scientology & celebrities

http://i.imgur.com/0Eq72g8.png

sunday sunday sunday

mistah wright!

What did you all think?

Having read the book, I guess it was a bit underwhelming. Mainly because the book is just so exhaustively detailed.

I thought the doc explained the e-meter more clearly, and some of the personalities came across nicely. Also, lol at that awful song.

I loved it. I never read the book but I knew a lot of the details. I didnt know about the machinations behind getting tax exempt status though, thats mindblowing.

Insane. If only the IRS could have held their nerve.

I dug it. I havent read the book & most of my knowledge is Hubbard/Parsons occult & early dianetics, so I found this v interesting + fking nuts

Hubbard footage (the color interview footage) STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
his mouth/teeth/lips so creepy
everything about him tbh

looooling at the meeting footage. william gibson retweeted someone saying that some of it looked like a bioshock level lol

cavidge is a weird one
reminds me of the pastor from True Blood

i actually went back and looked at the handshakes between cruise and miscavige a couple of times. creepy out.

The musical chairs story is some truly evil shit, again I think the book got across the horror of that even more than the doc, though I liked the way the doc did it. It might just be a case of the shock value being diminished entirely by knowing the big revelations.

L Ron's mouth and teeth :(

Guess my favourite part of the book didn't get in:

http://i62.tinypic.com/312e0kx.jpg

oh man, guess I have no reason to watch this now. :\

http://www.bustle.com/articles/72106-where-is-shelly-miscavige-wife-of-scientology-leader-david-miscavige-she-hasnt-been-seen-in-7

hubbard + parsons occult shenanigans deserves it's own 2hr doc imo

Damn Parsons, slow down.

hubbard + parsons occult shenanigans deserves it's own 2hr doc imo

yeah this stuff is practically a bottomless well.

why no mention in the doc about miscavige's missing wife?

oh sorry missed that link above!

i wish that the doc had included more about the auditing process. there's something fascinating about it--and it seems to be the kernel of a "real" experience which gets people hooked and which allows for all the other flim-flam to be attached to it.

i wanna watch this so badly

Started it last night, and this

Hubbard footage (the color interview footage) STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
his mouth/teeth/lips so creepy

is OTMFM.

closeup of teeth def the biggest thing not mentioned in the book

Pretty uncanny how much he looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman in some of those interviews. Or vice versa I guess

also maybe that one woman who was in sea org-- seemed like her departure from the church happened after the book got published?

lol @ at least 3 gary larson books on the NYT bestseller list along with dianetics

i wanna watch this really badly too but what's the deal with the teeth?

He and the Lieutenant of the Morannon have the same dentist, apparently.

nothing really wrong with his teeth he just looks like darrell hammond

http://photos.vanityfair.com/2015/03/30/55196c270acde13473db3807_going-clear-LRH.gif

ah i see
he has stained old man pointies
these days rich old ppl all have veneers so you don't get teeth like that anymore

i'm assuming as soon as Hubbard died and leveled up to space god or whatever, he commanded the cosmos to amputate the lower half of his face

thanks, LL, now "stained old man pointies" is a phrase that will haunt me for the rest of my life

indifferent navy dentistry, pall malls and bourbon, all night writing manias, months at sea. just imagine.

in the movie there's a moment when Cruise, giving a speech up on that weird gold stage, says that "outside of LRH" (or something to that effect) that Miscavige is the greatest human he's ever met or whatever...does that mean that Cruise actually met LRH at some point. is that possible?

It doesn't seem like he could have. He became a Scientologist after Hubbard was dead.

they still talk to LRH, I would bet

keep in mind LRH isn't dead, he merely shed his mortal form

oh geez can you imagine if they have his creepy head in a jar and Miscavige and Cruise take it out and talk to it

Let's hope that's all they do to it.

one of the reasons I ask is because hubbard's status within the church seems ambiguous. is he holy? a God? merely "enlightened" a la Buddha? or just a founder of a school of thought which evolves and lives on without him? his texts are certainly treated as authoritative.

honestly I can forgive a lot but this shoddy theology really bugs me.

prob the biggest thing that the film captured better than the book was how over-the-top the celebration was after they won their fight against the IRS

THE. WAR. IS. OVER!!!

Dunno if it was over the top, they basically dicked over the entire US state and got free rein to earn billions of dollars, tax-free, and if they lost it would have destroyed them.

are sci-ti's able to claim their auditing expenses as a charitable donation to the church on their taxes?

I was wondering if the "church" part of "the church of Scientology" was a post-Hubbard invention that reflects that IRS fight. feel like even if you take their ideology at face value it doesn't really seem like a religion to me. even Xenu is not exactly a supernatural being or Creator. there's a creation myth for humanity but not for the world as a whole, etc. there's really no "mystery" which strikes me as common to the major religions outside Buddhism.

ryan you should really read the book

like there's nothing, in principle, beyond the grasp of human beings--as if it's truly a humanism gone bonkers.

xp: I know!

I was wondering if the "church" part of "the church of Scientology" was a post-Hubbard invention that reflects that IRS fight. feel like even if you take their ideology at face value it doesn't really seem like a religion to me

The doc basically said Hubbard veered more towards religion when science and psychiatry rejected Dianetics.

xp - you're welcome :)
now you see the world through my eyes

it's the weird red rotting bottom teeth that scared me the most, but pretty much his whole mouth area is just *NO*