Ron's Journal '67

As much as I love to mock the unintentionally hilarious "tech" of L. Ron Hubbard, there is no substitute for hearing it from his own mouth. This priceless piece of batshit-crazy gold is from 1967, just after Hubbard completed the infamous "Wall of Fire" aka The Xenu Story.

In this gem we are treated to Hubbard-the-raconteur, Hubbard-the-long-suffering-martyr and Hubbard-the-savior-of-mankind, all wrapped up in a turgid tale of evil perpetrated by (you guessed it) The Eeeeeeevil Psychs.

If you know anyone who thinks that L. Ron Hubbard couldn't have been that crazy if all these people still follow him, have them listen to Ron's Journal '67. When they're done, if they still think he wasn't totally bonkers, then tell them that L. Ron has a bridge for sale and direct them to the nearest org. Oh, and don't forget to tell them to take their checkbook.

And the hits just keep on coming . . .

The Saint Petersburg Times once again shows why they've earned the title SP Times. This is yet another bold, clear article on the abuses at the "church". I felt drained by the time I was done reading about these people's long exit from $cientology. Three cheers for Tobin and Childs and the editorial board of the Times.

It just doesn't get any better than this . . .

Tommy Hits The bigtime, or, Yes, Virginia, There Is Such A Thing As Bad Publicity.

A marvelous article on the Tiny Terror's Toy Terrier.

New Careers for Li'l Davey Nº1 : MC

Featuring the club hits:
Ya down wit OT-III?
Slappy's Got a Brand New Bag (with Tommy D)
Bitch is a Statcrasher (DJ Kobra extended litigation remix)
We Built This Cult on Rick and Roll
Sec (Check) Machine
Havingness is a Warm Gun (R245 EOC remix)
Ain't no Power Like a Super Power™
Blown in the wind
Rundown Sue
Don't Fear the Weeper
Dance This MEST Around
Atomic Wog

Awesome video . . . great name too.

Shit Happens

The Daily Mail is barely above The Weekly World News or World Net Daily as a beacon of journalistic integrity, but if the portrait they paint of John Travolta is true, my heart goes out to him even more. The loss of a family member is devastating to go through. To go through it in the savage eye of our celebrity culture must be almost unendurable (and yes, I get that this blog entry, unread as it probably will be, is adding to the pile-on).

When I lost my sister to lung cancer two years ago, it turned my worldview around 180º. In the process of accepting my sister's passing, I had to accept reality in a way I'd never been challenged to before. This was a deeply personal and liberating experience for me, both terrible and beautiful. My sister's indomitable courage and spirit was instrumental in helping all around her make it through her swift passing.

She and I had many metaphysical discussions throughout the years, and she was more skeptical than accepting of my old "you create your own reality" worldview. Maturity and time was beginning to wear this treacle away for me, but I still clung unaware to my remaining magical beliefs. That changed one afternoon while I was visiting my sister. We'd been talking and there was a sort of long silence, then looked at me and said, "you dont' still believe all that shit about creating your own reality, do you?" "Not really I said". She paused and said, "I saw that Secret shit on Oprah last week and it's crap you know. I'll tell you the secret of the universe . . . Shit Happens, period. I didn't choose this, I didn't deserve this. I beat it once, shit happened. It came back, shit happened again." She cracked me up and we laughed til we cried (we did that a lot in those last weeks), I said "I think you hit it on the head Dr. Hawking." It was kind of a jokey, sarcastic comment, but it really changed my life in an instant. For me, everything kind of stopped . . . shit happens.

From my experience, people join Scientology, or any religion, for the same reasons I searched for meaning where there really wasn't any. To make meaning is very human. It's what we do. I think it may be the closest thing to divinity there is. For instance, when the sun sets, there is no meaning. We observe a large thermonuclear fusion reaction, some 93 million miles distant, as it slips below the horizon as the planet rotates. Not good. Not bad. Just is. Does that mean my perception of it's majesty, the crimson of the sky as it settles into the Pacific, and the feelings that accompany this natural spectacle are invalid? Certainly not.

That was what changed when my sister said "shit happens." My sister was dying. I had deep feelings about it. She had deep feelings about it. But there was nothing "wrong". Shit was happening. That was the liberation I had sought all my life through channelers and crystals and chanting. Gone was my fear of death as failure. Gone were my phobias about toxins and big Pharma. Gone was my gnawing doubt that the "truth" was "out there" and that I was wrong. We as a species were not the inevitable crown of creation. What I was left with the universe as a clean slate, with my own meanings, inviolate and utterly my own. The search for existential validation had stopped.

I recount all this because there are those who are speculating whether or not Travolta, in his deep agony, will leave the church. Some people say no, he's in too deep. Some say the cult has too much dirt on him in his Preclear files. Some say he can't admit he's been taken so badly all these years. Well, I say not so fast. I think it's now or never. If I could admit to and let go of twenty years of embarrassing New Age wingnuttery, I bet Travolta can do the same.

The man has lost his beloved son. I can only imagine what's going on in his mind and heart. Sorrow. Guilt. Regret. Anger. The gnawing sense that if only he'd done X,Y or Z it would have been different. I for one, hope he's able to find the bracing, terrible beauty of reality through this tragedy. I hope he uses it to heal his heart. I also hope he finds the courage to step-up and hit a real homer out of the park and say "stay away from this bullshit cult and its medical quackery." Impossible you say? Maybe, but shit happens . . .

Well, THIS ought to be interesting . . .

Mark Bunker had a link to this amazing new site. It's not critical of Scientology as a system of belief. It seems to exist exclusively to take down David Miscavige as totalitarian dictator. Now the three people who have actually read my blog over time will know that I am no fan of L. Ron Hubbard. I believe he was a charlatan, conman and megalomaniac of the first order. His "tech" is a masterpiece of unintended hilarity, that is it would be funny if it hadn't fucked up so many lives.

