"Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright

Cruise signed a billion year contract?

Three smegheads in those photos.
Edit: also noting the position of their fingertips in this photo. Two different salutes. Does the cult have a saluting protocol?

Maybe he's boring.

Glad you asked, YouSeeNothing.

Only the two, AFAIK. One is the made-up shit one, and the other is... the other made-up shit one.

I salute you!

Mind you, Chris Barrie could wear Cruise and Miscavige as knee-pads.

Don't forget the dogs.
What's the sea org salute? Based on the US military?

I was there for 15 years and the salute was arbitrary. Depending on where you went through the EPF you may have done it differently than the guy next to you five years later at a different base. The whole place is like that. One place a certain thing is defined one way and somewhere else it is totally different.

Great example. Getting it on. Down in PAC those kids get away with murder. Suck and fuck fest full time. They could screw each other all over the place and no one would know any different.

Up at the Int Base, Dave Miscavige was a hard-on sniffer. He could smell a hard dick from 100 paces. If you had one, he was sure to find out about it. And once he knew, he would zero in on you and dig up whatever he could to find out why, who, and how often it was hard and then punish you for it.

I can see him now, punishing someone for THINKING about having a relationship with someone. Then he walks into the next room and bones down on his assistant.

Lovely place to grow up.

But there definitely absolutely wasn't anything gay about that.

The little man has some serious sexual hang-ups. The "incestuous relationship" shit thru the Tampa Bay Times response. Who the hell says that in a public statement? No wonder he fears the "psyches".

He needs to get on the cans!

They should make a Musical out of it.

paging Trey Parker http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115819/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Why Scientology Helped Tom Cruise Fight His Ex-Wives - LAist

By Emma G. Gallegos

Tom Cruise wasn't always a high-profile Scientologist, and Scientology didn't take a shine to him right away.

Cruise was raised Catholic, and his spirituality was important enough to him that he considered entering the priesthood. He decided to go to Hollywood instead where he met Mimi Rogers, who introduced him to Scientology at age 23. Cruise started auditing, but it took a couple of years before church leader David Miscavige realized what a golden opportunity he had as Cruise's star rose with roles in "Risky Business" and "Top Gun." Miscavige wanted to make Scientology mainstream and Cruise—over all the other celebrities in the church—seemed life the perfect spokesman to do it.

The fascinating relationship between Cruise and Scientology is explored in a book coming out this week by New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright called "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief." The New York Post has a preview of some of the interesting parts.

The key moment in the relationship between Scientology and Cruise came in 1989. Cruise had become obsessed with a young actress named Nicole Kidman, but he needed help to make a clean break with Rogers. Marty Rathbun, a former higher-up in the church, helped Cruise get rid of her by explaining their split like it was a spiritual mission: "I told her this was the right thing to do for Tom. Because he was going to do lots of good for Scientology."

That marked the beginning of Cruise's rise in the church and also the beginning of the church's very intimate involvement in Cruise's love life. We had heard about Cruise's over-the-top antics with Katie Holmes later on, and apparently it was no different with Kidman:

More at http://laist.com/2013/01/13/tom_cruise_scientology.php

Things have really kicked off in the US and it is already "Clear" that 2013 will be a Scientology cult-bashing year like never before. Maybe they will get 10x the flak as in 2012.

Will the US government bring criminal charges against them? Probably not.

Will individuals successfully sue them? Probably.

Will their paying membership decrease? Certainly.

Will any of their Ideal Orgs be sold off? No, but they will continue to be a drain on finances.


Nothing happening in Europe at the moment but the Belgium thing will kick off in March 2013 and it will probably cause a lot of media focus.

Article in the UK Guardian... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/shortcuts/2013/jan/14/cant-read-scientology-book-uk?INTCMP=SRCH although it's easy enough to get hold of from Amazon UK.

With all the stupid celeb hype being garnered over Wright's book, it is nice to see Roger Friedman has cut through the the hub bub over stuff that has been known for quite some time with a brief but incisive post painting things in the proper light.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/01/13/tom-cruise-under-attack-jack-reacher-falls-at-box-office

More at the link.

The bit you bolded just makes him sound butthurt.

True, but Friedman has done more than his fair share of effort to dig up and report on exclusive dirt about Scientology long before it was fashionable to do so. Unfortunately, the bulk of his best stuff was for FOX News in its early days. Due to how low FOX News sunk over the years, people tend to forget he's been beating on Scientology in a righteous way for at least a decade now. So he's a got right to bitch to some extent, and deserves some credit for the trail he blazed that is so well-trodden nowadays.

All I can say to this is: OHAI Friedman!

I like the point that Savile got away with so much due to the libel laws in UK, and that is also the case with scn getting away with abuse. As opposed to claims that the book is lies and that is why the publishers pulled out Makes sense to link scn to a horrible creepy pervert

ORLY? That linked September 3rd story from 2003 seems to have taken the Celebrity-angle idea from Rick Ross's article 2 days earlier - http://www.cultnews.com/archives/000650.html
Not so exclusive.

But Rick Ross's site wasn't a recognized media outlet back then and he was strictly known as a cult expert. So although not entirely exclusive by today's standards where web-only content dominates, the point was Friedman was one of the early journalists who would pick up an obscure internet-only story and run with it in a major media outlet.

