Introduction
For anyone who pays attention to the Church of Scientology on a fairly regular basis, it has become obvious over the past couple of years that its public image has taken repeated well-deserved beatings. It’s so bad that at ths point I believe it has passed the point of no return. There is no road out for Scientology to gain a favorable public image and it’s only going down from here.
What’s not so obvious is why this has happened.
Many of us critics of the Church can only stand with our mouthes open in shock at some of the more insane displays of hate and fear that high level Scientologists demonstrate when the cameras are rolling. I can only imagine the horror that Church members themselves must feel when they see how their organization represents itself to the world at large. Because believe me, despite the Church’s internal demands on its members to not watch or read anything bad about Scientology, the widespread accessiblity of mass media in this day and age makes it impossible to censor the truth.
There are reasons the Church of Scientology acts so blatantly against its own best interests and I’m going to break down some of those reasons for you. With exposes and full-blown documentaries about Scientology on the horizon, I want to also lay out what we can expect to see from the Church in response to these and why their responses are only going to make matters worse for them.
The Office of Special Affairs (OSA)
I think that most people who have any awareness of Scientology know about the Office of Special Affairs, the Church’s legal division. In fact, much of the Church’s bad PR is due to the hard work of OSA’s Investigation and Legal departments, including the non-Scientology lawyers and private investigators they hire to actually carry out most of their dirty work. When you see Scientology stalking and harassing its ex-members, for example, you are seeing these investigators and lawyers doing their daily work.
What many may not realize is that OSA also has a Public Relations department which is fully responsible for the Church’s external public image and media representation.
Public relations is an important subject for any group, company or organization. Technically, it’s the practice of managing the spread of information between that individual or group and the rest of the world, the public. Billions of dollars are spent every year on PR. Some do better than others, but it’s safe to say that almost anything you see in any mass media outlet has been directly affected by professional PR work.
By any yardstick you care to use, OSA has been doing an absolutely horrendous job for many years. It’s degenerated so bady that there hasn’t even been a public media representative or international spokesman for Scientology since Tommy Davis disappeared in 2011. It took two years just to find out that Mr. Davis left the employment of the Church along with his wife and does his absolute best to stay out of the limelight now. No one is stepping up to take his place.
When you look at the press releases, promotional materials and commercials put out by Scientology, it seems difficult to understand just what public image they are trying to create or maintain. All they ever seem to talk about is fundraising for bigger buildings, giving money to their International Association of Scientologists membership fund or making their members re-do services over and over again because supposedly they weren’t doing them right the last time. And of course their members have to pay for the privilenge of these re-dos each time.
It seems as if this organization does nothing except raise money for itself.
Hubbard’s PR Series
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, wrote a series of policies in the early 1970s called the “Public Relations Series”. These gave the operational directions for anyone in the Church who was going to engage in public relations. It’s interesting to look at a few of these and see how Hubbard set the stage early on for the cataclysmic failures they are now experiencing.
Like every other subject he wrote about, Hubbard claimed that he was the only person to be able to figure out the real laws and workable procedures to execute successful public relations. Yet instead, what he actually offered was a contradictory set of rules that on the surface look like they might make sense, but when you try to use them you end up in a total mess.
One example is when Hubbard talks about the use of truth in PR in a policy letter from August 13, 1970, PR Series 2, THE MISSING INGREDIENT:
“The more lies you use in PR the more likely it is that the PR will recoil.
“Thus the law:
“NEVER USE LIES IN PR.”
Scientologists read this and they think that it’s Church policy to never tell lies and therefore everything that OSA ever says must be true. Right? Not so fast. Because just a little later in that same policy Hubbard then says:
“Handling truth is a touchy business also. You don’t have to tell everything you know…. Tell an <i>acceptable truth</i>.
…
“SO PR becomes the technique of communicating an acceptable truth – and which will attain the desirable result.
“If there’s no chance of obtaining the desirable result and the truth would injure, then talk about something else.”
In PR Series 16, PR TEXTS, Hubbard even faults a PR textbook because “It continually advises frankness with the press to a point where a PR, using that, could easily create situations of out-PR.”
The problem here is that an acceptable truth is defined in Scientology as anything they want it to mean to attain a desirable result.
Orwellian Re-definition of Terms
George Orwell was the pen name of author Eric Arthur Blair, famous for such works as Animal Farm and 1984. He was a briliant essayist and a lifelong opponent of totalitarianism. Amongst many other things, Orwell wrote about the clever use of language in politics and media and how language can be altered for PR purposes to fool the masses into agreeing with taking away their own rights and freedoms. To demonstrate what he was talking about, Orwell is the one who invented terms like cold war, Big Brother, thought police and doublethink. If you have never read any of Orwell’s essays or books, I cannot recommend them enough.
