Tony Ortega Thu., Aug. 2 2012

This weekend, we published a two-part story about the rather amazing 32-year Scientology career of John Brousseau, whose adventures included driving for L. Ron Hubbard, spending time in the Sea Org’s prison program the RPF, and working in the Cruise household with Tom and Katie Holmes.

What seemed to generate the most comments, however, was Brousseau’s involvement in the creation of Scientology’s notorious office-prison for its top executives, variably known as “CMO Int,” the “A to E Room,” the “SP Hole,” and simply “The Hole.”

It was Brousseau who was ordered to put bars on the doors and locks on the windows to turn a set of offices at Scientology’s International Base east of Los Angeles into a prison that housed out-of-favor church executives from 2004 to the present day.

But over that time, Brousseau tells us, the conditions of The Hole changed, and so did the roster of people kept inside. After the jump, what we know about the place, and a list of people who spent at least some time there.

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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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• Civil War in Utopia: My Thoughts on the Schism in the Zeitgeist Movement
• Venus Project Has Found a New Sponsor
• Zeitgeist Movement Exposed Archives for April and March 2011

Alex Newman - 10 March, 2011

The Zeitgeist Movement is described on its website as “a grass-roots campaign to unify the world through a common ideology based on the fundamentals of life and nature. It is based on the social/technological work of Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project.” The Venus Project, for its part, “proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, one that works toward a peaceful and sustainable global civilization” — essentially creating Heaven on Earth.

The Zeitgeist Movement has already attracted a large following, claimed to be over a half a million people so far — worldwide. Numerous Facebook groups — one with more than 70,000 people, another with more than 35,000, and still one more with almost 20,000 — transmit instructions and ideas to the activists around the globe. Various local and national groups have memberships in the thousands, using social-networking services to coordinate their campaigns and events.

It is led by a man who calls himself Peter Joseph. He refuses to release his last name, citing privacy concerns about his family and friends. Regardless of his true identity, he has made certain statements that have caused great concern amongst various groups. For example, in one video posted online, Joseph called people who bear children “self-serving,” saying they don’t care about the “carrying capacity of the Earth.” When things get really bad, he said, “I might not be against governments imposing one-child policies.”

The worries of some aside, today he is a truly famous man. His first video reportedly received 100 million views in just its first year. The New York Times published a glowing article about a “Z-Day” event Joseph hosted in New York, offering not one critical word about any of the ideas presented by Joseph — or his mentor, Fresco. One of Joseph’s movies won an “Artivist” award at a prominent film festival backed by the United Nations.

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NB: Scattered (though scant) evidence gleaned online, suggests that Peter Joseph is one P. J. Merola, solo percussionist; multimedia designer; short-term equities trader.

Today Tonight - Australian Senate Inquiry Release Special - 2010-09-07 from Zhent on Vimeo.

Jayanti Tamm - August 9, 2009

At my local bookstore on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, 1960s nostalgia is in high gear. A display table is stacked high with pricey coffee table books, each with its own variation on psychedelic rainbow lettering, each claiming to reveal the untold story of the “peace and music” festival. I understand the lucrative business of selling those hazy memories — the Woodstock museum, Cherry Garcia ice cream, even the new movie “Taking Woodstock.” I just can’t buy into it.

It’s not because, as a Gen-Xer, I feel slighted that I missed out on all the fun. It’s because for me and many other children of the flower children, our rose-colored glasses are not just slightly tinted, but darkly tainted.

Along with the iconic music and fashion of the era came myriad new religions and a foolish rush to embrace peddlers of spiritual snake oil. The countercultural wave brought a flood of swamis, yogis and self-proclaimed enlightened beings. They preyed on the longings of hippies who were disillusioned by mainstream religion and in search of an alternative path.

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Colin Gustafson - 06/12/2009

When the late guru Sri Chinmoy came to Greenwich to lift an elephant in a circus-like street spectacle in 1984, former resident Jayanti Tamm, then 14, knew her secret was out.

