Our thanks to the eagle-eyed researchers over at WhyWeProtest.net, who have been scouring Facebook to find photos taken by Scientologists who were at this weekend’s festivities in Clearwater, Florida.
We’ve been posting some images taken by church members of the parties that began on Friday. And now, one Scientologist in particular appears to have broken the rules and took a series of shots on the Super Power Building’s already legendary space-aged fifth floor, where the “Perceptics” contraptions are housed. (Or, looks more likely, took snapshots of a brochure of these items.)
Finally, after looking at renderings of this floor for years, we’re getting to see the real thing.
We don’t know how long this church member will keep up her photos, but take a look at them here while you can.
Here’s the item that is probably most familiar to the public and has been seen in renderings for several years, a gyro device for disorienting a wealthy Hubbardite.
Here’s one of the slick hallways. The biggest difference from the renderings we posted early in 2012 seems to be the overall color — the original plans showed these interiors with a bluer hue.
In Scientologese, “Cause Resurgence” translates to: “We’ve turned a punishment of running around a pole for 12 hours a day under the desert sun into a mindless exercise of circling a pole in a darkened room, and wealthy people are actually going to pay us for the privilege.”
Your guess is as good as ours on this next one…
Oh my, can it be? Yes! It’s the Oiliness Table! Finally, we get to see at least part of our white whale, the contraption that will somehow measure a person’s “oiliness,” one of 57 “perceptics” that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard described. These are the senses as perceived by you, as a thetan, as you relive your past life experiences on your trillions-year-long “whole track” of existence. And how are you going to know whether you had too much suntan lotion on as you relive an experience from 20 billion years ago on the Planet Coppertone if your oiliness perceptic is off? Thank goodness this contraption now exists to dial in your sense of grease!
Our thanks to the Scientologist who defied the rules and snapped a few shots for her scrap book. We’re all the wiser for it.
We had a super busy day yesterday, so we barely had time to note all of the weird things going on in the press about Scientology. We know you, our loyal readers, must have been shaking your heads as much as we were to see some of the coverage of Sunday’s big grand opening event.
Clearly, from the photo that Mike Rinder took of the entire crowd from a helicopter rented by Mike Bennitt, there were no more than 2,500 to 3,000 people in attendance for the event, and nothing like the 6,000 to 10,000 we’ve seen claimed in some media coverage.
Also, the fact that Mike Rinder, Scientology’s former top spokesman, took to the skies and hovered over the event, and may have contributed to Scientology leader David Miscavige cutting the ceremony so short at eight minutes — surely, this was a news story. That every news outlet and website ignored it is a shame, but at least we all had a front row seat for that amazing occurrence right here in the Bunker.
One thing is very clear: An eight-minute ceremony in front of less than half the anticipated crowd after construction that lasted 15 years was a dismal failure for Miscavige and the church. It’s too bad more news organizations can’t point out that simple fact. Imagine if 3,000 people showed up for a Super Bowl. Would they hold back then? Well, this was the Super Bowl as far as David Miscavige was concerned, and the anemic attendance is just more evidence of how badly Scientology is hurting right now.
Yesterday was also noteworthy to see other news organizations react to our exclusive interview with Jacqueline Olivier. And last night, Leah Remini lost out on Dancing with the Stars, but not before she got to make some bold statements (in words and motion) about Scientology.
Now that she’s off the show, isn’t it time for her deposition in Monique Rathbun’s harassment lawsuit against the church? We’ll check on that as soon as we can!
Here was Bryan Seymour’s report from Sydney…
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Posted by Tony Ortega on November 19, 2013 at 07:00
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