I’m now on my third listening of the whole set; this is just fantastic material. Thank you John and Dr. Beverley (and the whole cast of characters)

I was happy to fork over my $120 to be able to enjoy the conference and to help support their good work.

“I know she’s having a hissy over some dumb thing I’ve said.” Damn straight it was dumb.

“They claim I had a meltdown and I’m insane. “No” on the first one.” So you admit you are insane then.

Oh please, nowhere did you say ‘not unheard of’. Of course it’s not, Even the original poster said he’d heard of it before— in the CoS!

And my response was that he’d gone a bit too far, that is was just regrettably overpriced. That’s when you chimed in.

Hi James,

Hopefully we can put this to bed soon, but I’d like to clarify a few things… You can take everything I said as a comment on the selling of this item and that alone. I’m sure things are sold like this all the time, but given what you are fighting *against*, and given that this very site has attacked the crazy overselling of lectures just days before your advert, it just all seemed too much. But I’m talking about the selling of this item, and that one thing alone.

As I said over and over, this attack on Scientology seemed to use all of their tactics. I’m sure this is as a result of nothing more than a one-off lack of judgement – possibly not considering the situation in full, or aware of the environment it came in. But I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The ‘extortion’ quote seems harsh. I couldn’t find it myself, but I’ll take your word I said it in a bad context. I’ll re-contextualise here – it *looks* like extortion, in the same way everything being sold by Scientology does. Or at least it did when first announced. Like all full-on sales tactics, the question it is actually asking people is ‘Can you afford NOT to own this?’ And, as I’ve said a million times, this essential, very finite thing has costs to the purchaser which *so far* appear limitless when they absolutely should not. This has been partially fixed, but I’d go much further. As it stands, to me the ad looks no more honest than the crap we see all over the internet. If it’s as good as you say, you really need to put a price on it. By price, as I hope is clear now, I mean a price *to buy*. Anyway, I’ll take the ‘extortion’ quote back. If I was writing it properly, rather than answering three folk at the same time, all of it would read differently.

I’m not sure why you have picked up on me describing the worst of the testimonials as ‘boasting’. Why is he so excited we can all buy something much cheaper than the price he paid, and then tell us he paid over three times the cost of the seminar? It looks like such a desperate hard sell you should not have included it. Or, at the very least, with no justification for him to quote his own arbitrary ridiculously high costs, these should have been absolutely removed. What justification could you have for advertising your product with someone comparing the price it’ll cost me (although we don’t actually have a *final* figure), to a price he claims to have paid which is 3.5 times higher than the price you were charging? This looks beyond bad. An honest pitch should never have included this.

My advice for something like this would be – pretend you’re going to get attacked for it. Make it fool proof. In my opinion, Tony achieves this naturally on a daily basis. You know what… I would remove ALL OF IT. Other than the description of the individual lectures, the build up and *all* of the testimonials need to go. Just as I couldn’t watch the 2006 Scientology lecture testimonials and think *some* of them were actually OK, only some were dubious, it was the same for me with yours.

The girl who equates the lectures to five years of therapy… I’m sure she honestly meant it, however, let me break down why I would not have included it in an honest sales pitch. 1. It really over hypes the product as just about the best healing option a purchaser could ever hope to have. This is just too hyped, especially for an expensive rental product. It reads like the Scientologist stuff. Again, can you afford NOT to own this? But that’s not all. 2. Her experience CAN NOT be replicated at home. You are selling apples, and hyping oranges. What could have been therapeutic about her experience? Well, she would have been amongst a community of peers, and likely felt five days of great fellowship talking to them all. And that is what you do in therapy – *YOU* talk. Which she did, I believe, also at the conference as a speaker. This would have been helluva therapeutic as well (not to mention even more frightening). But you simply are not selling that any more. All of the talking has been removed from the experience.

Jamie DeWolf… sounds hilarious. I’d love to watch his bit. But that soundbite you included… I don’t wish to say he’s making anything up, but he over-hypes it for effect and I would have removed parts. May I be so bold as to say no reasonable person could agree that this conference will be seen as the D-Day for Scientology? Come on. I’m sure it was both great and important but it remains a niche event, and probably will remain so. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, but he is making a claim that just seems so off the mark, it is plainly unbelievable. Right now, D-Day for Scientology, if such a thing were to come, would resemble just one thing… D-Day! It would be an unexpected dawn raid by a large number of armed men. Just my opinion (still hoping it happens). But if we were to consider a lesser D-Day, surely Going Clear is the only candidate of the year so far. It is going out to non-Scientologists the world over. It is changing the game a little bit. So even his claim just read badly to me. Now I’m sure in terms of content, Going Clear can’t even compete with you. But in terms of impact to Scientology, the opposite is true.

You know, as insulting as this might sound, I feel I should add this. The only person I would have though would spend so much to shoot a niche event, with a viewership that was always going to be extremely limited, would be David Miscavige. If I can be cheeky and align myself with you guys, I thought when I first saw this advert ‘Oh my god, we sound as bad as them.’ Finding out how you filmed it almost felt like the cherry on top.

The non Scientology movement is in attack mode. Tony pulls no punches, but (imho) keeps getting it right. We should take them to task for their ridiculous sales tactics. And, in a final analysis, if the non Scientology movement start selling the same product, you really need to be whiter than white. And I think this was a fail. BUT IT CAN STILL BE ENTIRELY FIXED. Unlike theirs.

The one thing I feel compelled to add is I keep referring to the members on here as ‘vulnerable’. I stand by that, but it sounds condescending as hell on a read through. So I’d like to say, that I *do* think someone drawn to Scientology has vulnerabilities to selling that many people just don’t have, probably even after they get out. Especially a type of hard sell, which (imho) was exhibited here But we all have blind spots. And I’m sure these people would walk backwards through certain situations which would practically institutionalise me. And many that believed stuff that looked like blatant nonsense to me, would still wipe the floor with me in an IQ test, etcetera. I just wanted to add that.

I have nothing against yourself (who I know nothing about) or Jon (whose articles on here I’ve enjoyed in the past).

Your product looks great. If there’s ever a buy price on it, and a sales pitch that sounds good to me, I’ll likely load in.

Edward
I will think about your major points as I move forward on the Getting Clear films.

It amazes me that you can be so judgmental about people you have never met. That applies to your accusations of extortion towards me and Jon, as well as to my student who was only trying to put into words how much he valued the conference. You claim that he is “boasting.” Edward, you do not know him, have never met him, and you have no right to question his character or mine.

I didn’t say the pricing is necessary. I meant it’s not unheard of. It’s a business decision they made, and I wouldn’t have any idea how they arrived at it.

POL

As it happens, this exactly how I make my living and have doe so for years. IF these sorts of prices for ‘rentals’ are necessary, then either there has been a terrible calculation, they were highly over-charged, or they expect their buying public to be vanishingly small, and are testing the waters, unsure if they will be able to sell enough to make printing up BluRays cost-effective.

If I can help sell a 9-hour documentary on a couple of paragraphs from the New Testament, all talking heads in 17 different languages ‘Corpus Christi’, ‘Apocalypse’, etc– Go check them out) for fraction of that cost, so can they.

This is simple misjudgement; I do not wish them ill (quite the contrary- Jon Atack is as close to an idol of mine as I have), or presume any ill-will on their parts, but to say this is necessary is ridiculous.

I cannot believe I am having to even say this, and it bothers me as it comes off as if I am against the existence of these videos. I am merely against the tone and content of your post.

I got what you said. I not only think you are wrong, I KNOW you are.

I do this.
For a living.
Every day.

I’m on the second go round – been glued to the screen!
It’s fantastic. So glad you got in!