David Miscavige. Photo: Scientology Media (CC)

Guy Adams provides details on a senior Scientology member’s letter to 12,000 followers attacking their leader’s “obsession” with money, in the LA Times:

A simmering conflict at the Church of Scientology has been made spectacularly public after a former member of the organisation’s clergy circulated a letter raising severe criticisms of both the management style and financial policies of its current leader, David Miscavige.

Debbie Cook’s email, which was sent to 12,000 fellow Scientologists shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, alleges that Mr Miscavige has adopted a dictatorial leadership style which is at odds with the doctrines laid down by the church’s founder, the science fiction author, L Ron Hubbard.

She further claims that, since succeeding Hubbard after his death in 1986, Mr Miscavige has become obsessed with fundraising. His regime is now “hoarding” a cash reserve of more than a billion dollars, she claims, and has spent tens of millions more on a portfolio of large, “posh” buildings which largely sit empty.

Ms Cook’s criticisms strike a chord with many disaffected recent defectors from the church. But her highly respected status within the usually secretive world of Scientology may also give them weight among more active members.

The email, headlined “Keep Scientology Working” and littered with jargon, argues that many of the policies pursued Mr Miscavige are in direct conflict to the principles laid down by Hubbard when he created the movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, she claims that “extreme” fundraising activities are now being “driven from within the very highest echelons of the Scientology structure”, in a way that is at odds with the organisation’s founding scriptures.

Although many current members have donated vast portions of their net worth to the church, Ms Cook claims that Hubbard never endorsed individual donations of over $75 for lifetime membership. The church’s founder also “never authorised the purchase of opulent buildings” by the leadership, she argues. Instead, he believed that all money raised by the organisation should immediately be used to spread its message…

[continues in the LA Times]

Before there were yuppies, there were uppies—the term Up With People members use to refer to themselves. Most Americans over the age of 35 are vaguely familiar with Up With People, as its cast members have sung to more than 20 million people worldwide, and at the height of the ensemble’s fame it provided the halftime entertainment at four Super Bowls (1976, 1980, ’82, ’86). But many are unaware of the group’s cultish utopian ideology, its political connectedness, and how it was funded by corporate America, part of a deliberate propaganda effort to discredit liberal counterculture in the 1960s and ’70s.

Up With People emerged from the controversial religious movement Moral Re-Armament (MRA)—a cult-like organization that preached honesty, purity, unselfishness and love—so it’s no surprise that the groups bore more than a passing similarity. In fact, Up With People founder J. Blanton Belk was heir apparent to Peter D. Howard, a British journalist who succeeded Frank Buchman as MRA’s leader in 1961. But Belk broke away to incorporate Up With People as a non-profit after President Dwight Eisenhower urged him to distance himself from the dreary image of MRA.

It’s no surprise that President Eisenhower encouraged and supported Belk. As Mark Crispin Miller—professor of media ecology at New York University—notes during Smile, “The sixties were a time when a lot of longstanding pieties were being seriously questioned…. Students marched and there were race riots and we saw the first upsurge of feminism. This was …extremely worrying to the powers that be,” he says. It also explains why Eisenhower (and later President Richard M. Nixon) was thrilled to see Belk sending throngs of clean-cut, short-haired kids out into the world to sing upbeat, positive-minded songs, thereby countering the protest movement. “What we did was give young people a chance to express their views through music,” says Belk in a sequence from the film. It was a clever appropriation of the same vehicle—music—that had been embraced by demonstrators who opposed the Vietnam War and the establishment.

Of course, Up With People’s songs (“You Can’t Live Crooked and Think Straight” and “To Tell the Truth,” for example) bore virtually no resemblance to the popular music of the time. With simple chord progressions and childish lyrics, the group’s ditties can best be described as “insipid.” But good songs weren’t necessary to get Up With People’s message across, just as musical talent wasn’t a prerequisite to joining. The visceral power of a huge throng of smiling, exuberant and seemingly joyful young men and women rushing on stage and performing as one was enough to entice a reliable stream of new recruits. And thanks to the political connectedness of Up With People’s board members, Belk had no problem lining up gigs all over the planet, in front of audiences that often included presidents, prime ministers and other world leaders. (Up With People has performed for Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, and at the inaugurations of Nixon and George H.W. Bush, to name just a few high-profile engagements.)

But the financial lifeblood of Up With People was corporate America, which recognized that it could use uppies to promote a business-friendly image. Patrick Frawley Jr., a right-wing evangelical who owned Schick, was one of the group’s biggest supporters; he purchased television time and underwrote the first Up With People album, which had John Wayne, Pat Boone and Walt Disney on the cover. But Schick was hardly alone among multinationals. Companies like Exxon, Halliburton, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, General Electric, Coors, Toyota, Enron and Searle donated tens of millions of dollars to the organization, keeping it afloat until 2000, when George W. Bush became president and evangelicals could declare that their ideological war had been won.

The propaganda effort aside, individual members of Up With People certainly fomented their share of positive change, or at least spread good cheer wherever they went. In fact, most were just having a good time performing and traveling the world, oblivious to the agenda of the organization’s leadership and financial backers. “The members of the cast were like puppets. They never stopped to think about where the funding came from, or that someone had to open doors for them,” reminds Storey. Anyway, in some respects the group was surprisingly progressive. Up With People not only accepted members of all races and cultures, but deliberately placed minority cast members with Caucasian host families whenever the ensemble rolled into a new town.

Up With People didn’t lose its way because it lost the ability to control its cast members’ behavior, or because the public suddenly came to recognize that its sickly sweet songs were insufferable. Up With People declined because it became irrelevant, especially after the Cold War ended and American corporations no longer felt compelled to send groups of singing young people overseas, hoping to sweep in behind them to do business.

In the face of diminishing corporate support, Up With People began relying more heavily on tuition fees to pay for its increasingly expensive stage shows. While the organization began charging tuition in the early 1970s ($2,400 in 1972), fees rose dramatically in subsequent years, up to $5,300 in 1982. By the 1990s, the organization found itself struggling to recruit youth capable of paying tuition rates that exceeded the cost of most private universities, a problem compounded by the mostly indifferent response to the group’s public performances.

