scientology & celebrities

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.

thought that was a present-tense claim

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, February 3, 2014 3:29 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, the person who told me said they'd heard it as something relatively current, like within the last 15 years or so. It would explain his guest spot on Dharma & Greg.

is the "spiritual technology" tagline a new thing with them

no

didnt the Incredible String Band dabble in it too before they saw sense and fled?

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..."

I've had this argument with a bud before, like exactly. Ripping on Scientology is just as bad as ripping on any other major religion, how could I be so selective in my criticisms etc

NOT THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND

Ripping on Scientology is just as bad as ripping on any other major religion

Wright makes a pretty good case for this in his epilogue imho. the upshot being that maybe we should be harder on all religions lol

Incredible string band were all up in there for the duration of a few albums (changing horses through U iirc?)

In joe Boyd's book he recounts the actual encounter that sparked robin and mike's recruitment.

based on what i read in electric eden recently: heron cut his ties in the eighties, while williamson was stilled involved into the nineties (on some level at least). from the quotes that were used he seemed to be kind of ambivalent about the whole thing still. curious to hear the isb/corea live jam that was apparently released in the seventies.

Dylan would be extremely surprising (mostly because Scientology now seems so tacky), but it's not like he's immune (or hasn't sung about) the dubious allure of the guru. Been listening to the Another Self Portrait Bootleg Series lately, so e.g. "Went to see the gypsy" ("he can rid you of your fear") and "Working on a Guru" come to mind.

Also, after the motorcycle accident, he fell under the spell of a guru-like painter he took classes with (Norman Raeben). Not to mention the Born Again thing (but Christianity is a million times more poetically/ metaphorically/ allegorically/ philosophically rich than Scientology, isn't it).

Aren't some of the members of Mellow Candle longtime COS members?

Also Tommy Hall from the 13th Floor Elevators. And the guys from the Spiders From Mars minus Bowie.

Dylan is like the anti-Scientologist. There's probably a "No Recruiting Dylan" rule. He's barely on that sitcom ep, too, and lots of other people cast alongside him, including T-Bone Burnett (capital C Christian, iirc, and the one who converted Dylan in the '70s) and Joe Henry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ix5Hn_NaTM

Sigh. I miss Dylan playing guitar.

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

Well, with Travolta, it's well beyond the realm of rumor. Witnesses on the record, harassment suits settled, etc. But Cruise, not only is it strictly rumor, with no ratification, he's also very litigious. So Travolta could likely not get away with suing for libel, but Cruise, with no paper-trail (gay-per trail?), could easily bring down his giant lifts.

Cruise just seems like he's a total weirdo about interaction in his personal life and it's not necessarily that he's trying to repress any sort of sexuality? idk

The stories in the book about Cruise so far make him sound pretty interested in women tbh. But I know very little about him outside of what I've read in this book.

based on what i read in electric eden recently: heron cut his ties in the eighties, while williamson was stilled involved into the nineties (on some level at least). from the quotes that were used he seemed to be kind of ambivalent about the whole thing still. curious to hear the isb/corea live jam that was apparently released in the seventies.

Robin Williamson apparently provided the connection between Van Morrison and Scientology - he played on "Into the Music" and Van recorded a Williamson song, "For Mr. Thomas" in the 80s. Robin Williamson used to thank LRH in the sleevenotes of all his albums, don't know when he stopped doing that though. Spotting Scientology references is a well-known pursuit among ISB fans.

Never mind Dylan though, what about Leonard Cohen!

lol that Dylan clip

Ripping on Scientology is just as bad as ripping on any other major religion

Wright makes a pretty good case for this in his epilogue imho. the upshot being that maybe we should be harder on all religions lol

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, February 3, 2014 5:19 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess I'll wait to read it for myself to pass judgment, but if so I would be a little disappointed, because that sounds like a cop-out. Scientology certainly seems worse than a lot of other religions to me so far!

tbf they have only figuratively burned people at the stake