Hubbard knew of Orwell’s work. He wrote a whole issue about the redefinition of words for progaganda purposes on October 5, 1971 in the PR Series.
But instead of agreeing with what Orwell had to say about this dangerous practice in thought control, Hubbard actually encouraged its use in Scientology PR. In what has to be considered a truly Orwellian twist, Hubbard wrote:
“Many instances of this [re-definition of terms] exist. They are not ‘natural’ changes in language. They are propaganda changes, carefully planned and campaigned in order to obtain a public-opinion advantage for the group doing the propaganda.
“The technique is good or bad depending on the ultimate objective of the propagandist.
“‘Psychiatry’ and ‘psychiatrist’ are easily redefinied to mean ‘an antisocial enemy of the people.’ This takes the kill-crazy psychiatrist off the preferred list of professions. This is a good use of the technique as for a century the psychiatrist has been setting an all-time record for inhumanity to man.
“The redefinition of words is done by associating different emotions and symbols with the word than were intended.”
“A consistent, repeated effort is the key to any success with this technique of propaganda.
“One must know how to do it.”
Hubbard literally advised Scientologists to do the very thing Orwell spent his entire life fighting against, trying to prevent totalitarian dictatoriships from destroying the rights of men. These are the kinds of curves Hubbard threw into almost every subject he wrote about.
So how does this get done in Scientology? Well, here’s one recent example.
Scientology was founded on the idea that its counseling procedures, called auditing, would free a person of past trauma and stress and that eventually one will reach a state of personal spiritual immortality. Hubbard was crystal clear that such a state was only achieved through lots and lots of auditing. The full amount of spiritual trauma any person carries around is called their “case” in Scientology, so personal improvement is called “case gain”.
Now if you look at recent promotional mailers and flyers from building fundraisers and the IAS, they are promoting that case gain is gotten by just the act of donating money.
There is certainly nothing wrong with feeling good by giving money to what someone thinks is a worthy cause. People do that every day with thousands of different charities. Scientology is not a charity and giving money to the IAS is the equivalent of burning it in a fireplace, but that’s not my point.
The real point here is that case gain has now been re-defined by the IAS to mean the feeling that you get when you give money to them. This is a purposeful, calculated promotional action to re-define the very basics of what Scientology is all about.
And by the way, L. Ron Hubbard never authorized or approved of the IAS and I’m quite sure that despite his shortcomings, he would be turning in his grave right now to hear that people are equating money donations with case gain in auditing. Hubbard was very clear in his policies that he did want people to donate to the Church, but they were supposed to get materials and services for their money. There was supposed to be an exchange.
So if you wanted to turn Scientology into a purely money-making enterprise, it would be necessary to first re-define the terms used to describe the gains you get from Scientology. It would be necessary to make it seem like giving money for nothing was just as good, if not better, as giving money for something. They have succeeded in this and Scientologists are now so deluded that they think giving money to criminals is something that gives them personal spritual immortality.
Creepy People doing Creepy Things
When the chips are down and things aren’t going their way, many people can get desperate and start to do desperate things. When you cannot compete in the arena of ideas and tell the truth about what you are actually doing, all that’s left is to attack and resort to violence. And so we come to where Scientology is at now and their responses to their critics.
Since Anonymous started exposing the Church of Scientology’s criminal activities on an international scale in 2008 using the power of the internet, Scientology has been reeling from blow after blow. The truth is a powerful weapon and the internet is a platform which Scientology cannot control.
Despite claiming to have recall of advanced galactic civilizations dating back trillions of years, somehow Hubbard never conceived of the internet, nor was he able to write any operating policies for the Church to deal with mass media dissemination of anti-Scientology information. Up until he died, Hubbard’s policies all concerned censorship and intimidating his enemies into silence through threats and force. That’s not possible with the internet, so the truth remains out there about the Church despite its best efforts to stop it.
Realizing that they were not going to have much success using their old tactics, Scientology attempted a series of attacks using disinformation, trying to paint Anonymous as a terrorist organiation. The Church literally made up a story that Anonymous had threatened to blow up bombs on church property. This was later disproven and recoiled back on the Church badly.
In addition, on February 4, 2008 a video was posted by Ruthie Heyerdahl. She appears to be spontaneously speaking out as a non-Scientologist against Anonymous protests of the Church that year. However, as with everything associated with Scientology, looks can be deceiving. Let’s see what she had to say in this short three-minute video.
Now it turns out that Ruthie was in fact, a Scientologist actress or at least someone who had done Scientology services as far back as 2002.