Before their undoing, the cult used anime videos as their recruitment tool, portraying the secret origins of human life and the heroics of founder/guru Shoko Asahara. Even unsubtitled, they’re a fascinating view:

© Darin Seaman

It took nearly 24 hours of unbroken sleep to recover from my Bonnaroocleosis. Like other workers, performers, and festicle-goers in attendance, I’ve been hacking up silty brown lung-dumplings and blowing whole coal fields of black boogers into rolls of tissue.

The annual Bonnaroo dust storm could be a preview of the world after a nuclear cataclysm, where those so privileged will wring their desperate satisfaction from tingling chemicals, sun-seared flesh on display, and the pulsating rhythm of pleasure machines, leaving pathetic Plebeians to pick through the scraps.

Once again, I had a blast under the mushroom cloud.

Monday, June 6: Say “Moo” motherfucker

I’m late as usual to pick up Glen the Red, a fellow rigger who packed his camping gear and work tools hours ago. We hurtle down the highway to pick up our credentials at Manchester’s high school.

I ask the hipster behind the counter about the RFID tags that are now implanted in festicle-goers’ wristbands. He tells me the electronic chips are to weed out ticket fraud, but also to assist in the identification and removal of evil-doers.

I ask him if the information will be used for marketing demographics. With RFID readers carefully placed around the site, promoters should be able to see who goes to what shows, and for how long. This would render the profit pyramid with unprecedented accuracy. (How fitting that RFID technology got its start in cow-herding, warehouse management, and Apocalyptic propaganda.)

Clerky McClipboard tells me that demographic studies are under development, and that hopefully people will be able to purchase overpriced consumer goods via microchip next year. This is vaguely depressing—in an End Times kind of way—but not as depressing as the crummy Staff Pass he hands me. What happened to the premium passes?

On site, Gator is waiting to welcome us into The Grove, where we pitch our tents beneath gently swaying oaks surrounded by barbed wire. This is sacred space backstage, set apart from the turmoil and communicable diseases of the circus tent ghettos which house most festicle workers—the riggers, steel dogs, stagehands, security guards, and volunteer trash-scrappers. If you happen by The Grove, just assume that you are not invited.

Tuesday, June 7: What’s the difference between a rigger and God?
God doesn’t think he’s a rigger!

I love climbing the massive main stage in the morning. Seventy feet from the peak to the deck—a jungle gym for grown-ups. The steel truss sizzles your palms under the proscenium, the air is suffocating, the smell somewhere between a dusty old book and a bloody nose.

The up-rigger gig is the best job I’ve ever had. It has taken years—and plenty of patient teachers—to hone my craft. I’ve been dragged through the muck as a stagehand and I’ve lapped up the luxuries as a touring tech—nothing beats climbing the steel with the boys. We race to the top of the wire-rope ladder to drop in our ropes. We pull up the motor chains hand-over-hand, sweat pouring, muscles taut, until every motor that hoists the lights, sound, and video is ready to fly.

This art is pure. Bullshit has no place here.

The camaraderie is akin to that among pilots or soldiers, only scuzzier. Riggers literally depend on each other for survival every day. Success means you climb down, smoke a cigarette, and count up your cash. Failure means you fall to your death, or worse, you drop something and kill somebody below. I’ve heard people say they want to learn to rig for the money or glory, but that is absurd. There is only one reason to become a high-steel rigger—because you love it…

Read the rest at RockStarMartyr.net

Vladimir Putin has become the object of veneration for a bizarre Russian all-female sect whose followers believe that the prime minister is a reincarnation of the early Christian missionary Paul the Apostle.

“According to the Bible, Paul the Apostle was a military commander at first and an evil persecutor of Christians before he started spreading the Christian gospel,” the sect’s founder, who styles herself Mother Fotina, said.

As befits a sect that worships a man who has denounced the decadence of the oligarchs, the sect’s members are said to survive on a Spartan diet of turnips, carrots, peas and buckwheat.

Father Alexei, the priest in the local village church, has dismissed the sect. “Her so-called teachings are a nonsensical mixture of Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the occult, Buddhism and political information,” he said.

Read More: Telegraph

Lady on bed adorned with Raëlian symbol.

Below are documents leaked from the U.S. Consulate in Montreal, via WikiLeaks:

¶1. SUMMARY: THE FOLLOWING IS SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON
THE MONTREAL-BASED RAELIAN GROUP, WHOSE MEMBER DR. BRIGITTE
BOISSELIER ANNOUNCED AT A DECEMBER 27 PRESS CONFERENCE IN
HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA THE BIRTH OF THE FIRST CLONED HUMAN
BEING, A 7 POUND BABY GIRL NICKNAMED EVE. AND ITS TWO MAIN
FIGURES LEADER CLAUDE VORILHON, BETTER KNOWN AS RAEL, AND
DR. BOISSELIER. ONE LIKELY RESULT OF THE BOISSELIER
ANNOUNCEMENT IS THAT CANADA’S PENDING LEGISLATION TO BAN
HUMAN CLONING COULD CONTAIN STRICTER RESTRICTIONS. END
SUMMARY.

¶2. THE RAELIAN MOVEMENT WAS FOUNDED BY FRENCHMAN CLAUDE
VORILHON, A FORMER SPORTS JOURNALIST, FAILED SINGER, RADIO
COMMENTATOR AND AVID STOCK CAR RACER. VORILHON CLAIMS TO
HAVE BEEN CONCEIVED ON DECEMBER 25, 1945, BY A FRENCH MOTHER
AND AN ALIEN FATHER. SPECIALISTS SAY HE WAS BORN IN VICHY,
FRANCE IN 1946. VORILHON WHO USES THE NAME RAEL (GOD’S
LIGHT) (PRONOUNCED RA-EL IN FRENCH (RHYMES WITH KAL-EL AND
JOR-EL)) SAYS HE CREATED THE MOVEMENT AFTER ALIENS VISITED
HIM IN CENTRAL FRANCE IN 1973. AT THAT TIME, LITTLE GREEN
ALIENS (APPROXIMATELY 4 FT TALL) TOLD HIM –IN FLUENT FRENCH-
- EARTHLINGS HAD BEEN CREATED IN A LABORATORY 25,000 YEARS
AGO. SINCE THESE ALIENS WHICH HE CALLS THE ELOHIM (THE
HEBREW WORD FOR GOD) ARE 25,000 YEARS AHEAD OF US, RAEL SAYS
CLONING IS VERY SIMPLE TASK FOR THEM.

