Stephan Talty shows how Vernon Howell emerged from an abused and troubled child to become David Koresh, a narcissistic cult leader. I wish I had had tStephan Talty shows how Vernon Howell emerged from an abused and troubled child to become David Koresh, a narcissistic cult leader. I wish I had had the time to turn the pages for a straight read, but my life isn’t set up like that now. The short chapters gave me convenient stopping places, but the story never stopped; it stayed in my mind and still does.
By all accounts Koresh could be very charming. He had to be, to convince people to leave everything and join him in Waco, TX. Further, they gave him all their money and if they worked, they turned over all their earnings to him. He could convince others to convince others to leave their lives and families in Australia and England. He convinced his #2 leader (among others) that he should “share” his wife and somehow he convinced parents not to complain when he beat or raped their children.
The BTF and FBI made miscalculations and paid heavily with their organization’s reputations. The issue was simple: the BTF sought to search the compound and arrest Koresh for a stash of illegal firearms and explosives. (The rape of underage girls was known but addressed.)
The decision makers did not listen to their staff members who told them that Koresh could be arrested when he went into town. They relied on a social worker who said Koresh was always at the compound when it was widely known that Koresh frequently went to Waco for steaks, burgers, (while he underfed his followers with gruel) music and cars.
In this initial raid, the BTF did not expect to be met by (heavily) armed resistance. The raid was only called off after 90 minutes that left 4 BTF men and 5 (?) Davidians dead.
There is a lot of detail on the stand off that ensued. There are texts from the negotiations and what could be heard from bugs planted in the milk cartons. There were odd moments that showed humor and humanity on both sides.
There wasn’t enough on the 20 or so children that were released to satisfy my curiosity. (i.e. Why these kids? Were any of them Koresh’s kids,,, he had several by the young teens. How have they fared over these 30+ years?).
After several weeks, the government feared that Koresh was starving his followers and/or was planning a Jim Jones style event. They made plans to enter the compound. All the profilers contracted at different stages of the stand off said Koresh knew he was cornered and would never back down. Some added an implication that he would take his followers with him.
The Davidians, believing these were the prophesied “End Times” complied with Koresh’s order to set the compound on fire. The bugs record their progress on soaking the premises with gas. Then they waited in the burning building for their bodies to be transported to their new life… It was Jim Jones sans Kool-Aid. No one fled the flames. The one woman rescued by the FBI would not tell the rescuer where the (20) children were and ran back into the burning building. These were very true believers.
I had only a vague recollection that Koresh had set the fire, but when I asked others what they remembered, they said it was the government. This misconception remains a rallying cry for far right militias. While the leaders of these agencies demonstrated the tin ear style of management, their staffs were brave and showed a high regard for the followers, especially the kids, trapped in this horrible situation.
I highly recommend this for anyone interested in this event, cults or narcissistic personalities....more
The book’s title does not fit its content. It has intriguing cameos of interesting people of the middle 19th century. While Oneida is given reasonableThe book’s title does not fit its content. It has intriguing cameos of interesting people of the middle 19th century. While Oneida is given reasonable coverage, Charles Guiteau and his association with it don’t really feature.
From it I got a clearer picture of Horace Greeley (did he look like Andy Warhol?) including his association with Margaret Fuller. I now understand a bit more of Rosco Conkling and how he operated. Rutherford Hayes’s connection to the story is his being a cousin to John Humphrey Noyes, founder of Oneida, but it is his contentious election that is covered. In the stories of James Blaine and Chester Arthur you learn why politicians were prone to surrender their power of appointments - they get hounded by people like Charles Guiteau.
Wells shows that there is some diversity in this era. Susan Edson is a doctor serving both President Garfield and his First Lady. The prominent Wormely Hotel, where a lot of the action takes place, is owned by James Wormley, a successful Black entrepreneur. Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce, a former slave, is told by General Grant in Paris that he could be a vice presidential candidate and was appointed by Garfield as Secretary of the Treasury. Garfield persuaded President Lincoln to give Pauline Cushman the honorary title of “Major” for dressing as a male to spy for the Union in the Civil War.
All of the mentioned above have a connection, however tangential, to the story. P.T. Barnum and the Fox sisters have considerable space, but their relationships to the assassin and his victim are not clear.
