The Church of Scientology has a well-publicized history of going
after its critics with everything it has, including its tons and tons of
dollars, which reportedly
total about $3 billion. So it’s not all that surprising that, as Alex
Gibney’s much talked-about Scientology documentary “Going Clear” – which
numerous reports claim uncovers some fairly batshit revelations –
heads to HBO on March 29, the Church has undertaken a full-scale,
multimedia counterattack. Here are six ways Scientology, gloves off, is
going after Gibney and everyone involved in "Going Clear."
1. Buying A Super Bowl Ad. After
the film was lauded by critics from numerous outlets after its Sundance
Film Festival premiere in January, the Church ran an ad before
America’s biggest television event. The commercial, titled “The Age of
Answers,” looked like any generic ad for a new rising technology, except
that the hot, new gadgetry shown is an e-meter.
“Imagine an age in which the predictability of science and the wisdom
of religion combine,” says a voice over in the deep, disembodied voice of
someone who knows more than you. A few seconds later, the words
“spiritual technology” appear on the screen, which in a literal flash
blend to become the word “Scientology.”
The Super Bowl ad, which
appeared in markets around the country, likely cost the Church millions
by even the most conservative estimates. Not that it matters when you
have billions, but it's a mark of commitment, nonetheless.
2. Sending a Five-Page Letter to the Hollywood Reporter Calling Every Ex-Scientologist in the Film a Liar. Earlier this month, the Hollywood Reporterrequested
to screen the documentary with high-ranking Church officials. Instead,
Church spokesperson Karin Pouw suggested the magazine send a list of
questions relating to allegations, which she in turn would “be happy” to answer. But in lieu of answers to the 20 individual questions asked, Pouw responded with a five-page letter,
which you kind of have to read to marvel at the astounding over-the-top
attacks. In it, she essentially offers individualized takedowns of
each participant, and attempts to discredit them in numerous personal
ways. Pouw writes:
In two hours
this film racks up more falsehoods, errors, embellished tales and
blatant omissions than were committed by Rolling Stone, Brian Williams
and Bill O’Reilly combined. By our calculation, the film on average
includes at least one major error every two minutes.
Rather
than provide a response to each of these questions, which are part of
Gibney’s propaganda, I am going to take up the sources of these
allegations so you understand their motivations to spread hatred,
religious bigotry and lies. We are not trying to discredit these people.
It is simply that Mr. Gibney is miscrediting them.
The inclusion of any one of these liars is enough to irrevocably taint the film as biased propaganda.
But
the letter contains more than just blurbs essentially accusing each
participant of lying, it includes links to several videos. Which brings
us to our next point.
3. Producing a Series of Mini-Documentaries to Defame Everyone Associated with the Film and the Book Upon Which It’s Based. The
Church apparently decided to enter the realm of documentary filmmaking
in its own defense, producing several films that individually attack
those who appear in or were part of the creation of "Going Clear."
Titles include “Sara Goldberg: The Homewrecker,” “Marc Headley: The Soulless Sellout,” “Marty Rathbun: A Violent Psychopath,” “Mike Rinder: The Wife Beater,”
and more. Each is filled with the hallmarks of fear-mongering
filmmaking: haunting orchestral musical scores; greyscale images of the
accused; that tabloid-news “swoosh” noise between segments; etc. (Again,
the full list of films is in the letter.) Check out “Spanky Taylor: The Drama Queen,” below:
4. Purchasing Google Ads to Redirect and Confuse People Looking for Information About the Film. As the Daily Beast recently noted,
a Google search for “Going Clear” brings many hits, but it’s the top
hit that’s most curious. Marked “Going Clear Documentary—HBO's Going
Clear,” it leads to the URL www.freedommag.org/HBO. Freedom Magazineis
published by the Church of Scientology, and says its dedicated mission
is "Investigative Reporting in the Public Interest." Granted, most
Internet users know the first return on any search is likely to be a
paid ad, but there are likely many who don’t know. When those seekers
click on the link, they’ll find themselves on a page titled
“Exterminating” [Director Alex] Gibney’s Propaganda,” which features a
video takedown of Gibney that immediately starts playing.