¶3. ALTHOUGH THE SECT IS BASED IN MONTREAL–AND NOT
SWITZERLAND AS THE BRITISH TABLOID PRESS HAS REPORTED –RAEL
MOVED HIS PERSONAL HEADQUARTERS TO FLORIDA IN THE EARLY
NINETIES. WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED RAEL WAS MOVING TO FLORIDA,
RADIO COMMENTATORS JOKED HE WAS SIMPLY IMITATING QUEBEC
SNOWBIRDS OR THAT HE WANTED TO GET CLOSER TO NASCAR
CIRCUITS. HOWEVER, SOME SAW U.S. EXPANSION AS A LOGICAL
BUSINESS MOVE. ON THE ONE HAND, SINCE THE 1960S, QUEBEC HAS
PROVEN TO BE TOUGH RECRUITING GROUNDS FOR ALL RELIGIOUS
GROUPS, MAINSTREAM OR OTHERWISE. ON THE OTHER, THE U.S.
OFFERS MUCH BIGGER POOLS OF MONEY AND TARGET AUDIENCES FOR
RAELIAN COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES. BECAUSE THE GROUP IS
RECOGNIZED AS AN ATHEIST RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION BY THE
QUEBEC GOVERNMENT IT ENJOYS THE SAME FISCAL ADVANTAGES AS
OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS.

¶4. THE GROUP OPERATES A THEME PARK CALLED UFO LAND IN
QUEBEC’S EASTERN TOWNSHIPS AREA. THE FACILITY, WHICH
CONSISTS MAINLY OF A LARGE FLYING SAUCER, A LARGE-SCALE DNA
MOLECULE AND SOME ROOMS FOR SUMMER SEMINARS AND MEDIA
INTERVIEWS, WAS RECENTLY VANDALIZED BUT IS SCHEDULED TO
REOPEN THIS SUMMER.

¶5. IN PHOTOS AND TELEVISION APPEARANCES, RAEL SURROUNDS
HIMSELF WITH BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. RAELIAN MEDIA KITS INCLUDE
MANY PICTURES OF SCANTILY DRESSED “MEMBERS.” RAEL PREACHES
“SENSUAL MEDITATION” WHICH ENABLES THE FAITHFUL TO REACH THE
“COSMIC ORGASM.”

¶6. DESPITE THE SECT’S TWO POWERFUL MARKETING TOOLS, SEX AND
UFOS, THE RAELIANS HAVE VERY FEW MEMBERS. THEIR WEB SITE
WWW.RAEL.ORG CLAIMS -IN TWENTY LANGUAGES– TO HAVE 55,000
MEMBERS IN 84 COUNTRIES. HOWEVER MIKE KROPVELD, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR OF THE MONTREAL-BASED INFO-SECTE (NO RELATION WITH
THE PARIS ORGANIZATION OF THE SAME NAME) TOLD POST THAT THE
RAELIANS INFLATE THEIR FIGURES WITH PAST AND OCCASIONAL
MEMBERS. BECAUSE OF ALL THE MEDIA ATTENTION, THE GROUP
CREATES A LOT OF CURIOSITY -A RAEL SPOKESMAN STATED IN THE
LOCAL PRESS ON DECEMBER 30 THAT THE WEBSITE WAS GETTING ONE
MILLION HITS PER HOUR ON DECEMBER 26 — BUT MOST VISITORS
ONLY ATTEND A FEW MEETINGS. THE ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP IS BETWEEN
2,000 AND 3,000 WORLDWIDE AND ABOUT 700 IN MONTREAL, SAYS
KROPVELD.

¶7. ACCORDING TO LOCAL NEWS ANALYSTS, THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF
RAELIANS IS TO CREATE LIFE IN A LABORATORY WHICH WOULD MAKE
HUMAN BEINGS IMMORTAL AND ENABLE THEM TO CREATE ANOTHER
CIVILIZATION ON ANOTHER PLANET. IN THE MEANTIME, RAEL WANTS
TO BUILD AN EMBASSY IN ISRAEL TO WELCOME THE ELOHIM WHEN
THEY COME BACK IN 2035. THE GROUP HAS ALSO BEEN CRITICIZED
FOR ADVOCATING THE USE OF GENETICS FOR EUGENIC ATTEMPTS AT
IMPROVING THE HUMAN RACE. THE GROUP’S STRUCTURE WITH PRIESTS
AND BISHOPS IS BASED ALONG THE LINES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

¶8. UNTIL RECENTLY THE GROUP AVOIDED SERIOUS CONTROVERSY.
THERE HAVE NOT BEEN ANY STORIES OF FORMER MEMBERS
COMPLAINING ABOUT BEING CONNED OUT OF THEIR MONEY OR
PHYSICALLY ABUSED OR SEDUCED, AND NO INVOLVEMENT WITH MINORS
– EXCEPT ONE CASE IN FRANCE.

¶9. NONETHELESS, THE RAELIANS KNOW HOW TO PIGGYBACK ON
STORIES TO GET PUBLICITY. WHEN IN 1993, AUTHORITIES IN
QUEBEC DECIDED AGAINST INSTALLING CONDOM DISTRIBUTORS IN
SCHOOLS, RAELIANS VISITED THE KIDS WITH FREE SAMPLES. IN THE
WAKE OF THE RECENT PEDOPHILE CHARGES AGAINST VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS ORDERS, THE GROUP WENT BACK TO THE SCHOOLS IN
QUEBEC. THEIR PLAN THIS TIME WAS TO HAND OUT SMALL WOODEN
CROSSES FOR THE STUDENTS TO BURN. BUT PUBLIC AND
GOVERNMENTAL OPPOSITION STOPPED THE LATER PROJECT. IN BOTH
CASES, ALMOST ALL THE PUBLICITY THEY GARNERED WAS BAD.

¶10. SENSING A SIMILAR WAVE OF CONDEMNATION, RAEL HAS
PUBLICLY DISTANCED HIMSELF FROM DR. BOISSELIER, A RAELIAN
BISHOP, AND HER CLONING WORK, SAYING HE HAD GOTTEN RID OF
CLONAID TWO YEARS AGO. HOWEVER, KROPVELD BELIEVES THAT
CLONING IS BY FAR THE GROUP’S MOST DANGEROUS WORK. KROPFELD
EVEN DOUBTS RAEL REALLY BELIEVES IN CLONING HUMAN BEINGS
BEYOND ITS MARKETING POSSIBILITIES FOR HIMSELF AS SECT
LEADER.

