Friday, February 13, 2009

Scientology Oh No

YouTube - Scientology Oh No.

This 18-years old girl made some favorable videos for Scientology but has now changed her mind.

The video has been featured on Mark Bunker's blog, as well as "Tom Newton's" blog.

Tom thinks it's a sham because the girl only registered on Youtube recently and she already has so many Anonymous friends.

I listened to the video and I don't think it's a sham. What she says about the registrar pressure and what she did in Scientology is plausible. She also sounds sincere.

Her main point is that if Scientology really cared about people, they would not pressure them as they do to do the courses.

I agree with her on that. The registrar pressure is one of the cultish aspects of Scientology.

Mind you, she does not seem to think the tech itself is bad:
"I am not saying that the courses won't help you. but that it has to be what the customers want" [...]

"I am not going to say that I regret it in the first place, because the experiences I did have there at the time when I was doing my first session did feel real, but other than that I feel you really need to draw the line, know your boundaries, or you'll end up handing your house to the CoS, as some did."
However, she really is quite clueless when it comes to Scientology itself.

To start with, no Scientologists would swallow half of their words as she does. That girl either did not do the communication course, or, if she did, didn't understand it and certainly does not apply it.

She also claims that the "Up and Down" course teaches that SP have "that (bad) energy" about them. As far as I remember, Scientology teaches that SPs are stuck in past incidents, not that they have a bad energy about them.

By all means, she says she started the courses last January. Her experience is obviously limited, and it shows.

Apparently, she removed the previous videos she did, which is a pity, because people cannot make their mind about her story with incomplete information. I think she should leave them up and, if she wants, put comments on them pointing to her later videos, or comments pointing to why she thinks otherwise now.

She will obviously be flooded with Shallonymous own version, and she already starts using the "Scientology is hypnosis" myth. In fact, one may wonders if this is not what happened at the outset, as she started posting pro-Scientology videos.

I hope, however, that she will be able to see through Shallonymous' cultish aspect just as she saw through Scientology's one.

It's a typical Scientology 1 and Scientology 2 case. The mix of both in a single group can be quite confusing indeed.

Starting Other News

Those last days I only commented about a couple of news only, because I simply don't have the time to follow all of them as I used to, as I now am engaged in other projects.

I will try to keep on commenting on the main news, and for the other ones that may be newsworthy, I'll just group them under the banner of "Other News" for that day, with just a single paragraph comment or quote. I may try to back track in this for the recent days.

The first example of such is below.

Other News, Feb 13

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Gestures 'help kids learn speech' -links to Scientogy "mass in learning" and to Rudolf Steiners' concept of "pre-mental".

Ex Scientology Kids :: View topic - Bernie: Marty Rathbun sees through web -"The majority of the "anti-cult fanatics," as Bernie calls them, want Marty to take responsibility for his past actions and to speak publicly about what he knows. They are not asking for him to do "nasty things" to the Co$." - although I disagree with this statement, I did get carried away in what I wrote and now corrected it.

benevoles-india - Scientology is increasingly turning to new markets. India is one.

Just Kat Stuff: Coffee Poem - nice poem from this Scientologist - and yammy, what best is there than a good coffee?

Slyck News - Slyck Interviews Giganews: "Giganews: As a Service Provider under the DMCA, we stand in stark contrast to file sharing technologies such as BitTorrent. The DMCA is the codification of the Netcom case , which arose from a copyright holder attempting to hold a Usenet provider liable for user-generated content in a Usenet newsgroup (alt.religion.scientology). The DMCA provides clear guidelines and 'Safe Harbors' which clearly outline a process for protecting copyrights. If copyrighted materials are available through our service without a copyright holder's consent, the copyright holder can send us a DMCA 'take-down' notice and we promptly remove such materials from our systems."

Los Angeles News - On Web Vigilantes: "My Date With Anonymous" Draws Anonymous Responses - page 1: The two aspects of Anonymous: "Don’t package me in with these tossers. Don’t ever think that we’re trying to do good in the world, just in our misguided, vigilante way. We’re just looking for a good laugh."

Tattle: Will Smith is tops in bankability survey | Philadelphia Daily News | 02/12/2009: "That Tom Cruise isn't on the list is simply a case of anti-Scientology, Hollywood-people-think-the-guy-is-a-jerk bias. Grossing $82 million from 'Val-kyrie,' Cruise has had only one box-office flop this century (the political, art-house movie, 'Lions for Lambs'). Otherwise he's 8-for-10 in movies grossing more than $100 million."

Orange County Arts - A Leer Back at OC's History of Theatrical Naughtiness, Nastiness and Outright Sexual Perversions - page 1: Scientology very liberal: "“Well, they don’t do two dogs onstage fucking, but they’re pretty liberal,” he replied."

Scientologist speaker aims to clear up misconceptions - News: "'There are a lot of people who criticize Scientology but don't know much about it,' said Lloyd-Moffett. 'People should understand what the religion is all about before they judge.'"

Inside Scientology: "When asked what she would say to the group Anonymous, Priscilla replied,'If they're protesting something we actually believe then I'll have a discussion with them. But most of what they say is pretty outrageous and kind of ridiculous.'"