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Louis Theroux's My Scientology Movie is free to see on Amazon Video now. I've just been watching it, no new ground broken and all the way through you're willing Louis to get that interview with Miscavige even though you know it'll never happen. Any interview with a current Scientologist who wasn't pointing a camera at him would have been good.

But yet again, their paranoia made them unable to resist tailing the filmmakers, it's like shooting fish in a barrel getting them to act like maniacs around documentarians. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now, but nope, it's a sport among journalists and Anonymous members, wind up the Scientologist - and you always can.
 
EXCLUSIVE: Scientology tried to derail Remini series by calling 14-year-old ‘aggressor’ in rape

The Underground Bunker has obtained a document which shows that just days before A&E premiered its new series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, a Church of Scientology attorney tried to derail the program by claiming that the subject of the first episode, Amy Scobee, was lying about being raped at 14 years old.

The church attorney, Gary S. Soter, warned A&E that its show would be “defamatory” because, he claimed, Scobee was actually 16 when the incident occurred, that she was the “sexual aggressor,” and that the entire incident involved her shoving her hand down an older man’s pants. Church officials, he claims, were unaware of anything more serious taking place.

Scobee tells us that Soter’s letter is full of lies. She provided specific details to us about the incident which happened in the summer of 1978 when she was 14 years old, that it involved oral sex and intercourse, and that every member of the staff at her mission knew all of those details — because, according to Scientology policy, she was forced to write out those details and then get every staff member to sign it.

“This is more proof that the Church of Scientology is unwavering in its policy of attacking people who expose it, and I haven’t even begun to tell the stories of the children who have been abused by this dangerous organization,” Leah Remini said when we asked her for a statement. “Gary Soter should be ashamed of himself. What’s in this letter is so appalling, I don’t even have the words to ...

http://tonyortega.org/2016/12/05/ex...ies-by-calling-14-year-old-aggressor-in-rape/
 
Makes Louis' doc sound positively tame...
 
With all the alleged abuse, brainwashing, and criminal activity it's simply amazing that this organization is still open for business with members joining and not leaving, but then about half of America just got done electing Trump here in the US so I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone that such things happen. As RAWilson once said, 'If you take the average person on the street, by definition 50% of the people are even dumber than that.'
 
I like Scientology. I once spoke to a recruiter and agreed to take a test of I,think it was 50 or so questions. Before we started he warned me that at some point before he finished, I would request that he stop asking the questions. Why I asked? That's what we hope to find out he replied. The questions were normal questions and seemed unrelated. Then at about the twentieth question, I said stop. Why, he asked. I don't know why. I answered. Are you afraid, he asked. Yes, I answered. What are you afraid of, he asked. I don't know. I replied. Would you like to find out what it is you are afraid of. He asked. Yes, I replied. "That will be $20,000". He said.
 
With all the alleged abuse, brainwashing, and criminal activity it's simply amazing that this organization is still open for business with members joining and not leaving, but then about half of America just got done electing Trump here in the US so I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone that such things happen. As RAWilson once said, 'If you take the average person on the street, by definition 50% of the people are even dumber than that.'

It's the brainwashing that's the problem. The FBI investigated them but couldn't gather any evidence or witnesses for a prosecution because the Scientologists (and I don't mean the upper echelons of the organisation) refused to testify. The terror of being let go from your family and friends to start again from scratch is so great that very few are willing to do it. Imagine trying to find somewhere to live if you don't even have a bank account. It's a truly vile system of victimisation.
 
I wasn't meaning to imply that the actual organization isn't human. The actual theory is what I'm referring to. And of course any government would be threatened by people waking up.
 
I wasn't meaning to imply that the actual organization isn't human. The actual theory is what I'm referring to. And of course any government would be threatened by people waking up.
Can you explain what you mean by that....? Are you saying the organization is flawed and/or corrupt but that their psychological methods are valid?
 
