Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

[DaisyD]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

Each recap has this disclaimer at the end. 

The Church of Scientology has requested that we include the statement below in this recap:

"Leah Remini is doing this for the money and now tries to pretend otherwise. Ms. Remini is being compensated for this show, just as she profited from her book. In addition, she attempted to extort the Church by first demanding $500,000, followed by an additional $1 million, because the Church invoked its First Amendment right to respond to her false claims with the truth. This shows the extent Leah Remini is willing to go to in order to distort the truth about Scientology.

"Remini has repeatedly disparaged and exploited her former faith for profit and attention through a series of failed publicity stunts, culminating in her reality TV show featuring [former members] who have been telling differing versions of the same false tales of abuse for years." 

Let's go statement by statement. 

Of course she's making money off of the book and show. That's how it works. She gave you millions of dollars. I'm not mad at her for getting some of it back by exposing you.

I don't remember the details of her lawsuit but the way I read this statement tells me that she sued them for defamation, as is her right. It only shows the lengths she's willing to go to to protect herself.

She has repeatedly disparaged the church for the abuses it commits against it's parishioners and employees.

Her stunts have only failed to get the police moving. We all now wonder about Shelley. I wouldn't call that a failure. 

The stories from former members are actually remarkably similar and show a pattern of abuse on a large scale by the church. The only thing "differing" is the person telling the story.

The only thing these statements do is confirm that she is exposing them, and they're worried.

[SilverBeach]

@KZK, thanks for the link, I'm going down that rabbit hole now. If only the internet and social media had been around 40 years ago, maybe so many wouldn't have been duped.

I hate the constant disclaimers about how Scientology disagrees with the program, etc. Once at the beginning of the episode is enough, heck, once at the beginning of the series would have been enough. It seems like pandering to me. 

That aside, I think the show is awesome. I've been a long-time cult watcher, and these insider revelations are heartbreaking. The twin that died after being sent away from flag? I was almost in tears.

David Miscavige is a tyrant with a severe case of Napoleon syndrome. Somebody needs to kick his short little ass. 

[DaisyD]

1 hour ago, SilverBeach said:

I hate the constant disclaimers about how Scientology disagrees with the program, etc. Once at the beginning of the episode is enough, heck, once at the beginning of the series would have been enough. It seems like pandering to me.

They are covering their asses. $ci is extremely litigious. They framed someone for bomb threats for writing a book about them. They sue everyone. I don't blame A&E for being overly careful. 

[SilverBeach]

The bomb threat framing was against Paulette Cooper, who was one of the earliest exposers of Scientology nonsense. I'm reading her book now. 

Yes, Scientology is known for its litigiousness and dirty tricks. I still think that A&E is overdoing it with the disclaimers. It should be brave like Leah. One or two, yeah, but at every commercial? No, it's distracting.

[bucherwurm]

I've been really enjoying these shows. I have always been interested in cults and religions. I think I saw her on Ellen a while ago, and they brought up her book and this series which is how I heard of it. I looked for the book on Kobo and in a bookstore here in Canada and haven't been able to find it.

[ChunkyBarbie]

Every time I see/hear Co$ spout off about how evil their ex members are, I think it makes Co$ look guilty and ridiculous.  They are both attacking ex members by assassinating their characters and God knows what else, while admitting that their organization has had a bunch of evil people running it and or involved in it. Clearly, something is rotten in Co$. 

[quiversR4hunting]

@Howl thanks so for the rolling Stone links. I have watched all the episodes but it was great to read their recaps. 

I have my husband hooked on this series and I think he will even watch 20/20 tonight

[Incognito22]

It really has been a powerful series.  I think she has done a great job of giving a "parishioner" point of view as well.  I think the majority of these people think what they are doing really is for the greater good.  The cult higher ups however are lying, cheating and stealing without any reprocussions.  I want Miscavage to come out of his L-hubba- bubble and in to the real world and try that shit.  His napoleon ass would be flattened in a second.  Hahah I'm just trying to picture him at places like the DMV or a long line at target.  It would be epic!

   I've really enjoyed the series.  It's very eye opening.  I wonder if Cruise will ever wise up to it?

