Those familiar with my writings know I’m an Atheist, but I’m not a militant one. You can believe whatever silly stuff you like, twice before breakfast even, and I fundamentally don’t care. If pressed and Clio informs me I might be tempted to share some facts that may help you evaluate your beliefs, or the beliefs and practices of other faiths, but I’m not looking to proselytize.
You’ll also know that I have an opinion about the credibility of Mormonism (they hate it when you do that but “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” doesn’t scan very well). If you’ve forgotten, it’s- not very.
Mormonism is a clear intellectual product of the 19th Century. There is a new faith, Scientology, that is just as distinctly rooted in the 20th and is reminiscent of Mormonism, not in sketchy ties to Christianity (Mormonism discards practically all of the Bible and re-writes the rest so it’s virtually unrecognizable), but in rapid growth, power over it’s members, and power in politics.
Right now in several areas Scientology enjoys very favorable treatment from local and State authorities and they have been so far successful in thwarting investigations of questionable practices and tax evasion from the Federal government.
One of the political strengths of Scientology is that they have a disproportionate number of “celebrities” past and present of whom prominent examples are Tom Cruise and Will Smith. I will admit I have enjoyed movies by both those people, but I’ve also watched films funded by Steve Mnuchin.
As you will recall, Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio had a distinct lack of “Star Power” at both his 2016 Convention and 2017 Inaugural. I won’t say it was laughable, but people did laugh.
Leah Remini was raised a Scientologist and broke with the church in 2013 (I’ll point out her Wikipedia entry is a hotly contested battleground between Scientologists and, well, everyone else).
I’ve seen Scientology and the Aftermath and I find the testimony and evidence compelling. The presentation is well organized, informative, and entertaining. I highly recommend it. I must say that it didn’t have much that I personally found new and unusual but I’m told I pay more attention than most.
This is mostly an interview, you can find another summary here at Raw Story. I’ll follow the conventions of The Daily Beast and bold the questions.
The whistle-blowing host of A&E’s ‘Scientology and the Aftermath’ on the end of her show, its many disturbing revelations, and what’s next.
by Marlow Stern, The Daily Beast
08.26.19
“It’s important that people hear what goes on in Scientology when a crime is committed, and how the victims are blamed for what happens to them,” says Remini. “That’s Scientology technology, to say, ‘When have you raped somebody in a former life’ or ‘What have you done to receive that?’ It’s never, ‘Wow, you’ve been raped or molested, we need to contact the police.’ You’re not allowed to report crimes outside of Scientology. If you do, you are labeled an enemy, and they will come after you and try to destroy your life.”
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In a wide-ranging conversation with The Daily Beast, Remini opened up about the end of Scientology and the Aftermath, her frustration over shelved episodes, and what’s next in her quest to expose an organization she calls “a dangerous cult that’s hurting people.”
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I’m not paying for the show and I’m not a lawyer. They vet these shows up and down, and for whatever reason—or reasons—certain shows had to be shelved. Yes, we have binders and binders of legal threats from Scientology and their lawyers, and there were 441 letters written from Scientology to our advertisers, and they’re picketing outside of A&E and crying “religious bigotry.” This is what they do with their time.
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What did those shelved episodes explore?One episode was important because it was about the directives of Scientology’s “Fair Game” policies, which are probably 1,000+ policies on how to destroy people who speak out against Scientology, how to infiltrate government agencies, how to lie to the police—and how to lie to the authorities in general. They got away with it, and have been getting away with it. Another episode was, we had a family member who reached out to us who wanted to check in on her uncle, because she hadn’t seen him for 30 years and he was up at the Gold Base, where they are holding the senior executives of Scientology, and her doing a welfare check launched an attack from Scientology, because doing a welfare check on any member of Scientology is seen as an act of war—as I did with Shelly Miscavige. They sent PIs to this woman’s house—she was a grandmother—to scare her, and for some reason we couldn’t air this episode. They didn’t give me an answer, but to me, there’s no good answer. It’s very difficult for me to listen to these people’s stories who are trying to be active and go against what Scientology is telling them to do, and then have to say, “For some reason, we just couldn’t air the episode.”
Ok. That part was a bout Scientology in general. Here comes the political bit.
We’ve reported on this a bit as well but there’s this weird trend of people with strong ties to Scientology getting very close to members of the Trump administration.
Very close? Very close?! No, close! Close, babe. Close. Donald Trump has tweeted about [Scientologist singer] Joy Villa, a person who’s infiltrated the White House. Yes!
There’s also Greg Mitchell, a lobbyist who’s done a lot of work for the Church of Scientology, who met with Vice President Mike Pence. And there were two big Scientology donors in Jim Bridgeforth and Tom Cummins, of American Power & Gas, who recently met and posed for pictures with President Trump.
Yup. They should do some research. There’s a policy in Scientology dealing with the public image—this is also under the Fair Game stuff—and it’s to infiltrate real churches, control governments, control government agencies. This is all part of the policy of Scientology, which is to infiltrate to take over. They have no idea what they’re dealing with, and I’m disappointed that they’re not seeing through Joy Villa’s bullshit. I mean, you only need to look at her social media to see whose [political] side she was on before, she wears that Trump dress, and then she gets her failing career going. This is all part of the game of Scientology. Scientology hopes to take over our government.
You also have people out there like Greta Van Susteren. I don’t think a lot of people know that she’s a high-ranking Scientologist, and she’s out there conducting sit-down interviews with President Trump and other high-ranking officials in his administration.
Big-time! She’s a big-time donor to Scientology and she’s OT VIII. That’s the top of the Scientology bridge!