Can you explain what you mean by that....? Are you saying the organization is flawed and/or corrupt but that their psychological methods are valid?
Yes to the first part, maybe to the second. That was the first time that I had been confronted with the unknown fear that crippled me.
 
Yes to the first part, maybe to the second. That was the first time that I had been confronted with the unknown fear that crippled me.
Well...not to oversimplify but we all have basic fears, so using one's fears to bilk money out of people is an age old con game and imho that's what Hubbard and his followers have been doing from the very beginning.
Having said that there are some interesting ideas about self observation and psychology in the book Dianetics which I read many years ago but all of them come from other sources and none of them are unique to Scientology nor were they created out of whole cloth by Hubbard who was a very flawed and troubled individual.
 
Well...not to oversimplify but we all have basic fears, so using one's fears to bilk money out of people is an age old con game and imho that's what Hubbard and his followers have been doing from the very beginning.
Having said that there are some interesting ideas about self observation and psychology in the book Dianetics which I read many years ago but all of them come from other sources and none of them are unique to Scientology nor were they created out of whole cloth by Hubbard who was a very flawed and troubled individual.
When I told them that I didn't have $20,000 laying around to pay for Dianetics, they said a very odd thing. We know that. As a matter of fact you are probably still living at home and are a student but most definitely not employed. Which was my situation at the time. Then why the speech. Because we believe in you, he said. They cannot stop you and one day you'll have the money to pay us. You won't know everything and that's where we come in. You will pay us and we will tell you everything. But you MUST PAY. One day when you get the money you will understand why. I said well good luck at picking out random people and hoping that they hit the lottery.
 
When I told them that I didn't have $20,000 laying around to pay for Dianetics, they said a very odd thing. We know that. As a matter of fact you are probably still living at home and are a student but most definitely not employed. Which was my situation at the time. Then why the speech. Because we believe in you, he said. They cannot stop you and one day you'll have the money to pay us. You won't know everything and that's where we come in. You will pay us and we will tell you everything. But you MUST PAY. One day when you get the money you will understand why. I said well good luck at picking out random people and hoping that they hit the lottery.
That whole dialogue by that person just reinforces my idea that it's a con game, albeit a sophisticated one.
If you want to read an interesting book try Going Clear.....it has some material about Hubbard himself and how the whole shebang got started.

BTW....the idea you 'must pay' has been used before by many groups like this including Gurdjieff's old Fourth Way process where people had to fork over money and their will to him and he told them how to get 'enlightenment' and 'wake up'. IMHO any true spiritual path that has no ulterior motive would not ask for money outright but only accept donations that one could afford if they were so inclined.
 
When I told them that I didn't have $20,000 laying around to pay for Dianetics, they said a very odd thing. We know that. As a matter of fact you are probably still living at home and are a student but most definitely not employed. Which was my situation at the time. Then why the speech. Because we believe in you, he said. They cannot stop you and one day you'll have the money to pay us. You won't know everything and that's where we come in. You will pay us and we will tell you everything. But you MUST PAY. One day when you get the money you will understand why. I said well good luck at picking out random people and hoping that they hit the lottery.
Yes, that is really what they are interested in. Your cold, hard cash.
Best off avoiding them.
A friend of mine was into Dianetics long before I knew her. She still has a big set of their books.
Eventually, they decided they didn't want her to be a member. I wondered why, and I realised it's because she ran out of money and is a bit of a deadbeat.
 
That whole dialogue by that person just reinforces my idea that it's a con game, albeit a sophisticated one.
If you want to read an interesting book try Going Clear.....it has some material about Hubbard himself and how the whole shebang got started.

BTW....the idea you 'must pay' has been used before by many groups like this including Gurdjieff's old Fourth Way process where people had to fork over money and their will to him and he told them how to get 'enlightenment' and 'wake up'. IMHO any true spiritual path that has no ulterior motive would not ask for money outright but only accept donations that one could afford if they were so inclined.
In Ouspenky's "In Search Of The Miraculous" Gurdjieff says he only charges money to those who can afford it and only to see if they are serious about the work. Too many where thought to be playing at it.
 