¶11. AS FOR DR BRIGITTE BOISSELIER, SHE WAS BORN IN 1956 IN
FRANCE. SHE HOLDS TWO PHDS IN CHEMISTRY, ONE FROM THE
UNIVERSITY OF DIJON IN FRANCE AND ONE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF
HOUSTON. AFTER HOUSTON SHE WAS HIRED BY AIR LIQUIDE THE
FRENCH INDUSTRIAL AND MEDICAL GAS MULTINATIONAL TO WORK ON
REVERSIBLE OXYGEN BINDING. IN 1989, AIR LIQUIDE PROMOTED HER
TO VP RESEARCH.

¶12. PRIOR TO JOINING CLONAID (SEE WWW.CLONAID.COM) IN 1997,
DR. BOISSELIER HAD NOT WORKED IN BIOLOGY OR REPRODUCTION
TECHNIQUES. THE LAS VEGAS-BASED CLONAID RECEIVED $500,000
FROM MARK HUNT TO BUILD A LABORATORY IN WEST VIRGINIA BEFORE
MR. HUNT DECIDED TO STOP FINANCING THAT PROJECT. CLONAID
ALSO CLAIMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $200,000 FROM 250 DIFFERENT
DONORS IN THE HOPE OF CLONING A FAMILY MEMBER. ON MARCH 28,
2001 DR. BOISSELIER AND RAEL DEFENDED THEIR CLONING PROJECTS
BEFORE A SENATE COMMITTEE.

¶13. COMMENT. THE PUBLICITY GARNERED BY THE CLONING
ANNOUNCEMENT MAY BE USED BY THE RAEL ORGANIZATION TO GAIN
NEW ADHERENTS IN THE UNITED STATES.

¶14. CANADA LIKE MANY OTHER COUNTRIES IS IN THE PROCESS OF
ADOPTING LEGISLATION BILL C-113 WHICH WOULD BAN HUMAN
CLONING. ONE LIKELY RESULT OF THE BOISSELIER ANNOUNCEMENT IS
THAT SUCH LEGISLATION COULD CONTAIN STRICTER RESTRICTIONS.
END COMMENT.

Philip Meadows Taylor’s 1839 novel Confessions of a Thug captured the imagination of 19th-century Britain with its chilling depiction of an organized death cult preying upon the hapless travelers of India’s wild and desolate roads. Based upon real accounts Taylor gathered during his work suppressing the Thuggee cult for the Nizam of Hyderabad, the book is ominously introduced as an authoritative exposé in which true events have been faithfully woven into a fictionalized narrative.

Group of Thugs c. 1864.

As portrayed by Taylor, the Thugs are the votaries of Bhowanee (Kali); the destructive aspect of the Supreme Being. Endowed with superior intelligence and cunning, they are sent forth to make “sacrifices” on her behalf. The reward for their piety is the plunder they gather from their victims. In so far as they observe her omens and obey her taboos, Bhowanee grants them protection from earthly authorities.

Their modus operandi is to inveigle wealthy marks into joining their camp, or to merge with travelling caravans who seek protection in numbers while making treacherous journeys through foreign lands. “Thug” being the Hindi word for “conman,” they proceed to charm and manipulate their travelling companions into lowering their guards. Then, at some remote, well chosen-spot, a signal is given and each Thug simultaneously strangles his assigned victim with a roomál (hankerchief). The bodies are quickly stripped and deposited in preprepared graves, which are then skillfully disguised, as by building fire pits over them to explain the disturbance of the earth. In order to quietly and routinely commit mass murder, the Thugs must operate with military efficiency. Each man is trained to perform a repertoire of specialized roles, including those of strangler (bhuttóte), grave-digger (bélha), inveigler (sótha) and those who bury the dead (lugháees).

The anti-hero protagonist of Confessions of a Thug is Ameer Ali (based upon Syeed Amir Ali, a prolific Thug who turned King’s evidence). As a small child his parents are murdered by Thugs, but one, Ismail, chooses to spare him and raise him as his son. After Ameer forgets his parents and learns his stepfather’s vocation, he is initiated into the cult. The ensuing narrative reads much like a conventional adventure story of a boy heading off to sea, or running away with a band of gypsies, except for the stark fact that the protagonist is repeatedly committing acts of cold-blooded murder…

[Full Article at Victoriangothic.org]

By James T. Richardson, Special to CNN

I remember being struck by one of the early stories about 1993’s siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.

Shortly after an initial raid by federal authorities ended in a gun battle that left 10 dead (six Davidians and four ATF agents), a lengthy story appeared in my local paper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, about the history of the Davidian group, which had existed at Mount Carmel, Texas for decades.

The story noted that Branch Davidians were a spinoff sect of the Seventh Day Adventists, a Christian denomination. The term “cult” did not appear in the story at all. And yet the headline of this front-page piece screamed “Cult Standoff in Waco” in inch-high capital letters.

Some headline writer had decided that the Davidians were in fact a cult, no matter what the story said.

The term cult also factored into the federal trials that grew out of the Branch Davidian tragedy.

Some survivors of the fire that ended the siege, which left 76 sect members dead, faced a criminal trial in 1994. Early in the trial, the defense made a motion to disallow the use of the term cult in the proceedings.

The federal judge presiding over the trial quickly rejected the motion.

I was intrigued by use of such a powerful, pejorative term to refer to the Branch Davidians, a decades-old offshoot of a Christian denomination that did not fit the definition of the type of group to which the term cult had traditionally been applied…

[continues at CNN]

BANGKOK, Thailand — After Cyclone Nargis left a trail of corpses along Burma’s coast in May 2008, foreign aid workers clamored to enter the military-controlled backwater.

Despite the world’s pleading, Burma’s paranoid generals forbade most foreign relief workers from entering the disaster zone. A frustrated U.K. threatened unauthorized air drops. The U.S. Navy was forced to float vessels loaded with life-saving supplies offshore.

But among the few who managed to access Burma’s worst-hit areas included adherents of the California-based Church of Scientology.

According to the church, miracles ensued after Scientologists touched down. Their team sought out traumatized Burmese for Scientology’s touch-healing techniques, professed to revive the spirit…

Read More: GlobalPost

In December, 2009, Tricia Whitehill, a special agent from the Los Angeles office, flew to Florida to interview former members of the church in the F.B.I.’s office in downtown Clearwater, which happens to be directly across the street from Scientology’s spiritual headquarters.

