Scientology

Continuing the postings of The Arizona Skeptic; you can find volume 1 (1987-1988) here, volume 2 (1988-1989) here, volume 3 (1989-1990) is here, and volume 4 (1990-1991) is here. Volume 5 was edited by Jim Lippard and has been available online since original publication as ASCII text. An index to all issues by title, author, and subject may be found here. The Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 1, July/August 1991 (text version): "Rosenthal Lecture" by Jim Lippard"Book Review: Philosophical Essays in Pragmatic Naturalism by Paul Kurtz" reviewed by Bill Green"Book Review: Pitfalls in Human Research: Ten Pivotal Points by Theodore X. Barber" reviewed by Jim Lippard"Book Review: They Call It Hypnosis by Robert A. Baker" reviewed by Jim LippardEditor's ColumnCORRECTION: To "Dissension in the Ranks of the Institute for Creation Research"Upcoming MeetingsThe Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 2, September/October 1991 (text version): "Dianetics: From Out of the Blue?" by Jeff Jacobsen"Book Review: Bryant's Law and Other Broadsides by John Bryant" reviewed by Jim Lippard"Hypnosis and Free Will" by Jim LippardNext IssueUpcoming Meetings: October speaker Don Lacheman of Sun Magic, November speaker Louis Rhodes of the Arizona Civil Liberties UnionArticles of NoteThe Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 3, November/December 1991 (text version): "Postscript to 'Some Failures of Organized Skepticism'" by Jim Lippard"Book Review: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie" reviewed by Hans Sebald, Ph.D."Book Review: The Unfathomed Mind by William R. Corliss" reviewed by Jim Lippard"Book Review: Labyrinths of Reason by William Poundstone" reviewed by Mark AdkinsLetters (from Mark Adkins, Beth Fischi)"Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? An Episode of Human Folly" by Mark AdkinsArticles of Note"October Meeting: 'Magical Moments'" by Ron Harvey: speaker Don LachemanNext IssueUpcoming Meetings: December: 1992 predictions, January: Rene Pfalzgraf on neuro-linguistic programmingThe Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 4, January/February 1992 (text version): "Predictions for 1992!" compiled by Mike Stackpole"Comments on Lippard's Review of They Call It Hypnosis" by Robert A. Baker"Book Review: Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? by Chaz Bufe" reviewed by Terry Sandbek, Ph.D.Next IssueUpcoming MeetingsThe Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 5, March/April 1992 (text version): "About 'The Vitality of Mythical Numbers' and 'Truth Almost Extinct in Tales of Imperiled Species'" by Jim Lippard"The Vitality of Mythical Numbers" by Max Singer"Truth Almost Extinct in Tales of Imperiled Species" by Julian Simon"Book Review: Space-Time Transients and Unusual Events by Michael A. Persinger and Gyslaine F. Lafrenière" reviewed by Jim LippardNext IssueUpcoming MeetingsRequest for SubmissionsArticles of NoteThe Arizona Skeptic, vol. 5, no. 6, May/June 1992 (text version): "An Observation of the Famous Marfa Lights" by James Long"The Marfa Lights" by Hal FinneyLetters (from John Bryant)Editorial Note Regarding the "Mars Effect""Book Review: The Mind Game by Norman Spinrad" reviewed by Jim LippardUpcoming MeetingsArticles of NoteVolume 6 continued for just short of another year under my editorship, with five issues published for 1992-1993.

