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Tonight, Paul Haggis calls out Scientology’s celebs: ‘Damn them for being purposely blind’

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Tonight, Paul Haggis calls out Scientology’s celebs: ‘Damn them for being purposely blind’

We’re of two minds about Scientology’s glittering celebrities. On the one hand, there’s no question that Scientology’s pursuit of celebrated actors and other artists is the major reason such a small group (the church claims millions, but the real figure is in the tens of thousands) gets such major press, and why the [...]




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HelluvaHoax!

Platinum Meritorious Sponsor with bells on
.

I saw the full PAUL HAGGIS episode tonight. It was extraordinary!

Moving, funny, intelligent, passionate....some of the best footage I have ever seen (this show or any other venue) that laid bare the church's treacherous lying and vicious manipulation.

The dramatic/comedic elements of how Paul told his story (being a master storyteller!) were quite riveting & brilliant.

Leah & Mike's show continues to turn out absolute gem after gem.

IMPRESSIVE & COMPELLING!

I would guess that any "wogs" who have seen the AFTERMATH series would result in persons who might have only a slim 1% chance of being recruited into the cult. It's that devastating!

The cult is frozen in the headlights, doing nothing week after week, season after season! All they can do is make it worse by denying, lying and creating more hate websites--proving the show was true.

HELPFUL HINT TO SCIENTOLOGY CELEBRITIES: Clay demo the relationship between lifeboats and the Titanic and what relevance this has to you as a Scientology enabler, collaborator, facilitator, defender and promoter.
 
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Type4_PTS

Diamond Invictus SP
.

I saw the full PAUL HAGGIS episode tonight. It was extraordinary!

Moving, funny, intelligent, passionate....some of the best footage I have ever seen (this show or any other venue) that laid bare the church's treacherous lying and vicious manipulation.

The dramatic/comedic elements of how Paul told his story (being a master storyteller!) were quite riveting & brilliant.

Leah & Mike's show continues to turn out absolute gem after gem.

IMPRESSIVE & COMPELLING!

I would guess that any "wogs" who have seen the AFTERMATH series would result in persons who might have only a slim 1% chance of being recruited into the cult. It's that devastating!

The cult is frozen in the headlights, doing nothing week after week, season after season! All they can do is make it worse by denying, lying and creating more hate websites--proving the show was true.

HELPFUL HINT TO SCIENTOLOGY CELEBRITIES: Clay demo the relationship between lifeboats and the Titanic and what relevance this has to you as a Scientology enabler, collaborator, facilitator, defender and promoter.

^^^^^^ :iagree:

I just finished watching this episode with Paul Haggis and immediately had the urge to watch it again. Your description is spot on!
 

TrevAnon

Big List researcher
gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem after gem
Hmmmm.

Now what does this remind me of?

:D
 

Operating DB

Truman Show Dropout
Wowzers! Another great episode featuring Paul Haggis. His closing statements were perfecto and left me feeling very satisfied and happy. I'm glad there are others that have the amazing ability to articulate what I myself find hard to do or am very clumsy at.
 

EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
I love the show. I loved Paul Haggis for leaving, for standing up, for writing the letter (who resigns???), for being public, for revealing the cult's two-faced PR and true hatred and actual disgust for LGBTQ people. Hubbard's intention was actually to exterminate gay people! I was elated to watch Haggis make demands of celebrities to also make a stand. It gave me inspiration. It gave me a little more courage too and I am not a celebrity, but we all can make a stand in our own way. Publishing my book can't come fast enough!

In the meantime, Hurrah hurrah for Leah Remini's show! Rinder too! You are both doing such good work. Leah brought me to tears, I mean, Leah, if these words could somehow make it to you, you scooped my heart out when you said you still feel bad for not coming forward after Paul originally sent out his letter. I don't know how many times over these years since I've been out that I've heard how I should cut myself a break. Now I want to resend the message to you -- you must not blame yourself for any of it. If you truly understood what happened to you, that might help you (at least) to begin forgiving yourself. You survived. And look how you're incredible essence is still intact -- and even stronger. Maybe it feels rocky at times, but you'r courage hasn't just changed others. It's been healing you too. No longer stifled, you have been absorbing the endless knowledge of the entire world, navigating it as the *new* Leah (and the Leah you always were to boot). Thank goodness. You've come a long way. Just be good to yourself now.

