Re: Scientology Thread

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by Strelnikov » Sat Feb 24, 2018 9:22 pm

Resurrecting this thread:

Chris Shelton worked in Scientology's Sea Organization ("Sea Org" as it is commonly known) which is Hubbard's fake Navy; for years they wore jackshirts and ties with dark blue pants and dress shoes, or a full nautical kit for the cameras with dirks and reefers bearing gold insignia and rank like they are in the US Navy, the branch of the armed forces Hubbard served in during World War II. In reality most SOs are telephone salesmen hawking books to Scientologists who don't work for the "church", doing light janitorial, or unarmed security, or office work while trying to avoid screwing up badly enough to not spend time in the Scientology job-jail of the Rehabilitation Project Force. Also, nowadays they make the Sea Org'ers who work at Scientology "churches" ("Orgs") selling books, courses, etc. to the general public, those people wear steakhouse uniforms - white shirts, vests, black pants, no ties, possibly a dark blazer, but no ranks.


Video on Sea Org recruitment. It should be said here that the Sea Org, unlike all the various split-up "foundations" and "organizations" of the Church of Scientology (set up that way by Hubbard and David Miscavige to dodge taxes and confuse the FBI) does not have any legal reality within US law - they aren't recognized by the IRS, US Copyright Office, any legal body working inside the US government. It has all the legitimacy of a 6th grade student government in a private school, and yet people have worked for this fake their entire lives.


Shelton talking about the "Study Tech" Hubbard concocted in the mid-1960s. These concepts are behind the Delphi Schools and Applied Scholastics schools (many of the latter don't use that term or any of the giveaway words associated with Scientology, as an anonymous ex-student pointed out on a Cracked.com article three years ago.)


The greatest interview ever done by a "famous Public" after they left, actor Jason Beghe talking at his house to Mark Bunker and Tory Magoo off camera back in 2008; he runs through how he got sucked by Bodhi Elfman, Jenna Elfman's brother (she was the new, hot Scientologist in the late 1990s), and how the Xenu story broke him a few years later when he achieved level "Operating Thetan III" - he told his friend David Duchovny, and he was rolling on the floor about it. I first saw this interview when it first came out, and the human-ness of it I think influenced Leah Remini to do her cable show on Scientology, that and she wants her friend Shelly Miscavige (David "Slappy" Miscavige's wife) out from the secret jail he has her in. (Site is possibly up at "Twin Peaks" aka the "Triple A Ranch", a large retreat in/near Crestline, CA overlooking Los Angeles. Link to protestor's website page on the subject here.)


Mark Bunker in front of the San Diego Church of Scientology in 2010. This is where the term "Slappy Miscavige" came from. Bunker is still doing Anti-Scientology work, though his talking-head documentary on the "church" might never get finished.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by Strelnikov » Mon Mar 19, 2018 11:46 pm

.....And then Arnie Lerma killed himself last Friday, after shooting his wife in the face (she survived.)

From the article:

.....Ginger [Sugarman, Lerma's wife] tells us that Lerma was suffering from severe back problems, and after a second surgery, was still in great pain and was taking increasing amounts of oxycodone.

“He was miserable. He would talk about suicide,” she tells us.

Then, this week, she says that she found out that Lerma had taken money from her without telling her, leading to a row on Thursday evening.

“We had an argument over it. It just floored me. I told him I wanted a divorce and would file a civil suit. I went down to the court to get paperwork. I told him he had 72 hours to pay me back. That was the argument. He called me names, I called him names. A neighbor heard us and called the cops.”

Ginger says that at this point she became aware that Lerma was armed, and she asked the police to take his gun away. “If they’d done that this wouldn’t have happened,” she says.

The next night, on Friday, she says she was on the couch watching television when she noticed their dog’s tail begin wagging.

“That dog loved him, and that’s how I knew Arnie was coming. He walked down the hall, pulled out his gun, aimed it and click,” she says, making the sound of the gun being cocked.

“I ran, and I fell, and I was helpless on the ground. I held my hands in front of me saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. No, you’re not, he said, and he just shot. And that was it.”

Joseph, Lerma’s son, says his father’s firearm was a 9mm handgun. The bullet went through Ginger’s upper lip and took out several of her teeth, but she didn’t know that as she scrambled to her feet and began running.

“I ran out of the house. I ran to two neighbors, no answer. I ran two more houses down and saw a light on a stained-glassed window. I banged on the door. They brought me in and called 911,” she says.

On her ride into the hospital, she says she heard her address being talked about on the radio. “They got him,” she was told, and she assumed it meant that Lerma had been arrested. Ginger’s neighbor had reported hearing a gunshot around midnight.

The next day, she was told that Lerma had committed suicide.

We asked her what he had been like in the months leading up to the incident.

“He was always paranoid, but his paranoia was tripled. He had binoculars, he’d come out on the patio and look at aircraft and said it was a military operation. He was really paranoid.”

His blog (last updated in September 2017).

His ancient website which hasn't really been updated after 2013.