I’ve begun putting old issues of The Arizona Skeptic online as PDFs, starting with the old Phoenix Skeptics News, edited by Ron Harvey. Volume 2, 1988-1989, is here. An index to all issues by title, author, and subject may be found here. Phoenix Skeptics News vol. 1, no. 1, July/August 1987: Welcome!July MeetingResource Library"Cold Reading" by Jim LippardLocal Radio Talk Show Features PsychicsModem Users Take Note"Foes Turn Up Heat: Fire walking is not so hot, skeptics of seminars say" by Simon Fisher, TribunePostscript by Jim LippardBook ReviewsLocal Conference on Health FraudUpcoming Phoenix Skeptics MeetingsPhoenix Skeptics News vol. 1, no. 2, September/October 1987: August Meeting: Hans Sebald on witchcraftSeptember Meeting: Charles Cazeau on prophecies of NostradamusSurveyor NeededRandi on Faith Healers (interviewed by Jim Lippard and Mike Norton)"Health Fraud isn't 'snake oil' anymore" by Phyllis Gillespie, Arizona Republic"Charlatans can be spotted if you know common clues" (Arizona Republic)"Proper Criticism" by Ray HymanUpcoming MeetingsPhoenix Skeptics News vol. 1, no. 3, November/December 1987: October Meeting: Halloween party at Hans Sebald'sNovember Meeting: James Randi psychic surgery video, Randy Jones on psychic surgeryPapers ignore disclaimer request on astrology columnsFlyers neededPsychic fair"Focus on You" by Jim Lippard"Channeling: Believe It or Not" by Hans Sebald, Ph.D."Book Review: The Faith Healers by James Randi" reviewed by Jim Lippard"On the distinction between nonbelief and disbelief" by Hans Sebald, Ph.D."Book Review: The Psychology of Transcendence by Andrew Neher" reviewed by Jim LippardEditor's RamblingsUpcoming MeetingsPhoenix Skeptics News vol. 1, no. 4, January/February 1988: December Meeting: Jim Speiser and Marge Christenson of MUFONJanuary Meeting: Robert Dietz of ASU on creationismPhilip Klass LectureSkeptics ReorganizedSkeptics subcommittees formed"Peter Popoff Came to Town" by Jim Lippard"Towards a more effective organization" by Bob Guzley"Update on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin" by Jim LippardNew Phone NumberEditor's RamblingsUpcoming MeetingsPhoenix Skeptics News vol. 1, no. 5, March/April 1988: Important Announcement!February Meeting: Jeff Jacobsen on ScientologyPhilip Klass LectureMarch Meeting: Mike Stackpole on claimed dangers of D&DThe Organization Explained!"Frank Baranowski: Promoter of the Paranormal" by Jim Lippard"Book Review: The New Inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson" reviewed by Jim Lippard"Robert Anton Wilson and the H.E.A.D. Revolution" by Zak WoodruffEditor's RamblingsUpcoming MeetingsPhoenix Skeptics News, vol. 1, no. 6, May/June 1988: April Meeting: James Lowell on Mexican cancer clinicsMay Meeting: Jim Lippard on psychic detectivesPress coverage"Turin Shroud Update" by Jim Lippard"Dr. Stranges Lives Up to His Name" by Mike Stackpole"Near-Death Experiences and TV" by Jim Lippard"An Artistic 'Phenom'" by Ted Karren"Psychic Detectives" by Jim LippardEditor's Ramblings"TUSKS Tips" by Ken MorseUpcoming MeetingsThe last issue of this volume was the first one also distributed to the Tucson Skeptical Society (TUSKS), and prompted a change of name to The Arizona Skeptic beginning with volume 2. This was also about the time I moved to Tucson to attend graduate school at the University of Arizona (August 1988).

The third part of the St. Petersburg Times story on Scientology, “Ecclesiastical justice," is out, and it’s a bit of a disappointment. It’s a few more charges of abuse by the four high-ranking defectors that were already summarized in the first part, plus some accounts of the well-known Sea Org practice of “overboarding,” used with swimming pools when ships aren’t available. Surprisingly, the story doesn’t mention that the Olympic-sized swimming pool at the Scientology “Gold Base” compound in Hemet has a faux ship, the Star of California, built into the hill next to it. Today’s stories also include some more detail about the departures from Scientology of the four senior-level defectors interviewed for the story, and some media and Internet reactions. All in all, I think this new series of stories is not as damning as, say, Janet Reitman’s “Inside Scientology” that appeared in Rolling Stone in 2006, nor as any of the older classic exposures like the six-part Los Angeles Times series by Joel Sappell and Robert W. Welkos from 1990, Richard Behar’s “The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power” from Time magazine in 1991, or Richard Leiby’s work in the Clearwater Sun in the 1970s and 1980s and the Washington Post in the 1990s. I hope someday we’ll see a more detailed exposure of Scientology’s battle with the IRS, and the role of the Church of Spiritual Technology/L. Ron Hubbard Library in the Scientology organizational structure, and why its trustees are lawyers who aren’t Scientologists, including a former Assistant Commissioner of the IRS. UPDATE (August 2, 2009): Other Scientology defectors are now coming forward with their stories, some of which confirm the accounts of abuse given by Rinder, Rathbun, and De Vocht. ...

