new book on Co$

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joe sz
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new book on Co$

Unread post by joe sz »

this is book by Hugh Urban is a recent expose [softish] of scientology. but it does reveal that the Co$ is in decline from "55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008". nevertheless, the Co$ counts difrently and claims over 6 million members!!! some people call that BIG number the total mailing list since the beginning and not a count of committed, paying members.

The Irish Times
- Saturday, October 29, 2011


Harmless or hateful?
JOE HUMPHREYS

RELIGION:

The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion
By Hugh B Urban Princeton University Press, 268pp. £19.95

FIRST, A CONFESSION. I once went for a job interview at the Church of Scientology. Unwittingly, I hasten to add. As a J-1 student in recession-hit San Francisco, I answered a classified ad: “Rewarding work at church available for modest pay.” The address led me to a bookstore-cum-office, and I knew this was no ordinary “church” when the application form asked, “Are you related to intelligence agencies?” and “Have you ever been involved in any sexual perversion? Give who, where, when, what, on each instance.”

The misleading nature of that advertisement is small fry in the context of Scientology’s reputation, but it is illustrative of the organisation’s modus operandi. To its critics, the church of L Ron Hubbard is a loopy spiritual pyramid scheme designed to prey on the gullible and weak-minded. It is ridiculed probably more than any other belief system, it was almost banned in Germany and it’s the target of a vitriolic campaign by anonymous techies seeking its “destruction”.

Yet bear in mind that Scientologists have started no wars and committed no atrocities – unless you count John Travolta’s big-screen adaptation of Hubbard’s science-fiction saga Battlefield Earth, which is “widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made”, according to Hugh B Urban, a historian of religion. In fact, no one has been provably killed in the name of Scientology. The most serious charge against it arose from the death of 36-year-old Lisa McPherson in controversial circumstances at a Scientology camp at Clearwater, Florida, in 1995. The case was dropped by prosecutors five years later after a botched autopsy.

Urban, who has also written books about sexuality and the occult, is determined to give Hubbard’s disciples a fair hearing in
The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion
. Tracing how “a penny-a-word science fiction writer” founded a popular self-help therapy, Dianetics, the springboard for Scientology, Urban is resolutely straight-faced, even when discussing the church’s most fanciful teachings. The closest he comes to a chuckle is when recounting Hubbard’s claim that reaching upper states of knowledge can kill: “Yet Hubbard risked his own life and health in order to achieve the dramatic breakthrough, passing through ‘the Wall of Fire’ to uncover the secret history of our galaxy.”

The deferential approach stretches credulity at times, but it generates interesting questions about double standards in our treatment of religions. Urban highlights how many religions are hierarchical and combine elements of secrecy with a self-justifying language or narrative. Repeatedly, he makes the point that the followers of a religion should not necessarily be judged by those in positions of power. “After all, the fact that Catholic bishops have covered up child sexual abuse does not prevent millions of ordinary believers worldwide from continuing to find Catholicism meaningful in their daily lives.”

In addition, by looking at Scientology in context, Urban helps to identify just why the church antagonises people so much. For the religious, it’s so brazen in its myth-making it’s a parody of faith. For the nonreligious, it contains just the right dose of pseudoscience to resemble the homeopathy of belief systems.

What’s more, it’s so goddam American, blending the celebration of self-advancement with what Urban concludes is an ostensibly for-profit motive. Hubbard once said Scientology appealed to Americans “because they tend to believe in instant everything, from instant coffee to instant nirvana”.

Urban also sheds light on why the church is so secretive and litigious, and convincingly explains how it has evolved – and even adapted its teachings – in response to regulation by government agencies. A clampdown by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1963 led Hubbard to reposition himself as a salesman of “spiritual” rather than “healing” services. Five years later, he set up the Sea Org, a naval branch of hard-core followers, as a preliminary strike against the threat of being banned.

Crucially, Hubbard then rebranded Scientology as a religion, adopting some of the iconography of Christianity despite dismissing Jesus as “a lover of young boys and men”. This allowed the church to make a plea for special protections in the US and, most significantly, to gain tax-free status in 1993.

A number of questions go unanswered in the book, as Urban admits. He mentions as influencing factors the threat of litigation and a fear of being made “fair game” – a practice of intimidation officially denied by the church. Some readers will crave more detail about Scientology’s finances and about the bizarre Tom Cruise-Hollywood nexus.

Urban compensates for lack of colour with philosophical musings about whether, for example, a religion that depends on secrecy can survive in an internet-driven world. (A Google search will throw up Scientology’s most closely guarded revelations, saving you up to $400,000 in church fees.) Urban also points out that, contrary to popular belief, as well as to the church’s claims, Scientology is in decline. In 2008 it had an estimated 25,000 followers in the US, down from 55,000 in 2001.

Urban’s unstintingly nonjudgmental tone almost has you feeling sorry for Scientology in the end. Almost. Perhaps unintentionally, his refreshingly even-handed treatment of the controversial church puts other religions in the dock.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe Humphreys is an
Irish Times
journalist. His latest book is
God’s Entrepreneurs: How Irish Missionaries Tried to Change the World
(New Island)

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wee ... 82963.html
ex
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Re: new book on Co$

Unread post by ex »

[quote]decline from "55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008". nevertheless, the Co$ counts difrently and claims over 6 million members!!! some people call that BIG number the total mailing list since the beginning and not a count of committed, paying members.[/quote]

i wonder what the real current student count from rse is. the 6000 worldwide sound to me they count anyone who ever looked into an event. even the ones running after the beginner, or still get mail from rse.
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David McCarthy
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Re: new book on Co$

Unread post by David McCarthy »

Thanks for posting this article Joe,
softish!! no kidin.. :cry:
Hugh Urban.