In Ouspenky's "In Search Of The Miraculous" Gurdjieff says he only charges money to those who can afford it and only to see if they are serious about the work. Too many where thought to be playing at it.
Yes...I read that book...still have a copy on my shelf. I'm sure many people do 'play at being spiritual' but I'm betting that old G was far more interested in those who did have some cash.
;)
 
What to get the Scientologist who has everything: It’s the Scientology Xmas Catalog!

We interrupt Leah Remini’s dismantling of the Church of Scientology to remind you that you have only 18 days left to finish your Christmas shopping. And as ever, you’ll need some extra help when it comes to that perennial conundrum facing us all — what to get the Scientologist on your list.

You see, Scientologists tend to make a big deal about Christmas. Even their celebrities, who can’t be bothered to show up for the grand opening of a new church, will put on funny costumes and take part in the skits and tributes that are performed at the Winter Wonderland exhibit on Hollywood Boulevard.

But here’s the thing that no Scientology celebrity will tell you: L. Ron Hubbard, in the organization’s secretive upper-level teachings, reveals that Jesus Christ, and Christianity, is just a mental implant, cruelly foisted upon the human race by Xenu the galactic overlord some 75 million years ago. “The man on the cross, there was no Christ,” Hubbard says quite clearly in a 1968 lecture.

So if that’s the case, what is it Scientologists are celebrating on December 25? Why, Scientology, of course!

“We are the hope of Man — the only hope,” Hubbard said in a Christmas message years ago. “Mankind’s salvation lies within our hands. With our tech and ability we can created here on Earth a real heaven where men can be free.”

And how do we know this? Because it appears on the first page of this year’s Scientology Christmas catalog!

We want to thank reader Rasha, who snagged a copy of this year’s catalogs — yes, there are actually two of them — and we thought you’d want to get a look at what Scientology leader David Miscavige is urging his followers to buy each other as gifts. This is really a hefty catalog, as you can see from the table of contents…

http://tonyortega.org/2016/12/07/wh...-everything-its-the-scientology-xmas-catalog/
 
Scientology is totally reading your comments here — and you’re scaring them senseless

If you’ve ever wondered about whether this website is read by officials of the Church of Scientology, we have a pretty remarkable example to bring to your attention today.

What a week it’s been here in the Underground Bunker. From digging up what L. Ron Hubbard actually said about space aliens and Scientology, to Leah Remini’s new jab at the LAPD about Shelly Miscavige, to Nora Crest’s emotional new video about Scientology homophobia, to the stunning news of a possible Shelly Miscavige sighting, and a crushing look at the way older workers are treated in the Sea Org, this place has been on fire.

And all of the action wasn’t only in the stories themselves. In the comments section of the post about Nora’s video, longtime reader Andrei “Dodo the Laser” Organ posted a pretty wild smackdown that hinted at something interesting going on where he is in the Cincinnati area…





You may remember Dodo from a story we did earlier about his son Daniel (2nd item, here). The Organ family is from Moldova, and Dodo is one of our many readers who is a former Church of Scientology member.

He tells us that he is friends with a woman who, like him, used to work on staff at Scientology’s Cincinnati org (which has been replaced by a new “Ideal Org” across the river in Florence, Kentucky). Now that they’re both out of the organization, they still live very close to each other, and their families are tight.

On Wednesday, Andrei got a series of frantic phone calls from his friend. She was being heavily recruited by the Florence Ideal Org, which wanted her to come back on course and on staff. And the Scientologists were pulling out all the usual tactics to overcome her objections, even going so far as to apply for a new credit card with a $40,000 credit limit on her behalf so she could pay in advance for expensive new classes to take her to “Clear.” ...

http://tonyortega.org/2016/12/17/sa...mments-here-and-youre-scaring-them-senseless/
 
I'm not a supporter of Scientology but anytime the media gives anyone a hard time they are either against the system or they are being portrayed as such to attract nut cases who will be documented by voting in the case of Trump, rounded up and exterminated. Yes, P.T. Barnum was right, there's a sucker born every minute.
 
