Oddly enough, I asked Louis the other day via Twitter. He does respond to folks once in awhile, but I did not receive an answer. I imagine he is waiting until it has been awhile since the Gibney one.
He did catch on film a Scientologist harassing an ex-Scientologist. It was on the web at one point and kind of cool to see.
If they can keep the mic on him when he goes to the restroom…
(That’s a reference to what happened with Robert Durst, for those who don’t know.)
I watched it and was amazed.
Can someone explain to me how the two cans work? The way the test was described was it was one-third of a lie-detector, and when someone is being questioned (can’t remember the name used for this process), they hold onto these two cans and a needle jumps. I missed something there, because I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It seemed like the more you talked about something, the less of a reaction the machine indicated, showing the person that they were getting guilt (or whatever) out of their system. Is that close?
I think there could be a number of things that have caused the government to back down, as well as others. The money involved is just mind-boggling, and they also seem to know how to harrass people and/or pressure people with the secrets they’ve revealed. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people were bought off, any more than if they were blackmailed into a certain decision.
The one thing that truly baffles me is how so many people are vulerable to this type of manipulation.
You can find stuff on the Operation Clambake site that will explain Hubbard’s E-Meter.
As I understand it, it measures simply resistance – the Galvanic Skin Response. Certainly the circuitry inside the box isn’t complex enough to measure anything more exotic.
I was around once when someone accused a Scientologist of just measuring GSR, and he arrogantly* replied that the measurement decreased and increased – was Galvanic Skin Response going to decrease after increasing? Was a person absorbing the sweat after sweating?
Of course, the reading is going to change based on a LOT of factors, including how tightly you hold those “cans”, and how much skin area is in contact, as well as how much you sweat. Heck, GSR in a lie detector varies up and down, and nobody claims that it’s measuring Body Thetans, or the Weight of Thought, or somesuch.
*Scientologists argue arrogantly. It’s part of the culture. Tom Cruise’s assertion that “I know more about the history of psychiatry than you do!” is of a piece with this.
I was surprised to learn that Cruise distanced himself from the Church while married to Nicole Kidman. Then he fell down the rabbit hole in a big way. They made it sound like Cruise is really and truly brainwashed, while Travolta is semi-aware but being blackmailed. Interesting that there was no mention of Katie Holmes. Their divorce terms must have an ironclad NDA.
More than you ever wanted to know about the E-meter:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/E-Meter/
Scientology also took over the Cult Awareness Network, which was founded by Christians in the 1970s to raise awareness of the Unification Church (AKA “Moonies”). Because CAN identified Scientology as a cult, and Scientology was quite well-heeled, they sued it into oblivion and then took it over for themselves.
It has been renamed “New Cult Awareness Network”.
At this point, the membership of the “church” seems almost superfluous. Why do they care if they attract any new members? They have built a self-sustaining financial empire. (Tax free!) The membership could wither away to nothing, and the financial empire would still exist.
So convincing people to leave or not to join is of limited utility at this point. What is necessary is for the IRS to gather up its gonads and revisit the tax status of this entity.
(But of course, with continual funding cuts at the IRS, it would be even more difficult for them to fight that battle now than before.)
You can find a similar policy in early Christianity (in 2 Thessalonians) but then again, at that point Christianity was hardly past cult status itself.
Because many people at lower levels get a percentage of the money paid by new recruits, like Amway or Herbilife.
Their massive headquarters in St. Paul took over the old Science Museum.
Does the movie cover their secret base? I swear they have some kind of uber-secret base location where a bunch of weird stuff goes on.
I think they still want to be seen as a legitimate church and religion. It seems like some of their business dealings will be more difficult if people see them more as a weird dangerous cult and not a religious group.
Also, I’m sure it’s also somewhat of a pride thing. I don’t know if Miscavige is a true believer, but it seems that plenty of the members are. The former high up people interviewed in the documentary seemed to be real true believers in the past. I’m sure none in the church want to realize or admit that the group is a cult.
