scientology & celebrities

Heh:
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haha Nazanin Boniadi =/ Nazanin Mandi

― some dude, Monday, January 14, 2013 9:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol whoops

anyone know anything about this Going Clear book? Is it any good? Got some amazon gift card credit and considering it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpU4WRpiskA

I just started reading it!! Got it on Kindle so my reputation isn't smeared by the Scientologist who sees me reading it on the train or sthg. Seems TOP NOTCH so far, am enjoying the psychological breakdown of l ron.

I mean Elrond

This book is incredibly fascinating

And appalling.

Dammit I already spent my amazon gift card. If it's really good i will splash out though. Seems like such an intriguing read.

I have Going Clear checked out right now but I've been too busy to get past the first couple of chapters. Very interesting so far.

i was gonna start a thread just for the book but i am afraid of their goon squads!

LRH was such an incredible character, you literally can't believe it, and then miscav1ge comes along and his story is if anything, even crazier

i was gonna skip this because i read that other newish scientology book last year but maybe i should check it out

read that as jewish

well that wouldn't make any sense at all

I know (now)

i was gonna start a thread just for the book but i am afraid of their goon squads!

We can talk about it here! I hope to read some more tonight.

I read inside scientology and the thing that struck me was how willing people can be to embrace authoritarianism..

And with good cause. Freedom is the ultimate illusion.

BANAKA

http://www.celebuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/10/beatles-riot-justin-bieber-340_212.png

more like peedom is the ultimate poopoosion

a little disappointed that that post wasn't by peepoop patel.

the stuff about miscav1ge's childhood and induction into sciti is sooooooo fascinating

i'm just like 20 pgs in, and a slow reader in that it takes me a while to get through stuff because once it sinks in i am like whoa and have to stop reading to let it sink in all the way. right now i am enjoying thinking about the various ways that scientology intersected with all the drug-damaged freaky 70s people looking for community.

i'm also wondering how florian fricke became involved because that has always made me kinda sad, but i'm not sure about the exact connection or how zealous he was or w/e

a lot of people drifted in and out

does the book talk about fricke at all?

(just curious, will keep reading regardless)

sorry cant tell u, gotta read it

this is how it starts, isn't it

Read a bunch of this over lunch and between meetings today

fancy businessman over here

ok, I lied, I pretended to be checking email on my phone and read it during meetings. just try to pay attention during three straight hours of meetings, I dare you

ok discussion topic (i am on page 50 or something -- super duper slow reader over here, was busy this weekend)

l ron hubbard's son links the cosmology of s to black magic(k); parsonage sex cult

whaaaa?! is there more detail about this era? i certainly hope so, i haven't read much about crowley/occultists but i know i should because wtf @ parties where "women in diaphanous gowns...would dance around a pot of fire, surrounded by coffins topped with candles"

recommendations? (honestly i have not read this entire thread, so maybe it's discussed upthread, my apologies if so)

Where are these parties...?

The Parsonage!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/44/John_Whiteside_Parsons.jpg

Hi, I design rocket fuel and have a crazy sex commune http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons

This is just part of it

Parsons, a science fiction fan, had read in the fantasy pulp magazine Unknown the 1940 original version of Jack Williamson "Darker Than You Think". Parsons identified the redheaded female love interest of the protagonist with Babalon or the "Scarlet Woman", whom Crowley had prophesied would usher in and help fulfill the Aeon of Horus and end the Aeon of Osiris represented by Christianity, other patriarchal religions, and male-dominated social institutions. In 1946, Parsons and Hubbard (whose works Fear and Typewriter in the Sky, among others, had appeared in Unknown) participated in a work of ceremonial magic known as the Babalon Working. In simple terms, the Babalon Working was a ritual to summon this Scarlet Woman. Paul Rydeen writes:

The purpose of Parson's [sic] operation has been underemphasized. He sought to produce a magickal child who would be a product of her environment rather than of her heredity. Crowley himself describes the Moonchild in just these terms. The Babalon Working itself was preparation for what was to come: a Thelemic messiah.[8]

Crowley, who lived in England at this time and had little say over the matter, disagreed strenuously. Though he had never met him, Crowley had no love for Hubbard and considered him a con artist.

Almost immediately, he met Marjorie Cameron right in his own home and regarded her as the Scarlet Woman and the fulfillment of the ritual. Parsons, Hubbard, and Cameron then proceeded to the next stage of the Babalon Working in which Cameron acted as Parsons' magical sexual partner with whom he could sire a Moonchild. The creation of this Moonchild had been previously covered in fictional form in Crowley's novel Moonchild. Parsons ended the ritual by declaring it successful. A physical child was not conceived, but this did not affect the results of the ritual. Parsons and Cameron soon married.

In January 1946, Parsons, Sarah Northrup, and Hubbard began a boat dealing company named Allied Enterprises. Parsons put in the sum of approximately $21,000 of which Hubbard contributed $1,200. Just as Crowley had predicted, Hubbard eventually abandoned Parsons and their business plans, leaving for a port in Florida with the boat and with Sarah. Parsons retreated to his hotel room and attempted to summon a typhoon in retribution (viz., with an evocation of Bartzabel[9]—an intelligence presiding over the astrological forces associated with the planet Mars). A squall developed at sea and ripped the sails from the boat, forcing the ship back to port where Hubbard and Sarah were detained by the U.S. Coast Guard.[10] A Florida court later dissolved the poorly-contracted business, ordered repayment of debts to Parsons, and awarded ownership of the boat to Hubbard. Parsons resigned his leadership of the Agapé Lodge and sold The Parsonage in 1946.

there's quite a lot of stuff in Bare Faced Messiah abt the Hubbard/Crowley/Parsons connections - and there are at least two biogs of Jack Parsons out there which presumably go into more detail abt this

the Lawrence Wright bk has not been published in the UK for fear of litigation :-(

Gd review by David Thomson here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/30/going-clear-lawrence-wright-review

and there are at least two biogs of Jack Parsons out there which presumably go into more detail abt this

If anyone can recommend the best (most detailed and trustworthy) one, I would be much obliged! In the meantime, onward with Elrond. Reading this at night is giving me the weirdest dreams!

I was fascinated by the Parsonage/Crowley stuff as well! I'm also only about 50 pages in, but I would love to find out more.

Hubbard seems like such an abusive creep towards women, I'm puzzled as to how he ended up attracting so many of them in the first place.

I think he hung out with "the James Dean of the occultists" at the parsonage and talked a good talk because
the babalon bunch has a standout hunk

http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/01jan/babalonbunch.jpg

total abusive creep so far, yes for sure!!

His stories sound so far-fetched too, it seems so strange to me that people were taken in by them.

its like that cliche about big lies being easier to sell than small ones

but one of the eeriest realizations of the book for me is not how many people were totally sold, but how many people were brought up in the church, taught nothing but LRH's teachings, many of whom who've never been outside it at all... it's like a mini-north-korea operating in the united states

is there even anything comparable to scientology in the 20th century? i don't know of any cults or independent religious movements that have so successfully formalized and institutionalized themselves.

many of whom who've never been outside it at all... it's like a mini-north-korea operating in the united states
i can't wait to get to that part!!!

Aum Shinrikyo. xp

In 1995, the group claimed they had over 9,000 members in Japan, and as many as 40,000 worldwide.

Hope Wright's bk mentions L Ron's in-house floating 70s funk band:

http://x-rayvisions.blogspot.com/2007/08/apollo-stars-power-of-source.html

I finished Going Clear over the weekend, and it does spend some time comparing Scientology to some other groups that popped up, although most were Christian offshoots and late 1800s.