Now that we’ve seen Reza Aslan’s Believer episode about “independent Scientology,” we can see that our earlier story, which was based on what he was saying in interviews leading up to the show, was really on the money and we don’t have a lot to add.

This show was simply dishonest. Whatever you think of L. [...]]]>

 
Now that we’ve seen Reza Aslan’s Believer episode about “independent Scientology,” we can see that our earlier story, which was based on what he was saying in interviews leading up to the show, was really on the money and we don’t have a lot to add.

This show was simply dishonest. Whatever you think of L. Ron Hubbard and the idea of past-life counseling, there’s just no denying that the Church of Scientology is a shrinking entity that is mired in controversy and accused of shocking abuse. Thousands have left the church in the last decade.

And of those, the vast majority leave it altogether. A very small number, however, continue to practice some version of Scientology. These tend to be older people who miss what Scientology meant to them when they picked it up in the 1960s or 1970s. And not only are their numbers small, but that number is not growing appreciably.

As Jefferson Hawkins pointed out yesterday, independent Scientology tends to be a brief phase that people go through on their way out of Hubbardism altogether. And that is worth covering — it’s something we’ve been covering pretty steadily for at least the last six or seven years.

But Aslan, after admitting in the first part of his show that he has a “soft spot” for Scientology in general, tries to give the impression that independent Scientology is “pure” Scientology, and that it’s the future — a growing, living thing that could, as he said in one promo, become one of the great religions of the world.

And the only way he could give that impression was through sleight of hand. As we said in our piece on Tuesday, he features places like the Dror Center or Rey Robles’s Reno group without giving any hint of just how tiny they are. Not once does he make any attempt to give some sense of the size of Scientology — the church or those outside it.

Sure, it’s cool that Rey Robles thinks he’s OT 9 and has sorcerer powers — yes, he called himself a sorcerer — but should CNN really be using its media power to send Reza Aslan to Reno for that kind of pointless interview when in his own backyard, in Los Angeles, there’s a 7-year court battle being fought over Scientology forced abortion that’s already been to the US Supreme Court, a court fight that CNN has never mentioned at all?

(The Church of Scientology of course, wasn’t happy with Aslan’s show because it didn’t gush about the “fastest growing religion on earth.” At the Freedom magazine website, they pointed out that one thing Aslan left out of his show was that he actually did get to tour one of the Los Angeles facilities and had multiple meetings with a church representative. It is funny that he left that out. Confronted with the reality that Scientology is as insanely insular as its former members claim, Aslan still went ahead with a show claiming that Scientology gets a bad rap. When Louis Theroux was faced with that situation, he came to the conclusion that, well, maybe these former members have a point. Meanwhile, Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright are still miles ahead with Going Clear, which, full disclosure, we were fortunate to be a part of. Leah Remini, meanwhile, is simply on another plane of existence.)

Well, Aslan got what he wanted. He used some indie Scientologists to forward his agenda that Scientology itself is not so bad, and really just like all other religions. In order to do that, however, he had to take a couple of subtle jabs at Gibney and Wright, and, somehow, almost completely ignored L. Ron Hubbard’s sick history while stroking people who still think he’s a demigod.

But rest assured, Aslan will continue to be the religious studies guy at your dinner party, scoring points on people who have only a modest grasp of Scientology’s controversies. “Yeah, I’m that guy,” he admitted.

Hey, Reza, how about inviting us to one of those dinner parties? Might be a different story.

 
——————–

Jeffrey Augustine interviews Steven Hassan

Jeffrey tells us that besides talking about his approach to Scientology, Hassan describes what it was like to meet Mike Rinder on Leah Remini’s show and why the experience of meeting the former head of OSA so powerfully moved him.

 
——————–

Bonus items from our tipsters

While Reza Aslan searches for his mojo, Scientology continues churching. In Pretoria, another pirate themed fundraiser!

 
College kids in India!

 
Someone cut a big check.

 
At Flag, they’re really getting desperate about handing out certificates, aren’t they?

 
——————–

 
HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25. Go here to start making your plans.

 
——————–

 
——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on March 27, 2017 at 07:00

E-mail 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. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2016 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2016), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. 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

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | 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 | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | 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

 We asked the producer of Believer, CNN’s series featuring University of California Riverside creative writing professor Reza Aslan, for the chance to view the episode on Scientology that’s airing this Sunday, but we haven’t been given that chance.