Arnaldo "Arnie" Pagliarini Lerma (b. 1950) had been involved with Scientology in the 1960s-70s thanks to his mother, who had been head of the Washington, D.C. Org ("church") and he joined the Sea Org*. In 1976 he tried to elope with Suzette Hubbard (present full name Mary Suzette Rochelle White, alias "Suzette Titmus"; she is married to a Guy White and the daughter of Hubbard's third wife Mary Sue) but was found out by other SOs and Lerma claimed they were going to "mutilate him" so he dropped his plans and dropped out of Scientology altogether.

During the late 1980s to the early 1990s there was the issue of Steven Fishman, who was a public Scientologist. He claimed that he was being mind controlled by his auditors into committing crimes and he was being sued for libel Scientology because he claimed they had brainwashed him into attempting to kill his psychologist and then commit suicide. In order to prove his case, Fishman got his hands on Operating Thetan-level coursework, including the OT III level with the Xenu story, and this material was given to the court and became court documents. Lerma got his hands on the "Fishman Affidavit" after the trial, scanned it, and with David S. Touretzky, put the OT levels online as html pages. This led to a decade-long campaign by Scientology to take Lerma down; they raided his house using federal agents (because all the levels are copyrighted, and the "church" claimed he had physical copies), tried to shut down his website, etc. That business led to sites like xenu.net (located in Scandinavia) holding the OT documents, which were just html files! It all fell apart for Scientology with the coming of sites like YouTube, where former members have run through the Scientology training from memory, and every secret has been discussed, and mockery made of their lawyer situation (i.e., they need Mormon-clean lawyers willing to work for a double-crossing, hypocritical outfit like Scientology, which is impossible; their "best" lawyers are guys like Kenneth Moxon who are already members of Scientology.)

It would be easy to say "RIP, Arnie", but he and the rest of the critics were willing to let Howard Keith Henson into their ranks, and he shot his wife of three years Ginger Sugarman (herself an ex-Sci, and daughter of Barbara Ayash, who used to hand out The Way to Happiness pamphlets for decades) in a rage. A very dark end.
____________

* The Sea Org is Scientology's handyman/landscaper/building manager/priest class that used to dress like they were in some sort of navy (dirk and reefer jacket or jackshirts and dark pants, rank cuff stripes or epaulettes), now they either look like steakhouse waiters or unarmed security guards depending on the job they do, which ranges from basic janitorial to "auditing" Tom Cruise. The SO has no legal existence; it was never incorporated (unlike the goofily-named "Church of Spiritual Technology" or the "Author's Services" outfit that controls Hubbard's copyrights), and members make less than fifty dollars a month. Old members are dumped when they get too old to do basic work, have no retirement pensions, and are wards of the state....they also do not go very far up The Bridge because they work instead of studying Hubbard's goulash. Did I mention that a lot of the new people in SO are from the former Soviet Union and Africa, and that passports are probably being held? Now you know.

[The Church of Spiritual Technology allegedly is there to hold all the trademarks on Church of Scientology insignia, and Hubbard's archives, but the internet knows them as the place where they inscribed all of Hubbard's books on metal plates (placed in nitrogen-filled containers) and hid them in a couple of vaults in fear that World War III would happen. It's also there as part of the series of shell corporations to confuse the IRS and FBI if Scientology is ever raided.]

Tony Ortega did the perfect rundown of why Steve Fishman is in prison until the year 2028.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:00 pm

Strelnikov wrote:.....And then Arnie Lerma killed himself last Friday, after shooting his wife in the face (she survived.)

There have been NO media reports of Lerma's suicide in the past week--nothing.
And Fishman is really deeply messed up in the head.....which is probably why he was obsessed with Hubbardisms in the first place. Poor guy needs meds and professional help, not CoS and obviously not prison. That video is really painful to watch.

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by Strelnikov » Wed Mar 21, 2018 1:22 am

ericbarbour wrote:
Strelnikov wrote:.....And then Arnie Lerma killed himself last Friday, after shooting his wife in the face (she survived.)

There have been NO media reports of Lerma's suicide in the past week--nothing.
And Fishman is really deeply messed up in the head.....which is probably why he was obsessed with Hubbardisms in the first place. Poor guy needs meds and professional help, not CoS and obviously not prison. That video is really painful to watch.


He's been in a minimum-security prison since the 1990s, and even that "nice" level of jail has to have turned the screws tighter. Experts like Steve Hassan say that it takes twelve years for completely resigned ex-Scientologists to get the conditioning out of their heads, and the deeper you go the worse it gets. However there are break points like passing Clear (most Scis drop out when the Powers don't work), and the Xenu story (OT III) is many times considered a practical joke or a test, and when they are told it isn't, any doubts get vaster.

Here is an online copy of his 1991 memoir about Scientology, Lonesome Squirrel, which was put online in 1996 by our old friend David "assisted living Dracula" Gerard back when he was running an "Australian Critics of Scientology Resource Collection" over at http://suburbia.net/~fun/scn/ which stopped updating in November of 2000.

