scientology & celebrities

it's almost like he was a religious devotee of his own narcissism - his efforts and philosophy were maniacal and incoherent, but they were all to the aim of maintaining a grandiose image of himself

i feel like a lot of insane tyrants and religious leaders were like him, it's not that unusual to be totally insane and super charismatic, manipulative and influential

i mean, it is unusual to be that way, but not unprecedented.

right, I think it almost certainly IS unusual, but it does follow a pattern to an extent

yeah the book's closing was pretty good in the way it place scientology in with the whole history of new religious movements

Debbie Nathan's book about satanic ritual abuse fits in nicely with Going Clear due to the extreme wtf factor

reserved a copy of this at the local library

In comparison to the people running it now, LRH seems almost like some cuddly old tomato-torturing eccentric

totally, he seemed like a sad self-destructive too rich bozo by the end, but seriously compared to M_______age and his torture trailer and his disappearing people and all that? lol @ LRH, cower in fear of tom cruise.

Well, there's the matter of LRH's torment of his wife, kidnapping of his kid, etc. Hanging with Aleister Crowley. All that stuff about just chucking people off boats in the ocean or making them push peanuts or whatever across the deck until their nose bleeds. The crazy bar is set pretty high with these folks.

Yeah no kidding. If my lasting memory is lol sad clown for a guy who made people push peanuts with their noses, the bar is among the highest in recent broad cultural history, no?

the great thing about that book is that everything that happens in the first half is so unbelievable, so crazy, and then all the sudden it takes a twist and becomes if anything more insane, but a totally different flavour of insane

yes, it is the twist cone of books about crazy people and the things they do!

He tried to draft a new constitution for Rhodesia! There are so many mind-blowing details in this.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, January 24, 2014 12:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a good Bill Brasky sketch could probably written with nothing but facts about Hubbard

the great thing about that book is that everything that happens in the first half is so unbelievable, so crazy, and then all the sudden it takes a twist and becomes if anything more insane, but a totally different flavour of insane

― socki (s1ocki), Saturday, January 25, 2014 11:23 AM (10 minutes ago)

world history: 1911 - present imo #trenchant

L. Ron Hubbard - we got the crazy 20th century cult leader we deserved.*

*Say the poor CoS souls locked in a trailer in a desert who have not seen a TV or newspaper or computer in 25 years.

omg seriously it's the best story of our time and it's still happening!

One of the things that really resonates me is the moments where people see cracks in the facade and continue to follow anyway.

It's nothing near this scale of madness, but in college I sort of fell in with a cult-leaderish english professor who was a great teacher but very grandiose and tended to have "true believer" students who kept taking more classes with him and would adopt his worldview. His students would sort of hang around him and hang out with each other as well, almost like a real life Secret History. After a couple of years I felt like I started to see his limitations and flaws and see through his schtick, but I still kept going to his office hours and events because there was just something compelling and captivating about him.

dead poets society?

did you read that new yorker story last year about the cult-like schoolmaster at a NYC prep school?

Had miss this thread got revived -- yeah, the book is great, and it's nice to see folks enjoying here (and hopefully elsewhere). Josh in Chicago's point about the proofreading/factchecking hadn't occurred to me but strikes me as incredibly important.

One of the things that really resonates me is the moments where people see cracks in the facade and continue to follow anyway.

Hell, like Paul Haggis. He was old-school CoS, and an anti-authoritarian, yet he stuck it out for 30+ years! It was in the New Yorker piece as well, where he finally gets to the big top secret CoS revelation, a two-page essay or something locked in a vault, and when he emerges he finds the payoff so batshit crazy that he almost thinks it's a test of his credulity. But even then, he sticks with it!

Like a lot of folks in similar situations, he didn't break with them until it became personal. He has a couple of gay kids, and the CoS was pushing various anti-gay initiatives. (Beyond Project Perpetually Blackmail Travolta, that is.)

One of the things that struck me about Going Clear was how matter-of-fact it was about Travolta's sexuality.

