Maybe because I know too much — from reading — I couldn’t get into the first part of his book AT ALL — I thought it was dreadful. However, starting with the Shawn Lonsdale part to the end, I liked it a lot. It was interesting getting fuller information and the behind-the-scenes of what was going on, and hearing the expanded interviews of everyone from Shawn to Bruce Hines.

I liked the analysis of celebrity responses according to Lifton’s criteria, which made the repetitive questioning make a whole lot more sense than it did in the TV show. Since I’m interested in both psychiatry and the Holocaust, I found it the Industry of Death museum section interesting, which led to the exploding tomato. He lost his temper — which the cult diagnosed as a “psychotic break.” LOL. I never thought of it as that.

Sweeney is really a well-educated, bright and funny guy — it is so sad that clams like Davis and Rinder can’t appreciate him for the remarkable person he is, and see how unhistorical CCHR’s view on psychiatry is — making Cruise, Jan Eastgate and Tommy Davis ranting fools.

I was surprised that Tommy was accused of “treason” by Miscavige, for not stopping the program from being aired. How could Tommy have done that? After that, Tommy went AWOL to Vegas, but then came back, to make a greater fool of himself with Wright. One can only imagine what Miscavige called him then.

Unlike Sweeney, I don’t feel sorry for Tommy. He had every opportunity to become educated, and instead he joined a cult, as their most visible buffoon and liar. His legacy here on Teegeeack will be the fool he made out of himself, all for his mother’s nutty cult of deluded control freaks.

One thing I found more satisfying that Sweeney did, over Wright, is that he repeatedly mentioned the importance of the Internet in the context of it being historically important and transformational, while pointing out the ignorance of Sci-lebrities, who find no use for it.

From the time I saw the show, I was touched by his portrayal and defense of Shawn Lonsdale. Shawn lost his job because of protesting the cult, in a way that would have probably shattered me, if I were in his position. Another thing I admired Sweeney for was shouting out at Travolta, as he made a fan appearance for Wild Hogs. He explained at how sealed off these people are, from ever being asked the hard questions — that people who do get JT on as a guest, agree to not ask the difficult questions.

Ah Magoo, you’ve done it again. That is the only thing that changed around ’08. Let’s give 3 ‘huzzars’ for 4chan and Anonymous. I won’t do ‘hip hip horays’, the Lroners spoiled that one. I guess Davey couldn’t stand all the attention and put his head in the sand. I guess that is the way with most totalitarians, when you can’t cut the weakest calf out of the herd, you look for other meat. The truth is the brightest light……Love and Peace to you’all too……

I just went there to write my review of the Kindle edition and it says:-

“This item has not been released yet and is not eligible to be reviewed. Reviews shown are from other formats of this item.”

Lolwut? I’ve already bought the Kindle version!!!

Then I noticed that if you search for the book, the release date is given as “Kindle Edition -1 Jul 2013”.

What’s going on? Cult intervention or innocent explanation???

Surely Miscavige should know it’s not the length of the email but what’s in it that counts.

It would be a very “short joke”.

Insightful comment., I agree with everything you write. Miscavige’s level of rage and sheer craziness makes clear why people are afraid to leave. Sweeney included this frothing at the mouth comment Miscavige screamed to Mike Rinder in an email, “DO YOU REALIZE EVERYONE OF MY MSGS ARE LONGER THAN YOURS, YOU REALLY ARE AN SP, AREN’T YOU……YS YS YS YS YS!!!!!!!!!!” [“YS” means “YOU SUCK”]. The level of psychosis and infantilism that this email demonstrates is off the charts. Miscavige not only has no control over his own behavior, he also tries to destroy everyone around him. I wish I was better at jokes, I am sure some of you can come with some doozies about Miscavige’s fixation on the “length” of his emails.

1) It’s clear that Sweeney was unprepared for his first Scientology reporting assignment. As he tells the story of the filming of the Panorama documentary you can see he is totally perplexed by the behavior of the Scientologists he encounters. Since then, he has researched the subject of cults and brainwashing and he now can understand why he was hearing two completely different stories from those in and those out.

As Tony has previously observed, there is a huge back story to Scientology and this may put some journalists off. In the case of Sweeney it didn’t put him off but he paid the price of being under-prepared.

The Sweeney book should be mandatory reading material for other journalists taking this subject on, although it seems the days of being handled by Scientology PR people such as Tommy Davis are over. However, any journalist puzzled by the attitude of dedicated celebs such as Cruise or Alley will find the book helpful.

2) Throughout the story of the filming of the first documentary, Sweeney includes extracts of the messages sent between the team on the ground (mainly Rinder and Davis) and their “Communicator” (who is obviously David Miscavige).

The communication exchanges are creepy and freaky and scary. On the one hand you have Rinder and Davis trying to keep their “Communicator” happy with status updates, and on the other hand the Communicator just replies with obscenities, accusations and more demands. It’s like having a conversation with someone with severe Tourettes. I know we’ve seen some of these before in the second Sweeney documentary, but reading them in the context of the whole story has a greater impact.

I think it was Steve Hall who said that Miscavige just oozes hatred, and these exchanges give a glimpse into that personality. It makes me shiver to think of what it must be like to work for that man (or worse still to be married to him). What’s really scary is that he is able to put on such a smiley, charming personality when meeting the public.

I wonder what kind of personality he shows to Tom Cruise? Remember Cruise called him something like the most compassionate leader he had ever met. This statement blows my mind. What does that make Cruise? Is he the same as Miscavige? Could that be possible? Can he show this “great guy” face to the public and be something entirely different in private? Is that why Katy blew the way she did? I assumed it was because she didn’t want Suri to become a Scientologist, but maybe she just wanted out of an abusive relationship.

But that also proves that there is a way out – when he was in he wouldn’t hear it, but something changed and now he’s out.

When dealing with current Scientologists it’s worth remembering this. There’s no value in getting frustrated or upset. When they are in, they are in. We know that many/most Scientologists have personal, private doubts or concerns over the way things are going in the CofS, and there are a whole range of things which can make a Scientologist dare to explore their doubts a bit further.

That’s why we can rejoice with every win – because in the battle to save humanity from L Ron Hubbard every victory counts, every new book, every news item, every radio show, every new person who leaves, every person who shows up on Marty’s site with their declaration of independence, it all adds to the wealth of information available to the doubtful Scientologist.

The only thing between a current member in good standing and an ex-member with their life back, is a matter of time.