Keep at it, you are loved! You are supported.
 

hummingbird

Patron with Honors
It was great that they showed quotes from the tone scale about 1.1 and quotes from DMSMH about homosexuality. I mean, how can you look at that, then look at a celeb lying about whether homosexuality is banned in the church and not think WTF????? Especially when so many creative people are LGBTQ. Their friends, their colleagues! How can they read that stuff and not think of the guy who wrote or directed or costumed the last movie they starred in?? Whata buncha.... Oooops. Time for my pills.
 

Boson Wog Stark

Patron Meritorious
Before Paul Haggis left the cult, he had Tommy Davis's video pop up, where Tommy talked about there not being disconnection, as in where the Church asks members not to associate with that person. Since Paul's wife was disconnected from her parents, he knew this was not true. That made me think of a purpose of Marty Rathbun's series of videos, and the absence of Scientology spokesliar videos from Karin Pouw, or anyone since Tommy Davis.

The cult now wants any videos that pop up for members of Scientology to be Marty's new videos, instead of old Tommy Davis videos or anything put out by a spokescreature lying for Scientology, which is partly why Karin Pouw isn't allowed to appear on TV. Can you imagine her being asked about whether Miscavige beats his staff, or what he did with his wife, and a member seeing that? The video would just pop up, looking rather harmless to a member. They wouldn't think of it as entheta. They would think it was just something they should listen to, which might help them if they get some questions about Scientology or something which happened recently.


I don't know exactly how the YouTube algorithms work. I know that I get an occasional pro-Scientology video in my page of recommendations. Or after I watch a YouTube video, in the right-hand column sometimes there's a recommendation of a pro-Scientology video to watch, but not many. Most of the videos I get recommended to me are critical of Scientology. I don't know about ads because I block those, and don't click on any if I do get them.

I assume the popularity of the video has something to do with it, so Scientology has a problem right there with most of the popular videos being ones that are critical of the Church. But how current it is also can have something to do with it. After a few years after a video has been posted, it tends not to appear. But for a few weeks, probably, Marty's videos may have been popular enough to pop up, but that didn't last. I mean, I watched most of Marty's videos, but recently haven't gotten any recommendations to watch the ones I didn't see. I also watched as many as possible which were posted not by Marty. Marty's videos have just died out in popularity, and I doubt any got enough views to become classics like the videos of Tommy Davis.

And there's little Scientology can do now to make Marty's videos pop up as recommendations, rather than something about Leah's show, for example. But what the cult saw as especially damaging are videos of their own spokescreature lying their ass off. A church member wouldn't see that as entheta, and that would be the biggest danger. A Church member would just think, "There's Tommy Davis, I should listen to this."

Maybe cult members could be confronted with this. They should be told that the reason Karin Pouw can't appear on TV, as Tommy Davis did, is because like him, she would have to lie about everything, and then too many active members would realize that and leave.

In general, this episode on Scientology celebrities was very well done. It'd be a huge eye-opener if a celebrity Scientologist did watch it, and found out things like the reg got 10% of a course fee for enrolling them.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Before Paul Haggis left the cult, he had Tommy Davis's video pop up, where Tommy talked about there not being disconnection, as in where the Church asks members not to associate with that person. Since Paul's wife was disconnected from her parents, he knew this was not true. That made me think of a purpose of Marty Rathbun's series of videos, and the absence of Scientology spokesliar videos from Karin Pouw, or anyone since Tommy Davis.

The cult now wants any videos that pop up for members of Scientology to be Marty's new videos, instead of old Tommy Davis videos or anything put out by a spokescreature lying for Scientology, which is partly why Karin Pouw isn't allowed to appear on TV. Can you imagine her being asked about whether Miscavige beats his staff, or what he did with his wife, and a member seeing that? The video would just pop up, looking rather harmless to a member. They wouldn't think of it as entheta. They would think it was just something they should listen to, which might help them if they get some questions about Scientology or something which happened recently.


