scientology & celebrities

it's the "only" part that's crackpot

oh, yeah. "only" is obv insane.

Ridging is so OTII.

cool shit

https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/515225360837775360

as of right now he's still going

Jeet Heer is great.

speaking of John W. Campbell and Astounding magazine, I don't see this Alfred Bester anecdote posted ITT yet:

(Campbell) called and said he liked the story, wanted to buy it, but would I make some changes in it. Would I also come out to Astounding, which was located somewhere out in the boondocks of New Jersey. I was delighted, never having met the man before. I idolized Campbell. I had this tremendous mental picture of him. But I said that sure I’d come. So I hopped on the train and went wherever the hell and gone out there in New Jersey, and I come to this building which was this really sleazy looking printing plant. So I go up to the offices of Astounding Science Fiction, right? Well, John’s office was about the size of this little alcove right here, and there was enough room for Campbell’s desk and chair, and a chair for one visitor, and that’s all the room there was.

And I came in and shook hands with him, and I’m fairly big but he was enormous; he towered over me. He was about the size of a defensive tackle. Anyway, we sit down (and I’ve got a great sense of humor, and that’s why I could never get along with him). I had the same trouble with Arthur Clarke. I said something once about never being able to get along with Arthur Clarke because he didn’t have a sense of humor. And Arthur wrote me this bitter, wounding letter, and the gist of it said, “I have so got a sense of humor.” But he had included clippings from his reviews that he said proved he had a sense of humor.
Anyway, Campbell said to me out of the clear blue sky, “Of course you don’t know it, you have no way of knowing it yet, but psychiatry–psychiatry as we know it–is dead.”

And I said, “Oh, Mr. Campbell, surely you’re joking.”
And he said, “Psychiatry as we know it is finished.”
And I said, “If you mean the various Freudian schools and the quarreling that’s going on between them…”
He looked at me and said, “No, what I mean is that psychiatry is finished. L. Ron Hubbard has ended psychiatry.”
I said, “Really?”
“Ron is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”
And I said, “Wait a minute. I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell, but you’ve lost me. You have to understand that I’m out of Madison Avenue. Outside of the normal networks I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” And I thought, Or in this tacky little office, in this tacky little room, and this guy is full of it.

He said to me, “Would anybody who ended war win the Peace Prize?”
I said, “Sure.”
“L. Ron Hubbard has ended war.”
“Wait a minute, you’ve lost me. How?”
“Dianetics.”
“Honestly, Mr. Campbell, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And he said, “Here. Read this.”
“Here and now?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t I take a set of galleys home with me?”
“No, no, it’s the only set I’ve got.”

So he’s going about his business, talking to his secretary and whatnot, and I read the first galley and said to myself, “I can’t make any sense out of this mishmash,” so I turn to the second galley and I start to skip over a little, then a little more, but I figure this Campbell looks like a pretty shrewd guy, so I allow enough time for each galley, then I go on to the next one — and hell, there must have been 12 to 15 of these galleys, it was an enormous stack — and so I finished, put them on his desk, and he looks at me and says, “Well? Are we going to win the Nobel Peace Prize?”
And I said, “Well, I can’t tell…but it was very interesting, very interesting concepts behind it…I don’t know. If I could read more of it, I…”
“No, no. The galleys are being rushed in right now.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
And he said, “Look, you’re rejecting it.”
“No, Mr. Campbell, I…”
“That’s alright. People always reject new ideas.”
“Not me, Mr. Campbell. I’m like a monkey; I’m always curious about these things.”
And he said, “No, no, no.” He wouldn’t listen to me.

So we went to this tacky little lunchroom. It had no windows, four walls, and people were screaming their orders in, and we finally got our orders in and Campbell all of a sudden turns to me and says, “You know, we can remember…we can remember all the way back to the fetus.”
“Back to the fetus?”
“Ah, yes. The fetus remembers.” And he stands up over me and says, “You can clear yourself. Put your mind back…think, think…remember, remember…when your mother tried to abort you with a button hook and you’ve never stopped hating her!”
And I was really shaken. I said to myself, Oh dear God, don’t let me laugh in his face. And the only way out of it was to agree, so I said, “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Campbell, I can’t go through with it, the emotional scars are too strong.” He sat down and we went on chatting.
But all he wanted was all the Freudian things taken out of the story so it wouldn’t get in the way of the new Dianetics. Of course, when “Oddy and Id” was reprinted I went back to the original. But that was the one session I had with Campbell and it was the last. That guy was a maniac!

