scientology & celebrities

whoa, for real?

This article from Harpers about a guy who infiltrates cults doesn't talk about Scientology but it's really good and apropos to thread:

http://harpers.org/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-saves-you-from-yourself/

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/David-Sullivan-PI-who-infiltrated-cults-dies-4924222.php
http://harpers.org/blog/2013/10/remembering-david-sullivan/

oh shit I missed all that. sad to miss out on those memoirs.

Buying Going Clr thanks to this thread, looking fwd to reading it.

Going Clear has been enlightening in that my evaluation of Hubbard has shifted from simple conman to genuine psycho

In a way I think all elaborate cons require at least some delusion on the part of the con man. Even ponzi schemers often start off with an investment scheme they think might work, then convince themselves "well, I'll just take money from these accounts until I find a way to pay it back."

Maybe not "all" but many. And I think starting an entire religion is such an enormous endeavor that it takes a certain amount of madness. It's not the kind of thing you can just do with cold rational calculation, I think.

sure, but really it's all the body horror/misogyny/sexual hysteria stuff that = psycho imo.

Going Clear has been enlightening in that my evaluation of Hubbard has shifted from simple conman to genuine psycho

― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, January 29, 2014 4:05 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ditto

yeah true, Hubbard was another level of crazy, not just self-deluded

one of the most interesting parts of going clear was the description of how dianetics evolved into scientology. basically, that hubbard didn't have control over the dianetics centers, and he didn't have a reason to keep people coming back after they were clear. it makes the whole 'starting a religion' thing seem like the natural next step, both from an ego standpoint as well as a commercial one.

ya i have no doubt that many of history's great con artists were either totally insane and/or suddenly found themselves in way over their head and made things much, much worse (jim jones)

Well, the genius development in the CoS is either overtly blackmailing members to comply using information gleaned from their audits or the threat of back-billing in the six-figures, or simply separating purportedly problem members from their friends and family and locking them in trailers in the desert. But especially the first part. Imagine if priests used information from confessions to coerce people into doing crazy shit? Or hell, pressuring them to tithe more or whatever?

I was impressed/shocked at how elaborate and devious their blackmail attempts are. The plot to take down Paula Cooper e.g.

if only Hubbard had managed to take over Rhodesia lol

Imagine if priests used information from confessions to coerce people into doing crazy shit? Or hell, pressuring them to tithe more or whatever?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, January 30, 2014 11:05 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm under the impression that quite a few priests did a whole worse than that

Hubbard was his own special brand of sexual predator

so has Wright's dog been murdered yet or anything? my wife was inquiring how he could get away with writing this book... I'm not finished with it yet, and I'm under the impression that the Church's ability to counteract critics is heavily diminished from previous decades but I didn't really have a good answer.

when you come at the king you best not miss (basically he did not miss)

xpost I noted above the thoroughness of the vetting, which Wright even writes about. In order for the CoS to come at him legally, they'd have to open themselves up to further scrutiny. As for threats, dude's last book was about Al Qaeda.

and look what happened to them

they moved around between countries like LRH, iirc

this gets a little less insane/entertaining after Hubbard ascends to OT X status or whatever. Miscavige's psychosis not as compelling.

it's more standard issue, but i do recommend watching this interview with him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZSjVOXAb8U
(55 min, but worth it bc he is such a reptile)

http://s.mcstatic.com/thumb/5802946/16849657/4/flash_player/0/1/the_sopranos_god_created_dinosaurs.jpg
for some reason when reading this my mental image of Miscavige is actually the dude on the right

I'm just getting into the Miscavige stuff but he seems more coldly cynical than Hubbard.

yeah, he seems closer to garden variety power-hungry sadist than the weird mixture that Hubbard was

Hubbard had the dual edge thing where he kind of knew he was doing phony stuff but he believed in his own grandeur

The new regime just seems to believe in power

Shakey otm, in other words

watch the interview -- he is really really really creepy and it added to my appreciation of the sea org horror etc.
i sent that clip to my mom when she was recovering from hip surgery and she said it totally give her the creeps/she loved it
he's not the person you want in control of your fate

he's a reptile imo

I just read this morning about the dude who they forced to walk around a pole in the desert for 12 hours a day until his teeth fell out? What in the living fuck?!

all these people who were born in to COS and are now running it are just terrifying and/or heartbreaking

this mission just opened several blocks away from our place.

http://mb.cision.com/Public/813/9457275/9636b5739b8dafde_800x800ar.jpg

There was this really pleasant woman who would always stop and talk to my kid and I whenever she saw us walking in the neighborhood who I came to realize worked at this mission and i think was in charge of childcare classes of some kind. maybe they were trying to recruit him?

they're always trying to recruit everybody

So apparently this ran during the Super Bowl? I turned it off after halftime so IDK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k0JEc0arOQ

finished Going Clear - interesting that it deals frankly with the gay rumors about Travolta, but not Cruise...?

i just picked up a CD copy of van morrison's "inarticulate speech of the heart" (1983) and on the liner notes he thanks L Ron Hubbard!

it used to be rumoured that van always played the dominion theatre on tottenham court road because it was v. close to the london scientology centre

Felt kind of grossed out by Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke for going to that rally in Portland to overturn the jury verdict

Someone mentioned to me yesterday that Dylan was rumored to be a scientologist. I'd never heard that before, and would be pretty surprised if it turned out to be true.

the stories from Miles Davis' electric bandmembers about Corea failing to convert them always make me chuckle

xp

not seein it with Dylan. just... no way

oh come on imagining him dabbling in it in the 70s is the easiest thing in the world

thought that was a present-tense claim

but yeah I can see him being taken to a meeting or something by someone post-Blood on the Tracks and pre-Slow Train

I guess a big part of their model seems to be white glove service for celebrities, who rarely get a whiff of the dark underbelly

This dude in my office was talking about the super bowl commercial today and was like "I was telling my friends, 'You know, it sounds crazy, but it's really not any crazier than our religions." And I was like "Dude, Reform Judaism doesn't blackmail, torture, kidnap, plot against governments..."

is the "spiritual technology" tagline a new thing with them? never heard that before last night.