5. Starting a Twitter Account Under the Guise of Merely Being a Media Watchdog. The
Church has launched a Twitter account under the name Free Media Ethics,
which describes itself as “taking a resolute stand against the
broadcasting and publishing of false information.” While that lofty goal
may be its true ambition, all it really seems to do is tweet mean stuff
about “Going Clear.” That includes name-calling people involved in the
film, criticizing the documentary’s musical score and tweeting taunts
about how the movie failed to fill a room.
6. Taking Out a Full-Page Ad in the New York Times. On January 16, the Church took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to denounce the movie. Its method? Comparing it to the now widely discredited Rolling Stone University of Virginia rap expose. The ad’s headline reads, “Is Alex Gibney’s Upcoming HBO ‘Documentary’ a Rolling Stone/UVA
Redux?” When trying to minimize press for your issue, hitching your
wagon to another story still making headlines might not be the best way
to go.
Mark your calendars for March 16th and tune into HBO. You don't have
to have a cable subscription to watch, now that HBO offers subscriptions
delivered to your tablet or phone. And you will want to tune in, to see
Alex Gibney's new film, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Huffington Post:
Even if you've read Lawrence Wright's book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief
on which the film is based, Gibney's adaptation is an eye-opening and
transformative experience. The difference between reading about
Scientology's bizarre principles and seeing them up on-screen, spelled
out in an easily digestible and visually exciting way is profound. The
film is eerily entertaining and even funny at times, that is, until you
catch yourself and remember how many lives have been ruined in the name
of these far-fetched science fiction concepts.
As you might imagine, the Elron devotees are lining up a veritable parade of PR attacks on Gibney and his film:
The Church of Scientology took out advertisements in The New York Times on Jan. 16 comparing the documentary to Rolling Stone’s
discredited story about campus rape—and now the Church is expanding its
efforts online. A special report has been published on the Church’s
Freedom website, and a new Twitter account, Freedom Media Ethics, is “taking a resolute stand against the broadcasting and publishing of false information.”
The Church claims
Gibney only spoke to disgruntled former members—who they attempt to
discredit one by one on the new site—and failed to allow itself to
respond to the allegations in the film.
I'll bet those guys are the same ones who handle Republicans' public
relations issues, too. I recognize that whole "attack the messenger"
trope they're so famous for.
Personally, I cannot wait to see this. Alex Gibney is a stellar
filmmaker, and it's about time this cult was shown for what it is -- a
malevolent money machine.
There are few organizations that elicit the combustible mix of
disdain, curiosity, horror and sheer confusion quite like Scientology. A
“church” whose methodology hews more closely to high-priced self-help
seminars than the God-based spirituality of traditional churches, this
brainchild of controversial “rainman,” L. Ron Hubbard, truly is the
poster-child religion of our modern times.
The most recent brouhaha has erupted in response to the just released book, Going Clear – Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright, a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and was named one of Time’s Top 100 Books of all time.
Clearly a guy with some bona fides.
As the story goes, Wright, in his position as a staff writer for The New Yorker, wrote a piece called “The Apostate”
on Oscar-winning writer/director Paul Haggis’ explosive exit from
Scientology back in 2009; it won the 2012 National Magazine Award and
became the basis of Wright’s new book.
Haggis, as you may know, is one of the most famous people to come out
against Scientology; a top-line writer/director whose long career in
Hollywood began in TV (most notably on the iconic 80s series, thirtysomething) and later moved in films. He won two screenplay Oscars (one for Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, the other for Crash), as well as a directing Oscar for Crash.
He is credible, smart, and very articulate on both his reasons for
joining and leaving the organization, which he boldly labels a “cult.”
That’s the set-up: two intelligent, highly
honored, very credible men taking on one of the most notorious churches
in the world, and how does Scientology respond? As it always does:
attacking the messengers.
The Daily Beast very graciously (in this writer’s opinion) ran an editorial from Scientology spokesperson, Karen Pouw,
in which she runs the standard Scientology playbook: everyone’s lying,
he’s lying, anyone with criticism is an “apostate” or a “disgruntled
suppressive person”; small factual mistakes are blown up into evidence
of larger “untruths,” and no one, NO ONE who has ever left the church
could possibly be speaking the truth. It’s the usual litany typically
spewed from various sources within the church when anyone writes
anything negative about the organization, but with a book and author
this high-profile, all wheels must be spinning. The Daily Beast did their own analysis of Pouw’s rebuttal to Wright’s facts in, “Scientology vs. Lawrence Wright” … see what you think.