Whitehill and Valerie Venegas, the lead agent on the case, also interviewed former Sea Org members in California. One of them was Gary Morehead, who had been the head of security at the Gold Base; he left the church in 1996. In February, 2010, he spoke to Whitehill and told her that he had developed a “blow drill” to track down Sea Org members who left Gold Base. “We got wickedly good at it,” he says. In thirteen years, he estimates, he and his security team brought more than a hundred Sea Org members back to the base. When emotional, spiritual, or psychological pressure failed to work, Morehead says, physical force was sometimes used to bring escapees back. (The church says that blow drills do not exist.)

Sea Org members who have “failed to fulfill their ecclesiastical responsibilities” may be sent to one of the church’s several Rehabilitation Project Force locations. Defectors describe them as punitive reëducation camps. In California, there is one in Los Angeles; until 2005, there was one near the Gold Base, at a place called Happy Valley. Bruce Hines, the defector turned research physicist, says that he was confined to R.P.F. for six years, first in L.A., then in Happy Valley. He recalls that the properties were heavily guarded and that anyone who tried to flee would be tracked down and subjected to further punishment. “In 1995, when I was put in R.P.F., there were twelve of us,” Hines said. “At the high point, in 2000, there were about a hundred and twenty of us.” Some members have been in R.P.F. for more than a decade, doing manual labor and extensive spiritual work. (Davis says that Sea Org members enter R.P.F. by their own choosing and can leave at any time; the manual labor maintains church facilities and instills “pride of accomplishment.”)

Paul Haggis. Photo: David Shankbone (CC)

Lawrence Wright’s forthcoming tell-all book about the Hollywood uber-cult Scientology (The Heretic of Hollywood: Paul Haggis vs.The Church of Scientology) has been in the news often the past few weeks, mostly concerning speculation about whether or not award-winning scribe Paul Haggis “officially” collaborated with Wright.

The book still hasn’t been scheduled for publication and considering the cult’s propensity for litigation it might face considerable delays. For those who can’t wait, Wright has contributed a fascinating and lengthy essay on the topic to the current issue of the New Yorker.

It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the cult of Scientology. Here’s the beginning:

On August 19, 2009, Tommy Davis, the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International, received a letter from the film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis. “For ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego,” Haggis wrote. Before the 2008 elections, a staff member at Scientology’s San Diego church had signed its name to an online petition supporting Proposition 8, which asserted that the State of California should sanction marriage only “between a man and a woman.” The proposition passed. As Haggis saw it, the San Diego church’s “public sponsorship of Proposition 8, which succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California—rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state—is a stain on the integrity of our organization and a stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us.” Haggis wrote, “Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.” He concluded, “I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.”

Haggis was prominent in both Scientology and Hollywood, two communities that often converge. Although he is less famous than certain other Scientologists, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, he had been in the organization for nearly thirty-five years. Haggis wrote the screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby,” which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2004, and he wrote and directed “Crash,” which won Best Picture the next year—the only time in Academy history that that has happened.

Davis, too, is part of Hollywood society; his mother is Anne Archer, who starred in “Fatal Attraction” and “Patriot Games,” among other films. Before becoming Scientology’s spokesperson, Davis was a senior vice-president of the church’s Celebrity Centre International network.

In previous correspondence with Davis, Haggis had demanded that the church publicly renounce Proposition 8. “I feel strongly about this for a number of reasons,” he wrote. “You and I both know there has been a hidden anti-gay sentiment in the church for a long time. I have been shocked on too many occasions to hear Scientologists make derogatory remarks about gay people, and then quote L.R.H. in their defense.” The initials stand for L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, whose extensive writings and lectures form the church’s scripture…

[Make sure to read the rest in the New Yorker]

The evangelical cult “Paz do Senhor Amado” (”Peace of the beloved Lord”) in the interior of Brazil forbids its followers to use any USB technology by contending that it uses a symbol that shows sympathy for the devil.

Its founder, the “Apostle” Welder Saldanha, says that this is just another symbol of Satan, which is always present in all Christian homes.

“The symbol of that name [a name which he doesn't even like to pronounce] is a trident, which is used to torture souls that go to hell. Use only a symbol of those shows that all users of that vile technology are actually worshipers of Satan,” explains the” Apostle.”

Measures were taken so that all the USB connections of his followers were exchanged for common connections and even the Bluetooth, which according to Saldanha Welder is permitted, for “Blue was the color of the eyes of our savior Jesus Christ.”

Thirteen members of a Southern California religious sect, including children as young as 3, who went missing this weekend were found alive and well at a California park today.

Steve Whitmore, the spokesman for the LA Sherriff’s Dept., announced the news this afternoon that the group was found at 11:55 a.m. at Jackie Robinson Park in Palmdale, Calif.

Believed to be led by Reyna Marisol Chicas, a 32-year-old woman from Palmdale, the group left behind cell phones, identification, deeds to property and disturbing letters before disappearing on Saturday, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Captain Mike Parker. Authorities said it appeared they had gone off to await an apocalyptic event.

“Essentially, the letters say they are all going to heaven to meet Jesus and their deceased relatives,” sheriff’s department spokesman Steve Whitmore said. “Some of the letters were saying goodbye.”

“They indicated they were going to the next life, if you will. I’m not quoting exactly, I’m paraphrasing of course, but that’s essentially what they said,” Whitmore added…

[continues at ABC News]

The heiress wanted to meet the Dalai Lama. She wanted the Dalai Lama to be her friend. She had been obsessed with him for two and a half years.

“I was literally in my bedroom one day listening to his tapes and thought to myself, ‘Wow, this guy is amazing!’” Sara Bronfman told an Albany AM radio host last year. When His Holiness arrived in town the next day, Ms. Bronfman could take credit for his presence.

During her dilettantish early 20s, Ms. Bronfman continued, she never would never have conceived of such an ambition, but for the previous five years she had been immersed in Executive Success Programs (ESP), a self-help regimen administered by the local organization NXIVM (pronounced Nex-ee-um). It was an experience she found singularly emboldening.

Ms. Bronfman sensed a connection between the Dalai Lama’s teachings and her training. “The way he looks at things is very scientific and very much in line with the philosophy of NXIVM,” she told the host. “I said, ‘Well, that kind of sounds like what we do!’ And I thought, ‘Maybe I could introduce myself, and bring him here and introduce him to Keith.’ Because I think Keith is a scientist and also a great philosopher.”