We knew how to contact the producer because she reached out to us a couple of years ago [...]]]>

 
We asked the producer of Believer, CNN’s series featuring University of California Riverside creative writing professor Reza Aslan, for the chance to view the episode on Scientology that’s airing this Sunday, but we haven’t been given that chance.

We knew how to contact the producer because she reached out to us a couple of years ago when they were putting the series together. At that time we had a lengthy talk with her about the current states of the Church of Scientology and independent Scientology. It was pretty clear to us then that Aslan’s own producer understood the tricky situation they had. She said she was well aware of the many controversies and alleged abuses in Scientology and she was interested in our help in getting those into the show, but she admitted that no matter what we could tell her Aslan was pretty well determined that his program would present Scientology in a positive light.

We told her that didn’t surprise us in the least. We had already seen Aslan in action, and for years he’s tried to convince people that Scientology gets a bad rap. Now, he’s getting a chance to bring his “all religions are really the same and they’re all good” message to CNN, a year after his show was actually ready to air. (CNN delayed Believer when it dawned on them just how much cash they were raking in putting candidate Trump on the air day and night.)

Despite our request, we haven’t had a chance to see Sunday’s episode. But we have seen what Aslan has said about it in interviews, and what he’s said is simply dishonest.

There was this exchange, for example, which we have a feeling will make our readers howl as much as it did us…

New York magazine: I had no idea there’s a reform movement going on in Scientology.
Aslan: I don’t think the church knows that.

The Church of Scientology, unaware that there are people outside it continuing to do Scientology on their own?

 
Yeah, David Miscavige is completely unaware of it. What a surprise he’s going to get if he tunes in to CNN Sunday night.

No, actually, breakaway movements and splinter groups have been happening to Scientology from the day Dianetics first hit bookshelves in 1950, for crying out loud. In fact, one of the reasons that founder L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s and 1960s came up with such an elaborate system of control that he dubbed “ethics” was to clamp down on defectors who were always starting up their own versions of his “science of the mind.” (Scientologists to this day call what they’re doing with the E-meter an “exact science.” Labeling Scientology a “church” was first and always a dodge to avoid the tax collectors.)

In fact, you could argue that the Church of Scientology, with its “Squirrel Busters” and other well-paid private investigators and Sea Org operatives, is more aware of the activities of former church members than any other organized church. In other words, the exact opposite of what Aslan told New York magazine.

Readers of the Underground Bunker know that we have a long history of writing about “independent” Scientology, and that while we find many reasons to question the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard, we have respect for people who admire him and practice his philosophies on their own. We have often celebrated Dani and Tami Lemberger, for example, who bravely took their mission independent of the church in 2012, and have continued to operate it in the face of church harassment. (Just yesterday we wrote about their libel and fraud trial against Scientology that was recently settled.)

We’ve even visited their “Dror Center” in Haifa, which will be featured in this Sunday’s episode of Aslan’s show. We expect that the Lembergers were treated well by Aslan, and that it will be reflected in the show.

But here’s what we learned when we stopped by there last summer. After four years as an independent Scientology center, Dani told us that it really wasn’t growing much. We don’t mean this as a criticism of Dani. It’s just the truth. When he broke away from the church, he did so with about 50 members. Four years later, he says he has about 60 actively involved at the center.

We’ll repeat it so there’s no misunderstanding: We admire the Lembergers, and we think the Church of Scientology should leave them alone and allow them to study Hubbard in any way they wish. But this is not a growing movement in Haifa, or anywhere else in Israel.

Another source of independent Scientology that will be featured by Aslan, we hear, is the annual “Freezone” convention that Rey Robles puts on in Reno. And according to a news report about last year’s gathering, the attendance was about 36.

There are other ways of measuring independent Scientology, and we’ll get to that in a minute. But for now, just consider that fact — two of the places being featured in this Sunday’s episode represent about 60 and 36 people. But here’s how Aslan characterized independent Scientology in a recent interview:

“Those new versions are spreading at an unbelievable rate. It’s a weird phenomenon where Scientology as a religion is flourishing even as Scientology as a church seems to be contracting somewhat.”

Sure, Aslan has a show to sell. But his dishonesty, suggesting that there’s a massive “reform” movement spreading at an “unbelievable rate” and catching David Miscavige and the church unawares, is irresponsible, especially at a time when someone like Leah Remini is making so much progress finally reaching a large audience with what really matters — that the Church of Scientology is splitting apart families, bankrupting members with extreme fundraising, and destroying lives with its unlimited budgets for harassment and litigation.

