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The new Scientology ad running on TV — and maybe for the Super Bowl

SciAd15aWe’ve been getting reports from readers that Scientology has been running a television ad in prominent places in the last week or so. The ad appeared before one of the NFL playoff games this weekend, and we heard that it also ran yesterday during a showing of The View and the Ellen Degeneres Show.

That’s consistent with the way the church has done things over the last few years, as it has started out each new year with multiple showings of a new ad leading up to the Super Bowl.

We’ve tried, each time, in vain, to educate the media that Scientology does not pay the huge money for official Super Bowl slots (about $4 million for a 30-second spot), but instead runs its ad in only a handful of cities during periods that are reserved for local spots. (One expert told us the church might spend up to about a million dollars in total to run the ads in cities like New York and Los Angeles during the game.)

Whatever the cost, we’ve also pointed out numerous times that these ads generally produce ridicule on Twitter from viewers who are stunned to see Scientology advertising at all. But the point of these ads is not to attract new members. Former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder says that the intended audience is Scientologists themselves, who must be convinced that the church is expanding (when the opposite is true) so they can be convinced to donate even more money.

We’ve pointed out how bogus the numbers are that Scientology comes up with in these ads. In an ad from a few years ago, Scientology claimed that it was growing by “more than 4.4 million” people each year, when the truth is that its worldwide membership is probably closer to only 35,000.

If you think that’s a stretch, you’ll love the numbers Scientology has put into this latest ad. The spot has no narration, just a lot of type presented against music. We’ve got some screenshots of it, and then we’ll provide a transcript…

Advertisement

 
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You are here

Advertisement

So are 7,252,659,834 others

203,421,712 suffer from drug addiction

697,845,431 victims of crime

1,991,208,953 human rights violations

There’s only one way to solve it

Together

The Church of Scientology works with over

50,000 schools, governments, churches, human rights organizations

To make a real difference

For more than 700,000,000 men, women, children

Across 193 nations

Tutoring (Applied Scholastics)

Criminal reform (Criminon)

Drug education (Foundation for a Drug-Free World)

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Drug rehabilitation (Narconon)

Human rights education (United for Human Rights)

Mental health reform (CCHR)

Mentoring (The Way to Happiness)

Worldwide volunteering (Volunteer Ministers)

In a global network

Of 700,000 volunteers

From all faiths

Volunteering 50 million hours

To help people…freely

To help people selflessly

To help people indiscriminately

Teaching 19 million children the Truth About Drugs

Helping 4 million people lead lives without drugs

Enabling 43 million students to better their education

Making 111 million aware of their human rights

Allying 187,000 officials and advocates worldwide

Putting 112 million morals education materials in people’s hands

Giving aid to 24 million people in times of need

Because changing the world

Is a big job

But we can

Together

Our help is yours

scientology.org

Take a look at the ad yourself, and give us your thoughts…

 

 
It’s true that Scientology has denuded entire forests in order to print mountains of copies of its various booklets and pamphlets, and we have little doubt that it counts every copy that gets handed out. But the evidence that Scientology’s sneaky front groups are making such an impact is much more elusive. The truth is, Scientology’s reputation has never been worse, its fortunes never more in doubt, and its efforts to ingratiate itself through deceptive infiltration tend to backfire. Still, it does make slick advertisements.

 
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Bonus photos from our tipsters

Here’s a short video from Nancy Cartwright, known to Scientologists as “Her Royal Governness of the Vast Valley Territory” and to the rest of the world as the voice of Bart Simpson. Is she really saying here that she needs to check with her financial adviser before coughing up the cash for a Tesla? Is that the same adviser who tells her to spend millions on Scientology?

 

Bart rocks Tesla! #tesla #mskasey27 #amazingcars #toofun

A video posted by Nancy Cartwright (@nancy_cartwright) on


 
Meanwhile, it’s meal time at Narconon in Turkey!

 
NarcononIstanbul

 
Apparently they’ve finally run through all the cassette tapes in South Africa and have moved up to DVDs…

 
NarcononSA

 
Scientologists are using social media more than ever. Drop us a line if you spot them posting images to Instagram or Facebook!

 
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TMZ: Scientology stiffs pizza delivery guys

TMZ is reporting that Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity Centre Hollywood Guaranty Building (HGB, with the LRH life exhibition on the ground floor and top Sea Org offices upstairs) ordered and paid for more than $2,000 in pizzas from a local Papa John’s but then stiffed the delivery guys, who had to make two trips to bring over 180 pies.

After TMZ printed its story, it heard from a church rep: “Senior officials were shocked and embarrassed and sent $300 to the restaurant.”

Some poor Sea Org worker at the CC is now running around a pole in the desert, no doubt.

 
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The Charlie Hebdo massacre

We asked our man in Paris, Jonny Jacobsen, about today’s horrific slaughter at the offices of the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. He told us that he remembers meeting one of the publication’s well-known cartoonists, Bernard Velhac, better known by his pseudonym, Tignous, who was reportedly among those killed.

“He did court drawings at the Scientology trial,” Jonny tells us. “We only chatted during the adjournments, but he struck me as a nice guy — and I loved his work from the trial.”

Here is an example of a Tignous cartoon on Scientology…

 
SciTignous

[translation:]
Cult:
In the United States, Scientology is a religion,

and in the United States, this is food!

 
Charlie Hebdo covered Scientology numerous times, and put it on the cover at least once…

 
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[translation:] The next Pope will be a Scientologist
“It earns more”

 
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OUR COUNTDOWNS

18 days until Alex Gibney’s film Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief opens at the Sundance Film Festival at 2:30 pm on Sunday, January 25 in Park City, Utah

5 days until our special Underground Bunker announcement at noon, January 12

 
Posted by Tony Ortega on January 7, 2015 at 07:00

E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward

UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

 

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