How far she got or whether she is still doing services is not clear. She removed her entire YouTube channel and almost all online traces of herself after the massively negative responses she recieved to her pro-Scientology stance back in 2008.
The negative feedback was well deserved, but why am I bringing it up now, nearly six years after the fact? Because this video was, in fact, a carefully scripted and orchestrated work by the Office of Special Affairs to counter not only that one Anonymous protest, but every attack brought against the Church since.
This vidoe represents the best OSA has to offer in terms of a seemingly reasoned response against people critical of the Church. The lines used in this video are still in use by the Church today and are the ones they are going to continue to use to try to shut down critics.
That being the case, let’s deconstruct the key statements she makes and analyze what we find:
“I just saw something that totally creeps me out. Wow.”
“I just think it’s really weird.”
She starts by purposefully setting the tone for what’s coming using these phrases to describe the Call to Action video from Anonymous. Using words this way is a technique called “guilt by association”. The listener is supposed to get the idea that Anonymous is now creepy and weird. Later in the video she also describes Scientology protestors them as “strange” “fake” and even uses the word “evil”.
“I don’t know what exactly they plan on protesting. Religious freedom? Constitutional rights? c’mon guys, really?”
Now this part is crucial. In fact, most of the video hangs on this statement. This is called a straw man argument, and all that means is that she is inventing completely different reasons for why Anonymous is protesting Scientology, and she will then use these invented reasons to ridicule Anonymous throughout the rest of her rant.
This is a very common technique in PR and is used all the time by people who can’t argue the facts and instead want to distract from the real issues by putting words in their opponents’ mouths.
She is specifically avoiding the real issue, which is that Scientology brutalizes its members, especially those in the Sea Org, and engages in outright criminal activity on an almost daily basis. Those are the issues that OSA PRs cannot and will not address directly. Instead, they throw out misdirectors every single time.
This also conforms with the Hubbard PR policy I mentioned earlier of avoiding the truth by simply not talking about it.
Right after this misdirection, Ruthie reveals her actual loyalties by showering unwarranted praise on the “ton” of Scientology friends she has. She describes all of them as “involved”, “ethical”, “friendly”, “so happy” and says they “have such a purpose in life.” They “try to make a difference.” She implies they vote without saying that they do, but then says they are “the most involved people” she’s ever met, that they “care” and are “great”. She even re-iterates that they “make a difference.”
I have no doubt that all of these qualities came from surveys of the general public to find out what would be desirable qualities in friends or relations. These words have nothing to do with how Scientologists actually act, as proven over and over again by the horror stories that literally thousands of ex-Scientologists have told over the past three decades.
And just stop and think about this for a second. When was the last time you saw a Scientologist making a difference in any community anywhere? Beyond maybe a few random acts of kindness from individual Scientologists, have you ever seen the Church of Scientology do much of anything for anyone else that didn’t serve its own interests?
Even non-critical journalists and students who have gone into Churches of Scientology have come out writing articles about how the staff were uncaring, robotic, pushy and only wanted to sell them something.
Keep in mind that Scientology is not supposed to be a business. It calls itself a religion. When was the last time you went into a Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue or even a Mormon temple and had someone try to sell you something?
“To protestors, all I can say is I don’t really understand what you expect to accomplish, like the US government is going to be like ‘Oh right, Scientology, no it’s not actually a relgion. We were just kidding.’ I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
She now addresses the protestors directly in an attempt to discourage them by setting up another straw man. She purposefully exaggerates and alters the goal of the protests to be taking away the Church’s religious recognition when that’s not the issue at hand.
“I mean, I’m not a Scientologist but I’m not the type of person that’s just going to sit there and let a relgious group be bashed. What time do we live in where it’s normal to bash someone’s religion. Are you joking me?”
This is interesting because she’s positioning herself as a non-Scientologist, something we know OSA has done since when they comment on websites or blogs or news articles to try to make it look like the general public is in agreement with the Church when the exact opposite is the truth. This is more than a PR action and actually goes over into a kind of covert operation, something which Hubbard said was sloppy and desperate in his PR policies.
As for the religion bashing, this is just another misdirector because no one was protesting their religiosity.
She then plays the “think for yourself” card by challenging anyone watching to actually go into a Scientology organization and ask questions. She even goes so far as to accuse the viewer of being afraid to find out directly from Scientology what they are all about.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with thinking for yourself. In fact, I highly encourage it in every aspect of your life. I’ve already talked at length in my other videos about how Scientology refuses to let its own members think for themselves, so I won’t belabor their hypocrisy again here. If you have never been in a Church of Scientology and you want to go into one, go for it.