No. The point was attributions, and you can't say "attributions only count with major media outlets", idiot.

INB4 "Book was not published in UK 'cause Headleys lost their case..."

A Wonderful New Book About Scientology, by a Wonderful Writer - Jeffrey Goldberg - The Atlantic

Working with Lawrence Wright was one of the great pleasures of my journalism career. Even before I met Larry, at The New Yorker, I was a great admirer of his, and my admiration only grew as I got to know him personally, and as I watched him work. There is no more careful reporter in the world than Larry, and no one who is as thorough and as indefatigable.

"The Looming Tower," of course, is one of the greatest works of narrative non-fiction published in the past several decades, but all of his work on religion -- he's an unparalleled spelunker of the religious mind -- is very much worth reading. Which is why I'm so particularly excited this week to read his just-published investigation of the Church of Scientology, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.

You can order it from Amazon right here.

www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/a-wonderful-new-book-about-scientology-by-a-wonderful-writer/267178/

It's not censored. Publisher isn't releasing in Canada and it's suspected because our laws are similar to UK. Since it's not censored it can be bought elsewhere and that's what I did. Got two copies while I was at it.

Well, the Queen owns Canada, so there you go.

Sensational claims about the world of Scientology from book unlikely to be published in UK but can be revealed by The ...
The Sun ‎- 11 hours ago
SENSATIONAL Scientology allegations unpublished in UK — but revealed by The Sun.

No idea what happened there! I am told it was also a 2 page spread in the physical paper

Gone now? Scientology's lawyers on 24/7 speed dial?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/shortcuts/2013/jan/14/cant-read-scientology-book-uk

well I shouldn't have used the word "censored"
I know people can buy it elsewhere

I ordered it 10 Jan, and looks like it won't be despatched until 30 Jan, and will arrive here weeks after publication. Grr.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...hed-in-UK-but-can-be-revealed-by-The-Sun.html

http://bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2...ence-wright/JQ9lgvjm8HWvxRWoioc21M/story.html

Good stuff down at the end.

Even with CoS's mind-fuckery, and record of talking people into walking back into the trap, I really wonder about this: "Riverside Sheriff’s Department says it has never received a single report of abuse from anyone at Gold Base." Hmm.

The American military goes for the hand being flat with the index finger to the brow style salute. The other thing looks like a Benny Hill sketch.

I hit a paywall at The Boston Globe link. ???

I just get a collapsible panel, and then I'm good.

BOOK: TRAVOLTA WANTED TO MARRY A MAN! - The National Enquirer

Published on: January 17, 2013
by NATIONAL ENQUIRER staff

JOHN TRAVOLTA once threatened to turn his back on Scientology so that he could run off and marry his boyfriend.

That’s the outrageous claim made in an explosive new anti- Scientology book, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright.

In the shocking tell-all, Wright alleges that a young Travolta had grown disenchanted with the church in the early ’80s but was afraid that officials would expose him as gay if he tried to leave.

Travolta, then the most prominent member of Scientology, had allegedly confessed his homosexuality during church-run “auditing,” or counseling sessions, according to the book’s author. And while the author states that the church was terrified their top member would be exposed as gay – long considered to be an “illness” by Scientologists – Wright believes they were prepared to destroy the actor’s rising career by outing him if he tried to defect.

Frustrated over being trapped, in one emotionally charged auditing session, Travolta threatened to walk away from the church and “marry” his male lover even though gay marriage was not legal at the time, former Scientology official Jesse Prince told Wright.

Prince claims that he was the church’s second highest-ranking official when he left it after 16 years in 1992.

“Because of my position, I knew specifically what was said in certain auditing sessions, and I can confirm that John Travolta once threatened that he was going to marry his boyfriend,” Prince told The ENQUIRER.

“There’s no question (Scientology) had a lot on John’s gay activities and used it to keep him from leaving – and to keep him in line.

“At one point, John was ready to erupt and said he’d get married – that he didn’t care anymore and would turn his back on them.”

In the end, says another source, the church convinced Travolta that following through on his threat would NOT be in his best interest. He remained in the organization and eventually wed fellow Scientologist Kelly Preston in 1991.

Despite marrying a woman, Travolta, 58, continues to be at the center of gay scandals. In September, his former pilot Doug Gotterba told The ENQUIRER that he’d shared a six-year affair with the actor. And last spring, two male masseurs filed sexual battery suits against Travolta in federal court.

Although Travolta’s attorney vehemently denied the claims, several more men have since come forward with similar allegations.

Scientology responds to Wright: Karin Pouw of The Church of Scientology International said author Lawrence Wright “produced a work of fiction that does little more than regurgitate six decades of false, bizarre allegations about the religion’s Founder, its leadership and its prominent members.” She branded Wright’s sources as “angry, bitter individuals consumed with vengeance” a decade after being thrown out of the Church. “They lack credibility, are admitted liars with enormous axes to grind but fulfilled Lawrence Wright’s agenda,” Pouw added, in a media statement.

From www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/book-travolta-wanted-marry-man

Isn't that the same quote Karin Powwow gave for Nancy Many's story on ID tonight?