By Tony Ortega (via VigilantCitizen)

Last June, we brought you the first review of The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion by Ohio State professor Hugh Urban, and then the first interview with the good professor himself.

During that interview, Urban told us that he was planning to continue his research into Scientology, and would be looking into a variety of areas. But we didn’t know that one of those interests included a closer look at L. Ron Hubbard’s wild occult history that preceded his publication of 1950’s Dianetics.

Longtime Scientology watchers will be at least somewhat familiar with the tale: that after his involvement in WWII, Hubbard shacked up with Jet Propulsion Lab rocket scientist Jack Parsons, a man heavily into the occult, and in particular the teachings of The Great Beast, British occultist Aleister Crowley. You may even know something about the kinky things Parsons and Hubbard did trying to create a “Moonchild.” But what Urban does in a new piece for the journal Nova Religio is produce a thorough, academic study of the ways that Crowley’s “magick” found parallels in what would become Hubbard’s most famous creation, Scientology.

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See also: Factnet Report: Hubbard and the Occult

Seth Perry - October 2, 2011

This past spring, in a course I called “American Scriptures,” my students and I listened to excerpts of a recording of L. Ron Hubbard lecturing on a boat in 1968. I had obtained the recording—which the Church of Scientology, the religious organization Hubbard founded, considers not for public circulation—from WikiLeaks, along with a transcript. I photocopied the relevant portions of the transcript and handed them out in class as aids to listening. The transcripts helped enable discussion of particular passages and allowed students to follow Scientology’s famously idiosyncratic lingo—”squirreling,” “ARC break,” “F/N.”

We did something similar with media productions of various other American religious movements, but what inevitably set Scientology’s apart was that as I handed out the transcripts, I told the students that I would have to ask for them back at the end of class. I explained that I did not want to be accused of having reproduced Scientology materials for circulation, thereby risking a lawsuit. My students, with some mirth, thought I was being a little dramatic, and maybe they were right—but I took the transcripts back all the same.

This classroom moment exemplifies the tensions inherent in studying and teaching Scientology. Hubbard’s teachings contain fascinating religious content that demands serious study—by those interested in religion writ large, and by those, like me, who study its American iterations. The organization that Hubbard created, however, frustrates that study.

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Source: Sydney Morning Herald

SCIENTOLOGISTS lured Dean Detheridge off the street using their tried and tested technique of offering a personality test. He wasn’t much interested, but they were extremely skilled and persistent persuaders, and he found he couldn’t say no. Seven days later he was on staff in what turned out to be a very full-time job.

Although he rose to executive director of the Canberra branch, Detheridge was always below the poverty line. He worked 15-hour days for the Church of Scientology, plus another three hours in the early morning as a cleaner to feed his family. Days off were rare.

He told The Age how he learnt to lie, bully, intimidate and humiliate people and particularly to extort money in service of the church and its ostensible aim, the greatest good of the greatest number. Now he calls it ”a crock of shit”.

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October 24, 2009 - XENU TV

ABC’s Nightline has done a two-part report based on the amazing St. Pete Times articles about David Miscavige’s physical and mental abuse of Scientology staff.

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Scientology Report on Nightline Part 1 10/22/09

Dennis Miller - Saturday Dec 20th, 2008 7:52 PM

Tom Cruise is asking for your Valkyrie movie ticket dollars, but spends his money to fund a cult with a similar attitude towards lesser races and global domination. Should the actor be separated from his actions? As a producer of the movie, he earns money from every ticket. Should you care where that money is going?

With not one but three WWII movies out this fall, Jewish moviegoers will be lining up to see at least one of them. Will it be the sophisticated Ralph Fiennes movie The Reader? Or the story of Jewish partisans who founded a resistance in the woods in Defiance? Or the story of the failed assassination attempt on Hitler starring that nice young man who danced in his underwear for us in Risky Business and did impossible things in Mission Impossible?

Valkyrie is getting by far the most press and promotion after being moved up to a December 25th opening to qualify for a 2008 Academy Award in a particularly weak Academy year. Not all of the press has been good for this historical drama with a lead star unable to replicate a German accent for his German role, but a more sinister element has plagued this movie since its inception, when Tom Cruise was cast as Claus von Stauffenberg, a Nazi who attempted to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb in 1944.

German politicians and the Stauffenberg family immediately objected to Cruise’s casting in the film. Scientology, which Cruise adheres to and actively promotes (and he is also very close to its head, David Miscavige), is considered a dangerous, totalitarian cult in Germany, which has strict laws about the promotion of any such cults. Scientology texts are banned in schools; Scientologists must send their children to Danish schools across the border. The German government went so far as to ban the use of historical sites related to the actual events of 1944 for filming the movie because of Cruise’s involvement, though repeated attempts by United Artists eventually got the motions overturned. Berthold von Stauffenberg, the son of Cruise’s character, said in a public statement, “Cruise should keep his hands off my father.” Thomas Gandow, a spokesperson for the German Protestant Church, said Cruise’s involvement in the film would “have the same propaganda advantages for Scientology as the 1936 Olympics had for the Nazis” and compared the actor to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

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Rick Ross - 09.26.08

Virginia Commonwealth University Professor David Bromley, often referred to as a “cult apologist,” has been a recommended “religious resource” of Scientology.

Bromley has also been touted as an “expert” on “new religions,” commonly called “cults,” by the so-called “new CAN” (Cult Awareness Network), a former anti-cult organization taken over by Scientologists.

Now the man Scientology looks to for cover, has been asked by Associated Press (AP) to explain “charismatic leaders,” and the people that follow them.

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Dr. Lilly von Marcab - 1 September 2008

The Scientology cult’s internal prison gulag currently holds hundreds of people of various nationalities. This is happening right now in the USA at the “Rehabilitation Project Force” (RPF) centers run by this “church,” where members who have disagreed with Scientology management are sent for punishment and re-indoctrination. The average internment is 2 to 10 years. Many of these people were granted USA visas as “religious workers” or “students” of Scientology. There are also RPF centers in the UK, Australia and Denmark.

Scientology staff and even “public” Scientologists are heavily recruited to join the “Sea Organization,” or “Sea Org.” The Sea Org is a bizarre, paramilitary order of Scientology, where all members are required to sign a “billion year contract” to help Scientology “clear the planet” and “obliterate psychiatry.” Any person who joins the Sea Org and then later disagrees with its practices will soon find him- or herself confined in the RPF. The conditions these people live in are inhumane and violate many national laws, as well as prisoner of war standards held by the United Nations and the Geneva Convention.

Full story here …