[DaisyD]

11 minutes ago, Incognito22 said:

I've really enjoyed the series.  It's very eye opening.  I wonder if Cruise will ever wise up to it?

I think that even if he was aware that he's in a cult, it's a cult that goes to great lengths to keep him very happy. I don't think he would even remotely care.

[quiversR4hunting]

20/20 just started. They have an interview or statement from the church within the last 24 hours. I wonder what word salad they will use to debunk everyone. 

[bucherwurm]

Thanks for the reminder of 20/20 tonight! I usually work super early on Saturdays so I would be in bed already on a Friday night. But instead it's after 10 and I get to watch a show about Scientology! 

[quiversR4hunting]

The attorney has already said a couple things. Nothing we all haven't already read or watxhes. Basically, Leah is getting paid to do the show, nobody should believe her. She hasn't had a hit in years. CO$ says is saying Leah is using hate speech to a church.  

[PennySycamore]

This attorney crackpot could work for the Catholic Church to help  them deny that some priests sexually abuse kids or for IBLP.

[DaisyD]

Recaps please! I'm stuck watching other stuff and forgot to set the dvr.

[bucherwurm]

Cannot stand that lawyer they had on. The blinking, oh my. I wish they had more of Leah on, but oh well. 

[K'Z'K]

The only spokesperson for Scientology (Monique Yingling, the lawyer with the Donnie Trump "tan") on 20/20 or really anything recent is not a Scientologist. But she is a terrible liar. Everything critics say is  not true, wildly exaggerated, or false (yeah, really, she couldn't come up with a third thing, so she went with "lies" again). Her response to every allegation (paraphrased, but only a little): well, I can't say that *never* happened, but they're lying. How she lives with herself I'll never know. Bad enough when it was Rinder lying his ass off and attacking critics--at least he had the whole brainwashed-and-abused thing.

She gave the usual lines about people being vindictive liars, paid, yada yada yada. Yeah, Leah and Mike are being paid for the documentary. They're doing some really hard work making the damn thing. I don't work for free either.

I kinda feel bad for Rathbun. Clearly, the Fair Gaming worked in his case. They destroyed him. I don't know enough about him to know if my sympathy is misplaced, though.

20/20 also interviewed Serge Gil, who was raised in $cn and is now out. I like him already. The reporter said something like "Serge now joins the ranks of critics..." and I just had to say "Welcome!" (Serge was known already on the Bunker, but this was his debut to the general public. VWD, Serge!)

I had to LOL at the ending of 20/20 though: Leah says she wants to see someone bring down the "church," including getting the tax exemption revoked (to borrow $cn's own catchphrase, to Do Something About It). Yingling says they're not concerned and it'll never happen. 20/20 mentions that Leah is in talks for a second season. Translation: challenge accepted.

Bring it, Co$.

 

[Peas n carrots]

I think Monique Yingling was phoning it in. $ci isn't getting their money's worth with her anymore.

[DaisyD]

Thank you @KZK!

I imagine it gets difficult to find a good lawyer that doesn't get tired of saying the same thing over and over when all of your parishioners quit school at 14 to work in Sea Org instead of going to college. The brainwashing is what makes the difference.

[quiversR4hunting]

12 hours ago, bucherwurm said:

Cannot stand that lawyer they had on. The blinking, oh my. 

When she was doing all the eye flutters, I swear that was her tell for her own lies. (I wish I could read faces like detectives) 

[Howl]

1 hour ago, quiversR4hunting said:

When she was doing all the eye flutters, I swear that was her tell for her own lies. (I wish I could read faces like detectives) 

It's a combination of eye flutters and a total inability to look directly into the camera and engage with the viewer that makes it so uncomfortable to watch her.  Monique needs to contact Kellyanne Conway ASAP for a tutorial on how to lie in front of a camera with breathtaking conviction and sincerity. 

Ick. Ick, ick, ick!  Leah, please, PLEASE do an entire series focused on rampant child abuse within Co$.   As far as I can tell, you will not lack for material.  

In the most recent A&E episode that I watched,  Adam Smith-Levin was talking about how his twin was a star auditor while still a young teen.   Underground Bunker goes into minors auditing adults in detail with Scientology’s disgusting secret: Young teens used to interrogate adults about their sex lives, based mostly on Serge Gil's experience as a teen auditor, and confirmed by others. 