Scientology uses the faces of famous comedians to promote their comedy festival. Hilarity ensues.

http://tonyortega.org/2014/10/07/comedy-gold-mark-ebner-catches-scientology-cheating-with-sarah-silverman/#more-17277

ummmm in the most popular comment under that article wtf does 'wog' mean in america

it's scieno for muggles

yeah maybe they should pick another word

maybe they should pick another belief system entirely

anyone get the sense that 0rtega's been driven a little mad by this whole thing

i dont know why i googleproofed that when his name is probably all over this thread

yeah maybe they should pick another word

― kinder, Sunday, October 12, 2014 4:26 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe they should pick another belief system entirely

― Starland Vocal Gland (sic), Sunday, October 12, 2014 4:49 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lol

Somehow missed this one:

http://tonyortega.org/2013/11/18/exclusive-first-interview-with-the-principal-of-will-jada-smiths-shuttered-scientology-school/

slightly off-topic but:

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/jaden-and-willow-smith-exclusive-joint-interview/

http://i.imgur.com/WJTMpkE.png

Discussed here:

▼Arbre Mort▼ aka Willow Smith

I expect a lot out of those kids. The fate of the world is on their shoulders.

so, it turns out that the company i used to work for has all kinds of ties to scientology, and i never knew.

did you work for the holding company that operates the Pinkett-Smith household

Unrelated, I was surprised to learn recently that Farrakhan has been pushing Dianetics on the Nation of Islam.

you'd think he'd know that it's a yacubian plot

Heads up

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-prepping-bombshell-scientology-film-751497

stoked for the madness

the main bombshell of the book is that scieno literally imprisons and enslaves people and is mysteriously never prosecuted for it, so anything that could create a groundswell of public opinion for justice is great news.

not so mysterious when those who are imprisoned often don't sue b/c well it's easy to intimidate people if they are adherents to a religion and your organization owns said religion.

all the while maintaining their sweet sweet tax exempt status

xpost

though at least to people outside scientology, the Church has lost a lot of its power to intimidate over the past few years, this could be a further step in that direction

mysterious was p tongue in cheek btw

miscavige and co. are generally regarded as kooks when they should really be regarded as criminals, i think they will be eventually.

yeah i put them in the same category as warren jeffs et al

I actually do think Hubbard was generally more a kook (albeit a domineering one) whereas Miscavige and co. just seem like garden-variety psycho bullies.

oh, hubbard was definitely a bully, esp. in his last decades

oooooooh re: the HBO take on Going Clear. That could be a big deal.

What happened to Shelly M.? That is the question I want answered.

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/03/shelly-miscavige-scientology-queen-de-throned

oh, hubbard was definitely a bully, esp. in his last decades

I don't think this is disputable, I just also think he was a genuine weirdo with a lot of unresolved issues who just came up with a lot of crazy gobbledegook because on some level he deeply wanted to believe it was true.

Miscavige comes across differently from Hubbard in the book imo

in his few media appearances miscavige seems like a transparently angry and vindictive guy, and i suppose he rules by fear, but you still have to wonder how he charmed anyone to begin with.

then again people attracted to scientology probably don't function in exactly the same way as the rest of us

the book is like a weird, jolly, revolting tale until miscavidge comes along, and then any shred of levity leaves and you're left with a nasty psychotic tyrant

Favorite part of the book (how can one choose!)

When the Scientology dudes are discussing possibly killing someone who's about to blow (or something like that)

And one guy goes "Hell, even if you get caught and convicted, it's just one lifetime out of a billion years"

there isn't enough real scientologist talk like that imo

my favorite part of the book so far is when they fuck a redhead on an alter to make a Moonbaby or some shit.

who wouldn't do that, really?

things didn't turn out so well for that redhead

the Alex Gibney documentary (HBO, March)

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-sundance-2015-alex-gibneys-going-clear

thought the guardian's review felt like the lawyers had ripped it to bits, in a country where going clear couldn't be released due to not getting past the church's lawyers.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/26/sundance-2015-review-going-clear-scientology-documentary-alex-gibney

he ends with this:

" It’s only then that the story of Sci*ntology, with all its strange players, emerges as comedy, rather than horror. And it’s that genre to which it clearly belongs."

this is so wrong. it's a crooked and sinister organisation first, a deluded religious one second - that's the entire point of going clear - that people are making big bucks out of this and that the beliefs, however barmy, aren't the root of the problem.

as noted upthread, Hubbard is pretty comic in a tragic/fucked up way - but the second gen leaders (Miscavige et al) just seem like psychopaths/bullies

hand-waving away claims with skepticism is kind of ridiculous when this shit's been part of the story of anyone who's left

exactly. i find the review extremely disheartening - that's exactly it about hubbard as comedy followed up by roid rage jocks like miscavige. jon ronson's the men who stare at goats kinda plots a similar course from hippy ideas in the military post-vietnam up to abu ghraib torture, not that it was all innocence to begin with in either case, hubbard was prob a sociopath too.

i just find it such a perfect misunderstanding to paint them merely as ridiculous - the entire reason to be cynical about religion is the power at the heart of it, far more than the stupid stories those in power wield. it's an evil organisation and it's not the rank and file who should be targeted. that tends to act like a convenient smokescreen when it's doubtful miscavige and co believe in it at all.

this is p interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_w-YWwC1lI