scientology & celebrities

I was in Pittsburgh visiting a friend over thanksgiving, and another friend came over with some Sc!entology DVD. It was incredible. Apparently he got it from his roommate, whos uncle was a pretty high level 'tologist, but after the uncle died they kept sending shit to his house.

Anyhow, this DVD was like an infomercial, from what I could piece together, it was 3 hours of persuading people who already had all the currently available books and tapes to rebuy all of that same material on CD.

The main speaker was some guy in a gaudy suit and he was speaking in this giant guilded auditorium, it was huge, with like 70-foot tall projection screens behind him which would show bad computer animation of these CD sets flying over volcanoes and shit. And then it'd show L. Ron's face and play a soundbyte of him saying something like, "You can't unlock only half the secrets of the mind. And even if you could, ho ho, I wouldn't want to, would you? I don't think so..."

And then it'd cut to the audience, tens of thousands of people all in tuxedos and evening gowns, Kirsty Ally and John Travolta right up front, standing and applauding. All I could think was, "That didn't mean anything. He didn't say anything, that was complete gibberish. Fucking gobbledygook and thousands of people are applauding it. What the fuck?"

It was 3 hours of that. Dude saying some nonsense, audience applauds, CGI volcano scene, L. Ron soundbite, audience applauds. Over and over. And on top of it all I was high as shit, that evening had been the first time I had toked in like 9 years. Insane. I need to get that DVD. And some pot.

I have a recent Church newspaper that leads with a huge picture of the man next to a huge headline pull quote: "Drug residues can stop any mental help. They also stop a person's life!" - L. Ron Hubbard

it's true

i had conversations like this at college parties at 4am with stoned dudes whose names i never did learn.

"like, you've got to live in the moment, man"

they stole their graphics at the end from the 'starship troopers' commercials

i don't think they do much marketing to mundanes like us.

walk through the port authority subway station sometime, then.

Yeah, scientologists have a big display/stall in the shopping mall nearest to here. They gave me a stress test the other day.

I kind of feel like Tori Amos is so weird she's normal or something.

this is frightening

No more so than the Moonies.

I want to learn this guitar riff to help the people in their zealotry. Also like the random gold steam graphic repeating itself every 16 seconds. (Could not actually pay attention.)

the recent new yorker article about sc!ento!ogy and celebrities was disappointing

What struck me about it was that auditing is suppsed to be about clearing your mind and shit, but Cruise is basically babbling incomprehensibly for most of that, he never finishes a sentence off and appears to be totally fucking nuts! What an advert for the co$, eh.

I don't need no wacko actors to tell me that being positive, assertive, and pleasant to all other life in the world is productive to the human race.

Is scientology just a 'religion' stating the obvious?

why am i even asking that?

I drove past a car crash on the way to work this morning and the first thing I thought of was what would Tom Cruise do if he was here?

Smile and wave

yeah that part was mind-bendingly arrogant "we are the ONLY people qualified to help @ at a car wreck"

he's probably stand there and say 'you brought this on yourself by being mentally WEAK" or something

Do all scientologists train as panel beaters? Because that's what the crash that I saw needed more than anything else.

Is scientology just a 'religion' stating the obvious?

Not unless you think it's obvious that 75 million years ago an alien ruler of the Galactic Confederacy named Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs, and that their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living and continue to do this today, and that we must isolate these alien souls and neutralize their ill effects.

oh right, lol

A trawl around suggests that the tom cruise clip is just an extract - that there's more than an hour of similar batshit insanity out there? Wow, man.

The beeb have caught him just right...
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44359000/jpg/_44359314_cruise_grab_203.jpg

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3979687

NB haven't d/l-ed this myself yet, will do so after dinner.

all's I can say is, that poor fucking kid... who wants to help me start a task force to liberate these kids from their psychotic and malignant celebrity parents?

I actually got through more of 2 girls 1 cup than I did of that clip, and similar feelings of nausea forced me to click 'stop'.

What was Cruise laughing at ?

you

This isnt that far off organized christanity, guys. Actually, its pretty much the same.

Not really.

It's just as BORING!

I missed this thread until now because I was thinking "What else is new"...but this does take the cake.

Yeah, seriously. But still, any douchebag so far up their own ass and who've convinced that they alone hold the key to Truth and everybody else is just full of it will begin spouting off similar bullshit. Pathological narcissism/megalomania attempting to be hidden inside a fog of weird-ass piety is something we've seen before, and sometimes is duly laughed at, and sometimes not.

xp

oops, check that. I was agreeing with Bill there.

Mind you, I still don't think this is anywhere near as crazy as LRH himself singing the song "Thank You For Listening" at the end of the 1985-or-so Scientology album. Overall tracklist:

1. THE ROAD TO FREEDOM performed by John Travolta, Leif Garrett, Frank Stallone, Lee Purcell.

2. THE WAY TO HAPPINESS performed by Leif Garrett, Gayle Moran, Nicky Hopkins.

3. THE WORRIED BEING performed by Amanda Ambrose.

4. THE EVIL PURPOSE performed by Frank Stallone.

5. LAUGH A LITTLE performed by Michael Roberts, Pam Roberts, Margie Nelson.

6. THE GOOD GO FREE performed by David Pomerantz.

7. WHY WORSHIP DEATH? performed by Chick Corea, Julia Migenes.

8. MAKE IT GO RIGHT performed by David Pomerantz.

9. THE ARC SONG performed by John Travolta, Karen Black, Jeff Pomerantz, Frank Stallone, Lee Purcell, Gloria Rusch.

10. L’ENVOI, THANK YOU FOR LISTENING performed by L. Ron Hubbard

Go to ron the music maker dot org slash music slash listen.htm if you want to hear it all. No, really.

I've cancelled that in my area

otm

This isnt that far off organized christanity, guys. Actually, its pretty much the same.

Much as I think organised religion is generally a Bad Thing, Christianity is something that has evolved over a couple of thousand years and it represents some kind of (flawed, IMHO) cultural and ethical continuity with the past. Scientology was invented from scratch by a known huxster forty-odd years ago.

The religions might be vastly different in most areas but both seem to bring out the nutjobs from time to time.

Christianity was invented from scratch by a known huxster two thousand-odd years ago.

*shrug*

thought to be fair, his little con didn't have the strong stench of fascism.

I dont know, they just both reek of fantastical beginnings, blind faith and a "we are the only ones that know the truth" attitude.

Ah, you've figured out ILX!

snap!

me on old ILX

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/images/Blake.jpg

"I dont know, they just both reek of fantastical beginnings, blind faith and a "we are the only ones that know the truth" attitude."

Not really. Christianity originally was an offshoot of Judaism, which had been around an extremely long time by that point. Also, it was hashed out after Jesus's death by the apostles each of whom wrote their own versions, see also the lost books of Thomas. this is a lot different from some loon thinking up a get-rich-quick scheme with his sci-fi buddies at a fucking cocktail party.

"we are the only ones that know the truth"

to be fair, i think this is only a very small fraction of christianity but a much more slice of the pie for scientologists. But that's a massive assumption from me and only based on heresay and telly progs.

I don't know, I still think Christianity (and Judaism, Islam etc) has a smattering of positive aspects and Scientology CERTAINLY doesn't (except maybe 'LOL famous people').

hey im the son of the god! oops im dead! oh wait im alive again! see ya in heavs, dudes!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/438660591_76e73d0767.jpg

hey im the son of the god! oops im dead! oh wait im alive again! see ya in heavs, dudes!

I'm not saying it's not founded on bullshit. That's not my point at all.

that wasnt directed at you

Oh Ok, apologies.

http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress A rather better link.