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Scientologists In Row With BBC
CmdrGravy writes "The Church Of Scientology is currently engaged in a row with the BBC, a result of an investigation by reporter John Sweeney. Sweeney is investigating the Church Of Scientology, trying to judge changes in the organization over the last few years; He's trying to discover if they've moved away from the questionable practices and secrecy they have employed in the past. The conflict centers around a YouTube video posted by the scientologists. It shows Mr. Sweeney losing his temper with a scientology spokesman. Mr. Sweeney's outburst came at the end of a tour of a scientology exhibition which attempts to portray psychiatrists as evil nazi type torturers entitled 'Psychiatry: Industry of Death' which is both gruesome and utterly unconvincing. The BBC appears willing to stand behind its reporter, in spite of the pressure brought to bear by the scientologist organization."
I don't critique the Church of Scientology because they are over the top. I use the almighty buck (which I feel too few consumers do these days.) I refuse to watch, buy, or do anything with folks that go over the top with Scientology. For example Tom Cruise. Ever since his over the top outbursts I decided to stop buying, watching or doing anything with his movies.
Of course me as a single consumer will probably not make much of dent, but I wish more consumers would do the same. Though I am thinking more in general about this and not specifically Scientology. People complain, etc, yet few do anything like stop buying products. If people realized that the buck has more power and sway than a single vote maybe there would be some real change.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
...in NYC Times Sq. Metro. "Free personality test" they called it. Being in a generally good mood at the time (first day in the US no less), I though "why not" - the girl looked pretty hot, and it was an excuse to talk to someone. So I hold the tin cans, and the questions start coming; "how are you doing", and then "no really, how ARE you doing?", and then more like "I think you're insecure" and "This book can help with that" - despite my protests that I was actually OK. This pissed me me somewhat, as my good mood turned quite sour quite quickly and in fact, I left rather pissed off.
Anyway, the next day, I saw them again, and this time I was ready for them. I did the whole "Oh, I wonder what this is" type gaze, and sure enough they invite me over for another free personality test, and sure enough the same questions start. The needle was going no-where this time, and in fact the more the guy tried to convince me i was a mental train-wreck the more my confidence grew and the needle fell. Eventually I actually start laughing at the guy interviewing me, and he can't take it any more so hands me over to another fine looking female who tries a similar technique. At this point I'm chuckling even louder at their constant mental batterings, and people are starting to take interest in the commotion, at which point they try and sell me their book once last time.
I tell them quite clearly and loudly enough for the onlookers to hear that "when I'm as insecure as you lot, I'll buy your stinking book then and burn it". To which my awaiting friends added "Scientology is for losers".
That showed them.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Sweeney didn't lose it. He tried a different response after a solid week of total frustration and non-answered questions and attempts to exchange understandings of how outsiders view CoS and how CoS members view their detractors. I would have lasted an hour before the same. Interestingly the BBC have received legal papers from lawyers in Hollywood asking that their famous clients (i.e. Kirstie Alley) are removed from the report as I guess they don't want to be linked with the CoS. This of course is the CoS removing balance from the debate.... and I wonder why people them think they're barking.
Wow. The "spokesman" is pretty much a master of getting people extremely pissed off. You can tell in the tone, in the VERY precise words used. It puts you off at first by speaking down on you like a child, and then keeps attacking until you feel you have no choice but to raise your voice so you cannot hear them while refuting them.
...actually quite impressive, were it not coming from a religion.
This is a bit off-topic, but I just want people to know that you don't have to look hard to find scientologists pushing their beliefs on people. The Wikipedia article on scientology seems to regularly be edited by CoS shills who try and turn the article into a PR brochure. Just look at the talk and history pages for the culprits.
Amen to that. I'd never hard of them way back in 1982 or so when one jumped out at me in Oxford Street (London) 'Free Personality Test Sir?' Why sure! My friend had ben warned by his Uni not to go near them but I thought it sounded fun so I went in and he waited in the lobby.
2 Hours later my friend got me liberated by shouting the place down in no uncertain terms and threatening them with the police for kidnapping.
