Noelle North acting like a child...

This video was commented by critics as "nauseating", because Noelle North who was trying to enforce a "no anonymous" sign plays in it, but in fact, it is a very neat little sketch and Noelle North really plays nicely in it. Totally enjoyable.

Pith in the Wind

So the Feb. 7 disastrous low-number protests were not the one-year anniversary one? Ok, we'll see if they can do better this Feb. 14.

Frankly, I can think of so many better things to do on Valentine day than display ignorance and hatred for a minority religion.

Nashville - Nashville Scene - Pith in the Wind - Anti-Scientology Group Anonymous Wants You to Wear a Funny Mask this Valentine's Day:

"This year, forget the flowers and box of chocolates. Since nothing's tackier than a cliched Valentine's Day gift--and because your beloved is a unique little snowflake and wants to be treated as such--why not spend the day dressed up as Natalie Portman's sidekick in 'V for Vendetta' and yelling at Operating Thetans (Bonus points if you spot a Level VIII)?

You know, quality time.

Nashville's version of Anonymous, the one-year-old Rick Rollin' Scientology haters, are planning an 11 AM VDay protest and (of course) they'd like you to join them.

Related blog entries: -NashvilleOrg-

Dianatic

There is no misspelling in the title. Shortly after meeting Dianetic/Scientology, John Travolta also met with Diane Hyland.

Douglas Thompson, John Travolta's biographer, reports in an excellent article the impact this had on John, as well as the dramatic outcome, and the link it has with the tragedy through which he and his family are going through presently.

One of the irony of this story, something that is not highlighted in the article, is that John met Diana through his part in the TV movie, "The Boy In The Plastic Bubble" about a boy born with a deficient immune system.

Biographer: Family man John Travolta will persevere after death of son, Jett

In 1976, when John was a 22-year-old teen idol receiving 10,000 fan-letters a week, he was offered a part in the TV movie, "The Boy In The Plastic Bubble" about a boy born with a deficient immune system. The "Peyton Place" star, Diana Hyland played his on-screen mother and would become one of the greatest influences in John's life.

Travolta's perpetual charm kicked in from day one of "Bubble." But he found something happening to him. His attitude to women had been, to put it kindly, cavalier. He hid deeper feelings for them out of fear of a fun relationship turning permanent.

But with Diana it was different. "On our first meeting I was just incredibly attracted to this woman," he told me. "She'd gone through a rough marriage (divorcing actor Joe Goodson and keeping their three-year-old son, Zachary), a lot of career ups and downs, and had come out at peace with herself. [...]

The couple began an intense affair but in the Christmas of that year, tragedy struck. Diana thought she had caught flu and was plagued by back trouble, aches and pains throughout the Christmas of 1976. By the time she saw her doctor in the New Year, she was told that cancer had spread throughout her body. There was nothing anyone could do.

John was filming "Saturday Night Fever" but on March 26th, 1977, he flew to Diana's family home in Ohio. Within 24 hours she was dead. [...]

His sister Ellen once explained to me: "He was devastated not only by the loss but because there was nothing he could do. [...]

He was never the same. Something like that changes you forever."

He turned down the Richard Gere role in "American Gigolo" and found himself more and more drawn to the Scientology movement which the actress Joan Prather had converted him to the previous year.

Many Entries

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have only one blog entry. Today there will be a deluge of them :-( Not that there are many news. On the contrary it's rather quiet on the news front, but I went through my daily reading routine and just marked plenty for comments. Comments will therefore be very short for most of them.

Angry Gay Pope and Jeff Jacobsen Forced Down the Tube

YouTube banned Angry Gay Pope (AGP) after he apparently violated YouTube's terms of service three times in less than six months. At the same time, Jeff Jacobsen received the first of three warnings as well, and has been forced to pull down one of his videos.

Critics don't explicitely say the reason (maybe they don't precisely know it either) but it may have something to do with restraining orders.

Indeed, AGP writes in the post quoted above:

Although the videos are just conversations the cult has a restraining order against me over the incidents. That means they qualify as "harassment" by legal standards and that violates YouTube's terms of service.

What AGP qualifies as "just conversations", is, I believe, the video about which I blogged about back in July 7, and which I already qualified as "harassment and stalking" at the time. It seems like the courts agreed with that assessment later on. It may be that since the video has been considered as proof enough to justify a restraining order (and this is far from being the only "peaceful-protests-just-conversation" AGP did, as I blogged about on Nov 30), it is now illegal to post it on YouTube.