This new site seems mostly very well written and designed. Apparently there was some considerable money behind this (or a lot of sweat equity from those already used to slave labor), and they make it clear that they want Scientology to continue in it's "pure" form. Sadly, they still still view us critics as bent on the destruction of Scientology. Well, this critic has never held that agenda. Personally, I don't care what you believe about Xenu or KSW or ARC or beingness or whatever Hubbard cooked up to seperate you from your money. What I do care about stopping are same abuses they want to stop. Violence. Greed. Extortion. Lies.

I'm assuming the ex Scienotlogists behind this site are Rathbun, Lesevere, Rinder and maybe Ethier. They all might want to consider the possibility that Anonymous and the two previous generations of critics have always been fighting for Scientologists, not against them.
So, do I want to see Scientology banned, destroyed and all Hubbard's books burned? No. Not even close. I'll be happy to sit down, have a beer and argue doctrine vs. reality with any Scientologist (or Catholic or Muslim). They also need to know, that I'll be the first to fight for their rights to hold any worldview they'd like, as long as nobody gets hurt.

So, as far as Hubbard is concerned, we're definitely not going to agree, but when it comes to Li'l Davy and his Fake Navy, the crew at http://www.scientology-cult.com/ has an ally in All MEST Up.

A response to a victimized Scientologist . . .

Some dude over at Glosslip was whining about how his church is being attacked and it got me thinking about the three distinct generations of critics that have brought us to these interesting times . . .

Oh Robert, how these enturbulent times do my Second-Gen Critic's heart good. I count myself with those who became critics of the cult back in the early days of the internet. It was the dawn of xenu.net and the LMT. The lovely Tory/Magoo was not yet our joyful muse. In those days Robert, there was no criticizing the cult publicly. You still couldn't speak out against Scientology without getting a Kobrin-Gram or a visit from Earl Cooley's goon, Eugene Ingram. Criticize, and you had crazed Scilons leafletting your neighborhood with flyers calling you a pederast or murderer. You had obscene calls to your workplace or maybe your pet drowned. You suffered like the First Gen Critics Cooper and Lerma and Wallershiem and Armstrong and Young. The cult would blackmail you and the media would believe them. They were the ultimate playground bully, who would slug you, then go fake-cry to the teacher and YOU would get punished.

Now the tables have turned. The anonymity that the internet gave us in those early days created a shitstorm of free-flowing com that the cult knew would be its undoing. The more they tried to cut off its head, the more heads it would grow. For me, it was Andreas Heldal-Lund and Bob Minton who were the biggest influences in giving me courage to speak out, online and off (you too WBM). When I would talk about the cult to my friends back then, they would just roll their eyes like I was totally nuts. They couldn't believe this crazy sounding stuff was true. It took the final shot of the Second Gen war to wake everyone else up . . . a shot fired by a cartoon character. South Park's brilliant "Trapped in the Closet" episode heralded the end of the second phase of criticism. Those years ended with Stan staring at the camera with his big, cartoon eyes saying "sue me, go ahead and fucking sue me" and I think we all nearly fell over.

So Robert, the atmosphere of open criticism you are now soaking in is the result of the work of two distinct generations of critics. Pre-internet folks who got the living crap fair-gamed out of them. Then the early internet years when the intergalactic despot was let out of the bag, so to speak. Finally came the Third Gen Critics, and the end-game for the current "church". And the architect of this end-game is Tom Cruise. Why Cruise? Because, if he hadn't fired uber PR flack Pat Kingsley, re-engaged with the cult and hired his Scilon sister to replace Kingsley, his special brand of batshit crazy would have stayed under wraps. It was his couch-jumping, cult-promoting, royal-wedding, KSW Carnival of Foot-Bullets that provoked the hornets nest of Chanology into action. It was batshit crazy "tech" with a megaphone, meeting totalitarian attempts to shut the information flow off (again) that created the Third Gen Critics. And they didn't just stay home in their parents basements as Miscavige expected . . . they marched. They chanted. They rickrolled and frolicked. There was caek and lulz and it was good.

Anyway Robert, your "church" has brought on this shitstorm itself. Of course, it was Hubbard who set it in motion originally, with his megalomania, avarice and paranoia; with his sci-fi lunacy and draconian fake navy. You are probably a public Scientologist. You're most likely not clear, certainly not an OT. You can't believe that anything like what you're seeing in the media is true. Your critical thinking skills are poor as evidenced by your long post, loaded with "church" talking-points and logical fallacies. Believe me, the "church" wants to keep you that way: credulous and forking over money. And though you won't believe it, critics are not here to attack you. We are here to help you.

For Quentin Hubbard and all the rest . . .

Personally, I think that the whole thing needs to be shut down and let the Freezoners carry on with Hubbard's batshit crazy "tech" . . . for free.

This is big . . .

There's not much I can say about the import of this series of articles in the aptly nicknamed SP Times. It's quite simply amazing.

Depressed? Stop being such a fu¢^*ng pansy . . .

Oh, how I love the celebrities. Bijou Phillips in all her great wisdom has denounced depression sufferers who turn to antidepressants as "fucking pansies". What next Bijou? Are people who take chemotherapy for cancer goddamned wussies? Epileptics on Dilantin are motherfucking crybabies? What's that Bijou? They should try the L. Ron Hubbard cure? It's all in their heads? Body Thetans is it? You might want to go to Sense About Science where actual scientists offer well-meaning celebutards a lovely pamphlet chock full of advice on what comprises real science before they spew their woo to a gullible public eager to lap up the pseudoscientific quackery put forth by the likes of Oprah, Jenny McCarthy and Madonna.