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I am not terribly religious, after watching the HBO documentary tonight I am stunned by the accusations.
The most interesting point to me was that the religion gets very detailed/ video taped "confessions" from its members and then uses that info to control their actions. Now it is a 3 billion dollar empire with tax free status despite only having 50,000 active members.
It surely would be tough to fight a 3 billion dollar empire that knows your deepest, darkest secrets.....
Scientology: A religion based on the ramblings of a mentally unstable, pathologically lying science fiction writer. Even while Hubbard was alive, he faced serious legal charges over his scam and went into hiding for several years. Since his death, even members of his own family have come out and called Scientology a complete scam. Yet, somehow, this cult still seems to attract members. Makes you wonder about the future of humanity....
Jason Beghe was highly entertaining. Most of the revelations were nothing new, especially if you've read the Time article from back in day where the writer ended up getting stalked and harassed for years after the fact.
Strange things seem to happen to people who write about Scientology. Journalist Paulette Cooper wrote a critical book on the cult in 1971. This led to a Scientology plot (called Operation Freak-Out) whose goal, according to church documents, was "to get P.C. incarcerated in a mental institution or jail." It almost worked: by impersonating Cooper, Scientologists got her indicted in 1973 for threatening to bomb the church. Cooper, who also endured 19 lawsuits by the church, was finally exonerated in 1977 after FBI raids on the church offices in Los Angeles and Washington uncovered documents from the bomb scheme. No Scientologists were ever tried in the matter. For the TIME story, at least 10 attorneys and six private detectives were unleashed by Scientology and its followers in an effort to threaten, harass and discredit me. Last Oct. 12, not long after I began this assignment, I planned to lunch with Eugene Ingram, the church's leading private eye and a former cop. Ingram, who was tossed off the Los Angeles police force In 1981 for alleged ties to prostitutes and drug dealers, had told me that he might be able to arrange a meeting with church boss David Miscavige. Just hours before the lunch, the church's "national trial counsel," Earle Cooley, called to inform me that I would be eating alone.
Alone, perhaps, but not forgotten. By day's end, I later learned, a copy of my personal credit report -- with detailed information about my bank accounts, home mortgage, credit-card payments, home address and Social Security number -- had been illegally retrieved from a national credit bureau called Trans Union. The sham company that received it, "Educational Funding Services" of Los Angeles, gave as its address a mail drop a few blocks from Scientology's headquarters.
The owner of the mail drop is a private eye named Fred Wolfson, who admits that an Ingram associate retained him to retrieve credit reports on several individuals. Wolfson says he was told that Scientology's attorneys "had judgments against these people and were trying to collect on them." He says now, "These are vicious people. These are vipers." Ingram, through a lawyer, denies any involvement in the scam. During the past five months, private investigators have been contacting acquaintances of mine, ranging from neighbors to a former colleague, to inquire about subjects such as my health (like my credit rating, it's excellent) and whether I've ever had trouble with the IRS (unlike Scientology, I haven't). One neighbor was greeted at dawn outside my Manhattan apartment building by two men who wanted to know whether I lived there. I finally called Cooley to demand that Scientology stop the nonsense. He promised to look into it.
After that, however, an attorney subpoenaed me, while another falsely suggested that I might own shares in a company I was reporting about that had been taken over by Scientologists (he also threatened to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission). A close friend in Los Angeles received a disturbing telephone call from a Scientology staff member seeking data about me -- an indication that the cult may have illegally obtained my personal phone records. Two detectives contacted me, posing as a friend and a relative of a so-called cult victim, to elicit negative statements from me about Scientology. Some of my conversations with them were taped, transcribed and presented by the church in affidavits to TIME's lawyers as "proof" of my bias against Scientology.
Among the comments I made to one of the detectives, who represented himself as "Harry Baxter," a friend of the victim's family, was that "the church trains people to lie." Baxter and his colleagues are hardly in a position to dispute that observation. His real name is Barry Silvers, and he is a former investigator for the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force. (RB)
Also the South Park Scientology episode is an absolute must see.
I am not terribly religious, after watching the HBO documentary tonight I am stunned by the accusations.
The most interesting point to me was that the religion gets very detailed/ video taped "confessions" from its members and then uses that info to control their actions. Now it is a 3 billion dollar empire with tax free status despite only having 50,000 active members.
It surely would be tough to fight a 3 billion dollar empire that knows your deepest, darkest secrets.....
It amazes me that people are handing their money over to these data miners, who have enough info to black mail members, and ruin their lives, all in the name of "religion." It took a long time for many of those ex high power members who were interviewed to have their "Hey, wait a minute..." moment. I was hoping Leah Remini would be interviewed, as she recently left the church.
I am not terribly religious, after watching the HBO documentary tonight I am stunned by the accusations.
The most interesting point to me was that the religion gets very detailed/ video taped "confessions" from its members and then uses that info to control their actions. Now it is a 3 billion dollar empire with tax free status despite only having 50,000 active members.
It surely would be tough to fight a 3 billion dollar empire that knows your deepest, darkest secrets.....
Surprise! Scientology is just like every other "religion"! L Ron is just a modern day Jesus, except we know for certain that L Ron was actually a real person.
Surprise! Scientology is just like every other "religion"! L Ron is just a modern day Jesus, except we know for certain that L Ron was actually a real person.
I really can't equate Scientology with say, your everyday Methodist.
Surprise! Scientology is just like every other "religion"! L Ron is just a modern day Jesus, except we know for certain that L Ron was actually a real person.
Yeah....no. I can pick up a Bible or Koran and learn everything about the beliefs of that particular faith without having to spend an exorbitant amount of money and wasted time on endless auditing sessions.
I can walk out of a church at anytime without having the preacher chase me down the aisle, waving a collection basket or sending some rent-a-hoods to follow me around and harass me.
Surprise! Scientology is just like every other "religion"! L Ron is just a modern day Jesus, except we know for certain that L Ron was actually a real person.
A local morning show host:
"Scientology isn't even a real religion! It's just made-up!"
The irony...
An aside:
Jesus probably existed. Though certainly not as a water-walking spawn of a deity, he likely existed in some form as a rabble-rousing cult-leader in the early first century (the Roman Empire probably teemed with such figures) who was put down by annoyed local authorities. Of course, this opportunistic character probably bore little resemblance on almost any level to the later cult that developed around him and still exists today.
A scam, a cult, certainly not a religion. At any rate, I am anxious to see the documentary, I've been fascinated with the whole Scientology thing for years, kind of a morbid curiosity, like behind the scene pics of N. Korea. It's pretty crazy that some very well known people buy into the whole program, but that can be said about religion as well.
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