Yet bear in mind that Scientologists have started no wars and committed no atrocities –
unless you count John Travolta’s big-screen adaptation of Hubbard’s science-fiction saga Battlefield Earth,
which is “widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever made”,
Yikes...Journalism asleep at the wheel or is this another case of C.O.S. intimidation paying off? :-?
It seems the lowering of ethical behavior and accountability by those in power is paralleled by morally shallow journalism.
No wonder the Gaddafi's and "Madoff’s of this world become so powerful and destructive.
Just how dangerous do you think COS is Joe?
as in Dangerous ...in the Encarta dictionary... "likely to cause or result in harm or injury...

David.
"Their so-called therapies are manipulations," says Dr. Edward Lottick, Noah's father. "We thought Scientology was something like Dale Carnegie. I now believe it's a school for psychopaths."
Scientology - A Dangerous Cult Goes Mainstream - by Richard Behar
http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/dancult.htm
What's Wrong with Scientology?
http://www.scientology-lies.com/whatswrong.html
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
joe sz
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Re: new book on Co$

Unread post by joe sz »

David,

Scientology is a kind of lightning rod of the cult world because it has had a rep of "not turning the other cheek" (that is one of Co$ slogans) and the chronic tabloid celebrity thing. This author punked out because, as the review states:
He mentions as influencing factors the threat of litigation and a fear of being made “fair game” – a practice of intimidation officially denied by the church.
Imagine an invasion of stink bugs in your home for years. If you can take spies w cameras in their cars in front of your home, flyers broadcasting all your sins real or not in your neighborhood and at your job, the odd lawsuit that could take up years of your life even though you will win, and all this harrassment protected by US law, then you are gutsy and/or wealthy enough to insult Scientology's pathological, paranoid leaders. On the other hand, quite a few critics have been open about the cult w/o a peep from Co$. It is a crap shoot with them.

The problem with someone doing a send up on Ramtha, say the way South Park did w Scinetology (Cruise in the closet episode), is that so few folks relatively speaking know anything or give a fig about JZ Knight, enough for a good network to expose her again. It is about "ratings". I could be wrong :?:

One of you ex-members needs to write a book with a good ghost writer---ex-members for the most part are notoriously bad memoir writers because they are too invested in the pain. There are exceptions. Janja Lalich, eg, got a PhD and had over 20 years of recovery before her book Bounded Choice came out about the communist cult she was in. But she was a professioal editor with excellent writing skill for 20 years before that. Another is Cartwheels in a Sari : http://www.jayantitamm.com/
I once introduced Jayanti at a conference. She studied writing formally for years before doing this.

Then, can you stand up to a JZ lawyer in court? Do you have the money and staying power?

And can you live with the fact the the book will most likely sell poorly in the larger market?
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Sad Grandfather
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Re: new book on Co$

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

There are 2 kinds of people who don't fear a lawsuit. Those who have unlimited funds and lawyers and those who have nothing left to lose.

If you are the later, you can forget lawyers and defend yourself. Then if you get a judgement against you you can laugh at the guy with the judgement, while he has to pay his own lawyer. There is no such thing in this country as debtors prison.

I was in that position about 25 years ago, when my construction business (and I) went bankrupt and I got my kicks by insulting and laughing at bill collectors.
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
joe sz
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Re: new book on Co$

Unread post by joe sz »

when you got nothin, you got nothin to lose -- Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone."

this is not about losing or paying off debt though. it is about gaining something, about shedding light on an abusive and deceitful enterprize.
If you make the effort to expose a cult and it sues you, publication or distribution of your book can be put on hold, so you will have lost all that effort.

This why publishers have legal teams.

Also, if you are sued even if you are dirt poor and live in a cardboard box, you must at least comply with the subpoenas, make an effort to comply and appear in court. If you don't and are found "in contempt" you will at least have shelter and 3 square meals in a jail cell.
or you might spend years of your life hiding from efforts to serve you notice to come to court. I have known people who have done the latter while a cult was trying to counter sue them or to subpoena all their records. It is no fun running around paranoid all that time.

anyway, "A Piece of Blue Sky" by Atack is still one of the best exposes on Co$. They harrassed the author for some years before giving up.
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David McCarthy
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Re: new book on Co$

Unread post by David McCarthy »

Great thread..
Thank you Joe, SG,
"A Piece of Blue Sky" by Atack is still one of the best exposes on Co$. They harassed the author for some years before giving up.
Again...thanks Joe....I will check it out,
I do have some very good news "for a change" :D ... on Cult harassment of two former members who blew the whistle on NXIVM...
posted here...
'EMF' Message Board View topic
Federal judge rules against NXIVM;Calls treatment of ex-member deplorable.-
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1208&p=12008#p12008
One of you ex-members needs to write a book with a good ghost writer-
Yep..I agree Joe, and they would get full cooperation from EMF. :idea:
Not only but also...
If EMF had deeper pockets we would slap a lawsuit on JZ Knight in the blink of a reptilian eye.

David
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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