Today I was proud to be a guest on the Road to Reason, a show which airs on Fairfax County Public Access in the Washington DC area. They interviewed me last year about my experiences with Scientology and that was a lot of fun. The producer was kind enough to invite me back today along with independent journalist Mark Ebner, and we discussed the upcoming HBO documentary, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.
The documentary has been showing to sold out theaters for the past few weeks and is finally premiering tonight on HBO. I got a chance to see it a few weeks ago in Austin and meet the director, Alex Gibney and the author of the book it’s based on, Lawrence Wright. I published my review of the movie after I saw it (here). It is without question the most powerful piece ever made on the subject of Scientology and is bringing to light its most toxic practices and abuses. I cannot recommend the film enough.
Two of my favorite people discussing the evilness of Scientology. Tonight, Sunday is the release of the HBO documentary about Scientology that the cherch has done all they can to prevent but failed. Eight former members of the cherch are going to tell their stories and let me say for each one of these eight, there are at least two hundred others who could share their stories and collaborate everything that is being shown. Forced abortions, physical restraint and beatings, illegal activities, blackmail, breaking up families, enforced slavery, and other unsavory actions have been done and are being done currently by this evil cult which poses as a Church. It is not like any church or temple you have ever been to unless you joined their group. May this documentary have an effect on the cult to shut it down for good and have it’s leader Captain Miscavige brought to justice for all of his illegal and despicable actions.
And Hubbard alongside him. He started it. Miscavige was well trained and merely a puppet left in a rather dreadful situation with no OT levels to promise.
Not knowing fully all Miscavige’s crimes except that he’s stealing the public’s money and crooking the US out of tax, Hubbard was a far worse criminal. Read the following, documented book if you haven’t already: A Piece of Blue Sky. It’ll give you all the facts.
Hubbard was callous and a hypocrite. He didn’t care about people. It was always about the money. Each new level was contrived to keep the money in flowing. He was a pathological liar, had a penchant for cruelty, had no regard for his staff except if they were valuable to him. After that, he got rid of them without any thought to their wellbeing. He was cruel beyond understanding. He was callous, he stole money from his friends, stole their girl friends, committed bigamy and also slapped and beat up people.
Anyway, I don’t want to spoil the book for you.
Great video! Mark and Chris gives us facts and insights to counter the relentless propaganda from the “Church”. Love hearing these guys.
Wonderful show, Chris. So glad you were there and will get invited to more such shows.
A very good point made is that though the Still-Ins won’t get to see it, won’t even try, will be warned not to, their friends and family will. A good example of this is Katie Holmes. It was friends and family who clued her up, offered her their support and help.
I hope this show and interviews like yours on open channels and YouTube speed up the beginning of the end!
Another valuable point you brought up was how you had to relearn to feel! I have a friend who I regularly see movies with and when they’re sad, I cry. I get right into the movies and feel a gamut of emotions. She sits through them all stony faced. And she looks down on me because it’s her perception that I’m merely being restimulated. She’s OT 5 and she thinks it’s a good thing she’s not emotional.
I had another OT 5 friend. One day, when we were watching a sad movie on DVD and I was crying. She got annoyed and said, You know, ___, you should really get onto your OT levels and then you wouldn’t do that! Whew!
Fortunately for me, I always knew that I SHOULD be feeling emotions and that I was fortunate that mine were free emotions. Perhaps it was because I was “only” Clear?
Anyway, I don’t care anymore. I’m out and I don’t practise Scn anymore.
I appreciate your perspective and your videos, Chris. For a future q and a, I would be very interested to know how you think the effects of “Going Clear” will be felt in the lives of current Sea Org members. Do you have recollections of your life or that of your colleagues being affected by any major PR crisis for the church while you were in?
Hi, Chris. Fan that I am, I watched through the first commercial but at the end of it the screen was black. I listened to the talk for a while and gave up.
I’m sorry that happened. I have no idea why. I checked the video (which is on YouTube) and it seemed to work ok.