There is some confusion on pp. 166-67 170-171; 178-9 where Garfield’s wife, Lucretia, and former mistress, Crete, (is she back?) seemed to be named interchangeably.
Overall there are a lot of good stories from this era. The reader’s disappointment is that the expectations communicated by the title are not met.
Auroville was founded by “the Mother” in 1968 when members from 124 countries and all the Indian states placed some soil of their homeland in an urn. Auroville was founded by “the Mother” in 1968 when members from 124 countries and all the Indian states placed some soil of their homeland in an urn. The Mother’s vision was a community “where people from around the world will live in peace and harmony”. According to Kapur (but nowhere to be seen on the colony’s home page) there was dedication to yoga as a regenerative process. Meditation could not just heal - it could enable the creation of new cells to preserve life. The belief extended to a shunning of medicine, doctors, and non-herbal treatments.
The Mother had worked with the Committee for Yoga (CFY) to purchase acreage and plan the city. The Committee seems to be comprised of people from India’s establishment who did not necessarily understand the goals of the community; and definitely did not understand those who lived there and built it. The death of the Mother, opened up the divisions and a low grade civil war ensued among the Aurovillians who disagreed about how to handle the CFY and carry out the mission. Passions were high and “neutrals” were despised by both sides.
Author Akash Kapur was born in Auroville but when the civil war’s revolutionary faction closed Auroville’s schools, his parents moved to a town with a school that was 5 miles away. They kept their friendships by frequent visits and escaped the stress of the civil war. After the war’s strange resolution, they returned and Kapur re-entered school which was also attended by his later to be wife, Auroalice. This period of their youth was a good time to be in Auroville, but the suffering in Auroalice’s house was not known to, or as yet understood by, Kapur.
Auroalice’s parents were true believers, as was her “foster father”. Her Belgian mother, Diane, through tragedy, kept an unwavering belief in the Mother that gave her high status in the community. Her father moved to a different spiritual community and then Diane and John, a wealthy American, became a couple. Both suffered extreme health problems that they attempt to resolve via the Mother’s yoga.
Through all this you learn about the community, its devotion the Mother, its belief that a soul can be transferred from a deceased child to a newborn, its process for drilling wells and building huts, and its conflicts with the governing board that go all the way to India’s Supreme Court equivalent. There are glimpses of the political strings the community is able to pull in India and the US.
While this is about the community, there is a big focus on the relationship to of Diane and John, most likely due to Kumar’s access to primary sources through his wife, who is Diane's daughter. While neither is a typical Aurovillian, both have stories that represent the community contemporaneously with their short lives. Their devotion to the Mother's teachings, yoga and self deprivation (which, as the families in the US and Belgium believe killed both John and Diane) hardly reconcile with the community’s web site: https://auroville.org/.
The change from then to now is not explained, but a lot during the time frame of the book is also unexplained. Amid the low budget rations, many residents have motorized vehicles; while primitive and unsafe manual labor is used how are all the building materials paid for? What is the actual role of the nearby hospital which from time to time serves the community? The grieving at John Lennon’s death shows access to popular culture. How do the Auroville schools prepare so many students for success in US universities? The legal wrangling with the CFY is murky as are the issues before the court and their resolution.
The book is printed on gray toned paper which makes the type hard to see in dim light and blurs the contrast in the photos- of which there are many – and are not labeled. There is no index which for me was a serious loss since I wanted to flip back to John’s meeting with the Mother, the steps in Satprem’s “career” and a background revisit for various individuals who appear 100 pages or so apart.
While I highly recommend the book, it is not of 5 star quality. Many threads are not persued such that while you can imagine the legal jumble, the issues are dropped, just like the abrupt departure of the revolutionaries (there has to be more that is told). Personal stories are beautifully and respectfully written, but jump around in the time line and in the content.
I expect that this book and its popularity will inspire other writers and more will appear about this unusual city....more
This book profiles 10 cults. Four are widely known in the US: those led by Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh and Marshall Applewhite. A fifth USThis book profiles 10 cults. Four are widely known in the US: those led by Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh and Marshall Applewhite. A fifth US cult, not as well known as the others, NXIVM, was a financial ponzi scheme along the the cult features of enslaving and raping its members. Cults profiled that operated in Mexico, France, India (this one expanded to the US), Canada and Uganda demonstrate that this is a human phenomena and not a product of one culture or another.