Part two of the three-part series in the St. Petersburg Times on Scientology has been published, and it’s a detailed account of the death of Lisa McPherson. Some of the previously unpublished details include that David Miscavige was personally monitoring McPherson’s auditing over closed circuit television and deemed her “clear” in 1995, prior to her minor car accident and subsequent death after being held for 17 days in the Fort Harrison hotel and being subjected to the “introspection rundown.” This is according to Tom De Vocht and Don Jason, both former high-ranking Scientologists in Clearwater. The Church of Scientology denies that Miscavige was even present in Clearwater. In December 1999, when a judge ruled that Miscavige could be added as a defendant in the McPherson wrongful death case, he allegedly became more abusive and irrational. The criminal case against the church fell apart when the medical examiner changed her ruling from undetermined cause of death to accidental death. Former Scientologist Marty Rathbun, one of the critics speaking out for this series, agrees with the church on this point that the medical examiner’s decision was based on the evidence rather than on blackmail or pressure from the church. (Previously.) (Photograph is of a Scientology Sea Org bus near the Fort Harrison Hotel, with a couple members of the Sea Org in uniform, on June 25, 2005. Sea Org members sign billion-year contracts.)

It turns out former head of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs Mike Rinder, who left the Church of Scientology in 2007, has decided to speak out after all. And so has Marty Rathbun, who was Inspector General of the Religious Technology Center, the organization that acts as agent for all of Scientology’s intellectual property and was prominent in legal action against online critics. The St. Petersburg Times is running a multi-part story on their allegations of corruption and abuse inside the Church of Scientology, confirming and expanding upon stories that have long been staples of online criticisms of the church: ...

I’ll be giving a talk during the pre-conference workshop sessions at this week’s American Humanist Association conference, which is being held June 5-7 at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. My talk is on Thursday, June 4, from 4-5 p.m. in the Palm F room. While there is ordinarily a $20 charge for the pre-conference workshops, readers of this blog may attend for free (but donations to the AHA are appreciated). My talk is entitled “Lessons learned from 25 years of battling creationists, Scientologists, and fundamentalists online." I’ll also be representing the Arizona Coalition of Reason at a press conference on Friday morning about a new billboard campaign. More about that on Friday. UPDATE (June 4, 2009): My presentation (Keynote format) is here, published with a Creative Commons license (noncommercial, attribution, no derivative works). UPDATE (June 8, 2009): Friday’s press conference was held by the American Humanist Association, the United Coalition of Reason, and the Arizona Coalition of Reason. Roy Speckhardt of the AHA introduced the press conference, Fred Edwords of United COR announced his new group and that it plans to start up about 20 COR groups throughout the country by the end of the year, and I spoke on behalf of ArizonaCOR. We have a billboard up at 44th St. and Washington, on the southbound route into Sky Harbor airport. We got press coverage from ABC Ch. 15, Fox Ch. 10, and independent Ch. 3, from the Arizona Republic and New Times, and from KTAR radio. ASU’s State Press will also be running a story. Most spun the issue as a big controversy, but that seems outlandish to me. Fox’s “man on the street” interviews ended up with two atheists out of five interviewed, and most didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. The owner of the business near the billboard made some strange argument about how the billboard should have required special regulatory approval, since he needed to get approval for his own business’s signs–but apparently didn’t recognize that such approval would only be needed for the billboard itself (unless it was grandfathered), not for its content. UPDATE (June 21, 2009): Here’s my presentation, embedded via SlideShare: UPDATE (June 29, 2009): Leslie Zukor of the Reed Secular Alliance at Reed College gives a recap of the AHA conference. ...