As for independent Scientology, there is an interesting story to tell about it: For many Scientologists, going independent is a temporary refuge after leaving the church, but something that most defectors soon move away from as they ditch Hubbard and his ideas altogether: Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun being two of the more well known examples of that. In 2010, the two of them were leading the most visible “independent” movement in decades; just a few years later, Rinder now criticizes Hubbard openly at his website, while Rathbun announced in 2013 that he was no longer a Scientologist of any kind, and now he’s acting particularly strangely as he appears to be helping the church attack its critics. Now that’s a story, but one we don’t expect Aslan to go near.

Instead, Aslan is going to try to convince us that Scientology isn’t as weird as we’ve all heard. Here are the bullet points he uses to describe its beliefs in a short teaser video CNN put out last week:

— We are eternal souls trapped within bodies

— We gather trauma throughout past lives

— Trauma is cleared through a process called “auditing”

Well, those descriptions are basically true of Scientology. But as long as he’s brought it up, we have a feeling that these are some of the things he’s not going to discuss as he tries to sell Scientology as a reasonable activity…

— We are eternal souls trapped within bodies: We are actually “thetans,” Hubbard proposed, who are quadrillions of years old. It was some super-powerful thetans who, out of boredom, imagined the physical universe into creation some 4 quadrillion years ago. The pursuit of Scientology is to “remember” our trillions of years of existence so that we can regain those godlike powers and create universes of our own. And it was a 1930s pulp fiction writer who somehow discovered the “scientific” processes to give us those superhuman abilities.

— We gather trauma throughout past lives: In fact, in Dianetics, Hubbard proposes that we begin gathering memories of trauma as egg, sperm, and zygote, and it’s those experiences in the womb that are the most powerful ones and that Dianetics processing was developed to handle. Also, traumas from past lives, even if millions of years old, can be quite literal and restimulative. Vivian Kubrick, for example, was convinced through Scientology auditing that back pain she suffered in her current lifetime was actually left over from an injury tens of thousands of years ago. Hubbard, meanwhile, said that we can re-experience in our jaw muscles what we as thetans went through as we inhabited ocean clams hundreds of millions of years ago. Aslan will probably also not mention that Hubbard, in order to illustrate how past lives worked, described his many lifetimes spent as a race car driver on Earth some 40,000 years ago, racing on a track booby-trapped with atomic bombs.

— Trauma is cleared through a process called “auditing”: Of course you’re going to feel better after you sit down with a friend and talk about difficulties you’ve had in your past, and we never hesitate to point out why this basic activity in auditing leads some people to believe it’s a benign activity. But will Aslan describe how incredibly repetitive and time-consuming auditing is, because it’s not just trying to help you de-fang troubling old memories, but also because it’s trying to install an entirely new vocabulary and way of thinking in order to convince you that L. Ron Hubbard is the sole source of anything positive in your life, and that his discoveries must be kept “pure” (“Keeping Scientology Working”) and should be followed slavishly? And will Aslan point out that even independent auditors are following Hubbard’s bizarre “Bridge” into its “Operating Thetan” levels, where Scientologists spend years chasing away unseen extra thetans that are supposedly attached to us after a 75-million-year-old galactic genocide? (Yes, indies do OT 3, too.)

Aslan is one of those who is quick to say that Scientology is no stranger than any other religion, and the only difference is that Hubbard’s invention is “younger” than other faiths. But that’s a naive view. Scientology is based on a parlor trick that uses an electronic device to convince new members that it’s somehow scientific and legitimate. (If Aslan were an actual journalist, instead of taking up the cans without question he might wonder why a machine that reads “thoughts” is held in the hands at all, which introduces the ideomotor effect, the same phenomenon behind dowsing, for example.) What really separates Scientology is that it’s so dishonest to its own members, deceiving them for years about what they’re actually getting into. That’s one of many things that differentiate it from other groups that are much more open about what they believe — to both members and outsiders.

Well, OK, so Aslan will give L. Ron Hubbard his best press in decades, as we predicted last year. But again, what proof does he have that indie Scientology is growing at an “astonishing” rate and, as he says in the teaser apparently with a straight face, that it may end up one of the world’s “great religions”?

How big is independent Scientology, really? For the Church of Scientology itself, we’ve relied on our estimates in a number of ways, including recent defectors who were top executives and had access to enrollment documents. Those sources suggest to us that the church is now down to only about 20,000 active members around the world, down from a maximum size of about 100,000 members in 1990.

