[VIDEO] Scientology’s Desperate Media Tactics

From all indications, it appears that the Church of Scientology will soon be opening their Scientology Media Production center in Los Angeles. I earlier stated they would delay the opening as long as possible in order to use the opportunity for as much fundraising as possible, similar to the way the Super Power building in Clearwater Florida was not opened for over a decade and generated over a hundred million dollars as a result. Recent circumstances have forced them to speed up their time table.

This new media center is a completely unnecessary addition to Scientology’s already extensive real estate holdings and is being promoted as “the next emphatic advance in our global dissemination crusade and the future of Scientology dissemination planet wide: A Scientology television station. A Scientology radio station. Not to mention production facilities for every type of media — from print publications to internet media. All located in one facility and all to be inaugurated as: Scientology Media Productions.”

I said unnecessary for a few reasons, the first and most obvious being that Scientology already has massive facilities to do every one of these functions and has for decades. Despite this, Scientology appears to be the world’s fastest shrinking religion, with empty service facilities in every Scientology organization around the world. One need only drive by or vist any of them to see what I’m talking about. Its own members know this is true because they have to suffer the cognitive dissonance of being told that Scientology is expanding at greater rates than ever in its history, while they go to their local churches and see empty classrooms and maybe a couple of people getting Scientology counselling on a regular basis. Over the last few years especially, the word has gotten out about how toxic Scientology is and how it specializes in making its own enemies and operates only to make money, not actually help people.

However, the truth isn’t something that has ever gotten in the way of Scientology’s efforts to pump up its membership and give them reasons to hand over more and more money. Empty promises and exaggerated fluff are the main ingredients in every speech that Scientology leader David Miscavige has ever given. Unfortunately, there are still too many people who fall for this sort of thing.

I thought it would be a good idea to give some inside information to the world at large about one of Scientology’s main efforts with this new facility. That effort is to shut up its critics and prove how wrong we all are about the abuses and human rights violations that are a daily part of the life of Scientology’s core membership, otherwise known as the Sea Organization.

Many Scientologists, the ones who simply pay their money and do their classes or counselling, don’t ever see these carefully hidden abuses, so they think that former members are lying or have some kind of ax to grind. This is a sort of willful blindness. “I didn’t see it so it didn’t happen, and even if it did, I don’t care because Scientology has been so great for me.” Often these public Scientologist are aware, even if only peripherally, that something is not quite right but they suppress those ideas because Scientology makes it difficult for people when they start questioning what is going on.

Given that Scientologists pride themselves on “taking responsibility for Mankind” and “fighting human rights abuses around the world,” the hypocrisy is astounding.

Unfortunately, the same thinking happens in other religions too, such as when victims of Catholic priest pedophiles have managed after years or even decades to gather the courage to speak out against the monsters who abused them. It’s well documented how the Catholic Church’s hierarchy went way out of its way to cover up those crimes and keep those pedophiles from facing the justice they deserve. To this day, there are Catholics who blame those victims rather than face the truth that not only were there sexual predators in the ranks of the priesthood, but the Catholic Church itself was partly to blame for these crimes. Could those victims be said to have an ax to grind? Of course they could and deservedly so.

Just because someone is an ex-member or apostate does not mean that their claims of abuse are untrue. The fact that someone is a former member of a group has no bearing on the validity of their claims.

However, Scientology specializes in selling a different story. They try to follow a policy laid down by L. Ron Hubbard called “dead agenting.” One of the first things this new Scientology Media Productions facility will be doing is trying to “dead agent” Scientology’s critics. So what is this all about?

Scientology’s Dead Agent Policy

Sun-Tzu was a Chinese general who lived back in the 500 BC period and is credited with writing The Art of War, a book on military strategy and philosophy which is used to this day and taught in military colleges.

Translations of much of the text have been uncertain over the centuries but there is a bit about the uses of spies and espionage which L. Ron Hubbard found useful, especially since Scientology has its own intelligence and espionage unit called the Office of Special Affairs or OSA. This group spies on, stalks, harasses and tries to destroy critics of Scientology and any other person or group who are perceived as threats to Scientology’s operations.

L. Ron Hubbard specifically refers to Sun-Tzu’s description of what is called the “dead agent” or “dead spy” in an issue called THE MISSING INGREDIENT from August 13, 1970 when he wrote this:

“Sun Tzu in his book about warfare gives several types of agent. One of these is the ‘dead
agent’ because he tells lies to the enemy and when they find out they will kill him.
Hostile (or counter) PR is usually the usual fabric of lies. If one finds out the lies being told and documents just one as being false, he has made counter-PR recoil. His hearer will never believe him again. He’s dead.”

That’s slightly cryptic, so Hubbard elaborated on this in an issue from November 21, 1972 called HOW TO HANDLE BLACK PROPAGANDA:

“The technique of proving utterances false is called ‘DEAD AGENTING.’

“It’s in the first book of Chinese espionage. When the enemy agent gives false data, those who believed him but now find it false kill him – or at least cease to believe him.

“So the PR slang for it is ‘dead agenting.’

“This consists of disproving utterly the false statement with documents or demonstration or display. One has to have a kit (a collection of documents) or the ability to demonstrate or something to display.

“STATEMENT: ‘I’ve been told you are in trouble with income tax people.’

“REBUTTAL: ‘Here’s a document of fully paid taxes and a letter of commendation from the tax authorities.’ Displays same.

“Result? Whoever told him that is now dead with him as an accurate informer.

“When one hasn’t got the document but can get it, one can say, ‘You tell me the name of whoever said that and next time I see you I’ll show you something very interesting about it.'”

How Scientology Counters Critics

Now here’s the problem Scientology has. In order to use Dead Agenting properly, you have to be telling the truth. The problem that David Miscavige and his minions in OSA face is that they are bald-faced liars. Scientology does not do what it says it is doing, it is incapable of producing the long-term gains it claims it can, and it even lied to the US government about its day-to-day operations in order to unfairly gain tax exempt status.
In media interviews, Scientologists make completely unsubstantiated claims about the size of its membership. Scientology commericials tell lies about the kind of help it gives in areas of human rights, disaster relief and drug abuse. Even their website uses Photoshoped pictures of how many people attend the openings of their renovated church properties. When critics call Scientology out on these points, Scientology cannot give documentation disproving these statements and so dead agenting is impossible. So instead, OSA has to fall back to a much older and much more widely used brand of argument called ad hominem.

Ad hominem is Latin and means “to the man” or “to the person” and how it works is, instead of arguing the actual point being discussed, you instead attack the character, motive or some other personal attribute of the person making the argument. We see it all the time in politics and in the media and it makes for very interesting and entertaining battles. Because we see it all the time, many people think that an ad hominem attack is perfectly valid and reasonable and don’t see anything wrong with doing it. However, when you engage in ad hominem, you actually are not making any real sense. This is why people who understand logic and reason call ad hominem a logical fallacy or faulty reasoning.

When you engage in ad hominem, you are basically admitting you don’t know what you are talking about or that your argument has no real merit. Rather than concede or give up, usually out of spite or malice, you instead just start calling the other person names. It’s the kind of argument a 7 year old uses. A really stupid 7 year old.

What Scientology does is (a) attacks its critics with personal name calling, using exaggerated or wholly made-up lies to paint the critic in a bad light so people will think poorly of the critic; (b) then claims through a series of lies and hyperbole how great Scientology is doing in the world today. These are supposed to get readers or listeners into a frame of mind where they think that Scientology critics are just crazy people who are mindlessly attacking because they want to watch the world burn and are afraid that Scientology is somehow going to thwart their evil plans.

To most people, the attacks are so heavy-handed and exaggerated that anyone can see they are nonsense. The people who write this stuff generally are Sea Organization members who are cut off from the real world, don’t get a lot of sleep, work extremely long hours for little to no compensation and lead generally miserable lives. It’s almost impossible to understand why anyone would allow themselves to be used and abused in such a manner, but when someone thinks they are fighting for a righteous cause, they have been known to do some extraordinarily insane things.

Summary

Ad hominem media attacks are but a part of what Scientology does to its critics and this is what the new Scientology Media Productions is going to specialize in when it opens. It calls these ad hominem attacks “dead agenting” but as you can see, they are perverting their own policies because Scientology has degraded so badly over the last few decades under David Miscavige’s leadership that they can’t counter honest and real criticism of their operations.

SMP is going to be working flat-out to try to change the conversation about Scientology by re-branding Scientology as a wonderful and significant force for positive change in the world. A religious movement being led by David Miscavige, who they will claim has nothing but the very best motives and who has never done any of the hurtful things he’s been accused of by his detractors. There will especially be a lot of fluff about how David Miscavige has personally led the crusade to expand Scientology across the world and there will be a lot of video and photographs of church real estate. What you won’t see is any real evidence of Scientology doing anything lasting or positive to effect real change in the global problems of hunger, illiteracy or war.

What’s more, not once will any Scientology spokesman ever concede that Scientology has ever done anything wrong, nor that any critic of Scientology ever has a valid point. Not even once.

They will be following the explicit instructions of L. Ron Hubbard from a confidential issue for OSA written back in 1972 called BLACK PROPAGANDA which states:

“1) Seek to avoid opportunities for the enemy to classify us.

“2) Contest or expose any previous classification as false (dead agentry, etc.)

“3) Engage in a series of campaigns which confuse past classification,

“4) Achieve for ourselves a dominance in classifying ourselves and others.”

This re-branding will be an interesting but fruitless endeavor because Scientology in truth is a toxic and destructive cult. It does force people to break up with their families and non-Scientologist friends. It does destroy people financially, emotionally and mentally. And unlike Scientology media spokespeople, any Scientology critic can easily and rapidly produce explicit documentation and proof for every one of these claims.

For your own good and the good of your loved ones and friends, stay as far away from the Church of Scientology as you can.

Thank you for watching.