Jacobsen's video may fall under the same reason, though I fail to see how it qualifies either as Moxon being "dissed", as Jeff claims (on the contrary I think Moxon is coming out good), or as something illegal. They do speak about "restraining order" in that video, though, which makes me think it may have something to do with a reason similar as the one AGP talk about above.

Anonymous Pulls CoS Book Out of Shop

UN is selling Co$-PR. UPDATE: LOL NOT ANYMORE (at least online) - Why We Protest | Activism Forum

Anonymous found out that the UN shop was selling what is probably a CoS front group book, "Youth for Human Right" . Flood of calls and email to put it down, which the UN does, at least online.

My question is- isn't that a free speech abuse?

What would be the reason to ask then to put it down?

Everybody on WWP of course automatically agrees that this is bad bad bad, but I have not seen what is the argument for it.

If a Christian group publishes a book dealing with Human Rights, should it be banned too?

The UN shop website has in fact very few items.

One of it is entitled "1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World".

Is it OK for this book to be sold and not the Human Right one of the CoS? Why?

What about if the Muslim book would be called "1001 Inventions: L. Ron Hubbard Heritage in Our World"?

What if another book they sell, "Doing Business 2008" was published by Wise, another CoS front group? Would it be reason enough to make a scandal and ask the UN shop to pull it out right away?

I am only pondering...


Relate blog entry: R-Youth4HumanRight-

Nearly Blind

Tory, Magoo, vocal ex-member and opinion leader of anonymous, has chosen a rather fitting nick, as Magoo means "nearly blind".

Alleged Nude Rihanna Pics Leaked

Alleged nude Rihanna pics leaked on the Web! | The Dish Rag | Los Angeles Times: "What do you think? Is this really Rihanna? If it is, who do you think took the pics and then sequentially leaked them to the Web?"

Well, yes, I think it's her. Anyway, I like to think it's her.




If she was not a singer she could be a model (isn't she?). I think she is absolutely stunning and beats hand on many professional top models if not all of them.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Criticism

Some time ago I webbed Alice Bailey's book, "Ponder on This", which is a compilation from the 30 or so Bailey's books, grouped on selected themes. Each excerpt was linked to a full version of every book some guy had put on the net.

I then received a cease and desist letter from Lucis Trust, who owns the copyright, and I had to put my pages down. The other guy who webbed the full version had to put it down too. However, I did ask permission to use at least some excerpts in a fair use spirit. They never replied to my request, something I was not very happy about and which prompted me to put all my Bailey's page down with a notice stating the reason why.

It now turns out Lucis Trust is making a page of their own that is, basically, identical to the one I had, except that they link each excerpt to the advertise of each book in which the excerpt is contained. I am not sure they are not even copying/pasting from my ex-pages, though I think they probably re-scan everything themselves to make sure it's identical to the original.

Well, I don't mind. I am glad I could contribute at least with the idea, maybe, though it would have been more easy for them to ask me to just link to the advertise of the books rather than to the full version.

Anyway, good thing it's back on-line. I shall update my notice page sometimes too.

PS - To bring this post back on topic, I would say that it may be a good idea for the CoS to do something like this too. Maybe they do it already, I don't know. If they prevent critics from publishing their copyrighted work, even in a fair use manner, then at least they could publish some of it themselves. Such a compilation could be a good enticement and would promote their basic views into society.

The CoS could even address the many distortions critics engage into by publishing clarifications and context, a bit like I did recently with my medical claims page, and a bit like what Louanne is doing. In this manner, they would turn criticsism into opportunities to clarify their teaching and fine-tune them to better target their audience.

Of course, this is not in par with the L. Ron Hubbard's philosophy regarding criticism at all, which is to never defend, always attack; to tag all those who criticize Scientology as some sort of criminals; to engage only in "good news"; and to keep at prospering instead.

Well, it's a choice. Who knows which approach is the best eventually. It's true that by not addressing anything they can just dismiss all critics with the same brush. and since critics do engage, on top of valid criticism, in grotesque claims as well, it does work somehow. If the CoS was to address that part of the criticism that is false, they would be left with that part of it that is true, and they would have to reform. Guess they just don't want that, nor is it compatible with LRH's spirit that present it as an ultimate planet-saving revelation of which every criticism bring us nearer to the doom.

Daily Argus Hamilton

July 16 entries

"Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt gave birth to twins last weekend in France, adding to their growing brood. It's one noisy house. The children they have adopted have already begun demanding international development aid from the children they have had."

"Miss Venezuela won the title of Miss Universe Sunday. Miss USA slipped onstage and fell legs up in a slit evening gown for the second straight year. Ever since Britney Spears started doing their choreography they get a lot more views on YouTube."

Scientology launching its own channel on YouTube

Scientology launching its own channel on YouTube.

