

She has many nightmarish stories about the psychological warfare and crazy crazy creepy cult bureaucratic shit that goes on, and my friend is obviously a bit scarred by all of it but she ended up going to college and now owns a pretty successful business. I don't think many of her friends know the whole horrible backstory.

Anyways, nothing to do with celebrity, just bored on my lunch break and taking a break from reading bike repair manuals.

I gotta say, as someone who doesn't know much about Scientology, the Sea Org stuff kinda freaks me out.

It all freaks me out. People are crazy.

i was once acquainted with a girl who had a similar story, but was kind of cagey about it; grew up in a church dorm somewhere in missouri, mom was still there. it came up once and she got a little tense, and gave an answer like you'd hear if someone was a muslim convert at a baptist convention: faith is a personal choice, values are universal, everyone has their own experiences, you shouldn't judge anyone, etc. i couldn't tell if that meant she was a believer or a runaway or what.

Values like: don't make people stay somewhere and live in virtual slavery

maybe she had a lot of people getting up in her face about how shitty scientology is! i really don't know

skydad

A survey of American religious affiliations, compiled in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, estimates that only twenty-five thousand Americans actually call themselves Scientologists. That’s less than half the number who identify themselves as Rastafarians

lol

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GlQaJjCs7Aw/Rz4azJChbUI/AAAAAAAABlg/9XImhL_iZ-0/s400/rasta.JPG

Thought the parts about the Beverly Hills acting coach gave made it much clearer why it's a celeb org.

someone i live with gets CELEBRITY, the scientologist newsletter. ananda lewis WHY?

the NPR interview is up and is pretty interesting

man sea org

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7600/seaorgey5.jpg

(Be sure to right-click on that one.)

you poor, deluded fools

most culty shit gets down to sex & sexual powergame garbage at some level. i was a little surprised the NYer story didn't have more about that. or maybe these dudes don't roll that way for some reason.

disappearing your own wife might qualify tho...

http://www.entertainmentgeekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bohemianrhapsody.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3563/3489072713_4992e24847.jpg

most culty shit gets down to sex & sexual powergame garbage at some level. i was a little surprised the NYer story didn't have more about that. or maybe these dudes don't roll that way for some reason.

tiny man prefers beatings to sex

based on the scientology drones i see walking around the area of the building near sunset and vermont, there seems to be a weird dynamic @ play where they use plain looking middle america types to do the heavy lifting and have the more attractive or upper middle class-to-wealthy people as the public face and the ones who are allowed to progress through the program. it's a religion tailor-made for class structure imo, moreso than any other.

would definitely like to see some of these Scientology people behind bars

the folks who are wandering around wearing gray shirts and black pants on any given day around there all look exactly the same, male and female versions of the "pc" dude from the mac ads w/justin long.

it seems like you can pretty directly attribute it's "success" as one of the few American "religious" cults of the 20th century to its remarkable exploitation of celebrity culture, strict hierarchical structures, and relentless, carefully orchestrated money-grubbing.

er I meant few successful religious cults there

it's like Hubbard took all his experiences in the military, with occult groups, and with Hollywood and was like "voila HERE is the magic combo"

If you really want to delve into more of all this, enjoy:

http://xenu.net/

All sorts of...interesting things there.

hyper-religious folks in any guise weird me out but pretty much any religion seems to have its fair share of believers who are also skeptics, moderates, and aspects that tie in to actual recorded history. this clown show seems to be strictly "you're either in or you're out" (heidi klum voice) and allows no room for questioning.

Auditing room hallway:

http://www.xenu.net/archive/spb/Auditing_room_hallway.jpg

Auditing room hallway:

http://www.xenu.net/archive/spb/Auditing_room_hallway.jpg

Auditing room hallway:

http://www.xenu.net/archive/spb/Auditing_room_hallway.jpg

Shakey, you forgot his knowledge of nerdy sci fi imaginings of the future. Hence all the futuristic hallways!

x-post The comparison of original military documents with Scientology forgings is something I've not seen done before, tbh. I'm always amazed at the power of this cult, given that LRH has a literal paper trail of factual records, reports and documents to refute the official hagiography that, say, Jesus does not have to contend with.

the interesting thing to me is that it is so clearly a class structured religion - there is that whole repetition in the article of 'the able become more able' which screams elitism. plus, the fact that the 'coursework' is so expensive means only those with funds can do it (unless you join sea org and get 'coursework' as payment for your manual labour).

i was gonna post how the sci-fi element of it baffles me, how i can't believe ppl can get behind that... but then i thought about xtianity and then it didn't seem so weird.

(Sorry 'bout the repeat photo -- kept getting errors when I was posting. If I disappear, you guys get my CDs.)

there was something kinda mesmerizing about "auditing room hallway" x3 tbh

I expected & got a lot of a specific type of wacky from this article, but I did not expect a sinister custom motorcycle & SUV refinishing scene.