Before I go any further, let me offer some
disclosure: I was an active member of Scientology for 10 years,
extending from my early to late 20s. While I had some significantly
negative experiences while a member, I left without any particular
fanfare or backlash (I apparently wasn’t high-profile enough!). I had
many friends within the organization who are now also out, many of whom
I’m still close with. Some had very negative experiences, others less
dramatic. I knew many good people while there; I knew many not-so-good
people. I left, quite simply, because it ultimately did not represent my
worldview, it did not offer me what I was looking for, and in my
personal experience, compassion for those outside the church was
lacking. It took years to fully deprogram my thinking, as it did for
everyone I knew, and I still find myself stunned by their antipathy
towards many methods of human healing, talk therapy in particular. Their
darker, more insidious abuses are known and documented and merit the
exact kind of exposure offered by Lawrence Wright’s book.
And with that insider perspective, I view the imbroglio over Going Clear with no surprise. Beyond The Daily Beast, the church also got in touch with TheAtlantic
magazine in late 2012 to purchase advertising space to coincide with
the release of Wright’s book. Clearly this was meant to counteract – or
perhaps, lure – the attention of interested readers. The Atlantic agreed in good faith, but what was supposed to be advertising turned out to be a rather shamefaced editorial called “David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year” (Miscavige is the group’s “ecclesiastical leader”), a journalistic embarrassment for The Atlantic that was widely mocked and ultimately taken down, as reported by The Huffington Post. TheAtlantic further apologized with an unusually chagrined statement:
Regarding an advertisement from the Church of Scientology that appeared on TheAtlantic.com on January 14:
We screwed up. It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism
— but it has — to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several
mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital
advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the
decisions we make along the way. It’s safe to say that we are thinking a
lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did
beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we
figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about
innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge—sheepishly—that we
got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put
things right.
Notwithstanding the mortifying snafu, one of Atlantic’s top writers, Jeffrey Goldberg, took to his own page in defense of his colleague:
Working with Lawrence Wright was one of the great pleasures of my journalism career. Even before I met Larry, at the New Yorker,
I was a great admirer of his, and my admiration only grew as I got to
know him personally, and as I watched him work. There is no more careful
reporter in the world than Larry, and no one who is as thorough and as
indefatigable.
That said, apparently Wright did get some
dates wrong (damn that copy editor!), which gave Pouw and others their
opening to editorially smear the writer. But the big facts, the salient
points, the major issues? Like any good journalist, he put in his
research work and has solid facts to back up his assertions. And while
there’s plenty of material to cull (just Google “L. Ron Hubbard” or
“Scientology” and the bombardment is biblical!), getting at the truth
of Scientology, particularly from sources within the church is,
frankly, impossible. Adherents are typically blind followers, mandated
explicitly and implicitly to speak positively of the church under all
circumstances. In my years of involvement, we were not only so
thoroughly programmed to not have any criticisms, to express it
publicly if we did was considered heresy and could result in all manner
of undesirable consequences. Given that, unbiased, objective opinions
from those still “inside” is literally not possible. Wright eludes to
that in response to the criticism from church spokeswoman, Pouw:
Pouw’s overall complaint is that Wright
refused assistance and never attempted to contact the church to confirm
facts, other than asking “about a dozen esoteric and obtuse”
fact-checking questions.
“I don’t know how many times she’s said
that we only asked 12 fact-checking questions. We asked about 160! It’s
just such a blatant lie that it makes me puzzled,” says Wright. He says
the church provided little help, either responding to his inquiries
after long delays, disputing the legitimacy of his questions, or not
responding at all. “What they really wanted, again and again, was a list of my sources. And I wasn’t going to give that to them.”
Wright acknowledges Pouw’s point that his
publishers in the U.K. and Canada have decided to pull the book because
of legal concerns.
“It’s a big project to write, essentially, a
history of a hostile organization that hides its data and tries to
mislead you about its past. And if I’ve made mistakes they will be
corrected,” says Wright. “But it is a monumental task to try to get at
the truth of what goes on inside Scientology.” [Source. Emphasis added.]
