scientology & celebrities

like sure Xtianity and Mormonism were basically insane in their infancy, but their claims didn't have to withstand scientific rigor etc

what makes scientology unique afaik is that they treat some of their fundamental religious beliefs as copyrighted secrets and outright lie about them.

but yes, doing that isn't as bad as the inquisition or whatever

The original e-meters were Campbells soup cans! Soup Cans! With wires attached!

Wright circles back to this POV at the conclusion and generally validates it

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, February 7, 2014 4:03 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like you have to turn part of your brain off to validate this conclusion

FWIW I'm basically fine with any religious "truth claim" that operates purely in the world of faith. If you want to believe that thetans inhabit your body, that the world is 73 trillion years old, etc., that's fine with me, as long as you're not allowing that belief to override scientific truth, to operate in the material world, etc. I don't mind people believing in the bible, so long as they aren't using young-earth-creationism to deny basic scientific facts that have actual real-world consequences. I don't mind people believing in the power of unblocking their impedences or whatever to heal themselves, so long as the church isn't denying its members actual medical care.

In other words I don't have a problem with "crazy" beliefs, only with harmful ones. Scientology has its share of harmful beliefs, even putting aside how terrible the actual organization is.

I'm not sure where you're drawing the distinction there

ie between harmful and crazy

I think it's pretty clear

e.g. "Prayer will help me heal" vs. "Prayer is preferable to surgery as a way to treat my son's cancer"

Scientology will "clear" me versus psychotherapy will heal me is probably the big point of contention

The fact that a great number of people are pulled into their church as a life-organizing entity, and that it decries psychology for using the same methodologies that Scientology bastardizes and adds placebos to, is probably one of the more important but harder to prove bits

The majority of people lured in aren't there for the religious bits -- if they're not there as a career-booster in hollywood, they're there for auditing, a community, and the self-help stuff.

That isn't to say that psychiatry and the modern state of prescribing psychological drugs don't have placebos, only that it's incredibly disingenuous for Scientology to place itself in opposition to therapy

Key to the book is the LRH epiphany that there can be no end to the treatment. It's self-help that's totally beholden to someone else. You never get better, because you're never done. You're never "clear." And all the while you are accruing debts - personal and monetary - you cannot pay. I was fascinated by all the machinations involving secret next level instructions or whatever, claims of lost chapters or new courses.

idk christianity has this debt you can never repay called original sin, right

Yeah, but that's made up.

loads of religions have extorted money from their followers over the years, let's be real

would anyone like to purchase some indulgences etc

But they literally hand you an itemized bill at the end, sometimes in the six figures. What other religion does that?

u go to hell if you don't tithe 10% iirc

idk christianity has this debt you can never repay called original sin, right

every Christian denomination, even the Catholic church at this point, acknowledges that salvation is possible outside of its particular sect (except maybe not the JWs). comparing scientology to other faiths on an "eh, they all pull the same hokum" level is really simplistic thinking - all religions are interested in persuading their congregants to remain in the fold & to donate their money, no doubt. and all are interested in insisting on the veracity of their truth-claims. not all charge outright for access to higher levels of truth on a cash-for-truth basis, and almost none will actively make your life miserable if you speak out against them publicly. Catholics did this centuries ago, yes, in a very different way. the comparison is really, really surface-level though

let's not pretend churches/religions are static things. I wasn't saying they are all the same at this current point in time.

almost none will actively make your life miserable if you speak out against them publicly

Romans just fed you to the lions iirc

if anything this stuff makes Scientologists look really archaic, resorting to outdated tactics and acting like modernity never happened

I in no way intended that to be serious, I feel that scientology's economic and social debt scale isn't in any way comparable to any major world religion currently extant, at least to my limited knowledge.

I think the "eh, most religions are vicious and angry at the start, or are even vicious and angry" is a pretty poor lens for viewing Scientology. Yes, religious institutions have their abuses but it's generally seen as a good to route them out, for the most part.

tl;dr I meant that as a lazy zing against the idea, not as an endorsement of it

I read Going Clear and I thought it was great. I had a friend who (before I knew her) was involved with Scientology. She spent about $80,000 and was still on the very lower levels. She doesn't like to talk about it much because she's embarrassed about getting suckered. It's really expensive! And it did not turn her into a famous Hollywood rock star.

Famous, like Kirstie Alley and Jenna Elfman!

Yeah, what exactly is the track record of Scientologists actually getting famous? I don't count Beck, because he only went back to the faith later in life. Do we just not know of them?

Romans just fed you to the lions iirc

umm the Romans fed Christians to the lions dude. (except that didn't actually happen, either. Not sure where you got the "Christians feeding ppl to lions" bit tbrr

oh wait nm I don't know why I thought u said otherwise my bad

I wonder what the deal was with Giovanni Ribisi and Cat Power, i.e. to what extent she got pulled into Scientology too when they were a couple. (She's always seemed somewhat psychologically unstable/ fragile, hence possibly susceptible to this kind of thing. Like other such religious/ cultic/ psycho-philosophical-lifestyle systems, maybe it even "helps" for a while. With addiction, etc.)