For some grasp on the independents, we reached out to a California man named Craig Robart, who is known throughout independent and Freezone Scientology for being the key source for repairing E-meters for use outside the Church of Scientology. We asked him to give us an assessment on how business has been for him lately.

“My business has slowed down a lot compared to previous years,” he says. How many meters has he been sent for repair?

“This year, nothing yet. Last year, 10 meters. 2015, 13 meters. Some are turning to indie-built models which I heavily promote, thus I expect no new business from them,” he says. “I would estimate I’ve had over 250 customers — including internationally — over a 14-year period.”

He says there are “a lot” of “quietly busy” independent auditors practicing Scientology, and we asked him to make an estimate. How many people around the country would he say are auditing outside the church on a regular basis?

He says that there are about two dozen full-time, professional auditors who do their work for pay in the U.S. And altogether, he estimates about 400 independent Scientologists in total.

That sounds about right, based on our own observations over the last 20 years. Several hundred people pursuing Scientology as a practice on their own outside the church, with the rest of the many thousands who have left the church in recent decades giving up the practice altogether. Now, let’s look again at how Reza Aslan characterized it:

“Those new versions are spreading at an unbelievable rate. It’s a weird phenomenon where Scientology as a religion is flourishing even as Scientology as a church seems to be contracting somewhat.”

We’ll be very interested to see what sort of proof he offers for that claim on Sunday night.

In the meantime, we’ll point out what we did a year ago, when CNN’s series was originally supposed to come out. On occasion, we are taken to task for focusing so much energy on such a small organization, the Church of Scientology, with its 20,000 members. We think Scientology, with its billions in assets, its ruthless legal tactics, and the way it treats children and families is worth keeping an eye on, even if we are just, for the most part, a sole proprietor with a single-subject website.

If some people, however, don’t think the Church of Scientology is worth paying attention to, what does it say that CNN, with its worldwide media reach, will be using its mighty resources to promote a “movement” of perhaps only a few hundred people doing something that is not really very controversial or that affects many other people at all?

“Aslan is clearly confused or deliberately trying to create a scenario to fit his preconceived story line,” Mike Rinder tells us. He points out, however, that even if Aslan is all wet, his show might accidentally be useful for people still stuck in the Church of Scientology to believe that there are alternatives to Miscavige’s brand of Hubbardism. “The idea that Scientology is only available in the church is something Miscavige and company try very hard to pretend is true.” The idea that there are alternatives, Rinder says, could be “beneficial.” But as for Aslan’s claims about the size and growth of independent Scientology?

“It just makes Aslan look uninformed and stupid,” Rinder says.

 
——————–

Bonus items from our tipsters

Pushing books in London…

 
——————–

 
HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25. Go here to start making your plans. (Thank you, Observer. And yes, that’s really Bernie, circa 1973!)

 
——————–

 
——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on March 21, 2017 at 07:00

E-mail 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. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2016 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2016), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. 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

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | 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 | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | 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

 Last year, former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder predicted that 2015 would bring his former employer “pain.” And it sure was a tough year for David Miscavige and his followers. With Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear and Leah Remini’s book Troublemaker, more people than ever are learning about Scientology and its controversies.

But not everyone is apparently [...]]]>

 
Last year, former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder predicted that 2015 would bring his former employer “pain.” And it sure was a tough year for David Miscavige and his followers. With Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear and Leah Remini’s book Troublemaker, more people than ever are learning about Scientology and its controversies.

But not everyone is apparently happy about that. Back when Gibney’s movie was first getting a lot of publicity, we heard from a couple of national figures who criticized the idea of singling out Scientology for examination. One of them was Reza Aslan, a rising star in the religious writing field and a frequent presence on television. Here’s what he told CNN:

I don’t think it’s fair to refer to Scientology as a cult. I mean, really the difference between a religion and a cult tends to be how long the religion lasts. Christianity was a cult for three hundred years. Mormonism was considered a cult for a hundred years. In fact, there are people today who still refer to Mormonism as a cult. Is it somehow different than other religious traditions in the way that it deals with its internal structure, in the disaffection of its former movement members? No, I don’t think so.