For each of the cults, even those I knew something about, I learned something new. In the Manson group, it was where the participants are today; for Jim Jones it was his childhood, for Koresh it was the religious structure his group was a “branch” of and for Applewhite, the strange way his cult formed, lived and grew.
Of the cults for which I knew nothing - I was happier before I learned of them.
Three of these cults destroyed themselves. One petered out. Five, in response to clear murder and rape offenses, were ended by law enforcement. Only the Branch Davidians survives today; however, it appears to be in its original religious structure, not in the perverse direction Koresh took it.
There is little analysis here… mostly reporting....more
On page 9 author Amada Montel states that Cultish is the language used by cults to “establish an ‘us' vs. ‘them’, align collective values, justify queOn page 9 author Amada Montel states that Cultish is the language used by cults to “establish an ‘us' vs. ‘them’, align collective values, justify questionable behavior, instill ideology and inspire fear." She gives examples of how cults use euphemisms, put downs, motivational phrases, “thought terminating clichés” (common phrases that end debates “It is what it is” or “boys will be boys”) and deceptive linguistic tactics.
Her demonstration of the use of language is at its best when she describes Scientology. This may be because Scientology re-orients its followers to free of them of "MUs" (misunderstood words) which opens them to a new vocabulary; if a word is used that isn’t “cleared” followers have to look it up which exhausts them into just accepting the new terms and ways. They learn to shun SPs (suppressive people) and lie to circumvent “wog” (outsider) law. She notes that terms the for the more questionable tenets of the ideology are revealed at higher and higher levels (which believers pay to attain).
While language is the backdrop, most of the book is a survey of cults and cult-like entities. For instance, there is a long description of multi-level marketing (MLM is the legal version of pyramid schemes) before showing the same dialog patterns as cults. There is a long discourse on how some gyms select and train their trainers and some examples of work out motivating language showing its similarity to that of cults.
While you learn how the people of Heaven’s Gate lived (which was interesting) other than some unique idioms, it seems that the choice of a cloistered community over a competitive world was the operating principle.
While you learn about how online gurus operate, gyms and Amway motivate, and how online gurus dispense wisdom, the broader term “communication” may be more appropriate. For instance those who meet Jim Jones feel he truly knows and understands them. Those who follow gurus seem to gravitate to its theater as much as its message. The language of recruiting sales distributors (MLMs), gym memberships, online therapy etc., seems like the language of any other marketing campaign.
There are some interesting parts of this book but in general, it misses its mark. It could use an index....more
Followers believe Q is an official, high up in the pentagon, who is important to national security. Q creates cryptic “drops” on the internet which foFollowers believe Q is an official, high up in the pentagon, who is important to national security. Q creates cryptic “drops” on the internet which followers decode. These messages are designed to help followers protect children from sex trafficking and cannibalistic pedophiles and save the world from liberals, Democrats, Hillary Clinton and George Soros. There is veiled and not so veiled anti-Semitism. Since Q is an elusive leader, followers look to Donald Trump (whom they believe works closely with Q to protect the nation) as their leader.
Mike Rothschild takes you through this strange phenomenon. There are examples of the posts and how they excite devotees to harangue school boards, attack supposed enemies and distrust anyone that does not agree with them. There are stories of the damage this has done from intimidating Facebook posters, to breaking up friendships and families to murder.
The book follows Q as it is purged from one hosting source to another. After it was banned from Reddit it moved to increasingly dubious hosts (sites known for scams, racism and, ironically, child porno). When its recent host 8Chan was shut down, due to posting manifestos for mass shooters, it turned to 8kun and then (p. 83) a “variety of IP addresses and hosts… all based in Russia”.
Who is Q? Rothschild weighs the arguments for and against the possibilities. Informed speculation focuses on Ron Watkins, the administrator of 8chan. (His father Jim Watkins had earlier operated 8chan to host Japanese porn). Others suspect Russian involvement and others mention people associated with Donald Trump.
