In an Underground Bunker exclusive, we’re giving you the first look at two slick videos shot and assembled by Tiziano Lugli and numerous other former members of the Church of Scientology. Among those you’ll see are video blogger Tory Christman, former church spokesman Mike Rinder, and character actor Michael Fairman. Also taking part was Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige, who has a memoir coming out next month. (Also, a few actors helped out — hey, it’s Hollywood.)
First up, Shit Scientologists Say…to outsiders.
When we were in Los Angeles recently and videotaped Lugli playing a now-infamous rap song featuring Nazanin Boniadi, he also showed us preliminary edits of these videos. Since then he’s added more cuts and finished up these first two.
Why did you do it, Tiziano? “There have been many popular YouTube videos in the ‘shit people say’ vein. I just thought it would be funny to make a Shit Scientologists Say.”
And what are you hoping to do with them? “I hope they get seen enough that church members might stumble upon them. I’m hoping they would realize how bizarre is the lingo and attitude that Scientologists usually have. And I hope it will help to maybe prevent new people from walking into the trap of Scientology.”
Expecting a reaction from the church? “I don’t think about a reaction from the cult. It already messed with me my whole life. Nothing they can do would compare to subtle and gradual brainwashing we all had to endure.”
Here’s the second video, Shit Scientologists Say…to each other:
We asked Lugli for a glossary to help non-Scientologists with the lingo in this video, and he sent us these definitions…
J&D: Joking and Degrading. Pretty much anything that’s funny and has a mocking or sarcastic tone. Very frowned upon in the cult.
A to J: Ten steps that anyone who has been declared a Suppressive Person has to go through in order to get back in ‘good standing.’
Non-E: Condition of Non-Existence. A series of steps you have to do when starting anything new. Let’s say you just got hired as a waiter, you’d talk to the people you’ll be working with and ask them what they would like you to do, and then do it. Pure magic. (That was a bit J&D.)
2D: Second Dynamic. Anything that involves another person you might get romantic or physical with. Pretty much the source of most trouble anyone gets into in the cult.
Sign my Liability: You fucked up so badly that you have to beg others to let you back in.
Cognition: You’ve become suddenly enlightened by having read something.
Flunk: A mistake. Whatever you were doing in the course room, you did it wrong.
Make it go right: No excuses, get shit done.
I totally got it: A robotic response that actually may mean, “I might have heard what you said…but I don’t really care.”
1.1: Covert Hostility on L. Ron Hubbard’s “Tone Scale.” The way to describe someone with a smile on their face and a knife hidden behind their back. Also, how Scientologists describe any homosexual.
Black PR: Anything in the media about Scientology.
Very Well Done: A robotic response you hear after you’ve been extorted for more donations, or you finished a program on the menu (which also requires a donation).
Constant vigilance and willingness to fight back: The price of freedom. Can include violating the law, corrupting the course of justice, engaging in human trafficking, brainwashing, child labor, beatings, forced abortions, extortion, harassment, and defamation. (The image of knights on white horses helps with the brainwashing.)
IAS: International Association of Scientologists. Church members are constantly pressured to “up their status” in this slush fund, which defends the church from external attack. It is said to exceed a billion dollars.
Excalibur Patron Meritorious with Honor and Valor: In order to keep people donating, odd titles are continually added to make you sound cool for turning over your life savings.
Xenu: Galactic overlord that put you on this planet 75 million years ago. This fact is kept a secret from you until you’ve paid a hundred grand or more, so it must be kept hidden from low-level church members as well as outsiders. Best to play dumb when critics shout it at you.
Restimulated: “I have a headache.”
Entheta: anything that can have a bad influence on you, that could restimulate you, or reflect badly on Scientology. Basically everything on this blog.
SP: Suppressive Person. An inherently evil human being, or just any Scientology critic.
Whole Track: The awareness and/or recollection of your past lives, going back quadrillions of years.
Out-Int: You’ve been trying to extrovert while looking inward, trapping you into a push-pull from which you are unlikely to become exteriorized. At the same time, you’re worrying and wrestling with the mystery of some incorrectly-designated error. What, this was supposed to make sense?
Out-Ethics: the condition of being human. Or in other words, when you’re departing from any moral code dictated by the cult.