Ms. Bronfman was referring to NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, a bespectacled 49-year-old with graying, shoulder-length hair. Mr. Raniere, who goes by the moniker Vanguard, bills himself as a “leader in human potential development” and has trademarked a philosophy he calls the Rational Inquiry Method. He is what you would get, said one former associate, “if David Koresh and Bernie Madoff had a child.” Over the past seven years, Mr. Raniere has earned the devotion of Sara Bronfman and her sister Clare. In that time, according to his former girlfriend and financial adviser Babara Bouchey, Mr. Raniere has also squandered more than $100 million of the Bronfman liquor fortune, destabilizing one of New York’s most prominent business and social dynasties…

[continues in the New York Observer]

Really surprised to see the site still up, I didn’t realize the group was still in “existence” after the March 1997 mass suicide.

In case you haven’t gotten your dose of massive creepiness today, here’s an initiation tape from Heaven’s Gate’s Marshall Applewhite. Still creepy after all these years. Thanks to Tim Pugh for creeping me out even more…

Duff: Ok. Well, from what I understand it largely emerged in the early 20th century when New Thought religious ideas became popular and were applied to worldly success. The basic idea was contained in such books as Think and Grow Rich and As a Man Thinketh.

The notion was that you could create stuff with the power of your mind. The correlary is that if you aren’t getting what you want, you need to do a kind of mental hygeine and clean up your stinkin’ thinkin’ (to quote Zig Ziglar).

So you have people like Napolean Hill, who died broke by the way, writing books on how to get rich by visualizing and affirming one’s future wealth.

Eric: In Douglas Rushkoff’s book Life Inc. he argues that ‘personal development’ or self help found its place in corporations, in order to help the remaining staff become more efficient after job cuts.

Thus personal development has deep capitalistic roots, based in becoming more useful for society, and or your particular corporate persuasion.

Paul Schaefer, 89, a German-born evangelical preacher who was convicted of sexually abusing 25 children while leading one of the world’s most notorious anti-Semitic and apocalyptic sects, died April 24 of a heart ailment at a prison hospital in Chile.

His enclave in southern Chile, Colonia Dignidad…doubled during the 1970s and ’80s as a detention and torture center for opponents of right-wing dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

At the time of his death, Mr. Schaefer was still under investigation in the 1985 disappearance of mathematician Boris Weisfeiler, an American citizen who went missing while hiking near Colonia Dignidad.

Mr. Schaefer turned to preaching after serving in the German military during World War II. He traveled the German countryside with an acoustic guitar and a message of salvation through sexual abstinence. Armed with powerful charisma and a gift for public speaking, he collected hundreds of followers before eventually establishing an orphanage near Bonn.

Accused of molesting two boys at the orphanage, he fled to Chile in 1961 and started his commune on a picturesque ranch 225 miles south of Santiago. The enclave boasted its own landing strip, television station and power plant, as well as lumber, honey and brick-making businesses. Mr. Schaefer built a school and a hospital, winning over some local citizens by offering them free education and health care.

However, Colonia Dignidad’s darker side soon emerged. Former members of the sect told reporters and Chilean and German officials of Mr. Schaefer’s unsavory tendencies. He was always accompanied by a handpicked coterie of boys who ran his errands, brushed his hair and tied his shoes. He maintained total control over the lives of his followers, the former members said, forbidding contact with the outside world and using electric shocks and tranquilizers to punish those who broke his rules.

Babies were taken from their mothers at birth and raised in a communal nursery. All adults were known as “uncle” or “aunt”; Mr. Schaefer was called “permanent uncle.”

Mr. Schaefer avoided arrest for decades, largely because of his close relationships with political and military leaders — including Pinochet, who was brought to power by a 1973 coup d’etat. Thousands of political dissidents disappeared or were killed during Pinochet’s rule, and human rights groups say that many were taken to Colonia Dignidad, or Dignity Colony, where they were tortured in underground chambers.

Our guest this week is Arthur Goldwag

This week I talk to one of my new favourite authors (and guests), Arthur Goldwag. Arthur is the author of the recently published ‘Cults, Conspiracies, & Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull & Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order‘, a fantastic book that I recommend to anyone that wants to be introduced to these fascinating topics in a more logical, and non-bias fashion.

In this episode we discuss: The mindset of conspiracy theorists, why the Freemasons are blamed for everything evil in the world, how L. Ron Hubbard’s rise to power baffles us, some of the weirdest cults out there, and the age old question: is Lady Gaga a puppet of the Illuminati?

If you have any queries, suggestions, insults etc. Please feel free to email ken@sittingnow.co.uk.

Enjoy!

Arthur Goldwag Biography:

After attending Kenyon College and Brown University, Arthur Goldwag worked in book publishing for more than twenty years, including stints at Random House, The New York Review of Books, and Book-of-the-Month Club. He now freelances full time.

The author of THE BELIEFNET GUIDE TO KABBALAH (Doubleday, 2005), ISMS & OLOGIES (Vintage, 2007), and CULTS, CONSPIRACIES & SECRET SOCIETIES (Vintage, 2009), Arthur is also a contributing editor at Scholastic’s STORYWORKS magazine, where he writes stories, plays, and essays for children. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and two sons.

Two former Scientologists have shone a less than flattering spotlight on the controversial organization, which counts the actors John Travolta and Tom Cruise among its followers, in a landmark lawsuit.

In the test case against the US-based Church of Scientology, Marc Headley and his wife, Claire, have told how they were treated like slaves and forced to work 20-hour days almost continually through the year.

Mrs Headley claims she was coerced into having an abortion, while Mr Headley has spoken about how he was subjected to a strange mind-control practise by the actor Tom Cruise.

Both were members of Sea Org, the Scientologists’ “religious order” and a supposedly elite vanguard made up of its most dedicated recruits, and signed up to the religion when they were still teenagers.

Members of the order sign a billion-year pledge of loyalty, promise not to have children, and live and work communally.

[Read more at the Telegraph]

CLEVELAND (Wireless Flash) — A Cleveland-based UFO cult claims Doomsday is finally coming after years of false alarms.

The Church of the Subgenius is a satirical “church” supposedly founded by a man named J.R. “Bob” Dobbs in 1953. Today, Rev. Ivan Stang runs the parody cult, which has thousands of members who pay $30 to get in and receive “important-looking documents filled with made-up words.”