Jonathan Ross and... Tom Cruise

johnalexwood: Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and... Tom Cruise

Funny this Scientologist had ticket for Ross' show but could not attend because it ended up being canceled after the BBC suspended Ross' show for three months in the wake of his antics together with Russel Brand. And now his ticket will be valid for the new show, opening up with... Tom Cruise! Now that's an OT win :-)

Ironically Russel Brand's new UK show - titled Scandalous - is starting to tour the country in the same week that Ross resumes his BBC shows after his suspension.

Now something telling me we will be hearing more from those two... and, to start with, the Ross/Cruise combination may be an explosive one... hold on to your seat this Jan 23!

Scientology Justice Manual

Some valid criticism towards the strong stance Scientology takes towards its critics.

The Modus Operandi of Mystery

L. Ron Hubbard. Philadelphia Doctorate Course 24 What's Wrong With This Universe - A Working Package For The Auditor.

You will notice the modus operandi of mystery in this universe. You see, it doesn’t happen to be a pattern for all universes, fortunately, but the modus operandi of mystery is simply to hide nothing.

Lord Dunseny tells one of the most wonderful stories about a monastery which was scheduled to fall one day, and this monastery was up on a high hill and there was a rumor and a legend had gone forward for many centuries that on a certain day the monastery would fall. And uh… the day came, and one of the peasants in the valley walked up to the monastery and walked in the front gate. He was quite astonished to find no guards on duty because the guards were back in a corner of a courtyard weeping because that day the monastery was scheduled to fall.

And so he walked on through to an inner chamber and he was not stopped because all of the guards there were weeping ‘cause the monastery was scheduled to fall that day, and he walked on into an inner sanctum and an inner sanctum sanctorum sanctorum plus, and uh… finally came down unguarded corridors to the largest central room of this entire place where the mystery of all mysteries of all mysteries was kept, and here behind, at the far side of the room… obviously, the mystery was behind these huge black curtains, and he walked over and he looked at the curtains and he thought, „Well, it’s a very adventurous thing to do,“ but the monastery was scheduled to fall that day, so he adventured to do it. And he reached up and he pulled the curtains down and there was nothing there. And the monastery fell that day.

Comment by Check Xenu:

What happens when Pre-Clears pull down the curtain? Dianetic Clear
- You mocked up your own reactive mind.
What happens when Pre-OTs pull down the curtain? Operating Thetan VIII
- You mocked up your own past lives.

Hubbard went to a lot of effort to hide nothing, convince people it was really something, and get them to pay to discover it was nothing to begin with. The weird thing is how he confuses them so badly that by the time they pull down the curtain, they are ready to accept the nothing they find as if it were something valuable... well... at least until their "psychosomatic ills" return.

You know, the definition of a Static is ... nothing!

And the aim of Scientology is to bring you back to this Native State...

So there... You are warned right from the very first axiom of Scientology ;-).

A Scientology Christmas

Well, the following, posted today by a Church of Scientology Organization, is not precisely what I would call a good message.

We are the hope of man. The only hope. ... Mankind’s salvation lies within our hands.

Of course every religion, almost, think it holds the exclusivity on salvation. But really... not my cup of tea!

The Positive "Cult Experience"

Some anti-cultists like to post a list of "post-cult syndromes", the weakness of which has been discussed by Monica Pignotti and Lema Nal.

However, why not post lists of strengths too? (Bearing the same limitation that these are not necessarily caused by cult membership).

I can see a few positive aspects.

I was interested to read recently that most high profile defectors have done rather well in re-integrating society, in spite of having spent 20-35 years in Scientology and having no formal high-level education. I have seen that with myself and my friends as well. I think it has to do partly with some of the useful things we learn while in such a group, but also because of the fact that (I believe) most "cult members" are bright people who join alternative groups because they see through the limits of society and are not satisfied with it. They are idealist-oriented people who seek something better.

The "cult experience" also provides one with a feeling of "having found what I was looking for", a feeling of engagement and belonging, of dedication for the common good, responsibility for the world we live in, etc... I think these are positive and somehow stay as inner qualities after one quits the group.

One also may experience states of heightened awareness. It gives them a taste of what true spiritual experiences might be. It is similar with drugs. In spite of the negative effects of drug, it can give one an idea of higher states of beings. Often, after getting rid of the negative influence of drugs, one will seek to experience the state back, but without the dependencies this time, and I think that's a good thing too.