Q has never been a reliable oracle. Some of Q’s prophesies are vague such as “TRUST THE PLAN. WE ARE WINNING. ARRESTS WILL COME”. There is summary of some of the many prophesies that never came true on pp. 211-213). These include a soon to be posted video of Hillary Clinton murdering a young girl and cutting her face off to wear it as a mask; Donald Trump’s military parade which will be “never be forgotten”; John McCain, Pope Francis and others would resign; and 2018 and 2020 Republican electoral victories.
For an important security official helping “digital patriots” cleanse the nation, Q takes a lot of breaks, sometimes there are months between drops. This is filled in by active posters who are known to Q users. As of the book’s publication in mid 2011, Q had not “dropped” since December 8, 2020.
One chapter discusses whether QAnon is a cult, a game, a scam or a religion. Another is about deprogramming a friend or loved one who is obsessed. There is a glossary of QAnon terms.
If you want a quick guide to this unusual cult, scam, game, religion or whatever it is, you will find the information here. It is not a great reading book, but you cannot help but be jolted awake by the things that QAnon followers actually believe....more
This is a page turning memoir of a woman who had to leave her survivalist/isolationist family to breathe free on her own. As she recounts the events aThis is a page turning memoir of a woman who had to leave her survivalist/isolationist family to breathe free on her own. As she recounts the events and feelings of her young self you see how some abused children respond to abusers and their enablers. Once aware that the emotional and physical violence she has suffered is not normal, she attempts to fix things. It is difficult to break free.
This book has been heavily reviewed, so I will make a few observations:
A difference between Tara (who eventually breaks free) and her sister-in-law (who doesn’t) is that Tara goes to great lengths to hide (to others and to herself) her shame. Emily does not hide her injuries and seeks help before she goes back for more mistreatment.
Tara’s mother, who provides tepid (but welcome) help, at times admits that her husband and son Shawn are abusive, cannot sustain any push against the dominating bully that she married. As her business grew she should have been feeling more independent but she seemed to be less so. Has she made some mental calculus that it’s best to cope or does she, like an addict, rely on ingrained responses? Is she in Tara’s childhood stage where she shields herself and others from her shame of the abuse in her household?
Despite the family’s suspicion of the “socialist” “illuminati” “corrupt medical establishment” the Westovers have catastrophic accidents (and unusually difficult child births), and do go to hospitals. When they do it is justified as a gift/blessing/calling from God. In the same vein (before the mothers’ success) I was surprised that, when asked, Tara’s mother produced a tax return.
I am filing this book under “cults” because this is what Tara’s father is running in his household. Like Jenna Miscavige (Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape) and Rachel Jeffs (Breaking Free: How I Escaped My Father-Warren Jeffs-Polygamy, and the FLDS Cult). Tara, from childhood, was shielded from options and force fed a preposterous philosophy/religion. (Is there a similar book by a man who left a cult led by relative?) Tara had more resources than Jenna or Rachel. She had some exposure to town life and in her teen years she could earn her own money, have access to a car and had a brother who left for BYU.
I searched and found LaRee Westover’s Bufferfly Express web site. Her catalog avoids linking her products to the practice of medicine, which was the foundation of this company. She leaves open the uses of the oils but for one part where she names different products as having a practical use. On a long list of ailments she has “Abuse Physical and Sexual: LeAngel. LeGrace, LeHeartSong, LeInsight, LeReconciliation. Wear as perfume; use in the bath; apply over heart area; on wrists; consider carrying an essential oil inhaler.”
This is quite a book. I highly recommend it as an affirming story, but particularly recommend it for its exploration of the difficulty children have in leaving abusive families....more
Rachel Jeffs and Jenna Miscavege (Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape )have a lot in common. Both were born into Rachel Jeffs and Jenna Miscavege (Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape )have a lot in common. Both were born into the top family of their respective cult. While the cults were philosophically very different (one claimed to be god-centered, the other god-free) both centralized power in one man and both men (father to Rachel and uncle to Jenna) used the same techniques to control their members.
First and fundamental is the threat and reality of separating families. Second is stigmatizing possible dissenters. In Scientology they are “suppressive persons”; with FLDS they are “non-members”. In both, not being sufficiently deferential to your oppressor has enormous penalties.