On July 5, Subgenius will host “X-Day” in New York, a bizarre ceremony to celebrate the end
of the world. Each year, they predict that Armageddon will come on July 5 and members will be saved by flying saucers carrying “alien sex goddesses.” These aliens will pleasure members for eternity, or Stang says they get triple their Church dues back.

He calls the party one last hurrah among “nerdy boys” and “weirdos,” though he’d be surprised if UFOs actually came.

They’ve been waiting for the aliens for 15 years straight, disappointing those who “truly
believe” time after time.

Founding Church of Scientology in Washington DC. Photo: Ben Schumin (CC)

There once was a time when the media were scared to report on the madness that is the “Church” of Scientology for fear of costly litigation. No more. While there have been occasional reports over the years, last year ABC News went hard after Scientology leader David Miscavige. Now the New York Times runs a front page story suggesting that the “Church” is losing members fast and may have as few as 25,000 members in the United States, versus the millions claimed by the organization:

Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

“Why did we work so hard for this organization,” Ms. Collbran said, “and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn’t understand.”

They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades…

[continues in the New York Times]

(Left) Ria Ramkissoon and her son Javon Thompson, (top right) Queen Antoinette and (bottom right) Trevia Williams.

For more than a week, Ria Ramkissoon watched passively as her one-year-old son wasted away, denied food and water because the older woman she lived with said it was God’s will. Javon Thompson was possessed by an evil spirit, Ramkissoon was told, because he didn’t say “Amen” during a mealtime prayer. Javon didn’t talk much, given his age, but he had said “Amen” before, Ramkissoon testified in a US court in Baltimore.

On the day Javon died, Ramkissoon was told to “nurture him back to life”. She mashed up some carrots and tried to feed the boy, but he was no longer able to swallow. Ramkissoon put her hands on his chest to confirm that his heart had stopped beating.

Ramkissoon and several other people knelt down and prayed that he would rise from the dead. For weeks afterward, Ramkissoon spent much of her time in a room with her son’s emaciated body — talking to him, dancing, even giving him water. She thought she could bring him back.

Ramkissoon told the tale of her son’s excruciating death from the witness stand on Wednesday, at the trial of the woman she says told her not to feed the boy. Queen Antoinette was the leader of a small religious cult, according to police and prosecutors, and she faces murder charges alongside her daughter, Trevia Williams, and another follower, Marcus A. Cobbs.

Read More: AP via the Sydney Morning Herald

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Thought about becoming an end-of-the-world prophet? It’s not the make-or-break enterprise you might think, as much as your gut feeling may be that mobs of angry parishioners await the fortune-teller who talks them into making room on the calendar for the final trumpets, the Rapture, World War III, the return of Jesus, global computer meltdowns, or post-game shows on life hosted by great messiahs stepping out of the pages of history — only for the poor dupes to find themselves paying bills the next week.

Time and again, it hasn’t worked that way. The beauty of blown prophecies is that failure is the beginning of success. That is, if you adopt the techniques of history’s most successful faulty prophets. Through time-tested rebranding methods, they’ve reinvented failure as proof that they were righter than anyone could have imagined.

The very glue holding your congregation together can be a mistaken prediction and what you’ve invested in it. Thousands of apostles of Shaini Goodwin of Tacoma, Washington, known to admirers as the “Dove of Oneness” and to the Tacoma News Tribune as a “cybercult queen,” hold out for a Judgment Day that will justify all of her bad guesses.

Every year is supposed to be the year it happens: the revelation of NESARA (the National Economic Security and Reformation Act), a secret bill purportedly signed by President Bill Clinton. We are just a hair’s breadth away. When the gag order is lifted, NESARA will free the world from debt, stop the Iraq War, and — according to one Utah group of adherents, filmed in the documentary Waiting for NESARA — unmask Republicans as space aliens masquerading as fiscal conservatives.

For other bad prophets, it turns out it’s the thought that counts. Maybe the seer was on the right track but just jumped the gun, the sense is, and interest heightens in the original questions he raised. Just consider theologian William Miller. His followers believed his prediction — based on calculations he derived from the Book of Daniel — that Jesus would return between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. This misfire was soon followed by the Great Disappointment of 1844, when a crowd of 100,000 people, many of them sober, respectable reformers and abolitionists, assembled to see the end-times that Samuel S. Snow, a Millerite (that is, a follower of Miller), had marked down for the 22nd of October. Supposedly using a more precise version of Miller’s formula, Snow had worked out the exact day, and after some initial hesitancy Miller enthusiastically endorsed this specific prediction. As the clock ticked and everyone waited awkwardly for Christ, someone pointed out that the Holy Land had a seven-hour time difference. The sting of failure was worse for all the mockery they took from the townspeople: “What, not gone up yet?”

No, they were still here. For now. And yet Miller’s bad guesses, far from leaving a foul taste in everyone’s mouth, made them newly anxious about the great return they’d prepared themselves for. It even inspired the creation of new denominations, including the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a church that has since slated Jesus’ return for 1874, 1914, 1918, 1941, 1954, and 1975. And Miller awakened the fascination with the Rapture that today drives sales of Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind books, which sell in the tens of millions, several years after the year 2000 failed to deliver on the millennial holocaust of non-Christians wished for by many Americans.

How can your sect rebound from failed prophecy in better shape than ever? According to one school of science, the answer starts with understanding the principle of cognitive dissonance.

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Read the entire article and many others in the Disinformation anthology Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, edited by Russ Kick, available on Amazon and in all good bookstores.

About The Author: John Gorenfeld is a writer living in San Francisco. His work has appeared on Salon.com, the Guardian and other publications, and he has appeared on NPR, ABC News and CSPAN. In 2004 Gorenfeld made national news after exposing a secret Capitol Hill party for a cult leader, and then wrote a book about it.

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Religion is an extremely touchy topic. Church members often become angry if anyone questions their supernatural dogmas. (Bertrand Russell said this is because they subconsciously sense that their beliefs are irrational.) So I try to avoid confrontations that can hurt feelings. Nearly everyone wants to be courteous.

But sometimes disputes can’t be avoided. If you think the spirit realm is imaginary, and if honesty makes you say so, you may find yourself under attack. It has happened to many doubters: Thomas Jefferson was called a “howling atheist.” Leo Tolstoy was labeled an “impious infidel.”