Evidence continues to mount that human decision-making occurs in the brain prior to conscious awareness of the decision, which is evidence against the common religious view of a soul, separate from the brain, which is the seat of all of our mental capacities. It’s also at odds with an overly intellectualized view of human beings held by some atheists (as well as all Scientologists, who consider unconscious decision-making by the “reactive mind” or festering “body thetans” to be the cause of human unhappiness), on which we must strive to make all of our decisions based on conscious, deliberative reason. I don’t think this is a very common view among atheists today, who tend to have some familiarity with evolution and cognitive science, but there are still some out there who have an overly idealized view of what a rational human being should be. A view of human beings that focuses solely on the intellectual and reason is not only at odds with the facts about how our cognition works, it gives short shrift to the importance of social bonds and emotion, which are areas that some religions focus on to the exclusion of the intellectual–with great success in expanding their memberships, at least over the short term.

Jeff Jacobsen has a new article on Scientology’s use of religious R-1 visas to bring people from other countries to the U.S. to work at menial labor for $50/week (with billion-year Sea Org contracts). R-1 visas are supposed to be for religious ministers who have been working for the U.S. organization sponsoring them for at least two years, and it appears that Scientology has abused these conditions to get cheap labor. And in the process, they’ve brought in people like Artur Solomonyan from Armenia, who was subsequently arrested and found guilty of illegal weapons sales after trying to sell weapons including surface-to-air missiles to an FBI informant. ...

Via the Village Voice, a prerecord call promoting a Scientology event by Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson (and a Scientologist): Eamon Knight (2009-01-30): Is she violating any Fox IP by using the Bart Simpson persona in her pitch? Lippard (2009-01-30): Probably.When Dan Castellaneta introduced Paul Krassner for a standup performance, in character as Homer Simpson, that was recorded for a CD, Artemis Records contacted Fox for permission to use it, and was denied. (But apparently they haven't gone after Paul for putting the MP3 on his website.) ...

Jeff Jacobsen and Mark Bunker are hosting a 90-minute Internet radio show on the battle between Scientology and the Internet that took place before Anonymous, and it’s about to start now (4 p.m. Arizona time, 3 p.m. PST, 6 p.m. EST). A number of old-timers from alt.religion.scientology will likely be calling in. It’s on blogtalkradio, show title is “Old-Timers give a history lesson." First guest: Modemac, skeptic, SubGenius, and author of an Introduction to Scientology website, on the early history of alt.religion.scientology. Second guest: Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology, an early major book-length criticism of Scientology, who was the victim of dirty tricks including framing her for a bomb threat and filing 19 lawsuits against her. Third guest: Ron Newman, author of the Church of Scientology vs. the Net web pages and alt.religion.scientology regular. Fourth guest: Yours truly. UPDATE (January 5, 2009): A few clarifications and additional links: The “Miss Bloodybutt” story Modemac referred to is described in the article Jeff and I wrote in Skeptic magazine, which includes dates. The -AB- posting didn’t predate the event and included information from the police report. I interviewed Tom Klemesrud and Linda Woolard as part of my research for that story. I was taken out to lunch by Scientology’s Mesa Org OSA Director, Ginny Leeson, who asked what they could do to stop the criticism and pickets. My reply was that if they stopped suing people and trying to stop criticism, the pickets would probably stop. Ginny Leeson was soon replaced by a new OSA Director, Leslie Duhrman, who was a lot more hostile and aggressive–she went after picketer Bruce Pettycrew with legal action. I have received legal threats from Scientology and a DMCA notice, but nothing ever came of them; I periodically see Church of Scientology IP addresses visiting my web sites (also here). My Scientology private investigators page is still online, though woefully out-of-date. I wasn’t the one who first called for coordinated international pickets, that was Jeff Jacobsen. I did issue (on behalf of the “Ad Hoc Committee Against Internet Censorship”) the first coordinated press release about why the picketing was occurring, in response to Scientology’s “Cancelbunny” that was issuing cancellations of Usenet posts containing their secrets. There was a Salon.com article in 1999 about Susan Mullaney (“xenubat”)’s posted audio files of L. Ron Hubbard saying embarrassing things, which Scientology used the DMCA to shut down. She issued a counter-notice and the material came back online. Some of those clips were used in very funny Scientology-critical songs by “Enturbulator 009” or the “El Queso All-Stars." I’ve previously posted a “Scientology sampler” of my history of Scientology criticism and some posts about the “Anonymous” protests. This blog has a “Scientology” label you can click to find all my Scientology-related posts.