“The next day, the newspaper had these breathless quotes from my parents, praising their spiritual leader (Chinmoy) for this feat (of strength),” Tamm said. “I was outed to the entire town.”

A graduate of Greenwich Academy, Tamm says she spent many years in Greenwich leading a double life. By day, she was a typical teenager, she said, attending class and playing sports at the all-girls private school.

At home, however, she led a secret life as Chinmoy’s so-called chosen disciple, along with her brother and parents, who were assigned by the guru to recruit disciples for his Queens-based spiritual ministry.

Growing more disillusioned with Chinmoy’s teachings as a teenager, Tamm eventually rebelled against him and, at age 25, was kicked out of his ministry for disobedience.

Now a professor in Toms River, N.J., Tamm, 39, has chronicled her life growing up as a Chinmoy devotee in her book, “Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult,” released in April.

Unlike many other accounts, Tamm’s book casts a sharply critical eye on Chinmoy.

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Ancient Astronauts as a Religion and What is “the” Christian View of Aliens? Part 1

by Dan Yardeni

Three and a half centuries ago, a young, charismatic rabbi, Shabbetai Zvi, declared himself to be the Messiah and promised that the Jewish people would soon be redeemed and would return to Palestine, the ancestral Jewish homeland. Masses of Jews believed in him, and the events of that epoch, which are among the most turbulent in Jewish history, culminated in tragedy: In 1668, forced by the Ottoman sultan to choose between death and conversion to Islam, Shabbetai Zvi opted for the latter. Although most of his disciples abandoned him after his conversion, several thousand emulated their leader by outwardly accepting, though they continued to see themselves as Jews.

The historical and theological aspects of this episode in Jewish history have been extensively discussed by Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, including Gershom Scholem. However, little is known about the present-day descendants of the Sabbateans.

During my last visit to Istanbul, I met Rifat Bali, the author of “A Scapegoat for All Seasons,” through a mutual friend. A distinguished scholar who has written articles and books about Jewish life in the Ottoman Empire, Bali leans more toward documentation than analysis in his historical studies. In the book’s 400 pages, he cites hundreds of historical documents depicting the past and present vicissitudes of the Sabbateans’ descendants, who in Turkey are called the Doenmeh.

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Bad Moon Rising: How Rev. Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom

AP - 2009/2/11 (via Cryptogon)

SWEENEY CANYON, Wyo. (AP) — The construction began last summer, stirring up dust that wafted down this desert valley and into a small community of off-the-grid homes.

As many as 20 heavy trucks a day hauling construction materials and equipment rumbled down the valley’s main gravel road, passing into a gate marked with a “No Trespassing” sign. Helicopters flew in sling loads of cargo. Powerful work lights lit up the valley at night.

Public planners in southwest Wyoming’s Sweetwater County — a sagebrush expanse roughly the size of Massachusetts — say the contractor hired for the project has told them it intends to build a 22,000-square-foot underground storage vault to store documents.

Whose documents exactly? Apparently, the writings of the late L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology’s founder, and other church records.

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“Space Brothers” cult leader, Rael, doesn’t like tall-tales about the “Illuminati,” or “myths …distilled through the internet [that might] … reverse the wonderful trend of globalization, which will lead us to the only way to save humanity: a world government ending nationalism.” The “anti-globalization fanatics,” he says, through free speech on the internet, exacerbate nationalistic fervour - e.g. good ‘ole patriotism.

Rael and his space-faring buddies think this type of thinking is far too dangerous, and should not be allowed to continue. Mork! They - the aliens and Rael’s free-sex sect - especially love the idea of the Bill Gates-funded (what William Engdahl has dubbed) “Doomsday Vault.”

Rael loves the elite project so much, that he has invested Bill Gates as an “Honorary Guide of the Raelian Movement.” How lovely.

One other such alumnus, is the Technocratic-Cybernated Zeitgeistian, Jacque Fresco:

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