Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief I knew a little bit about Scientology but now I know a lot more. L Ron Hubbard was a crazy Mofo.
Going Clear I went into it thinking Scientology was a UFO cult started by an evil con man who borrowed ideas from pop psychology and science fiction stories and used it to prey on weak minded people. I came out of it thinking the exact same thing. The ridiculous sea captain uniforms and all of the stuff about evil lord Xenu and brainwashed alien ghosts would be hilarious if it all weren't so damn predatory. I'm really disappointed that the IRS and FBI caved, and this obvious scam was declared a legit religion. What suprised me was that apparently both Cruise and especially Travolta talked about leaving Scientology, but were blackmailed into staying, with Cruise being brought back into the fold hardcore and pushed into a spokesman role.
I'm not sure whether Cruise or Travolta are gay or bisexual, but they're definitely both into men, and Scientology kept extensive records of their auditing sessions, which I'm sure would have been used to expose and destroy them if they left. Now that it's okay to be gay, and scientology is losing members, I would love to see these two leave Scientology and join with other former scientologists who are exposing the whole thing for the scam that it is. Also the guy running the thing now is arguably even scarier than Hubbard. I love how he would literally beat and torture the other higher ups in the church. He's all about money and a complete sociopath. The Nazi style rally he had when they got tax exempt status was both hilarious and scary.
The most interesting thing I got out of it was how seemingly normal people can get sucked in and then not really notice how crazy things are until they get out. I attended a seminar on local cults and there were people there that had left/escaped and they basically reported the same type of experiences as the Scientology people did. Most of them were normal intelligent people but were lonely or felt their lives lacked purpose.
I think that's the key. They manage to single out people who are troubled, weak minded, and/or have mental health problems. These aren't necessarily people who would seem strange. Most of them are normal. But they have a vulnerablility that the cult can pick out. Cults are predators.
I got dragged in for a test audit once. Had to hold the two metal cylinders and I can't remember what they talked about. Got a free book though, made for hilarious reading
Was it Dianetics? I guess that's free, but you have to pay many thousands of dollars to read the sacred texts about evil lord Xenu and his evil psychiatrists and tax auditors rounding up aliens, putting them on galactic cruisers that looked exactly like DC8s, dropping them into volcanoes, nuking them, and then brainwashing their ghosts to believe in Christianity and Buddhism. And now that I have revealed the secret of Scientology to you before you were ready and paid them at least $100,000, you will probably die of pneumonia.
Probably. It had a picture of a volcano on the cover. It just seems odd that anyone would sign up after reading that book. It's like, 1 part weird military hierarchy, 1 part bad sci-fi and 3 parts wishy washy wishful thinking.
Well that's what you get when a failed sci-fi writer who was kicked out of the navy and loved pop psychology (though he denies that's what it is, psychologists/psychiatrists are evil) writes a book. I guess the sea captain uniforms they wear tie into the military heirarchy. They sign billion year contracts with the sea org and then they get to do forced labor and occassionally wear those stupid looking sea captain outfits. Also people who fall out of line in the sea org tend to disappear. It sounds like in the old days when Hubbard was moving around on ships to avoid authorities they would just throw them overboard. Also, I found this amusing:
I'm not even sure what the exact difference between a cult and a gang is. They are similar in their recruitment methods. Then there are hate groups like the KKK and some people flying off to the middle East to join ISIS. I guess people can do odd things when they don't have direction in their lives.
I actually believe Cruise and Travolta are legitimately cool and talented guys who happen to have some mental and emotional problems and had their gayness used to blackmail them into staying when they wanted to leave. They got sucked into scientology because they needed a leg up when they first entered Hollywood. But now they are stuck, and being associated with a cult that has an increasingly bad rep has actually hurt their careers a lot in the last decade. Cruise is a hardworking and talented actor and filmmaker and I would actually love to see him escape from this nonsense and get his head on straight. But he drank deep of the Hubbard Koolaid, so that probably won't happen.
I always though Chi was the biggest troll I'd ever seen, but this L Ron Hubbard guy... dude trolled continents at a time! He was so good, he incepted himself into his own troll and became a believer! This particular doc didn't tell me anything new about Scientology in general, but the focus on the leaders was new. The David Miscavige guy is more interesting than LRH in my opinion. Not really sure if he's an opportunist, true believer, socipath, murderer (Leah Remini got bounced from the CoS for asking where his missing wife was)... It didn't address my biggest question. This is a 'religion' exclusive to wealthy people.... but self made people are no fools. How the fuck do they buy into this? My best speculation has always been, wealth creates boredom.
A lot of people join churches even though they don't believe in religion because it's an excellent way to make business contacts. I get the impression people in the entertainment business try to use scientology in this fashion but end up getting brainwashed and/or blackmailed into staying. Also people can be really smart and gifted at something, but lack common sense. This applies to a lot of people with money.
Some of the smarter people seem to have been born into it, or joined due to a close trusted recruiter. It seems Tom Cruise was introduced to Scientology by his first wife, who probably joined as a poor wannabe actor. I kinda understand the Tom Cruise hate now. The guy (indirectly) has an army of slaves at his fingertips... The lower level stuff seem OK. The auditing just seems like any therapy session, and I'm sure people feel better after getting their problems off their chest. Ironically, it didn't seem too different from psychology which they are adamantly against. The advanced stuff is bat shit insane... it's not even creative coming from a sci-fi writer. LRH created a world where everything was the same as his current reality of 1950's USA. Then add your typically overlord character but remove action hero.
Hubbard is the hero of the story. He's there to save you from brainwashed alien ghosts through the most advanced LRH technology!
CHARLES MANSON: SCIENTOLOGIST Best Known For: viciously murdering people, ordering people to viciously murder other people; carving swastikas into his forehead Why You Wouldn't Expect Him To Be a Scientologist: One of the biggest lunatics in American history is actually precisely who we'd expect to be down on the ground with psychotic theories about aliens and immortal spirits. But here's the kicker: Manson took over 150 hours of Scientology courses, rejected it as too crazy, and then went on to murder a whole bunch of people. We're just saying. http://tinyurl.com/3tc8otg