Rachel’s situation was complicated by her father’s abuse. She tells you how he did it, how he kept it secret and how he controlled others to not even want to hear it.
Members of the FLDS are in a tough situation. Like those in Scientology, to leave, they can’t just walk out, they must escape. FLDS has considerably lower tech barriers than Scientology, but given its emphasis on procreation (which Scientology discourages) there are family ties to consider. Once outside, the escapees (and this is an accurate term) have no education, work history and for women, no marketable skills. With little knowledge of the outside world, they need help to get out and established.
The reader will marvel how Rachel’s father dictates from, a US penitentiary, what people thousands of miles away should eat and wear; how they should clean a wall ; who should marry whom and when spouses should have/not have sex or even a hug. It seems strange that people stand around for a read out of his messages from prison, especially since they usually declare someone a sinner and require their removal. He moves people around like chess pieces; some to other FLDS communes, others to solitary confinement. Parents are separated from each other and often mothers from children.
There are good times. When you are not forbidden to go outside, there is the great outdoors, hiking, sledding with family companions of your own age.… of course if you are a girl, you “enjoy life” in a long skirt and covered arms and regulation hair do. The bad times are bad. You can suddenly be moved or sent to repent alone or in some prison-like arrangement. You can die if Father Jeffs doesn’t think you need medical treatment.
Most of the book is sad, but it will keep you page turning if only to see the author out of this horrible situation....more
Of all 19th century communal experiments, Oneida stands out for its success and its foundation on free love. (Interestingly, Shaker communities also sOf all 19th century communal experiments, Oneida stands out for its success and its foundation on free love. (Interestingly, Shaker communities also survived into the 20th century with the opposite approach to sex.) A descendant of the founders, Ellen Wayand-Smith, digs into the archives to present a portrait of Oneida at the various stages of its development.
As he came of age, conventional Christian beliefs about sex weighed heavily on John Humphrey Noyes. From his powerful dreams and visions, he developed a philosophy that integrated free love into Christian beliefs. In his view, the nuclear family was a selfish institution; it did not conform to biblical teachings about love and sharing. He and like-minded Christians pooled their assets to form a colony based on the principle of Bible Communism where sex and material goods were shared.
What Wayland-Smith describes is not a Fruitland where religious intellectuals suffer agricultural drudge. This group starts with resources, builds a silk factory and builds traps for game. The communal life is for the colonists who work 6 hours a day. For the employees, conditions and wages are just like any other 19th century sweat shop.
For all the sex, there are few children. The community practiced “coitus reservatus” (men who could not conform were assigned post-menopausal women) which over 50+ years and 200+ people produced very few pregnancies. Freed from life-threatening maternity/childbirth and long hours of child care, women served many roles in the community.
Love was not totally free, “Complex Marriage” came with strings. John Noyes seemed to control all “interviews” and seemed to have to approve child bearing. He controlled the “introduction of virgins” (Noyes, himself, introduced the females; males, by post-menopausal women). There were separations and penalties when couples fell in love (they got “sticky”) or preferred their own children (philoprogenitiveness ).
Wayland Smith takes the reader through all of this and forward into the community’s eugenics experiments (a good example, of how much control Noyes had), the Comstock Law and Noyes’ resulting flight to Niagara Falls, Canada, the dissatisfied youth, changes in corporate structure, enlightened labor policies, outsider control, bankruptcy and Oneida’s near-non-existence as a sold off asset.
This book is a fascinating account, but there are a few weaknesses, that, perhaps a second edition will clear up. There are references to communities in Willingham, CT and Brooklyn, NY but these are not well defined. The end seems both stretched and rushed with long descriptions of WWII and post WWII America and little on the community. It gets unclear as to whether the factories are in Canada or the US or both. There are 3 pages on the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey who wanted to (but did not) study Oneida, which “may” have led to the burning of the Noyes Archives. There is nothing on the Oneida Tower, a very visible landmark, which should be a significant milestone for the company. The current status of “the Mansion” (the author visits her parents there, but it seems to be an historic park) and the Kenwood community are also unclear.