Ethic - one's sense of ethic is strongly reinforced while in a cultic group. This may sounds strange and I will explain later, but this is in fact what happens. One becomes more aware of the consequences of wrong doing, of the energy balance in the universe and the reaction of one's own spiritual being to ego characteristics such as greed and cheating. After exiting the group, one may retain this sense of ethic, and I believe it makes for more honest and responsible citizens. Again, you could say that the sense of honesty was already present in the 'cult member' before, but I believe it is part of what makes him attracted to the group and that the group strenghten those qualities.

Now how come, if the above is true, that cultists are being cultic? Well, that's the irony of all cults, including anti-cult cults and political parties. They just do wrong in the belief that what they do is good! It's the whole dialectic of cultism and I am not going to go into that now.

Which brings me to the next positive aspect, not linked by one's belonging to a cult but, on the contrary, the process of going out. Going out from such an high level of personal involvement requires tremendous questioning and integrity to look. When you truly realize the limitations you have fallen into, which I refer to as the cultic mindset, then you can see it in other groups, and this may help you chose better next time around. By itself, it also is enlightening and one can learn a lot through this too. You realize the importance of never assuming, keeping yourself open to self-questioning (which makes you more humble, a spiritual quality), and the importance of free speech to avoid getting trapped in a closed group/cult mentality.

Of course, as I pointed out many times, not all ex-members learn from their exit in this way, and they on the contrary become involved in the very same mentality they were trapped while in the cult but on the other side, and doing really wrong things - all the while still believing they are doing good. This is just the next trap we need to learn, and once we can see that trap too, then, again, we really gain more positive insight, beneficial to our own evolution, and beneficial to society, because it makes for a less intolerant society, where individual members gain the courage to question the majority's assumptions and stand against mob mentality.

So, on the whole, I think the cult experience can be really positive too. It strengthen the good qualities in the individual and provide him with the taste of "something" our sclerotic society and religions usually are unable to provide. It further makes the person wiser as he exists the group, in that it makes him more aware of a variety of illusion one can fall into. Again, if the person is able to avoid or exit the anti-cult trap, it makes him/her more perceptive of yet more illusions.

These are a few positive things I can see, at first sight, about the "cult experience", and things that would be fitting for a positive list.

Hilarious Video from Gerry Armstrong

YouTube - Gerry talks to David Miscavige February 5, 2009

Having failed to respond adequately to RoadRunner's challenge about the Affirmations, Amrstrong has now made a hilarious video in which he admonishes Miscavige to publish the original to vindicate him!

"Recently there has been an incredible attack by people who are, I believe without any doubt whatsoever, your agents, your people, certainly who are serving your interests, who are trying to cast some doubts on the authenticity of LRH admissions". [...]

"David, you must! You know that this attack that is going on on me, a pointless but very threatening, very insane attack, you can resolve it." [...]

"you know that Hubbard was involved in your cult, and the admissions contain the admission that he was involved in your cult and that you are involved in your cult"

Besides such statements being nuts, I very much doubt Miscavigue was even of this world in 1946.

Not only does Armstrong urge Miscavige to publish the documents to validade his accusations, he also says miscavige has a responsibility to publish them because "it is the most significant Scientology scripture and will help people go free... free from Scientology and from LRH the slaver and from you the slaver"!

I am sure Miscavige will be deeply touched by such a message... and will come to Gerry's help because of course he is eternally grateful to Armstrong for having stolen $800,000 from the CoS.

Never mind the crazyness of that tape, it is of course praised by Shallonymous: http://forums.whyweprotest.net/15-media/gerry-armstrongs-message-david-miscavige-38519/

"Well Spoken Gerry! I will help to mirror the video. " [...]

"any info on what this "current" attack on Gerry is? " [...]

"i have a suspicion... not entirely sure this is correct but 1-2 weeks prior to this video there was posts on a.r.s showing up doing a piss poor job of trying to debunk the admissions. none of the ones i skimmed were of any real substance... barely more than spam imho."

Mind you, there is at least one anon who is now asking questions. Some snippets:

B: "Also i don't understand why the person, who had sent him the Affirmations would ask him to destroy the copy."

R: "Finger prints. DNA. Litigious, vicious, corrupt organization. What is there to not understand? "

B: "Finger prints, maybe. But DNA doesn't show up in a scan. I mean Gerry could have first scanned the original and then uploaded the scan to the internet to have a definite proof for its authenticity."

I'll be checking the thread to see shallonymous in their stupendous "dox or STFU" farce again later on.


Related blog entries: R-Affirmations-

Insight

Most solutions, when found, are simple and elegant.

However, they often involve a "higher view", i.e. a thinking out of the box.

As long as we are thinking from within the box, things may seem perplexing and insoluble. We don't realize that the box itself is the problem.