Don't Scientos usually mate-- pair up with-- each other? They may date outside the religion, but do they ever marry (or get into long-term relationships) with those outside it?

He's now married to Agyness Deyn and she's deflecting all the Sci questions people throw at her.

learned today that william s burroughs went clear in the 60s before being excommunicated for "treason"

didn't he and someone else (gysin maybe?) go around disrupting scientology meetings in london by playing back prerecorded tapes of some kind while in the audience? guessing that was post-treason. i remember in ed sanders revised-revised edition of his manson book (grain of salt) there being some totally O_o connections drawn between some of the family and the disappearance of numerous scientologists.

as someone mentioned above one of the most fascinating details to me was the fact that top-level scientologists, even now, still speak in '50s slang because thats what hubbard did.

how crazy is that. its just the best.

that's swell

He's now married to Agyness Deyn and she's deflecting all the Sci questions people throw at her.

― baked beings on toast (suzy), Saturday, February 8, 2014 3:16 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

i was just wondering whatever happened to her and now i know. speaking of scientology & celebrities, i caught maybe 10 min of "can't hardly wait" the other week and saw the part where jenna elfman is this beleaguered smoking angel who tells that blonde dude about some opportunity she missed and then i stopped watching, but it reminded me that all of these people are actors too. i wonder how much faking it they do when they're talking with the sea org muckity mucks.

I wonder what the deal was with Giovanni Ribisi and Cat Power, i.e. to what extent she got pulled into Scientology too when they were a couple. (She's always seemed somewhat psychologically unstable/ fragile, hence possibly susceptible to this kind of thing. Like other such religious/ cultic/ psycho-philosophical-lifestyle systems, maybe it even "helps" for a while. With addiction, etc.)

this is pretty trashy

Trashy on my part? I like Cat Power, and I'm hardly an emblem of mental health/ stability myself (on the contrary), kind of identify with that. Just extrapolating from the Ribisi relationship, which always seemed strange to me.

On the other hand, won't deny that I sometimes take an interest in trashy celebrity gossip. Guilty as charged.

Finished Going Clear. What a ride, eh?

every Christian denomination, even the Catholic church at this point, acknowledges that salvation is possible outside of its particular sect (except maybe not the JWs). comparing scientology to other faiths on an "eh, they all pull the same hokum" level is really simplistic thinking - all religions are interested in persuading their congregants to remain in the fold & to donate their money, no doubt. and all are interested in insisting on the veracity of their truth-claims. not all charge outright for access to higher levels of truth on a cash-for-truth basis, and almost none will actively make your life miserable if you speak out against them publicly. Catholics did this centuries ago, yes, in a very different way. the comparison is really, really surface-level though

― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, February 7, 2014 6:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

After finishing the book and reading his epilogue, I don't think he was being as, er, eccumenical? even-handed? as Shakey suggested. He seems to more be comparing and contrasting different "new" religious movements. He notes that some share specific elements with Scientology but he doesn't make any of them out to be an exact fit. You've got mormonism, which goes full-on legit/mainstream, drops some of its more unpopular practices (bigamy) and fields presidential candidates, and then you've also got Jim Jones and mass suicide. And then there's the Amish, who are very cloistered and easily shun but otherwise seem relatively harmless, and the Branch Davidians who he seems a little more uncertain about. I think he reasonably calls psychotherapy Scientology's more respectable cousin or something, but he doesn't imply that psychotherapy is "just as bad" as scientology as an institution, as opposed to as a philosophy.

Such a great book. And I agree it wasn't even handed--there's a bit of underlying astonishment overall. Then again, anyone that writes about Hubbard usually comes off that way.

Yeah, what exactly is the track record of Scientologists actually getting famous? I don't count Beck, because he only went back to the faith later in life. Do we just not know of them?

― DonkeyTeeth, Saturday, February 8, 2014 3:39 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they've gotten a few/several famous people when they were sorta kinda famous.

xp, sorry I didn't mean to suggest that Wright wasn't being "even-handed" in the sense of fairness. I think he's about as fair as a non-believing writer can be to them. I just meant that I didn't think the purpose of that epilogue was to say "See, all religions are like this at one time or another in their history."

ah ok. lol non-believing writer. Who believes Hubbard at all?

i just meant as opposed to a member of the church

Congratulations to Josh on completing his Clear Mitzvah!
http://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1/264539_708179345882462_364104751_n.jpg

So many great moments in the book. I really love the fact check scene at the end where Tommy Davis is giving the most absurd justifications/denials but you feel like you're going down the rabbit hole with him, just trying to imagine what it must have been like to actually sit through hours of that, going over fact after fact with those giant binders, the dunkin donuts sign in the background, etc.

and then after all that there's like 2 lines mentioning how Davis blowed