This is defiantly worth a read if you are interested in any of the topics covered in this book....more
I read this to find out how Tom Cruise got into Scientology and why he stays. Author Andrew Morton did a meticulous job of showing both. Extensive intI read this to find out how Tom Cruise got into Scientology and why he stays. Author Andrew Morton did a meticulous job of showing both. Extensive interviews show the ups and downs of his childhood and his somewhat overnight success. When you know the background, you can can't miss that Cruise is repeating the behavior of his own father in his whirlwind courtships/marriages and in discarding people at will.
Perhaps it was his smile, but prior to reading this book I thought that if Cruise knew of the abuse perpetrated by his "religion" he would renounce it. Now, I can see that he surely knows, and doesn't care.
The more I learned about him and his personal life, the more I saw his arrogance. It comes through in everything he does from "donating" Scientology's purification methods to treat 911 rescuers to his barreling into Germany for filming Valkyrie.
It appears that Tom Cruise and David Miscavidge are a powerful team. Aggressive, competitive, and each others' only friend, they re-enforce each others' commitment.
It is time for the IRS to come up with a better definition of what a religion is....more
This is far from the first, but unfortunately not the last, indictment against the "Church" of Scientology. How can this still be happening? Is there This is far from the first, but unfortunately not the last, indictment against the "Church" of Scientology. How can this still be happening? Is there not some fair labor or child labor/abuse statute violated here? How can this be?
This book comes from a very important person and place. This is the niece of David Miscavige who took the reins of Scientology upon the death of its founder L. Ron Hubbard.
The writer, Lisa Pulitzer, has given Jenna a genuine voice. In simple prose you discover Scientology as Jenna does, from a nursery, to "The Ranch" to CMO, to Sea Org and the various stages between. You are also given glimpses of her uncle, who pulls the strings from afar.
You think you've heard it all, but as the story unfolds, there is always a new bureaucratic system. Leaving the "Church" requires no end of signatures, audits and confessionals all designed to help the cult cover its tracks. At any point you could be sent to EPF or MEST (various manual labor details complete with reduced rations and living conditions) for unspecified periods.
The last procedural wicket you encounter has the perfect big-brother name and nickname: The Committee of Evidence- Commev where Jenna has to defend virtually her whole life so that her husband will not be labeled an SP (subversive person) which would require that other Scientologists (i.e. his parents) never speak to him. After all you've been through with shunnings and separations (as a child Jenna waits months and years to see her parents), you don't know whether to laugh or cry when on p. 378 Scientology makes an official statement denying that it participates in family members shunning each other.
In the final chapter, Jenna gives her thoughts on how members are controlled. It summarizes the experiences she has shared with the reader: how conformity was enforced (complete with hypocritical slogans like, "Think for yourself."), how the system assures that family and friendship bonds are broken and how information is controlled.
Each year, there is a major mass market book exposing Scientology. In 2011 Janet Reitman's excellent work Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion gave an overview of all the issues from its founding to its current practices. In 2012 Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief dug more deeply into the life of L. Ron Hubbard and on how celebrities are cultivated and used. For 2013 it is this book, by Jenna Miscavige, on growing up inside this organization. How many years will it be before these books, and the "Church" they describe are no longer part of the landscape? ...more
Lawrence Wright has the ability to write non-fiction that reads like a novel. His 2007 The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 earned him in Lawrence Wright has the ability to write non-fiction that reads like a novel. His 2007 The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 earned him in a Pulitzer Prize. This work is of equal caliber. The title refers to the supposed benefit of Scientology, that of clearing the mind and body by the emotions of the past.
The book is an excellent companion to Janet Reitman's Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion Reitman covers the universe of issues. Because of its wide scope, Reitman's book can't go deeply. Wright digs provides depth on the issues that provoke the most interest.
The first is the founder. While Reitman gives the basics, Wright devotes the first 100 pages to L. Ron Hubbard. He covers his families, the mythologies on which Hubbard predicates his career, how he made a fortune and the years on the run. There is detail on how the IRS declared Scientology as a religion. As the title promises, a large part of the book is dedicated to how Hollywood connections are made, nurtured and exploited.