There's a Scientiology headquarters building in Poole nearish to where I live-, and its supporters are often in Poole and Bournemouth, with clip boards, asking people questions.

A year after I moved here I weas stopped, and asked something like" What would you like most in the world?"
I think the questionner was expecting a materialistic answer, because , when I replied
" I would like to find my missing cat", I was more or less dismissed from the interview!

(Sadly the cat never returned.)
 
There's a Scientiology headquarters building in Poole nearish to where I live-, and its supporters are often in Poole and Bournemouth, with clip boards, asking people questions.

A year after I moved here I weas stopped, and asked something like" What would you like most in the world?"
I think the questionner was expecting a materialistic answer, because , when I replied
" I would like to find my missing cat", I was more or less dismissed from the interview!

(Sadly the cat never returned.)

yeah they are big around there and have fucked up a few people.
 
Live-blogging Leah Remini’s special episode tonight: Get a load of these miscreants!

Three years ago, we pulled the mask off of OTVIIIisGrrr8!, the greatest of the Scientology satirizers. It turned out that “we in RTC” was actually Jeffrey Augustine, a longtime Scientology critic who has also operated under the nom de guerre of “J.Swift.”

Little did we know that since we pulled off his mask, OTVIII would be making the big time. Tonight, Jeffrey will be joining his wife Karen de la Carriere, former Sea Org worker Chris Shelton, and journalist Paulette Cooper on a special one-hour episode of Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.

We asked OTVIIIisGrrr8! how it feels to make it to A&E’s hit series, which continues with its fourth regular episode tomorrow night.

“We in RTC are disappointed that Leah’s goons didn’t let us near the set,” OTVIII told us. “So you’ll just have to put up with yet another dumping of entheta spread by the unholy trinity of Psychiatry, Big Pharma, and the CIA.”

Clearly, OTVIII deserves his own show. We’d watch it.

Anyway, part of tonight’s episode is apparently taken up with answering questions from Reddit. But we’re really looking forward to the interviews with our illustrious four.

We thought we’d provide some links to additional things you can read about tonight’s participants.

Paulette Cooper: If you haven’t already, you must look through the photographs that we put together that we would have put into our book about Paulette if we had been able to. And if you haven’t read the book already, the photos give you some idea of just how much territory we cover in it. Give them a look! And of Paulette’s many appearances, we liked this one on LipTV with Allison Hope Weiner and your proprietor.

Chris Shelton: We were happy to break the news of Chris’s book, Scientology from A to Xenu last year on Christmas Day — what a treat that was for everyone. You’re probably familiar with Chris’s many videos explaining Scientology, but one of the things we’re most grateful to him for was his help decoding a bizarre secretly-recorded audiotape that captured a Scientology briefing by a high-level church executive. Go here for the first in the series. We’re really indebted to Chris for turning that stuff into English. ...

http://tonyortega.org/2016/12/19/li...isode-tonight-get-a-load-of-these-miscreants/
 
The 1994 Scientology Handbook is Just as Crazy as you Imagined it to Be

In the hope of not inviting the wrath of the Scientology tech department with this article (surely they have a team of hackers on sabotage duty somewhere), I’d like to share some fascinating images from the 1994 Scientology handbook that have recently surfaced on the web…
scientology19.jpg


http://www.messynessychic.com/2016/...ok-is-just-as-crazy-as-you-imagined-it-to-be/
 
There seem to be several pictures of people being told to notice mundane things. Odd.
 
What is it with that 'notice that x' business?
It reminds me of techniques used by hypnotists.
 
Kinda creepy that they keep records that long and make the effort to trace people. Stalking, I believe it's called.
:eek:
 
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