I'd just split with my g/f and was feeling very low which needless to say they picked up on and I quickly found myself in a side room getting the good cop/bad cop routine, being told it would take 20 years to undo all the damage in my head that was stopping me achieve etc. etc. They would not let me go. Every time I tried to get up they stopped me, not with a gun but in ways that stop a polite person - gentle hand on shoulder, standing in the way of the door etc. as well as all the 'Please, you really need help, I'd be a bad person if I let you just leave - at least buy our book!'.
In hindsite, a lucky escape c/o my friend. Whilst I knew it was all highly dodgy, something in the way they quickly stripped my defences, pulled me apart and offered the 'only' way to be put back together again was with their help was compelling.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Having recently unwittingly visited the scientologists psychology exhibition (here in france scientology is banned so they operate under a "front" called the society for human rights) i offer some general remarks -
The presentation, a series of picture displays and video documentaries in the style of "fox news" or "americas 100 worst criminals" is very one-sided and lacking any kind of objectivity. Its point is psychiatry is evil, psychiatrists through the ages have committed torture and that psychiatry should be outlawed. However, there is absolutely no discussion of any alternatives therapies / treatments.
Many of the points raised are valid ones -
- In the middle ages people with mental health problems were subjected to horrific, barbaric treatments not disimilar to torture.
- Lobotomy and electro shock therapy are both destructuive non-reversable practices that permanently destroy a patients mental capacity.
- Modern pyschotropic drug therapies are often over prescribed by a for-profit, capitalist health and pharmacuetical industry.
However, more problematic for me -
- A long discussion directly blaming the holocaust and Nazi idealogy on psychiatry and psychological ideology.
- Direct association of modern medical psychotherapeutic practice with interrogation and torture (videos of Guantanamo Bay, pictures from Abu Ghraib)
- A picture display claiming the creativity of celebrities including Kurt Cobain, Marlyn Monroe, Duke Ellington, Peter Green was destroyed by psychiatry.
- No discussion of more benign and benficial psycho-therapeutic practices and no right of reply from healthcare practitioners
- Hiding "scientology" behind a front organisation and masquerading a cult recruitment seminar as pseudo science
The somewhat confrontational exhibition staged in a seaside resort hotel seemed to be attracting few visitors (people here are more interested in going to the beach / casino) and appeared to be disturbing the other paying guests and unnerving hotel staff. I heard they were forced to close the show 2days after starting despite having booked the suite for a week.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Are you sure you aren't a Scientologist? I'm surprised at people's willingness to let them off so lightly. Obviously you haven't researched the group's history.
c ult.html
We have people who have been killed by Scientology. We have people who proteest it and end up bankrupted by lawsuits. My lawyer friends tell me they read quite a bit of case law having to do with Scientologists just because they litigate so frequently.
Don't you wonder why they aren't litigating against the Pledge of Allegience or In God We Trust, but instead to protect their "secrets"?
Repeat until it sinks in: NO other religion charges you money to believe. Or to find out just WHAT you are supposed to be believing in.
Scientology is a cult. A cult has a specific meaning in this case. It isn't a smaller (vs. Christians) persecuted (aren't they all?) religious (it might not be) group. It's a brainwashing group which keeps you from leaving. And other things.
With its plethora of lawyers and infiltration into the IRS and other governmental branches, Scientology has gone from being a harmless cult to a "religious" mafia.
Take the recent example: A misdemeanor which wouldn't normally be enforced gets you a year in jail. WTF? I'm worrying.
Random people attempt to define cult:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c09.html
http://www.ex-cult.org/General/identifying-a-cult
http://www.cultfaq.org/
Disclaimer: I'm Christian, so maybe I'm just offended at being lumped in with these people. I think my rights are more endangered when Scientologists' rights are being protected. At least as they've been protected so far.
.. they can not claim it isn't a religion. The church of scientology will fight tooth and nail claiming religious discrimination and they will win.
So rather than claiming that scientology isn't a religion, what can be done to avoid having to give these fraudsters tax benefits and possible government funding?
Simply stipulate that only "open" religions can be given these benefits. That is, only religions in which all the religious texts are freely reproducable and the religious services are open to anyone without payment, will be given full benefits.
This would help against a whole host of other cults it would be easy to argue that only open religions can be considered charities.
I got caught some Dianetics people in the early 90s who were also offering a free personality test. Luckily I had read up on exactly what Dianetics was a few weeks beforehand and decided to go to see if it was really like I had read it was.