But realize that going in and talking to one person at the lowest levels of that organization is not going to provide you with any real information about its true operations because you’re talking to people who themselves don’t know. The corruption in Scientology is at its highest levels, not its lowest.
But beyond all that, let’s talk about the underlying assumption behind this “think for yourself” challenge.
Scientologists assume that if you don’t like Scientology, it’s simply because you don’t understand it or know anything about it. Because they think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, they are absolutely certain that you would too if you only give it a chance.
This is an unwarranted assumption but it is a fundamental thread which runs through all of their promotion and marketing materials and every Scientologists’ view towards the rest of the world. They believe this because L. Ron Hubbard tells them to in his books and lectures. Like any other cult, they are absolutely sure they have all the answers to every single issue that plagues anyone.
The fact that they are failing miserably in their own conquest of the world and that Scientologists die of cancer and other diseases, file for bankruptcy and that they continue to have the same life problems as the rest of us, does not seem to shake their faith in the slightest.
No amount of talking to Scientologists or reading L. Ron Hubbard’s works is going to change the fact that Scientology just isn’t universally workable nor does it have universal appeal.
“So you don’t like Tom Cruise? Big deal? What does that have to do with the Church? Since when did Tom Cruise become the Jesus of Scientology?”
Hmm, wherever could anyone have gotten this idea? Maybe from David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology?
The Joker in the Deck
Now everything I’ve gone over here is how Scientology PR operates according to Hubbard’s directions. However, there is another joker in the deck and this person has actually radically altered the entire face and character of Scientology. That person, of course, is David Miscavige.
None of Scientology’s PR activities make any sense if you look at them against the gauge of what an orgnaization should be doing to expand itself.
Unlike Hubbard, Miscavige does not care at all about Scientology expanding or growing or conquering the world. He really doesn’t.
You can listen to the words someone says, even if they continue to mouth them year after year, and think that’s what that person is doing. But any executive or leader is going to reveal his true intentions through the actions his organization takes under his leadership and what it actually produces versus what it says its producing.
For example, if someone leading a religious crusade in this day and age was serious about it, they would be promoting that crusade on every conceivable media channel, repeatedly and continually, using as many of their resources and as much of their money as they could possibly round up.
Yet where are these campaigns? Where is Scientology in the mass media? The last time there was any international media campaign of any note was in the 1980s. Jefferson Hawkins was the mastermind behind that campaign and he was ousted by David Miscavige personally for treasonous conduct. What was Jeff doing that was so treasonous? Trying to promote Scientology!
David Miscavige does not care one bit about the dissemination of Scientology. He only cares about himself. And when you look at Scientology’s more recent media activities in that light, everything starts to make sense.
Last year, Scientology purchased the old KCET television studios a couple miles away from their Los Angeles headquarters. Miscavige has been promising that they are going to renovate these studios at great expense and open up a 24/7 broadcasting station emitting L. Ron Hubbard’s works on all media channels.
This is not going to happen. Why do I say this? Because the facilities to do that work already exist. They’re called Golden Era Productions and not one Scientologist could argue with me about this because they’ve seen the pictures and videos of that multi-million dollar audio and video production facility.
If Miscavige wanted Hubbard on the airwaves 24/7, he could have had that happening 20 years ago.
This broadcasting station is just the latest gimmick, a pack of lies designed to keep Scientologists pumped up and giving more and more of their money.
I am no fan of L. Ron Hubbard but after studying the man’s works for decades, I have a pretty good sense of what he was about. Church expansion was important to him. He wanted Scientology to succeed. He cared about dissemination and marketing, so much so that he worked hands-on to make films and promotion himself to ensure it was done the way he wanted it done. It might not have been very good promotional material, but under Hubbard’s watch, Scientology grew. That is undeniable, historical fact.
Since Miscavige has taken over in the 1980s, it has been one disaster after another and Scientology is now the world’s fastest shrinking religion. The Church has always refused to give any hard numbers when it comes to their membership, but all evidence points to the fact that there are less than 30,000 members worldwide, including their own staff.
The clips I showed at the beginning of this video are ambush tactics carried out in pure desperation by Scientologists and private investigators for only one reason: to get back at ex-Scientologist critics for daring to defy David Miscavige and speak out about the abuses at the Church’s highest levels. You are looking at a vicious and personal attack campaign carried out in front of the whole world by a bully.
Because make no mistake, when you have high level Sea Organization members like Jenny Linson, Marc Yeager and David Bloomberg hounding and harrassing ex-members and critics, the only way that can happen is by David Miscavige personally authorizing or ordering it. He can’t or won’t deign to show himself personally, so he sends these people out to harass and antagonize critics. All so Miscavige can get the satisfaction of publicy striking back at people exposing what he is doing. It’s crazy, but that’s what the Church of Scientology has devolved into.