Yeah, really. Just sort of mentions it matter of fact in passing, pretty early on.

did you read that new yorker story last year about the cult-like schoolmaster at a NYC prep school?

― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:48 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You mean the St. Ann's guy? Yeah, it's wild. That's where Lena Dunham went to school btw, and also a lot of other famous people iirc.

St. Ann's is, like, *the* NYC prep school, hello?

p sure it was horace mann---i just read the article. like, minutes ago, as a result of this thread

hmm, could be. NYMag reports on NY prep schools a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if they profiled both.

the NYer piece on HM was called "The Master," and was specifically about one teacher (a Mr Berman) who had a pretty impressive (and destructive) cult of personality about him

ya horace mann

Oh fuck, just realized you said new yorker, not NYMag. Nm. There was a NYMag profile of the head of St. Ann's who also seems out there and mildly cultish.

Will read. I definitely think there is some common thread in these types -- they create an "insider" and "outsider" mentality, i.e. the people who are in our group are wise and the people outside are stupid. There is the potential for extreme praise combined with the threat of extreme criticism -- if you do things right it will prove that you are brilliant beyond imagination, but if you do things wrong you will face wrath. There's a method or system -- things should be read/learned in this particular way only, other ways are insufficient or stupid. There's always an enemy and a common cause.

Sometimes these figures get simplistically dismissed as "abusive" but I think this ignores the other half of the dynamic, namely that many people are attracted to this kind of a strong, dictatorial figure and WANT to take part in this sort of personality cult. This is what I meant about how even after the shine came off I still took part in it, even though I did so with more self-awareness. Because there's an intensity and thrill to having that kind of experience that's hard to duplicate. I think Wright's book recognizes this.

I'm only 60 pages in but damn, this book

hurting you really need to read that horace mann piece, it speaks directly to that

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/04/01/130401fa_fact_fisher

btw in googling for that horace mann piece, i came across a Cracked listicle thing that alerted me to the existence of the Delphian School

does it get mentioned in the book (which i've just started)?

fwiw in the case of my professor, I never felt truly "threatened" by him although I had some awe of him. I had a bit of a thick skin when it came to his sharp comments and never really felt hurt by them, taking them as a reflection of my failure to do work as hard as I should have rather than on me as a person. The people who disliked him seemed to also take him very personally.

An obvious difference between the prof and Hubbard is that my prof's literary methods ultimately had reason to them and made sense, whereas Hubbard was just making everything up as he went along.

yeah the book's closing was pretty good in the way it place scientology in with the whole history of new religious movements

― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Friday, January 24, 2014 3:22 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, i also like the nailing tom cruise to the wall part:

"Scientology orients itself toward celebrity, and by doing so, the church awards famousness a spiritual value. People who seek fame—especially in the entertainment industry—naturally gravitate to Hollywood, where Scientology is waiting for them, validating their ambition and promising recruits a way in. The church has pursued a marketing strategy that relies heavily on endorsements by celebrities, who actively promote the religion. They speak of the positive role that Scientology has played in their lives. When David Miscavige awarded Tom Cruise the Freedom Medal of Valor in 2004, he praised his effectiveness as a spokesperson, saying, “Across ninety nations, five thousand people hear his word of Scientology every hour.” It is difficult to know how such a figure was derived, but according to Miscavige, “Every minute of every hour someone reaches for LRH technology, simply because they know Tom Cruise is a Scientologist.” Probably no other member of the church derives as much material benefit from his religion as Cruise does, and consequently none bears a greater moral responsibility for the indignities inflicted on members of the Sea Org, sometimes directly because of his membership. Excepting Paul Haggis, no prominent Hollywood Scientologist has spoken out publicly against the widespread allegations of physical abuse, involuntary confinement, and forced servitude within the church’s clergy, although many such figures have quietly walked away."

Also from the book, it had totally passed by me - or just not stuck - that Greta Van Susteren is a major, senior CoS member.

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