Wright had access to defectors and in the last chapter he defines the mixed emotions they have. The amount of information withheld from or ignored by church members, even those living and working in the real world, is staggering. One Hollywood "catch" who left the fold over the Church's stand on gay rights, believed, for years, that two top executives had died, when they, in fact, escaped (where else do employees have to find a way out of barbed wire and run from guard dogs to quit a job?).
The saddest part is the children born to those who live in Scientology buildings and ships. These people have no choice in life. If they could leave, they have no credentials, cash or credit cards. Some have been so cloistered they have never watched a non-Scientology TV show or video and don't know the president's name. Scientology is not cheap, 12 hours can cost anywhere from $5,000 - $12,000. Defectors, who have worked for years, for free, in telemarketing (quotas must be met before you can leave your station- i.e. eat, sleep), remodeling Tom Cruise's home or moving or packaging literature with fork lifts in the publishing operation, while living in crowded conditions, and fed whatever Scientology wants to feed them, receive bills for the "auditing" services they received when they leave.
Wright concludes with some of the legal challenges facing the church in the areas of consumer fraud and human rights abuse and the difficulty of getting a prosecution. The church has been able to skate using highly unethical methods and effectively using its celebrities who have been cleverly screened from its abuses. The ability to skirt labor laws, particularly those for minors, is not as well explained.
It takes courage to write on this topic. Both books discuss how journalists, IRS/FBI agents and family members with questions have been harassed, have had strange scandals and a few have had questionable deaths. Defectors who talk to researchers are at risk. Special recognition is needed for Wright, Knoph and the defectors who made this and the Reitman book possible, ...more
Last year I was in NYC and passed by the Scientology building on 44th Street. You can't miss it. Its large white sign is used as a directional for anyLast year I was in NYC and passed by the Scientology building on 44th Street. You can't miss it. Its large white sign is used as a directional for anything on the block... Looking for the Paramount Hotel? "See the Scientology sign two blocks down... right next to it". On a rainy evening handsome young people hustled anyone who passed on the sidewalk (I saw no one stop). Large TV screens, also with beautiful people, tell you that you can fulfill your dreams. An open door shows the way to an inviting place to sit out the rain. I mentioned my curiosity, and one person in our group said, "Go in there and you'll never get out." I didn't know how true those words could be for many well meaning people until I read this book.
Janet Reitman has spent at least five years researching this group. I'd had a lot of images, and she put them together: L. Ron Hubbard, the relationship of Dianetics to Scientology, Hubbard's science fiction, how Scientology became a religion and the celebrity involvement. There were people and things I never heard of like David Miscavige, E-meters, thetans, Int Base, Sea Org, auditing, OT levels, Narconon, Purification Rundown, "clearing the planet" and a lot more.
The most ominous new things I learned were how the Scientologists infiltrate legitimate churches, agencies and groups to get advocates; They file frivolous law suits, start whisper campaigns and harass/divide families in order to railroad detractors, defectors and regulators; and use sadistic punishment to keep employees (some who because they were raised within Scientology and because they have no high school diploma, drivers' license or credit cards fear the outside world) in line. It's frightening to think how successful they've been. I see, now, why it has this aura that my friend suggested... that of a deep dark hole.
I expect that every bit of this is true. Not only is it heavily documented, given the way Scientology treats its detractors, this must have been combed by a legal staff. Even if its only half true, its quite an indictment. If there was no legal evidence of responsibility for Lisa McPherson's death, there is moral responsibility. A person who permits this kind of treatment of his staff (or anyone) with no contrition would, of course, design and enjoy a game of executive musical chairs and its aftermath as Reitman describes it.
Now with this book, the word is out. It's time for some one in some regulatory position to act. What other church regularly offers hush money and has senior leadership sign confidentiality agreements upon leaving (escaping is a more accurate word)? Can anyone name some other employer where to leave you need a ladder to escape over a razor wire fence and dodge security guards? As for medical licensing, what would happen to the average person who hangs out a shingle and counsels people by putting them in solitary confinement? Business practices, consumer affairs/truth in advertising, child labor/endangerment, fair labor standards violations, it seems that this organization has run afoul for far too long.
Janet Reitman and Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt are to be applauded for their determination. Given how Scientology treats its detractors, they have are brave.
Tom Cruise and John Travolta need to "Read this book!" and post reviews here for all to see. ...more
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