'Going Clear': Scientology Made Scary

[KamaAina]

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/going-clear-scientology-114747708150.html

A religion founded by a science-fiction writer with a fondness for yachting caps, Scientology may be recognized as a legitimate religion by our government, but by anyone else who watches HBO’s documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, it seems more like a cartoon of mendacity.

Former members tell stories of forced labor, removing children from their parents, compelling adherents to part with large sums of money only to be repaid with the revelation that our Earth is a “prison planet” overseen by the all-powerful galatic overlord Xenu, who sounds like a foe Jack Kirby might have dreamed up to battle the Fantastic Four. None of this makes Scientology sound like the most welcoming of religions, does it?...

A few former believers tell Gibney’s cameras that Scientology eventually came to seem a scam, and no one seems scammier than Hubbard’s successor, David Miscavige. After Hubbard died in 1986, Miscavige, a second-in-command functionary with the fixed smile of a zealot harboring nasty secrets, launched what one observer says was nothing less than a “coup,” forming close ties with Cruise in particular. (It’s easy to see why: Miscavige looks and carries himself like a scrawny little brother of the movie star’s.)

It’s one thing to read about the grand ballroom rallies Miscavige and Cruise held to open the hearts and wallets of the faithful; it’s another to actually see footage of these spectacularly tacky events, tricked out in fascist backdrop imagery. You’d think a shrewd guy like Cruise would have realized he was being used as an extra in what looks like a Leni Riefenstahl rally film.

[RKP5637]

1. Wish I had HBO just for this. n/t

[hifiguy]

2. Something about this Miscavige character

just screams "Yeah, I hang out at the bus station trolling for runaways. You want to make something of it?"

[longship]

3. May they all be plagued forever by Thetans!

And never go "clear".

Wait a minute... that's what the evil Scientology cult actually does. Once one is "clear" there's no more need for those expensive E-meter audits. Can't let that happen! So it doesn't!

And Tom Cruise? He's a fucking idiot. I hate that guy.

[Mz Pip]

4. I can't wait to see this film.

When I was a student 40+ years ago I dated a guy who was into Scientology. I'd never heard of it. He signed me up for the first level course. It was bizarre, with heavy duty indoctrination techniques. I wasn't interested but the instructors, or whatever they called themselves were very high pressure. They really harassed me to keep taking more classes and called me at my job for months, trying to badger me into continuing. They would not take no for an answer. They finally lost track of me after I moved.

Another group at the time that was similar was EST. Even way back then, I was not a person who could be easily manipulated but for someone who is gullible and naive I could be easy to fall prey to the pressure to belong to a group that basically controls your life.

[Marie Marie]

5. I will be glued to this program - can't wait.

Love to see scams and shams exposed and this particular hoax of a religion seems like a doozy.

[NaturalHigh]

6. We just dumped HBO.

I wish we still had it just for this. It will be on some sort of streaming service soon enough, though.

[edhopper]

7. I wonder if they will go over the strange story

from the 90s when the "church" was on the verge of bankruptcy due to taxes, the head honcho had a personal meeting with the head of the IRS. When he walked out, the "church" had full religious exemption and no longer owed the Government the billions it did.

But in 1993, Scientology finally did achieve tax-exempt status from the IRS—a massive victory in the Church’s quest for mainstream acceptance. It did so, according to the New York Times, only “after an extraordinary campaign orchestrated by Scientology against the agency and people who work there” that included the hiring of “private investigators to dig into the private lives of I.R.S. officials and to conduct surveillance operations to uncover potential vulnerabilities.” Scientology even set up a front group, the National Coalition of IRS Whistle-blowers, to battle the agency. As if to emphasize the capriciousness of the IRS’s decision, just a year before the agency’s reversal, a decision by the U.S. Claims Court rejected Scientology’s case for tax-exemption, citing “the commercial character of much of Scientology,” its virtually incomprehensible financial procedures” and its “scripturally based hostility to taxation.”

[CBGLuthier]

8. Forced labor? Removing children from their parents? Sounds like the catholic church in Ireland

But at least their origin story is more plausible. Dust and ribs and a god who sends himself to save us from himself beats space aliens flying DC 10s into volcanoes

[Initech]

9. I am definitely interested in watching this.

I've always been fascinated with the church of Scientology mainly because of what they do to their non performing and ex communicated members. Hopefully this documentary can shed some light.

[mimi85]

10. We DVRed the show and just finished watching it.

If you want to be creeped out, this show will do it. What they do with the babies and children are major human rights violations. I thought the JWs were nuts, but these crazies take the proverbial cult cake. Scary shit. Very scary. The fact that they are tax exempt makes my blood boil!

[edhopper]

11. I am reviving this thread because

I finally got around to seeing the documentary.

Several thoughts:

One thing is that even if we don't address the bullshit "beliefs" of Scientology as a religion (Hubbard obviously just made shit up) much of it's should not be tax exempt.

It's little David Miscavige is a criminal and is shorter than Tom Cruise.

Congress goes after Acorn and Planned Parenthood and leaves these creeps alone.

Reasonable people can be indoctrinated into outlandish beliefs and be made to act on them to their own detriment (true of all religions)