First of all they showed me some video and then I filled in a questionaire or something and went for a private interview with one of their practioners. He was trying to insinuate that I had psychological problems by asking things like "So, what do you regret most in life then eh ?". "Actually, nothing. I am very happy with my life - how about you ?". He was getting more and more frustrated by me insisting that life and great and I was the worlds best example of a rounded, well adjusted human being and in the end explained his theory about how auditing can help erase bad influences in my psyche so I asked him to explain exactly, scientifically, how this process worked and disagreed with everything he said. This carried on for 10 minutes or so and then he lost his temper when I told him that from what I'd heard so far he was peddling a load of nonsense and would be well advised to get out while he could. Then he accused me of being a reporter and wouldn't say anything else. He just sat there and wouldn't talk at all. I sat there for another couple of minutes or so reading a book I had just bought in town until he got up and left the room without saying anything.
All in all it was a very strange experience.
"Why would you care where people give their earned money?"
Actually, this is a great point and helps illustrate the difference between Scientology and religions. In other religions, you give money freely because you think it will help the church/society/causes, etc. In Scientology, you are presented with a "self help" system that is designed to help you with vague problems ("Do you ever have negative thoughts?"), and the teachings are VERY EXPENSIVE. HOWEVER, you are generally not asked to pony up 100% of the cost. The rest is loaned to you interest-free for as long as you're a part of the church. You can rack up millions of dollars of "debt" to the church through their normal course of training. Which is irrelevant as long as you never leave the church, but if you ever do, millions of dollars of loans come due and you've destroyed your life.
And that's just the economic side of things. When they send a private investigator to your town and tell your neighbors that you're an accused child molester, call the news and tell them that you're being investigated for terrorism, and follow you around day and night, it starts to get old.
E pluribus unum
It didn't matter if I strongly supported HIS right to do Scientology stuff.
It didn't matter that I had even lent him money to do Scientology.
What mattered was that I thought it was bunk, and because I thought it was bunk, Scientology wasn't working for him. So he had to disconnect from me.
This is a dangerous, evil organization that pretends to have all the answers, and has a very carefully laid out plan (called "The Bridge to Total Freedom") in order to slowly indoctrinate you and cause you to alienate yourself from other people.
It's a social dead-end, folks.
And yes, I'm posting anonymously. Mojo this evil is freaking SCARY.
Don't go up against these guys unless your self control is rock solid AND you understand this technique. Be ready to say something like "much as you might prefer otherwise, I'm not being "audited", I'm not standing here with tin cans in my hand looking like an idiot, you're not going to get me to blow up". Turn it back on 'em, they'll start foaming at the mouth. If a Rondroid is trying to get you pissed, ASSUME there's a camera pointing your way.
Actually, it's far, far more intensive than you describe. Scientologists practice "pushing buttons" hour after hour after hour on a course called the "Pro TRs". In this course, you practice:
1) How to seem completely relaxed and calm in nearly any circumstance. You sit in a chair in various places, both private and public, while somebody watches you intently for any outward sign of discomfort.
2) How to not "lose it" despite having somebody right in front of you trying to get you to. You sit in a chair and try to appear completely calm and relaxed while somebody is authorized to do ANYTHING to try to get you to react. They are encouraged to use any means to "get you", including jeering, screaming, feaux sexual come-ons, depictions of anal sex, teasing, yelling, etc.
3) How to lie effectively and believably. It's called "originating a communication", and the practitioner sits in a chair (notice a theme here?) facing another person. The practitioner then has to say ridiculous, nonsense things from a list, convincingly. The practitioner repeats this until he/she can say virtually anything with conviction and apparent honesty, no matter how crazy.
It goes on and on - I think I've covered maybe the first days of a weeks long course. Also included:
How to order somebody to do something with enough conviction to do something they don't want to.
How to effectively project communication at a distance with apparent ease.
How to appear physically intimidating/threatening without appearing overtly hostile.
How to physically direct somebody who's openly defiant.
And on and on and on. If you want to "go up" against these guys, you'd better practice first. Do like "The Sims" and practice your charisma and your calm very, very intensively first - you're going to need it!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.