I don't know exactly how the YouTube algorithms work. I know that I get an occasional pro-Scientology video in my page of recommendations. Or after I watch a YouTube video, in the right-hand column sometimes there's a recommendation of a pro-Scientology video to watch, but not many. Most of the videos I get recommended to me are critical of Scientology. I don't know about ads because I block those, and don't click on any if I do get them.

I assume the popularity of the video has something to do with it, so Scientology has a problem right there with most of the popular videos being ones that are critical of the Church. But how current it is also can have something to do with it. After a few years after a video has been posted, it tends not to appear. But for a few weeks, probably, Marty's videos may have been popular enough to pop up, but that didn't last. I mean, I watched most of Marty's videos, but recently haven't gotten any recommendations to watch the ones I didn't see. I also watched as many as possible which were posted not by Marty. Marty's videos have just died out in popularity, and I doubt any got enough views to become classics like the videos of Tommy Davis.

And there's little Scientology can do now to make Marty's videos pop up as recommendations, rather than something about Leah's show, for example. But what the cult saw as especially damaging are videos of their own spokescreature lying their ass off. A church member wouldn't see that as entheta, and that would be the biggest danger. A Church member would just think, "There's Tommy Davis, I should listen to this."

Maybe cult members could be confronted with this. They should be told that the reason Karin Pouw can't appear on TV, as Tommy Davis did, is because like him, she would have to lie about everything, and then too many active members would realize that and leave.

In general, this episode on Scientology celebrities was very well done. It'd be a huge eye-opener if a celebrity Scientologist did watch it, and found out things like the reg got 10% of a course fee for enrolling them.

Yes, so basically, if any Scientologist says they need to disconnect from you - all you need to do is show them Tommy's video and tell them that it's official there is no disconnection policy anymore.

But this is where things get fuzzy. If you read the official blurb on the Church website they try to upsell the value of disconnection in very general terms while not coming right out and declaring that it is or isn't Church policy. They kind of want people to get by osmosis that a policy is something that is written and published as opposed to an institutionalized behavior and they don't do either, wink, wink. They want plausible deniability when it comes to responding to the press. But we know it is a written policy with a whole body of extremely intricate and interwoven material and ideology reinforcing it. For disconnection to not exist all of that would need to be heavily revised but it is original LRH doctrine and they can't delete or revise it without acknowledging that it and LRH are seriously flawed.

A lot of people don't discuss disconnection because if they do they will be declared and then disconnected. If all these people are no longer under threat of disconnection, if they truly make it all go away, then there will probably be a huge pent up outburst about all the evils of the disconnection policy and how it was real.

Heavily indoctrinated Scientologists will see these public denials and get that they are bullshittery for public consumption but this must present a serious problem for raw meat who go in with the understanding that there is no disconnection only to find that there is. Now they have to get them on board with the big lie after the fact by explaining how everyone is agin em, more crazy talk. In either case, this has to raise a red flag deep in the Scio lizard brain - if it is really so great then why deny or soft-pedal it?

What a pickle they are in. He who lives by extortion, dies by extortion.
 

TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
That's a really old version of ESMB :) I think it dates back to 2009 ish?

God I loved this episode. I loved all these episodes. This show is beyond expectations. I'm in awe.

Funny, huh - wonder why they used an old version? No matter, still worthy of a commendation to their ethics folder.

I agree, the last couple of episodes have demonstrated an increasing level of sophistication in production and overall strategy. They are dialing down into the totalitarianism and fundamentalist ideology which is at the heart of Scientology. This is the thing that is so difficult to explain without a lot of background and they have done a wonderful job of setting things up. I don't see any path for the Church to recover from this. They can't honestly respond to any of it and there are more people out who know more about what Scientology is really about than there are in who have enough real history and residual self awareness and independent will power to attempt to publicly defend it.
 
What I liked was Paul's closing statement and the implication you, the Scientology celebrities, are giving credence to a reprehensible cult. They forget that when they are in the public eye there is a lot of responsibility that comes along with their position. And these celebs are not doing their due diligence to understand what it is they are peddling. This was easily my favorite episode.

Mimsey
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
The whole series is brilliant but this episode with Paul Haggis was something else.

I especially loved the bit towards the end where one of the culties sent to "handle" him (choke!) demanded to know how he could possibly compare Martin Luther King with ...... miscavige, and was (apparently) serious!



:eek:
 
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