This is somewhat true, but I’d say there are differences. I’m guessing you’re referring to 2 Thessalonians 3:
I’d say there’s a difference between “avoid people who are doing bad things, because they might lead you astray” and “completely cut off all contact from people who are questioning doctrine, and also cut off anyone who refuses to cut off the questioners”. The policy of total disconnection is a big sign that something is wrong, whether it’s done by Scientology, or some Christian denomination or cult, or any other group.
But my main point is that the Scientology Twitter feed criticizing the documentary doesn’t really understand why people are against Scientology.
Maybe you’re thinking of the Gold Base? It’s mentioned in the documentary.
That Wikipedia entry is alarming. Going by that, it seems like you can get away with nearly anything if you claim a religious exemption.
I guess the problem is that they can’t really come down hard on Scientology without also coming down hard on various religious orders that mandate sparse living conditions and self-denial.
Right, but how many of them feature spike-topped fences, with motion-activated lights every 20 feet? That’s some serious damn solitude there! The fact that there are as many spikes facing into the facility as outward is just a handy coincidence.
But also many of the people are there by choice, because they think they deserve to be, and the punishment is good for them. The book goes into it more, but it’s also mentioned in the documentary, when some of the former members are asked what would happen if the FBI raided the property and said they could leave now. Those asked said that if the FBI came, the people in “the hole” would be surprised to be treated like prisoners, because they were choosing to be there. I don’t know how you can combat that. Maybe some sort of regulations that make it require that everyone there has to be informed of their rights and that they can leave at any time, and periodic checks to see that no one is being kept unwillingly.
Someone on Twitter last night said that HBO had planned a multi-part series on Scientology several years ago, but that it was dropped. I don’t have a cite for that though. I can’t find the original Tweet out of the thousands I saw and searches all come up talking about Going Clear. I wouldn’t doubt it though. Since Going Clear was based on a book that was already researched thoroughly and vetted by lawyers, it must have seemed like a much safer bet, though HBO had their own lawyers looking closely at it. HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins said in this interview in the Hollywood Reporter, “We have probably 160 lawyers [looking at the film]”
Thank you for that link to Operation Clambake. I’ve known about the site since it started, but for some reason I didn’t realize those books were there.
He’s still working on it and it’s supposed to come out later this year. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
That’s the former Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. It looks like the Scienos painted it blue. Quinn Cummings tweeted last night “That used to be a hospital. I was born there. May that be the closest I ever come to being a Scientologist.” She’s so funny. Everyone should follow her.
Though the term wasn’t mentioned in the book Going Clear, that sounds like a textbook example of Stockholm Syndrome.
Are you thinking of the Vatican?
I’ll ignore that.
Hey, I didn’t know this because I hadn’t been keeping up, but it looks like Lisa Marie Presley has left the cult! I’m glad to hear it. Edit to add that Priscilla seems to have left too. She hasn’t taken any courses for a few years. Maybe she didn’t want to Disconnect from Lisa Marie, and neither want to speak out for fear of Disconnection from friends still in the cult.
Btw, as long as this post is about Lisa Marie, (I posted this but then I accidentally hit the back button and it disappeared. I apologize if it appears twice.) Nothing about Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson appears in the book. It was just some scuttlebutt I heard years ago from former scientologists but I can’t find a link. It makes sense to me though. Why else would they be together? I should have put “married” in quotes though because it looks like she not only did NOT divorced the father of her two kids, she and Jackson were never really married. There’s an interesting story behind it all but we may never hear it. Lisa Marie has left scientology (and possibly her mother too) and is keeping quiet. Here’s the story of how she and Jackson went to the Dominican Republic to get married, and came back telling the world so, but it never happened. This is long but well-worth reading. This writer really did his research. I haven’t found any rebuttals to it. I found this interesting. It’s a pretty through individual investigation showing that Lisa Marie never divorced her husband Danny Keough before telling the world (via Diane Sawyer) that she and Michael Jackson were married. But, unlike L. Ron Hubbard, she didn’t commit bigamy*, she and Jackson never married at all!
