Our video source has come through for us once again. Cast your mind, Scientology watcher, back to October 2006. This was a year after Tom Cruise had made his weird splash as Scientology’s awkward ambassador on Today with Matt Lauer and as a human jumping bean on Oprah’s couch.
Although those events had resulted in major pieces by the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone, this was not the major media storm Scientology would experience later. For now, things had calmed down, and events like the black turtleneck video and the rise of Anonymous were still more than a year away.
You could forgive David Miscavige for thinking he was just about at the height of his power. It was the annual meeting of the International Association of Scientologists in East Grinstead, England under the big top of the IAS tent, there were thousands in attendance, and Tom Cruise with the comically large “Freedom Medal of Valor” he received two years earlier was front and center in the first row.
As you watch the opening portion of the 2006 IAS gala, note the tone as Miscavige is feeling so triumphant, he even runs down Christianity and other faiths.
“What ails mankind is the reactive mind, and we’re the only ones with the tech to treat it,” he says. “…You come to where we stand tonight, as the only world religion that’s never engaged in a shooting war and so moves in to fill the void.”
But first, you’ll marvel at the truly over-the-top 10-minute introduction, which quickly runs through the triumphs of Miscavige and the IAS, shattering suppression in Portland (1985), fending off Big Pharma-backed TIME magazine (1991), gaining tax exempt-status (1993), and obliterating the Cult Awareness Network (1995).
And, of course, spreading Scientology’s influence to children around the world through the stealthy front group, Youth for Human Rights.
(Legoland, please take note.)
Once Miscavige takes over, he does some interesting riffing on the Iraq War. In 2001, Miscavige had seized on the 9/11 attacks to tell Scientologists that it was a “wake-up call,” and a motivator for Scientology to increase all of its planetary salvage campaigns.
Now, he says, Scientology has 10 million members in 163 countries. Karin Pouw these days refers to “millions” and we’ve noticed that the church has become less specific about numbers. But here it is stated plainly: Miscavige claims 10 million. (The truth is not even on the same order of magnitude, with closer to about 40,000 members today).
Miscavige also claims that Scientology is the most searched for church online. Which, yeah, we can see that. But not for the reason he probably thinks.
Scientology is literally “reshaping the destiny of earth,” Miscavige concludes, and so it must eradicate psychiatry and the “evil psychs” from the planet.
And for an update on how that war is going, he introduces Mike Rinder.
Mike’s looking very slender. By late 2006, we’re pretty sure that he had already spent time in The Hole at the compound in Hemet (UPDATE: Rinder got back to us… “Yes, almost the entire year of 2006 I was in the Hole”). Rinder has told us that he would get yanked out of the Scientology prison in order to put on shows like this one. (See our series of videos with Rinder talking about The Hole and escaping Scientology.)
Mike explains all of the “psych buster” activity that the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) had accomplished in the past year, including the opening in December 2005 on Sunset Boulevard of the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum, for which all lanes of Sunset Boulevard itself were shut down.
As Mike explains, CCHR and Scientology won’t rest until “Every last psych [is] scorched from the face of the Earth.”
Rinder ends this portion by preparing to introduce a video about psychiatry, but you’ll have to wait for that on another day.
So give it a go, and tell us what else you find notable in the opening portion of the 2006 IAS spectacular!
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Another amazing Scientology disconnection letter
In 2013, Karen de la Carriere put together a fascinating series of videos, seen here at the Bunker, about former Sea Org worker Scott Campbell and his wife Karry, talking about their harrowing adventures escaping Scientology. Scott also filed a declaration in the fraud lawsuit of Luis and Rocio Garcia, confirming the Garcia position that a declared and disconnected Scientologist would not receive fair treatment from an arbitration panel.
Last night, Scott posted to Facebook the disconnection message that Karry’s mother sent to her in 2010 after she had learned that Scott and his wife had been talking to former Scientology official Marty Rathbun…
“It was great having you as a daughter this lifetime and maybe we can pick you up in the future.”
Only in Scientology.
UPDATE: Here are a couple of recent pictures that Karen Downing, the author of this disconnection letter, recently posted at her Facebook page. (We checked with Scott Campbell to make sure this is the right person).
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Billy on the Street: “Leah Remini’s Escape from Scientology”
Here’s hoping Billy gets his GLAAD award…
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BOOK NOTES
We didn’t get a chance to include photos in our book, so we’ve posted them at a dedicated page. Reader Sookie put together a complete index and we’re hosting it here on the website. Copies of the paperback version of ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely’ are on sale at Amazon. The Kindle edition is also available, and shipping instantly.
Our book tour is concluded for now. (But you can re-experience it through this nifty interactive map!) We’ll let you know about future appearances. Previous events: Santa Barbara (5/16), Hollywood (5/17), Orange County (5/17), San Diego (5/20), San Francisco (5/22), New York (6/11), Chicago (6/20), Toronto (6/22), Clearwater (6/28), Washington DC (7/12), Hartford (7/14), Denver (7/17), Dallas (7/20), Houston (7/22), San Antonio (7/24), Austin (7/25), Paris (7/29), London (8/4), Boston (8/24), Phoenix (9/15), Cleveland (9/23), Minneapolis (9/24), Portland (9/27), Seattle (9/28), Vancouver BC (9/29), Sydney (10/23), Melbourne (10/25), Adelaide (10/28), Perth (10/30)
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Posted by Tony Ortega on December 8, 2015 at 07:00
E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT 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
PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ
Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield
