Church of Scientology

[StraightShooter]

So I saw only one Scientology thread which is apparently locked due to no links or content; apparently though there are a fair number of videos on Youtube of crazy Scientologists harassing critics or defectors, so I think it might be worth a topic.

A few years ago, there was a top ranking Scientologists named Mark "Marty" Rathbun who decided to leave the church due to abusive behavior from the church's leader David Miscavige. In retaliation some group of Scientologists lead by a guy named John Allender decided to stalk and harass him and his wife by following them around and filming them for months on end.

Scientology is apparently very well versed in the law, and the fine line between what they can and can't get away with legally; so they were able to come up with a loophole to avoid being cited for stalking and harassment by calling themselves the "Squirrel Busters" and claiming they were filming a documentary (apparently "Squirrel" is some Scientology codeword for a defector or something like that):

This is just one of a huge series of videos of Mark being harassed by Scientologists; here's another one of him being harassed by some Scientology "managers" at an airport;

Here's also a related video from the UK, of some guy affiliated with Mark Rathbun who was harassed by Scientologists staging a mock protest outside his home:

Here's also another video of a crazy Scientologist having a chimpout toward a protestor; most of them seem pretty genuinely brainwashed, and contently regurgitate Scientology jargon such as declaring their enemies "SPs" or "supressive persons"; it also seems like they follow some type of "script" when dealing with critics; usually redirecting criticism into personal attacks against their targets.

Plenty of more videos like this available if anyone's interested.

 

[GS 281]

Do scientologists get into twitter slapfights?

 

[StraightShooter]

Do scientologists get into twitter slapfights?

Not sure, from what I've heard the church monitors their social media activity, and they're discouraged from using the internet (due to the amount of negative information available about Scientology).

 

[GS 281]

Not to be a dick but how can we gather content then

 

[The Colonel]

Not to be a dick but how can we gather content then

Operation Chanology.

 

[Cake Farts]

Not to be a dick but how can we gather content then

Who's willing to take one for the team and jump in?

 

[The Colonel]

I'm sure if we talk about them enough, they'll make their way over to here.

 

[repentance]

Not to be a dick but how can we gather content then

There's a huge amount of information publicly available. Apart from the original Xenu.net, a ton of documentaries have been made, countless books written, and many high profile former Scientologists also maintain websites of their own.

You're unlikely to get any unique content, though.

Leah Remini's series is probably one of the best recent resources because it gathered together so many of the high profile former members.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

I don't think you'll get many Scientology lolcows because they're trained on how to deal with people and the low level Scientologists don't know about any of the Xenu/MEST stuff.

They may be in decline too, at least I don't see any Scientologists handing out pamplets anymore.

 

[Gym Leader Elesa]

They may be in decline too, at least I don't see any Scientologists handing out pamplets anymore.

One can only hope.

 

[repentance]

Some people might find the latest developments regarding Marty Rathbun interesting.

http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/09/as...s-troubling-news-about-co-star-marty-rathbun/

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?43582-Marty-Rathbun-has-he-gone-silent

 

[StraightShooter]

I'm sure if we talk about them enough, they'll make their way over to here.

I heard something a few years back about Scientologists infiltrating Wikipedia and trying to cause drama over negative information in the Scientology articles, don't have many details though but eventually apparently WP globally banned all IPs linked to the Church of Scientology

 

[Darndirty]

There's a huge amount of information publicly available. Apart from the original Xenu.net, a ton of documentaries have been made, countless books written, and many high profile former Scientologists also maintain websites of their own.

You're unlikely to get any unique content, though.

Leah Remini's series is probably one of the best recent resources because it gathered together so many of the high profile former members.

The scary thing about scientology is not their beliefs, it's their legal department. They go after people for the smallest things and don't give up

 

[StraightShooter]

For what it's worth, some of the 'anti-Scientology protestors" or Anonymous folks are lolcows as well, such as "Angry Gay Pope".

The scary thing about scientology is not their beliefs, it's their legal department. They go after people for the smallest things and don't give up

That and they are well-versed in the law so they know what they can and can't legally get away with; some folks who've publicly criticized the church have had 'private investigators' dig up as much personal information on them as possible, and then phone up their employers, landlords, etc and spread defamatory information against them to try to make them pariahs.

Also not sure of all the details on this, but apparently a few decades ago Scientology ran a campaign against a critic called "Operation Freakout" in which they attempted to forge evidence to have her sent to prison by mailing fake bomb-threats to themselves in her name, and allegedly they had contemplated having her assassinated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout

For the record I also have a friend who had shown interest in Scienology 15 years ago or so (apparently she requested information on the church but never joined it), and she's still getting recruitment phone calls from them to this day.

 

[ChurchOfGodBear]

My personal hypothesis is that the decline of Scientology nicely coincides with the rise of SJWism, the causation being that Hollywood can only support one social cult at a time.

 

[StraightShooter]

My personal hypothesis is that the decline of Scientology nicely coincides with the rise of SJWism, the causation being that Hollywood can only support one social cult at a time.

Could be, though Scientology was always more of a niche thing with a few high-profile celebrities like Tom Cruse and John Travolta, while social justice has been fairly heavily promoted in mainstream media.

For what it's worth though, Travolta did try to make a Scientology movie "Battlefield Earth" back in the 90s (based off of one of L. Ron Hubbard's stories about the alien origins of life on earth or something) and it flopped horribly, I think it even made it onto a few "worst movies of all time" lists.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

For what it's worth though, Travolta did try to make a Scientology movie "Battlefield Earth" back in the 90s (based off of one of L. Ron Hubbard's stories about the alien origins of life on earth or something) and it flopped horribly, I think it even made it onto a few "worst movies of all time" lists.

It was intended to be the first of all of Hubbard's novels receiving film adaptations. Its enormous failure kibashed that plan.

 

[Zamasu]

What, are we trying to lure Scientology loons to Null's house or something?
Because that's bound to happen if this thread somehow picks up. Which I doubt it will.

 

[StraightShooter]

What, are we trying to lure Scientology loons to Null's house or something?
Because that's bound to happen if this thread somehow picks up. Which I doubt it will.

Eh, seems like they mainly go after defectors or prominent critics with a media foll0wing; I doubt they're obsessed enough to hunt down random posters on an internet forum...

 

[AnOminous]

They've been so savagely assraped over literal decades since Usenet and Chanology that they have to save their limited resources for those who actually represent a true threat to them.