Conclusion
Scientology is collapsing right before our eyes. We are watching it happen. All they can do now is snarl and lash out at their critics while they defend themselves against serious legal charges both here in the US and abroad. It’s not overstating the facts to say that they are on the verge of being outright banned in France and Belgium and that serious investigations are underway here in the United States.
I don’t have to predict doom and gloom for this organization. I’m merely telling you what is right before your eyes if you care to look at the facts.
There is no amount of PR that can keep the truth under wraps forever. It would be well for Scientologists to take this to heart and start opening their eyes to what the organization they are supporting is actually doing.
Here’s my challenge to you. Walk into any Church and actually look around.
“The scene is in the hats or lack of them. The scene is on the org board or lack of it.
“THE SCENE IS RIGHT BEFORE ONE’S EYES.
“It is moving or it is not.
“Its graphs are rising or they are level or falling or they are false or don’t reflect the product or they aren’t kept or they aren’t posted.
“Products are appearing or they are not.
“Overt products are occurring or good products.
“The lines are followed or they aren’t.
“The mest is okay or it isn’t.
“It is a SCENE. It is in three dimensions. It’s composed of spaces and objects and people.
“They are on a right pattern or they aren’t.
“A person is on post or he is moving onto one or moving off or isn’t there at all or he is dashing in and out.
“None of these things are verbal.”
That’s what L. Ron Hubbard said to do. Do this and if you have your eyes open I think you’ll see the truth of what I’ve been talking about here. Or are you afraid to try?
Thank you for watching.
I love it when the girl says, “I have a TON of friends who are scientologists.” Yeah right. Name 2.
Her coworkers in OSA LOL
Awesome video Chris!
Well said and well done. I truly enjoy your crystal clear exposition and your intelligent analysis. Keep up the good work.
Good job mate. Brilliant presentation, great editing and a massive amount of research, no doubt! You have the best analysis and most easily understandable breakdown of how Scientology works of all the Scientology conspiracy exposers, in my opinion. Having said that I just want to make a few points. The first thing is that Eric Blair (Orwell) was not a ”lifelong opponent of totalitarianism” but in fact was a part of the ”elite” establishment himself and was trained as a student at one stage by another elite in Aldous Huxley, the LSD proponent who as you would know wrote ”Brave New World”.
If you go into the works of 20th Century Illuminist Alice Bailey she wrote about the “Externalization of The Hierarchy” and that was what Orwell’s job was when he wrote his 2 famous books. The ”elite” who have been running the world from behind their ”puppet politicians” want to bring themselves and their methods of control out in the open to the brainwashed and ”kept in the dark” masses, as psychotics love to gloat, show off their power and be the centre of attention.That was the purpose of his books and Huxleys.
Also, Scientology is just another piece of the pie in regards to the control structure on Earth. Miscavige himself has his own masters he himself has to answer up to, and although it appears he is pulling the strings, there is a much, much bigger picture in play.
Scientology is definitely a mind control, corrupt tyrannical group but so are all the major organizations on Earth (and most a lot worse than Scn.) – government, mainstream religion, mainstream media, the banking system, the tax system, the petrochemical industry, military industrial complex, the medical industry, the ”education” system, the ”justice” system, the food industry, the alcohol and drug industry and even the mainstream entertainment industry and more. There are 1000’s of vids on Youtube and books written about these groups exposing them.
Even groups like Anonymous are well known intel ops and I would bet my bottom dollar they were funded by Scn. as controlled opposition in order to create an enemy in order for Scientologists to dig in their pockets for the Idle Morgue program (I don’t think it was a coincidence they came out approx. the same time as the global financial collapse occurred as Scn’s would have not given so freely to that program after the collapse but they had to because of the Anonymous ”threat” or be considered dilettantes and ”out ethics” ).
As most of the ex Scientology readers know Scientology has a Satanic/Black Magic basis based on Crowley’s works (and that is what most of the heads of the above instituitions also run on). This video goes over things from a wider perspective (although you have done a great job in this vid and your other vids and writings and what you say is true too) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOQzmtU1SjM
And lastly, for the readers to get a far wider perspective of how corrupt the above instituitions are I recommend the Aaron Russo interview with Alex Jones (the guy who discovered Bette Midler and directed Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and directed the great truther doco called Freedom to Fascism).
I am posting your comment Jeff, but I cannot disagree with your stance on George Orwell more. The man’s works speak for themselves and to say that he was part of the problem and an “elitist” himself is just shocking to me given his life and his writings. You are certainly entitled to your opinions on this, but I think you’re way off base.
