Scientology Improving its Image

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/blurbex/2008/07/25/scientology-sticks-to-you-like-lint/

"There’s no doubt that the Church of Scientology has improved its image in the last decade or so. A little less secretive, a little less scary (although still creepy), more the butt of a good joke than a genuine threat."

Now, while this statement may be surprising considering the amount of negative information to be found about Scientology on the Internet, consider the following:

My web site has been around for the last 10 years. At the time, people thought that by revealing the Xenu story through the Internet, and circulating horror stories about Scientology, the CoS will have to close doors in short order.

Yet, what happened in those 10 years? In spite of all the information available, the CoS is still around, and rather than closing doors it is busy buying historical buildings around the world for billions of dollars. The Xenu story is widely available, and yet people keep on joining Scientology. The dwindling legions of anonymous protest outside the CoS with accusatory signs and conspiracy theories, and they are being roundly ignored.

Because criticis have been putting out such an exaggerated portrayal of Scientology, the public at large ended up seeing through their propaganda, and they lost credibility. The negative publicity, combined with external information the public could evaluate, turned Scientology into "the butt of a good joke" rather "a genuine threat".

In other words, the public did not buy eventually into the myth that Scientology was a dangerous cult that kills dissidents and that brainwash its members, and which should be stopped at any cost. It has become less of a mystery, and though still universally decried, it is only viewed as a sort of lunacy rather than something from which to be really afraid of.

In this sense, Scientology indeed improved its image in the last decade and, frankly, in spite of the Internet, things have not changed that much. Whereas before hand they would say to a prospect "do you believe everything you read in the newspaper" to get people to listen to them, they would just say "do you believe everything you read on the Internet" now. People may start to listen and realize that many of the assertions made by critics simply were not correct, and so Scientology will continue to expand in spite of the negative publicity, or maybe thanks to it.

Morality: don't exaggerate, don't paint a picture grimmer than it actually is. Be honest, proportionate, and reasonable. Then, when somebody encounters Scientology, he may have real tools to question its indoctrination, rather than sensationalized and childish arguments easily dismissed and that are of no help whatsoever when the going get though.

Tory/Magoo Loose with Facts and Paranoid

I have been impressed by Magoo's ability in public lectures, but I have always been less than impressed by her constant accusations of anybody disagreeing with her of being "OSA". This makes her look foolish and cultish. This supposedly free speech activist was also always in favor of a strongly moderated group on IRC, so that "OSA agent" (read anybody who disagrees with her fanatical anti-Scientology world view) could be wiped out.

I am not the only critic with this impression, though, as recounted on this account:

"I’ve been participating in the Scientology “critics” scene since 2000. I posted for the first 5 years anonymously via remailers. OSA finally outed me and I eventually started posting under my real name.

I was in the cult for 27 years and worked for OSA. I’m basically the worst of the worst as far as Ex’s go.

I despise the cult and but have been on a mission to expose them. The only problem is that for the past 8 years I have had to deal with Scientology critics. There are only a handful of critics that actually do anything. These are the people that have anti scn web sites. I don’t have a website. I provide information (dox) for websites.

I guess I am a bit confused about the term Old Guard.

OG= what I call Scientology critics or the arscc (wdne) = alt.religion.scientology central council (which does not exist) Ars has a core group of Scientology critics that don’t always get along.

It’s a massive troll fest over there because there are a few “critics” like Tory that believes every troll is really Bill Yaude or someone from her “Secret OSA Internet Mafia”. Of which she has posted about 5 fucking thousand times.

Tory tends to hyperbole and gets real huffy when asked for dox. I’ve gone a few rounds with her on ars and ocmb over her exaggerations and being fast and loose with the facts, but all I ever got for my efforts was to be accused of being OSA or doing OSA’s work.

When I or anyone would push the point with her, she would send out reinforcements. I’ve had it reported to me more than once that Tory was pming people to defend her against me.

So for my efforts on getting Tory to not be such a showboat and being sloppy with facts, I would be called a sociopath, a liar, evil OSA, and per Arnie Lerma and the Lermaloons, under the spell of the evil gypsy queen.

As far as OCMB – they are not really critics. Except for one of two, they are basically a bunch of do nothing chest pounding retards. I suggest you ignore them. They are nothing but a pimple on anonymous ass.

I can’t thank you guys enough for seeing through this insane bullshit and calling it out. All I want to do is help by providing dox and info. You guys are smart, you can figure out what to do with it, or not.

I want to expose this cult and I know most of you want the same.

Thanks for not being insane ex cultists."

Gorman Bullies for Lerma Too

One should not be surprised to see Tommy Gorman in bed with people like Magoo and Lerma. In this post, Fluffy girl reminds us how Gorman enforced the ban of people Lerma did not like, for no better reason that they do not share his fanatical anti-Scientology views, and also how Gorman kept on bully her in OCMB:

"They can start with his tendency to libel people he does not know and to make assumptions about them. Arnie placed Tommy Gorman in charge of Factnet's Scn subforum(Arnie and Wolly are evidently friends) and Tommy immediately threw off everyone Arnie told him to, which, IIRC, was Tigger, UMike and myself. The grounds were that those individuals were supposedly mean to his friend. Yeah, that's a great reason to do that, sure. It's very Cof$-like.

Then, as a topper, Tommy posted a vile accusation about my husband and myself (that we are "perverts") on OCMB because of my husband's humorous and critical JPGs about Scn. I told him OSA didn't like the JPGs and he all but called me a liar.

He then informed me that I didn't like his commentary because "The truth hurts-LOL" to which I responded that he hadn't actually posted any truth regarding this and that anytime he'd like to get around to posting some truth, I'd sure like to see if "it hurts-LOL".

Personally, I think that he's got a learning disability of some sort or has some mental problems or both. He spent a lot of time spamming the hell out of the "your story in Scn" section of OCMB before they assigned a moderator.

I know people who've met Tommy Gorman and really liked him but I've not had the opportunity to encounter anything likeable.

He'd have far more credibility with me if he didn't attack other critics. My guess is that he doesn't like whomever Arnie tells him not to like. That's exactly why he did what he did on Factnet and OCMB.

It's sad when people leave the cult and still cannot think for themselves."

Daily Argus Hamilton

http://www.extremeink.com/jokes/2008/07/argus-hamiltons-column-for-7-25-08.html

"John Edwards was caught by the National Enquirer at the Beverly Hilton Monday seeing his mistress and their infant love child. So that's it. All last year when he campaigned against premature withdrawal everybody assumed he was talking about Iraq."

"Barack Obama continued his tour of the Middle East and Europe Wednesday where he posed for pictures of himself with world leaders, pictures of himself with the troops, and pictures of himself in foreign capitals. The worst is yet to come. Is there anything in the world more aggravating than someone just back from vacation?"

"President Bush told a Houston crowd Friday that Wall Street was on a drunk and he wondered when they will sober up. He's one to talk. The decision to cite false evidence to invade Iraq showed such sobriety that AA just added it to the Twelve Steps."