The most important thing in trying to find a solution to something is to first put ourselves in a frame of mind that would allow for the solution to occur. That frame of mind often is the solution itself, because it pulls us out of the box. It would allow "insight" to occur.

An in-sight is something of a curious, mysterious, phenomenon. It is rarely brought from thought or thinking itself. We can't provoke it. All we can do is keep our house in order and let the window open to invite it in.

Insight is that something seemingly coming from a higher dimension that suddenly sheds light on some issue. It has that crystal clear quality to it, and that quality itself comes within a framework that seems to be made of absolute order and links us with thousands of other qualities that goes with it.

Thought itself will only make you see, at best. the various pro- and con- of something, and since everything is relative, it will never bring the solution, because all of that thinking occurs from within the box itself. We need to invite a higher dimension to shed light on it, but it is not going to happen just because we ask for it. This is why, the first thing we need to do is to get ourselves in the right state of mind. Then insight may occur. Or not...

Youtube Poop

YouTube Poop - hilarious editing of the CoS' video about Anonymous.

Operation Drop the Masks

I had a quick look to the web page Evolved Rationalist was so angry about.

The web page in fact is not so bad, and quite on the contrary is rather original and interesting, with a lot of good ideas.

I still have to agree with Evolved Rationalist on the opening line, though, because blaming the original anonymous for the failure of Anonymous is, to use a Scientology line, a "wrong target", and AnonymouseHouston indeed should remove or change the opening line of this page.

The real cause of failure, as I explained repeatedly on this blog and on my web site, is because Anonymous made the mistake to fall for the old OG line that proved of little use to counter Scientology over the years. The original Anonymous on the contrary brought in the lulz, the masks, the cake, a very different spirit in many ways. Had they combined this novel approach, springing from the Internet culture, with a different attitude than OG towards Scientology, they may have been much more successful.

In fact, I find that page about the "Operation Internet Love Machine" much better than anything else Anonymous attempted so far. And if they want to prove their non-beligerent approach to Scientologists, they should, as I said, protest when Scientologist are discriminated, in the same way as they protest the CoS. But anyway, they should come to that conclusion themselves, which I hope they will sometime.

This being said, though the intent is good and has many original aspects, I believe it will be almost impossible to achieve that Operation Internet Love Machine successfully, for a series of reasons, of which I can only think two for the moment:

1. If you want to speak in a friendly manner to a Scientologist in real life, you will have to drop the mask. "Operation drop the masks" may be a good idea.
   
   
2. You can not successfully speak to a Scientologist in order to "deprogram" him, of sort, if you haven't yourself been a Scientologist, at least it just make it so much more difficult.
   
   Ex-scientologists. OTOH, are not always good either, because, as I explained on my pages otherwise, they often fall in the opposite cultic mindset, that of the anti-cult movement (which by the way is also going through some sort of self-criticism in this respect).
   
   What you need is a moderate ex-Scientologist, knowledgeable and intelligent enough to go around the many obstacles such an encounter would meet. And it will not be easy to find such a rare beast, because most of them have already been driven away through the OG attitude that aggressively attack moderate ex-members as "cult apologists.

Anyway, all this reminds me of an episode of my own history.

As I tried to enter the UK back when there was a ban against Scientologists, I was caught at the custom because I had a lot of Scientology literature in my luggage. I was subsequently sent back to Belgium.

However, as I was waiting in the UK custom office, an officer came to me with in his hand one of the writings of LRH (I think it was the Creed of Scientology or something like that). He told me "this is very beautiful", something that surprised me a lot coming from him. Then he said "Why doesn't Scientology apply it?".

This was a perfect approach, something that brought me to think and open up, rather than contract in defense. It was non-confrontational, not denigrating, but putting the focus on the actual application of Scientology's own aims without denigrating the belief itself. That's the whole point.

PS - I must say that my web site has been more instrumental in getting Scientologists to think and leave than radical web sites, precisely because I use many of the concepts found on the HoustonAnonymous page. See two examples here and here.

Also check what I webbed two days ago: the "DOs and DON"Ts on How to Help Cult Members", that goes very much in the same direction. (Of course, don't call Scientology a cult in front of Scientologist. Be imaginative, sensitive, moderate, knowledgeable, and most of all try to diversify your sources. Go deeper and beyond the old OG information and tactics. Go out of the OG box to resolve the conundrum Scientology criticism faces. That's what being a true revolutionary critic such as Anonymous is all about. IMHO.)


Blog entries in this series:

• Jan 15: Anonymous - Show Your Human Side
  
• Dec 12: Should Anonymous Unmask?
  
• Dec 11: Operation Drop the Masks