Yes, I agree with you Chris. I knew he went to Eton (which is a top establishment school), he was a student of Huxley’s, worked for the BBC (which has always been an establishment propaganda outlet) and he was a Socialist. So, putting those things together and the fact that fellow British writers H G Wells and George Bernard Shaw were propagandists for the establishment and eugenicists (which I have researched), I just put 2 and 2 together without doing a THOROUGH research of his life.
After reading his Wiki page it appears he was a great man with great works (not that I have read any but I have seen the movies Animal Farm and 1984) and I take back what I said about him. The lesson learnt is to do a thorough research as possible rather than condemn someone or something as a fraud, shill, disinfo artist or a conspiracy theorist. Thank you again for pointing that out.
To get a bigger picture of how the world really runs this is the interview by Aaron Russo and you will find that Scientology just uses the same play book of the rest of the elite creeps who run the world from behind the scenes i.e. disinfo, half truths, create an ”enemy” etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3NA17CCboA
This is especially good for those still involved in any form of Scientology. The source of the ¨trouble¨ is the philosophy itself. As always, good job-and thank you!
Dear Jeff. I couldn’t disagree with you more. It’s not that there is no important, even consequential info that is purposefully kept under wraps by vested interests. It’s the state of mind you are so openly presenting, that sees conspiracy in literally everything, which I reject. Firstly, that is just not true – many elements of your heartfelt diatribe are not accepted AT ALL by people who should, and do know something about the subject. And no, they are not an example of how effective the global brain-washing you are referring to is. These individuals actually WANT to know more, are actually seeking (and finding) the truth, and hey, many of them are more intelligent than you & I, not to mention more knowledgeable about the topics you brought to our attention (even though we are already aware of them). It is my view, no personal disrespect intended, that an inordinate acceptance of evil and/or concealed schemes is psychologically an unhealthy state of mind. When viewed in a vantage point of the future, these speculations are routinely proven to be utterly wrong.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up
as judge of Truth and Knowledge
is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
-Albert Einstein
Compared to Alice Bailey, even LRH comes forward as a flagship (sic!) of sanity and reason. Anyone who is interested can look her up on Wikepedia.
Aldous Huxley certainly had a weakness for mysticism and the esoteric, and took a keen interest in the practises of eastern religions. But he was still a leading intellectual, and a brilliant autor.
He came from a pedigree of scientists; his grandfather was the biologist Thomas Huxley, known in his time as “Darwins Bulldog” for his advocasy of Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection. His father, his brothers and his son were all scientists.
I can warmly recommend “The devils of Loudun” to anyone interested in society and religion. To quote Wikepedia: “The Devils of Loudun is a 1952 non-fiction novel by Aldous Huxley. It is a historical narrative of supposed demonic possession, religious fanaticism, sexual repression, and mass hysteria which occurred in 17th century France surrounding unexplained events that took place in the small town of Loudun; particularly on Roman Catholic priest Urbain Grandier and an entire convent of Ursuline nuns, who allegedly became possessed by demons after Grandier made a pact with Satan. The events led to several public exorcisms as well as executions by burning.”
It’s not his best known piece of writing, but it’s one of the finest (and most entertaining) books I have ever read. It truly demonstrates the authors superb flair for satire.
Chris, it seems that most of the comments for the video are posted on Ortegas blog. Take that as a compliment. Whenever you post something, it will, due to the excellent quality, automatically be reported by Ortega.
Yes, Tony and I are in communication and he always gets first run on my new videos. It’s a sort of tradition.
Thank you for your comments Jory. You must know me better than myself when you say I have a state of mind that see’s ”conspiracy in literally everything”. Firstly, you find the word conspiracy is a discredited word and that it is usually discredited by mainstream media who I am sure even you could admit don’t always tell the truth and per their sad ratings and the rising ratings of such internet ”truther” sites as Drudge Report and infowars.com which are far more truthful, the proof is in the pudding.
We should ascertain the definition of the word conspiracy which is simply the agreement for two or more people to perform together an illegal or wrongful act. Did you know that is the simplicity of that loaded word Jory? Also, are you an ex Scientologist? Can you see based on the definition of that word that you are a ”conspiracy theorist” if you say Scientology is crooked?
What I am saying is there is no doubt conspiracy is happening in the above instituitions and in some cases worse than Scientology (I am not saying that all the instituitions I mentioned are 100% corrupt 100% of the time which is basically what you are seemingly implying when you say it is “the state of mind I am openly presenting” which is a generalization. Maybe I should have been clearer and I apologize for that.
Here are some examples of corruption/conspiracy in some of these things – the U.S. police have from the reports I have read killed over 5,000 civilians in the U.S. since 9/11 and in the same time the police in the U.K and Australia less than 20 people (is that a fact or conspiracy theory?)