You pulled it in: If something bad happens to you, it has to be your own fault. Cancer, disease, natural disasters, car accidents: You are always at cause and the source. (Not to be confused with The Source, Ron Hubbard)
CSW: Complete Staff Work, a piece of paper that you have to write asking permission to do anything in Scientology that needs approval by anybody else. A basic method of control.
Indicate: What an auditor (a Scientology counselor) uses as a prefix before saying anything that would apparently be true to you.
2D flowing: Flirting
The Dynamics: This is Hubbard labeling things in a way to make his ideas sound more profound than they really are. First dynamic: the self. Second: Sex and the family. Third: Groups of people. Fourth: Mankind. Fifth: Animals. Sixth: The physical universe. Seventh: Spirits or “Theta.” Eighth: Infinity or God.
The greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics: Scientology’s way of saying the ends justify the means.
Graduation: A funny, forced celebration that happens every Friday night at your local Scientology organization, where church members exchange certificates and give testimonials and applaud each other. Perhaps the saddest party in the entire sixth dynamic.
The new release: Something that David Miscavige (the current dictator of the cult) forces all cult members to buy at the end of one of his 5 yearly self-indulgent propaganda events.
Wog: Hubbard adopted this British slur for people of non-white races to mean anyone who is not a Scientologist.
To blow charge: Orgasmic euphoria Scientologists convince themselves that they experience after being hypnotically interrogated with the same question over and over for hours and hours.
The Bridge: Hubbard’s path to total freedom. The only way out of this trap. The only road of salvation for this planet and this sector of the universe. The menu they sell you where each course keeps tasting better and gets more and more expensive as you consume it. In the end you explode, have no money left, can’t pay the bill and feel like you have to throw up (although some meals along the way were really tasty).
Clear: The point where you have wiped away your reactive mind and can begin spending the serious money.
OT Levels: Once Clear, you can begin experiencing the Operating Thetan levels. Those that aren’t there yet assume the OT levels come with superhuman abilities. Those that have finished them for some reason refuse to show off their new powers. Weird.
“The Level”: Another name for OT VII. The closest thing to the dessert on the Bridge menu. A place where you counsel yourself in a room by yourself, talking to yourself, pretending to talk with somebody else. Usually 6 times a day, for a minimum of 2 years and sometimes as many as 15 years.
Verbal Tech: Saying anything about Scientology without backing it up by showing the original writing of the founder Ron Hubbard. A serious crime.
K.R.: Knowledge Report, submitted to snitch on another person. It is a crime not to snitch in the cult.
KSW: Keeping Scientology Working is Hubbard’s lengthy explanation that everyone has to follow proper instructions to a T. There is no negotiation. Either you’re in like the rest of us, or you’re out.
Enturbulated: Agitated and disturbed. In other words, restimulated.
Lugli also showed us two other videos that really pack an emotional wallop as these people talk about the people, time, and money they lost to the church. Tiziano says he hopes to finish those videos soon after the the new year.
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Links of Note
There’s been so much going on here at the Bunker we’ve hardly had time to provide links to interesting things happening elsewhere. But we don’t want to fall too far behind as we head into year-in-review mode for the holidays.
In England, a fascinating decision as a High Court judge ruled that Scientology orgs are not “places of worship” and therefore are not suitable as venues for official, religious weddings. The case will now be heard by Supreme Court justices. As we pointed out when this case first came up, this is a bit alien to us here in the US where the government can’t get involved in religious affairs (thanks to the First Amendment, praise Xenu). But as long as the UK government takes it upon itself to decide what is a place of worship, then it is an interesting question with Scientology. Is it “worship” to solo audit yourself with an e-meter to recover million-year-old memories of yourself running a prison planet somewhere? In 1970, the government there decided that Scientology auditing and other Hubbard hilarity was not, in fact, worship. And maybe the funniest notion in that story we linked to is the question of whether anything has changed in Scientology since 1970. Not if things are still being delivered standardly and according to Source it hasn’t!
And finally, if you haven’t seen this video invitation to Scientology’s big New Year’s Eve celebration, you really must.
We’re going to have to work on some “Celebrate Like Only a Scientologist Can” T-Shirts for the Bunker.