That’s easily the most frequent criticism we run into when Scientology is exposed as a cynical, nefarious organization that hurts its members: Well, religions are all the same. (And we’re not even going to go into L. Ron Hubbard’s exploitation of “the religious angle” and whether Scientology deserves to be called a religious organization at all. Also, Aslan’s statement is exactly why we avoid using the word ‘cult.’ It causes more confusion than understanding.) As we explained to Alex Gibney in his movie, why this common complaint fails is that Scientology’s essentially deceptive nature is what sets it apart…

 
Anyway, the reason we bring this up is that the new year is bringing a lot of predictions for what 2016 will bring Scientology. And while there’s more controversy on the way — particularly the upcoming memoir by Ron Miscavige Sr., “If He Dies, He Dies” — you can also expect something of a backlash to the criticism Scientology has been receiving.

And one place to expect it from is Reza Aslan and CNN.

Last year, it was announced that Aslan would be hosting a new CNN series in 2016, “Believer.” In its announcement, CNN was clearly anticipating the solid ratings it gets whenever it panders to religious viewers. And here was a chance to have a series featuring good news about different faiths around the world, including Scientology.

We were contacted by a producer for the show in the summer, who tried to convince us that the episode on Scientology will talk about the organization’s controversial past. That may be so, but Aslan is apparently trying hard to find nice things to say about L. Ron Hubbard and his followers. Here’s an email he sent Karen de la Carriere, for example, which she allowed us to show you…

Dear Karen,

My name is Reza Aslan. I’m a scholar of religions, an author, a frequent media commentator, and host of a new CNN documentary series called Believer. Think Anthony Bourdain but “faith” instead of “food.” I’m immersing myself in religious traditions around the world – without judgement or criticism – as a way of understanding other world views, of drawing bridges between believers and unbelievers, and of trying to make what some people may find strange and unfamiliar less strange and more relatable.

I am contacting you because we are filming an episode about people in the FreeZone community. I am interested in the lived experience of normal, everyday Independent Scientologists and members of the Free Zone who have left the official Church of Scientology. I am looking for people who have been helped by the philosophies of L. Ron Hubbard, his ideas and practices, why and how they came to it and how it has helped them in their lives. That’s why I’m reaching out to you: to see if you’d be willing to speak to me about your beliefs.

I understand you may be wary – I would be too considering the treatment of Scientology in the media. But I assure you I have no interest in further amplifying the voices of Scientology’s critics. They’ve been heard plenty. The show is called Believer because it focuses on believers. I myself am a believer – a Muslim – a follower of a religion that is only SLIGHTLY less misunderstood and feared than Scientology 🙂 So I have no intention of treating other believers, regardless of their religion, with skepticism or revulsion. I want to show the beauty and appeal of other religions because I honestly and truly believe these are all different paths to the same destination.

So what do you say? Will you talk to me? I hope so.

Peace,
Reza

This was followed up by an email from one of the show’s producers, who told Karen, “We had great experiences talking to people in the Freezone and independent communities in LA, Reno and Israel.”

Reno was where the Freezone held its annual convention in June. And Israel must refer to Dani Lemberger’s breakaway mission in Haifa.

Back in 2012, one of our favorite stories was our lengthy and non-judgmental story about Dani and his ardent belief in L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas. We have always found the “independent” movement interesting, at the same time that we have taken an unsparing look at Hubbard and his ideas. But is the “indie” movement really a news story except as a foil to the Church of Scientology itself? If the church did not exist, would anyone care that a tiny group of people think that science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard was on to something about past lives and superhuman powers?

We just wanted to make something very clear. On occasion, we are asked whether it makes sense to pay attention to an organization, the Church of Scientology, that has only about 40,000 members around the world. Well, we’re just one person with a small website, and we think it’s worth keeping an eye on a multi-billion-dollar entity that still seeks to have influence over many more people. We do so despite the hazards that come with covering Scientology, hazards that are very real.

Now CNN, a giant media organization, is going to use its media power to shine a favorable light on a movement that, at its national annual convention, managed to gather about 36 people.

Think about it.

As for Karen, here’s her response to a CNN producer who recently contacted her about getting images for the show…

“As long as this show is pushing the benefits of Scientology I want no part in it. This entity killed my son.”

 
——————–

Bonus photos from our tipsters

Rizza Islam at the New Year’s Eve party held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Actual caption: “Peace beautiful family!!! Me, my court-mate, and some of the family at the IAS new years party at the Beverly Wilshire hotel! Even though the new year begins in April we decided to come and have fun anyway! Bring in the new year with love, happiness, peace and PRAYER!”

 
——————–

Posted by Tony Ortega on January 2, 2016 at 07:00

E-mail 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. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated 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 L.A. 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

Other links: The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | 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