Major banks such as Citibank , Duetsch Bank and others have been busted for laundering billions of dollars in Mexican drug money (is that a fact or conspiracy theory?)
Billions of dollars are made each year by pharmacuetical companies promoting fraudulent ”mental diseases”in collusion with psychiatrists but in actual fact they conspire to cover up the fact that a lot of these drugs cause tens of thousands of suicides each year, cause some to go psychotic and murder (nearly all the mass murderers are on psych drugs) not to mention thousands of car accidents (conspiracy theory or not?).
GMO foods which are rife on our supermarket shelves having been found by scientists doing experimentation with rats causing cancer(conspiracy theory or not?)
Cancer rising at a direct rate with the increase of the amount of processing of the human food supply where it was 1 in 50 at the start of the 20th Century who got it, now the epidemic is close to 1 in 2.5 who get it (conspiracy or not?).
Thousands of priests world wide (especially in the Catholic Church ) getting busted for sexually molesting children (conspiracy theory or fact?)
All of your communications i.e. email, google history, phone calls being monitored by the NSA per Edward Snowden (conspiracy theory or fact?).
Politicians taking kickbacks and not being honest to the people no, no, no I must be wrong there as politicians are really honest that’s why they have a 9% approval rating in your country and the Aussie PM has record low ratings! Not to mention the fact that the manufacturing base of Western Europe, Canada, U.S.,Australia has gone bye bye to the East thanks to treachorous politicians funded by corporations who now pay slave wages to non-unionised workers in Asia making far more profit for themselves.
I could go on and on for a week but I am just making my point that Scientology is not just the only area that conspiracy and corruption is taking place and those people who don’t accept my ”diatribe” that you so firmly say “AT ALL”, I really don’t give a damn.
Some people like myself have a burning desire to see justice, truthfulness and freedom for mankind in the world and if one LOOKS at the present scene it is far from that and as Edmund Burke said “The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
Like Chris and perhaps you and others on this blog have studied the conspiratorial and corrupt nature of Scientology, I have done so for more than a dozen years of other instituitions ,so that does not make me a person as you suggest who has “an inordinate acceptance of evil” but it could make me a person who has a fair bit of knowledge on these subjects and it could possibly when you say at the end of your communication ”When viewed in a vantage point of the future, these speculations are routinely proven to be wrong”that you have an ordinate sense of evil and are to use a Scientology term – a non confronting theetie weetie. Did you know that in these ”speculations that are routinely proven wrong” that 290 million people were killed in conflict last century? Oh, and thousands of instances of what I mention above has taken place from the start of this response to your communication to this point.
My viewpoint in life is to understand what is REALLY going on in life but also to balance the evil with the good and in fact with my websites I promote that good – http://www.affluencemarketing.net and http://www.answerstofreedom.com and I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of them as I know I help people with them. I strongly suggest Jory you check out a youtube film called ”Freedom to Fascism” by a famous movie producer to bring up your confront of evil and which explains how to some degree you are enslaved and that ain’t a conspiracy bro! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNNeVu8wUak And Marco, evaluating truth and knowledge is vital to living a sane life, so put things in context mate.
Hubbard was a psychopath. An intelligent one, but a psychopath all the same. Miscavige is even worse in that he’s more vicious and less intelligent.
Scientology is a scam wrapped in a con inside a hustle.
Scientology was created to remain small and relatively obscure. It seeks to ensnare a relatively small number of people quietly and extract as much money from them as it can, and to enslave them if possible (aka Sea Org).
Most people so victimized eventually get wise to the con and leave… eventually. Traditionally the people who left tended to be isolated from each other. The cult’s victims were so traumatized that they didn’t seek each other out and compare notes. So while there were many victims of the cult over time, they were scattered and all too many secretly believed that they must have been the one at fault.
Scientology promoted itself just enough to replace the victims it lost in this fashion. Growth was not the goal. The goal was to sucker just enough people to feed its coffers without drawing too much attention. Scientology was able to do this over many years without the public at large really catching on to just how awful the cult is.
Then came the internet. The cult lost its ability to hide in the shadows and operate quietly. Its victims began to find each other online and corroborate each other’s experiences.
The cult is doomed. I’m sure that some form of belief system based on the things Hubbard came up with to sucker people will endure, but the organization currently known as Scientology is done for.
It will be interesting to see whether, when the end comes, Miscavige will pull a Jonestown there in Hemet.
Being a parent of a son and daughter-in-law who have been members for many years, it’s hard to read that Miscavige would or could pull a Jonestown stunt. However it is good to hear that Sciencetology as it is today, is on a down slide.
I have found the videos to be very important for me as well as other family members to view. We have not talked about Scientology with our loved ones. One member has and my son is willing to exchange comments about Sciencetology with him. We are seeking all th information that we can get. We have read the book by Steven Hassan, “Freedom of Mind”. Any comments?
Well,There are several pintos I’d like to address that you made:-Yes some definitions claim that a group must be small to be a cult. Such definitions conjure the imagery of secretive meetings in dark rooms with skulls, candles, and secretive chants. But in reality, any destructive and inclusive force or group can grow quite large and even mainstream. In the medieval Europe, while the plague was spreading massively across the continent, a rather large sect of people (in seperate groups across the continent) became what are known as the “flagellants” people who beat themselves to gain the forgiveness of god and end their suffering. These people had, what would amount to probably a million or more followers by todays population proportions, spread out in various groups across Europe. They were by no means small, but they were a group that today many would view as being destructive, seeing as how many followers beat themselves to death. Now obviously Scientology likely doesn’t encourage self mutilation, but size by no means determines ones destructive power and intent.Another example would be the Nazi regime, a movement that had supporters in the millions, all dedicated to a cause that, in their eyes, was benevolent and the epitome of good. They worked hard, were healthy and prosperous, quite mainstream, and very open about their beliefs. But just because they were a public, mainstream, and industrious group, didn’t mean they weren’t destructive (though again in their own eyes they were indeed not destructive.) On another note, the size statistics of the Church probably aren’t the most unbiased. I would suggest other sources if possible, as an organization is unlikely to report their own success in mild terms, nor admit failures.If 7,500 organizations did indeed exist, and currently still exist, how many members belong to each? 3 parishoners each?or 10,000 parishoners each? Next,Yes, a charismatic leader can be a good thing. It is however the ability to a charismatic leader, singular and all knowing, to use such a position as the “only means of salvation” to make outlandish statements, rules, or orders. Afterall, who would deny their salvation over something they don’t quite agree with (especially as such leaders often explain the lack of agreement stems from lack of understanding.) Also, just as a side note, Jesus may have been the founder of Christianity, but his apostles and modern interpreations have played a great part in the advancement and evolution of Christianity. SO he wasn’t quite so singular.Also, many musical groups don’t have singular leaders, and even those that do, it really isn’t an adequate analogy. Art and music scarcely compare with slavation and gaining the knowledge of ones soul, (just don’t tell a dead head), so leadership positions in such efforts vary greatly in ability and importance.Again, only going to 1 source that claims they are right isn’t the best way to find out who’s telling the truth. You could go to a Baptist church, a Mormon temple, a Hindu temple, a Taoist meditation meeting etc. and they would all claim the path (most likely an exclusive one) to enlightenment. Doubtful indeed is it that when consulting a Mormon missionary would the reply be: “Well actually, we don’t quite have things figured out. Better try Scientology instead.”And while oustide claims may vary from hostile to ignorant, one can usually get a good perception of a group by consulting individuals who claim to know the pros and cons of group. Afterall, a car dealer isn’t going to admit his used car has a transmission ready to blow, that’s why services such as carfax exist. But again, groups will often claim that any negativity stems from ignorance or ill meaning, which is at times and at other times not the case.As for the methods of so called “brain washing”, most people I’m sure find the idea of being strapped to a chair to watch reels of film for hours on end ridiculous. No, brainwashing in reality is a term for ones acceptance of a new reality or paradigm that to many is viewed as being a negative and destructive one.For example, if someone were to be convinced that the sun is in fact an evil being projecting death rays that enslave human minds, and that the only way to avoid these deathj rays was to wear a rain coat and gas mask at all times, one would certainly do so. After all it is the most sane decision regarding that the sun was indeed an evil being. They just had a paradigm shift that they believed was absolutely in their own best interest. But to outsiders who don’t share such a belief, it looks rather bizarre, even harmful. After all, wearing a heavy raincoat in 100 degree weather is not healthy for most individuals. But this paradigm shift is suppossed to be for the best, so the individual will follow it.Of course there ae less ridiculous demonstrations, the shifting of republican to democrat, carnivore to vegetarian, etc. But when accepts something to be the truth that is in fact harmful to them, it is regarded as brainwashing.On the note of the IRS, yes the IRS accepts Scientology as a religion, but it should be noted that it was an epic legal battle to insure such recogntion, so such claims as them “sticking to the rules they create” isn’t quite so clean cut.Also, while many countries recognize Scientology (US, Australia, South Africa) it is my indication that mnay do not, such as Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and others. So again, that argument isn’t quite as clean cut as you seem to indicate.Best!