Tony Ortega says, "We’ve heard from numerous ex-Scientologists that the organization seems to have a particular preoccupation with masturbation, and a real interest in their members’ sex lives in general. " 

Quote

Serge, in other words, at only 15 or 16 years old, often found himself quizzing men in their 30s and 40s about their most intimate sexual experiences.  “These people had some pretty dark pasts,” he says. “But we were there to protect and inspect. And these interrogations went on for hours.".....Serge estimates that he interrogated more than 500 older men about their sex histories while he was a minor....But the worst, he says, was when he would quiz a man about masturbating, asking what the man had thought about when he jerked off….“And he’d say, ‘you.’ And then I’d have to get all the details from him, of him masturbating while he was thinking of me.”

 

Quote

“It is very common. I was doing the same thing at 16 when I was at Int Base,” Claire Headley told us.

One man she was interrogating was in his late 40s, and he brought in a written account of about 50 pages describing his masturbation habits. “I had to give him a meter check to see if there was anything he’d held back. That’s how I learned what masturbation was, reading the O/W write-ups of 40- to 50-year-old men at the base,” Claire says.  “All of the sec-checker [interrogation] trainees at RTC were all under 18. I knew two that were 14 years old.”

 

Quote

We had to ask some of the older men we knew who had left Scientology — were they on the other end of these interactions?

“It was creepy. It was very creepy. More than once I had to go in session with a teenage Sea Org girl, maybe 18 or 19 years old, at Flag,” Jefferson Hawkins told us.... He left the organization in 2005, and wrote an excellent book about his life in Scientology, Counterfeit Dreams.

“I had to spill my guts to these young women. It felt really creepy. And not only were they young women, they were very innocent. They didn’t know anything that I was talking about. It was a creepy experience.”

But was it common?

“Oh yeah. Well, because, particularly at Int Base, a lot of times the CMO ethics people were young women. And they loved power. They loved lording it over older people in general. And they loved to lord it over veterans who had been around Hubbard. Here they were able to just dominate these people and make them feel like shit. They could be quite cruel,” he says. “But that was one thing they had to do, was take older men into session and quiz them about their sex lives.”

So you have:

1. Minors, and especially very young minors, are in a situation where they have no idea what an appropriate psychological boundary is and where that lies in the continuum of normal human interactions

2. Adults who know that appropriate boundaries are being breached, but feel compelled to keep going anyway

What could possibly go wrong?

[lilwriter85]

I watched the 20/20 episode this morning and count me in as another person who doesn't like that lawyer

14 hours ago, DaisyD said:

Recaps please! I'm stuck watching other stuff and forgot to set the dvr.

I think ABC puts the 20/20 episodes online the next day. If you are a Hulu subscriber you can watch on there.

[ChunkyBarbie]

I just finished watching the 20/20 episode. Co$ should be shaking in their boots. Not a single Co$ rep ever seems to have an ounce of credibility. All their critics, no matter how far fetched their stories, seem sincere and honest. I have no doubt that they are, to be clear.  Serge broke my heart, I am glad he has real support and help. 

Co$ kills me with the faux military uniforms too. 

 

 

[Peas n carrots]

CO$ and Davey has to know the end is nigh. One of the recent executive defectors has said there is literally no high level executive who hasn't blown or is in the Hole -'Davey has created a Stalinesque nightmare in the organization. With the exception of a few international places like Taiwan and Eastern Europe, there are almost no new members - the local orgs are ghost towns.

My best guess is Davey is hoarding as much cash as he can and is figuring out a way to abscond with it, likely doing a Hubbard move by taking off to the seas. To hell with all left in the CO$z

[quiversR4hunting]

13 minutes ago, Peas n carrots said:

One of the recent executive defectors has said there is literally no high level executive who hasn't blown or is in the Hole

I wonder how law enforcement could get probable cause for a search warrent and raid Hemlet. 

[Howl]

The deadline for LA police to give Leah Remini the details of the Shelly Miscavige missing person report should be coming up very soon -- even with the two-week extension.  

I'm curious about how much the high level execs are paid.  Are they paid while in The Hole?