scientology & celebrities

there's your new york post headline: SINKING CRUISE SHIP

something tells me rupert would love nothing more than to destroy one good celebrity-riddled pseudo-religion before he kicks the bucket. the psy-ops better watch their backs.

This one has a good scene of the church (through Cruise's assistant) trying to get Cruise's CAA agents to punish Comedy Central/Viacom for the South Park episode.

Miscavige, he says, had told Doven to get tough with the agency.

"Huvane and Nicita were sitting there trying to explain to us that this is what Comedy Central does. It's comedy, don't get your knickers in a twist," Rinder says.

"Little did they know that Doven had been wound up in a meeting at ASI [Author Services, Inc., another Scientology entity] by Miscavige. 'You better get in their faces! You better impinge on them!' Miscavige yelled."
...
"And he's there pounding his fists on the table at CAA, shouting, 'Fuck this! Fuck this!' It was quite funny, actually. You could see Rick and Kevin looking at each other, wondering what was going on."

Best headline:
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/xenu-enraged-katie-betrayed

that headline would make a great vintage science fiction paperback cover.

people still talk about ghosts. i think i know more people who claim to have seen or otherwise perceived a ghost than people (like me) who've been denied such experience.

― contenderizer, Sunday, July 1, 2012 6:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ posts very much in character

Pretty much my entire family has seen ghosts, and I totally feel like i believe in them, but sadly i have never actually seen one.

i deny you a ghost experience

"thought-based organization"

http://tribalinsight.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/i-want-to-believe.jpg

man, i love ufos. they rule. i loooooooove the recent ufo footage on youtube. there must be a thread for that. there is that footage of one day in the summer where all over the world people have video of ufos and its incredible.

there must be a thread for that.

if not, feel free to start it. i would watch a few youtubes of indistinct shiny or blobby things doing stuff.

otm. i want the best real ufo youtube links

okay i will do this first i have to box up several 45s then i will get on it.

not to be a nervous nelly or anything but is hotlinking from x3nu a good idea?

I am no longer a mod on this site so I will say "yes! ^_^"

It would be kind of funny if we got a couple of them to come here to argue and/or convert.

I read those voice articles and then spent about two hours reading an ex-sci message board last night. So damn weird.

A lot of the ex-Sci folks seemed really embarrassed about having bought into what is clearly total crazypants level bullshit. I felt really bad for the ones who had been born into it. :/

Is this thread deindexed?

There seem to be a lot in your part of the world, J!

From the articles/messages/blogs, it seems like there could be a split in the church, with the folks leaving the fold starting a pope-less
practice.

which message board, enbb?

Eazy, you mean that there is a schism brewing or it has already happened?

Is this thread deindexed?

― just1n3, Monday, July 2, 2012 12:33 PM (8 minutes ago)

It is now, though that won't help with hotlinked art.

Mordy: http://www.forum.exscn.net/forum .php - remove the spaces between forum and .

This New Year email was sent by a career exec in the church, and holds its current practices up against quotes from Hubbard himself. From, what I've read, some of e other high-level folks who have left since credit her letter as a catalyst to their keaving. This blog from the church's former #2 is also gets to the heart of whether the religion can be practiced without the church.

Oh, I read about her last night! There are definitely some people who believe in the basic principles but think the org itself is fucked up and problematic but it seemed like most of ex folks think it's just bs through and through at this point.

sorta hilarious that people wonder if you can practice veneration of a hierarchy without a hierarchy

like let's have a cult of personality with no personality! okay

the voice strongly suggests that rathbun is a halfway house between institutional scientology + no scientology (the space inbetween being non-institutional scientology)

http://i46.tinypic.com/34zk085.jpg

when clicking on this thread a few moments ago

just sayin'...

jack parsons was right!

also, non-institutional scientologists aren't jettisoning hubbard (and see rathbun's critique of the voice's #1 biggest threat to scientology list for example of how they reconcile well-documented hubbardisms w/ loving him)

Ok so a good friend of mine recently confessed that she was deeply involved in sci for a really long time - maybe 15-20yrs?. She was really scared to tell me bc she thought I wouldn't want to be her friend anymore.

She grew up in la, and was introduced to it (more like, seduced into it) via her older brothers friend, who is the nephew of a v v famous sci member. She was only about 12 at the time, and they totally brainwashed her.

She's had a pretty crazy life and is writing a memoir, which will also be partly a tell-all about the sci church. She worked as a counselor in their celebrity center at one point, and she told me that the celeb sci clients get a whole different thing - none of the alien stuff, and I think none of the ” difficult” or more fucked up stuff. They are the cash cows, so they get v special treatment.

She was also (I think still is?) v close to one of lrh's sons.

I wish I could remember some of the more crazy stories she told me.

i don't believe brainwashing is real. i think it's a story ppl tell to let themselves off the hook for believing + doing stupid things.

nb i think persuasion and convincing is obv real, but there isn't like something special about the way scientology recruits that is distinguishable from the way numerous other organizations, legit + otherwise, convince ppl to follow their mission and get onboard. whether it's a political party, an environmental organization, an established religious one, a fraternal or communal org, etc.

aside from the nipple clamps

Well she was 12 and already v emotionally fragile/vulnerable sure to a totally fucked and abusive childhood, and had some mental problems. These older guys had her convinced of aliens and afraid for her life.

my neighbors across the street are getting stalked by a trio of twentysomething scientology drones who are stopping by in the middle of the day, peeping in their windows, mona lisa smiles on their faces, like not trying to be furtive at all, just looking smug and creepy and leaving notes under their door.

well that's not at all bizarre and creepy

that is bizarre + creepy! also i was under the impression that scientology doesn't really target individuals for recruitment unless they were already involved. like why would they stalk some randomers out of nowhere? seems like a really ineffective tactic tbh!

i can't quite put my finger on it but it's like watching college students in a senior film project trying to act at being mafia gangsters, it's kind of comical. except it's creepy.

scientology is well known to harass folks who have left the church under less than amicable terms or are critical of the church.

re: the split - pretty much every religion/denomination/cult/sect whatever has these schisms where, as the main "church" (for lack of a better word) changes over time, a percentage of the believers want to return to core beliefs, so they split off and start their own thing

basically doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me - pretty sure it's happened a bunch of times already in scientology iirc

http://i45.tinypic.com/2jbga0.jpg

are there really people out there who don't know enough about scientology to actually be bamboozled into joining it? my sense is that they start with the most banal new-agey bromides and only commence unloading the weirder stuff once they've got you invested financially and otherwise.

it's my understanding that initially you learn to do things like stare into someone's eyes for an indefinite period of time w/o blinking or to self-induce OBE's. so you can imagine how stuff like that might be seductive to some ppl. it's sort of low-level occultic techniques that probably engender a sense of power over other ppl which is doubtlessly reinforced by the whole scientology framework of us against them + being part of this rarefied elite of ppl saving the world in the foreground of this grand cosmic scenario. plus as just1n3 mentions i guess as a celeb you get treated accordingly

w/o blinking

is this true? i know of other 'being with' exercises done in other contemporaneous encounter groups, but had nothing to do w/ not blinking. it was about looking into someone's eyes for extended period w/out having normal social mediation stuff going on. kinda like two-person meditation.

disenchantment with a church's leadership/organization while still believing in its core tenets/beliefs is common across all religions too

basically doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me - pretty sure it's happened a bunch of times already in scientology iirc

Sit back and watch the perfect storm of 2012...