Well, if you wind up in a debate, my advice is: Try to be polite. Don’t let tempers flare, if you can help it. Appeal to your accuser’s intelligence.

I’ve hatched some questions you may find useful. They’re designed to show that church members, even the most ardent worshipers, are skeptics, too — because they doubt every magical system except their own. If a churchman berates you, perhaps you could reply like this:

You’re an unbeliever, just like me. You doubt many sacred dogmas. Let me show you:

• Millions of Hindus pray over statues of Shiva’s penis. Do you think there’s an invisible Shiva who wants his penis prayed over — or are you a skeptic?

• Mormons say that Jesus came to America after his resurrection. Do you agree — or are you a doubter?

• Santería worshipers sacrifice dogs, goats, chickens, etc., and toss their bodies into waterways. Do you think Santería gods want animals killed — or are you skeptical?

• Muslim suicide bombers who blow themselves up are taught that “martyrs” instantly go to a paradise full of lovely female houri nymphs. Do you think the bombers now are in heaven with houri — or are you a doubter?

• Unification Church members think that Jesus visited Rev. Sun Myung Moon and told him to convert all people as “Moonies.” Do you believe this sacred tenet of the Unification Church?

• Jehovah’s Witnesses say that, any day now, exactly 144,000 of them will be physically lifted to heaven, where they will reign with Jesus Christ. Do you believe this solemn teaching of their church?

• Aztecs skinned maidens and cut out human hearts for a feathered serpent-god. What’s your stand on invisible, feathered serpents? Aha! — just as I suspected, you don’t believe.

• Catholics are taught that the Communion wafer and wine magically become the actual, literal body and blood of Jesus during chants and bell-ringing. Do you believe in the “real presence” — or are you a disbeliever?

• Faith-healer Ernest Angley says he has the power, described in the Bible, to “discern spirits,” which enables him to see demons inside sick people and to see angels hovering at his revivals. Do you believe this religious assertion?

• The Bible says that people who work on the Sabbath must be killed: “Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 31:15). Should we execute Sunday-workers — or do you doubt this scripture?

• At a golden temple in West Virginia, saffron-robed worshipers think they’ll become one with Lord Krishna if they chant “Hare Krishna” enough. Do you agree — or do you doubt it?

• Members of the Heaven’s Gate commune said they could “shed their containers” (i.e., their bodies) and be transported to a UFO behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Do you think they’re now on that UFO — or are you a skeptic?

• During the witch hunts, inquisitor priests tortured thousands of women into confessing that they blighted crops, had sex with Satan, etc. — then executed them for it. Do you think the Church was right to enforce the Bible’s command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18) — or do you doubt this scripture?

• Members of Spiritualist churches say they talk with the dead during their worship services. Do you think they actually communicate with spirits of deceased people?

• Millions of American Pentecostals spout “the unknown tongue,” a spontaneous outpouring of sounds. They say it’s the Holy Ghost, the third part of the Trinity, speaking through them. Do you believe this sacred tenet of many Americans?

• Scientologists say each human has something akin to a soul, which is a “Thetan” that came from another planet. Do you believe their doctrine — or doubt it?

• Ancient Greeks thought a multitude of gods lived on Mt. Olympus — and some of today’s New Agers think invisible Lemurians live inside Mt. Shasta. What’s your position on mountain gods — belief or disbelief?

• In the mountains of West Virginia, some people obey Christ’s farewell command that true believers “shall take up serpents” (Mark 16:18). They pick up rattlesnakes at church services. Do you believe this scripture, or not?

• India’s Thugs thought the many-armed goddess Kali wanted them to strangle human sacrifices. Do you think there’s an invisible goddess who wants people strangled — or are you a disbeliever?

• Tibet’s Buddhists say that when an old Lama dies, his spirit enters a baby boy who’s just being born somewhere. So they remain leaderless for a dozen years or more, then they find a boy who seems to have knowledge of the old Lama’s private life, and they anoint the boy as the new Lama (actually the old Lama in a new body). Do you think that dying Lamas fly into new babies, or not?

• In China in the mid-1800s, a Christian convert said God appeared to him, told him he was Jesus’ younger brother, and commanded him to “destroy demons.” He raised an army of believers who waged the Taiping Rebellion that killed as many as 20 million people. Do you think he was Christ’s brother — or do you doubt it?

Etc., etc. You get the picture.

I’ll bet there isn’t a church member anywhere who doesn’t think that all those supernatural beliefs are goofy — except for the one he believes.

You see, by going through a laundry list of theologies, I think you can establish that the average Christian doubts 99 percent of the world’s holy dogmas. But the 1 percent he believes is really no different than the rest. It’s a system of miraculous claims without any reliable evidence to support it.

So, if we can show people that some sacred “truths” are nutty, maybe subconscious logic will seep through, and they’ll realize that if some magical beliefs are irrational, all may be.

This progression is rather like a scene in the poignant Peter de Vries novel The Blood of the Lamb. A gushy woman compliments a Jew because “your people” reduced the many gods of polytheism to just one god. The man dourly replies: “Which is just a step from the truth.”

Meanwhile, it’s encouraging to realize that almost everyone in the world is a skeptic — at least about other people’s religion.

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Read this article and many others in the Disinformation anthology Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, edited by Russ Kick, available on Amazon and in all good bookstores.

About The Author — James A. Haught, in his own words: “I’m an old newspaper editor who has spent half a century chronicling social struggles and cultural tides. Personally, I’ve waged a long crusade for rational, scientific thinking as an antidote for harmful supernaturalism. I’ve written five books and many magazine articles against religion, astrology, mysticism, psychic claims, cults, ‘New Agery,’ fundamentalism, and other magical beliefs.”

Fight them on the beaches if you will. But the descendants of Sir Winston Churchill have decided that a more effective way to prevent the Church of Scientology from hijacking the memory of Britain’s wartime leader involves stern cease-and-desist letters and the threat of a costly PR battle.

In an unlikely dispute that pits Sir Winston’s grandchildren against followers of the late L Ron Hubbard – the science-fiction writer who believed, among other things, that mankind descended from aliens who arrived on Earth via spaceships – the controversial church has been asked to remove Churchill’s image and quotations from its fundraising literature.

The literary agency Curtis Brown, which represents several members of the Churchill family, has written to the church’s London branch protesting at a range of advertising leaflets and posters that liken the Allied struggle against Nazi Germany to Scientology’s efforts to recruit new members.

[Read more at The Independent]