(Fishman has been a little "out there" since before Scientology if Lonesome Squirrel can be trusted. Remember that he was doing Scientology and still seeing a psychiatrist, a big no-no in Hubbardville.)
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Mar 21, 2018 4:53 am

Strelnikov wrote:Here is an online copy of his 1991 memoir about Scientology, Lonesome Squirrel, which was put online in 1996 by our old friend David "assisted living Dracula" Gerard back when he was running an "Australian Critics of Scientology Resource Collection" over at http://suburbia.net/~fun/scn/ which stopped updating in November of 2000.

It is truly bizarre that this garbage-pile is still up. Only Gerard would expend effort/money to keep this mishmash of old Usenet posts going. Who else would look at it except him and his ridiculous friends? Miscavige and Co. survived the Clambake protests (albeit just barely), and despite being a VERY small group today, they apparently have plenty of cash and other hard assets inclu. loads of California and Florida real estate. So they're not going away just because Gerard and Chris Owen hates them. Sorry bout that lads.

The way he signed his Usenet posts tells us a great deal about his ego, which is at least as massive as Hubbard's.
Reverend Doctor David Gerard, KoX, SP 4.04, kOh, RPG-to-be
Prestige Elite(tm) Research Church of the SubGenius
"Servicing the Prestige Elite(tm) since 1985!"
"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself." -- Abraham Lincoln
--
Please email ALL followups (crappy and thoroughly dysfunctional newsfeed).
Personal visits from Scientologists will be greeted with extreme hostility
and the vigilant attention of VUT Security, but personal physical violence
*only* when appropriate, legal and called-for.
gerdw@cougar.vut.edu.au (preferred); fun@suburbia.apana.org.au
July 5, 1998, 7 AM. Saucers. End of the world. Your US$30 is your trip ticket.


Plus the "Why" section says:
David Gerard, fun@suburbia.net, gerdw@cougar.vut.edu.au. Melbourne, Australia. Vague interest in Scientology as a curious silly thing; then the raid on Dennis Erlich and the threat to Net freedoms I hold dear.

Net freedoms for David Gerard, of course! The hell with everyone else, Scientologist or not!

Plus he still hosts a pile of old complaints about AMWAY. If you haven't heard about AMWAY's sleazy practices by now, you're hopeless. Plus many of the links are broken and I don't see Gerard putting any effort into fixing them; obviously more fun to troll people on RW. What a twat.

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by ericbarbour » Tue May 29, 2018 4:48 am

I dunno, is there a point to having a thread about "WE MUST SHIT ON L. RON AGAIN" stuff I find on Wikipedia?
Some of the things I stumble across are so damn stupid. Leftovers of the Gerard/Owen shitfests from 10+ years ago.

for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronado_Islands
In May 1943 the U.S. Navy's USS PC-815, commanded by L. Ron Hubbard, conducted unauthorized gunnery exercises involving the shelling of the Coronado Islands, in the belief they were uninhabited and belonged to the United States. Unfortunately for Hubbard, the islands belonged to Mexico and were occupied by the Mexican Coast Guard. The Mexican government complained and Hubbard was relieved of command.[2]


Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_PC-815
Believe me, the US Navy does a lot of stupid shit like this every year, especially in wartime. Some of which is documented on Wikipedia--unless Hubbard was involved. The Navy had hundreds of sub-chaser boats during WWI and WWII; most don't even have articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ine_Chaser

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Re: Scientology Thread

Post by Strelnikov » Tue May 29, 2018 10:24 pm

ericbarbour wrote:I dunno, is there a point to having a thread about "WE MUST SHIT ON L. RON AGAIN" stuff I find on Wikipedia?
Some of the things I stumble across are so damn stupid. Leftovers of the Gerard/Owen shitfests from 10+ years ago.

for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronado_Islands
In May 1943 the U.S. Navy's USS PC-815, commanded by L. Ron Hubbard, conducted unauthorized gunnery exercises involving the shelling of the Coronado Islands, in the belief they were uninhabited and belonged to the United States. Unfortunately for Hubbard, the islands belonged to Mexico and were occupied by the Mexican Coast Guard. The Mexican government complained and Hubbard was relieved of command.[2]


Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_PC-815
Believe me, the US Navy does a lot of stupid shit like this every year, especially in wartime. Some of which is documented on Wikipedia--unless Hubbard was involved. The Navy had hundreds of sub-chaser boats during WWI and WWII; most don't even have articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ine_Chaser


They only know about the Saga of PC-815 because of Owen's website, and they even have an article on USS YP-422, the ex-fishing trawler Mist which L. Ron commanded before the true sub-chaser PC-815. USS YP-422 was supposed to be a "yard partol" ship sailing around ports looking for enemy submarines and scanning for enemy aircraft. The Navy only kept Hubbard around because they were desperate for ship captains in 1941-42 but he bodged it. That's why they were getting ex-Merchant Marine captains into commanding lesser ships like escort destroyers for most of the war.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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