Surely one of the most difficult things for
the uninitiated to understand is how intelligent, well-meaning people
ever end up in this organization in the first place. In a Salon interview with L. Ron Hubbard’s great-grandson, Jamie DeWolf, (L. Ron Hubbard’s great-grandson: Scientology is a brainwashing “cult”), the following points are made:
DeWolf said that Scientology leaders “prey on narcissism….[You’re] told you’re a God-like creature.”
DeWolf also explained how Scientology
specifically tries to rope in celebrities, though they are often
“insulated from the nastier aspects of it.” DeWolf said Elvis Presley
turned down an offer to join Scientology.
But I and others have
often found it gut-wrenching to watch any one of the famous who sit in
judgment of others in service of their defense of the church; giggling
in dismissal of questions about the “dark side” of Scientology, when I,
as many do, personally know, have witnessed or, in some cases,
experienced that “dark side.” And there’s your narcissism: “my
experience has been fabulous so they must all be liars.” It’s akin to
the sibling of an abused child dismissing that child’s experience by
saying, “Daddy never touched me so you must be lying!” (and not such an
extreme example.)
What would have more integrity is if one of
the interviewed celebrities told Barbara Walters: “I have not
personally experienced a dark side, but if someone else has, that’s
horrible and I hope they and the church work together to make it right.”
Or how amazing would it be if the spokespeople of Scientology came out and sincerely and honestly said:
“There are many good people in the church
doing their best to do create positive change in the world. As in many
large organizations, mistakes have been made, policies have been poorly
implemented, unethical people have perverted the intent of good rules,
and people have been hurt. We are deeply sorry for any hurt or damage
that has been inflicted upon any current or former member of this
organization, and will do everything possible to rectify that hurt and
damage. We move forward with a goal of transparency and compassion and
welcome any questions or suggestions.”
Can you imagine?? But that will never happen.
Because this organization is not built on the notion of transparency,
compassion and truth. Its very DNA is subsumed in the secrecy of
invention, built on the foundation of science fiction, fantasy and
obfuscation and true spirituality cannot thrive in that atmosphere. In a
fascinating piece in the Daily Beast that documents the “tall tales”
told by Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard while he was a member of the
Explorers Club of New York City, his fantastical and highly creative
“history” is explored in detailed text and compelling photographs. I
urge you to take a look; it’s quite entertaining!
For many of us watching the rollout of
Wright’s book from the sidelines, it’s interesting to see what “guns”
the church pulls out this time in their exhaustive quest to shoot down
criticism. Their predictable script, however, not only rings hollow
after so many years of the same, it works to further alienate and create
disdain. This is an organization that’s spent years in the practice of
annihilating its enemies and is rife with written policy on just how to
do that. Pre-Internet, that usually involved mob-like tactics of
personal and professional harassment that often led to extreme duress
and incendiary lawsuits. More recently, with the ubiquity of information
available online, the church has been less successful in shutting down
critical content; in fact, even its most mysterious and arcane spiritual
philosophy regarding evil lords named Xenu and exploding volcanoes,
once so secret it was considered deadly to reveal before a student was
properly prepared, is now splattered all over the web in every
permutation available. So far no one has died from reading.
The point is: like other controversial
groups with zealot followers and blind allegiance as a mandate, the
church of Scientology, as seen from the outside, is an extremist cult
that dissembles for the sake of protecting its secrets. Transparency can
only exist in an organization that has nothing to hide and a
willingness to welcome and embrace all interested parties. But, as
Lawrence Wright discovered, “…it is a monumental task to try to get at
the truth of what goes on inside Scientology.” [Source]
But it is precisely Wright’s measured tone,
his use of a scalpel instead of a hammer to dissect Scientology and its
manifold abuses, which renders his conclusions all the more damning.
Acknowledging that members of a religion can “believe whatever they
choose,” Wright adds the important caveat that “it is a different matter
to use the protections afforded a religion by the First Amendment to
falsify history, to propagate forgeries, and to cover up human rights
abuses.” Scientology critics, myself included, have long argued that the
U.S. government should follow the lead of other countries and at the
very least revoke the Church’s tax-exempt status, if not take harsher
measures against it for a variety of criminal activities. Lawrence
Wright’s courageous investigation is a warrant to act.
A conclusion many of us – those who have been inside as well as those peering from the edges – share.
[For more information on this and other Scientology matters, visit Tony Ortega's The Underground Bunker.]
