After the EpicNoseGuy situation, wherein a 15-year-old London boy was threatened with a court summons if he didn’t remove a sign calling Scientology a cult, I posted on Enturbulation that if “cult” is unacceptible in the UK, simply spell it out as “cu*t”.  It got some laughs, and someone named “Scientology is a cult” on alt.religion.scientology even changed their name to “Scientology is a cu*t”.

Then I find out about this.

There’s been another development in what’s becoming a long-running dispute between anti-Scientology protesters and British police, as a 57-year-old man was charged with breach of the peace for displaying a sign that read “Stupid Cu*t” and “Greedy Cu*t” during a protest in Edinburgh at the weekend.

This has bad, good, and great written all over it.  The bad part is that someone was arrested without warning for a fucking sign, regardless of content.  Especially since this one happened to be factual.

The good part is that this arrest caused the news to spread that Scientology is indeed a stupid and greedy cult.  It was published and people across Scotland read the news, generating a sour taste towards the authoritarian cult and their attack poodles in the Edinburgh police.

The great part?  I trolled someone from across the ocean into getting arrested.  I’m kinda proud about that one.

It starts with Dr. Drew telling Playboy Magazine that Tom Cruise is in a cult.  Gawker picks up the rest:

Cruise’s high-powered attorney, Bert Fields, a frequent client of convicted wiretapper and racketeer Anthony Pellicano, called Pinsky an “unqualified television performer who is obviously just looking for notoriety,” adding, “The last time we heard garbage like this was from Joseph Goebbels.”

Way to go.  I wonder when Dr. Drew’s page on RFW will go up.

Late last month, I posted about a student in Vancouver who posted on his blog about the Orwellian-named Youth For Human Rights, a Scientology front group, being allowed to give a presentation at his school. This attempt at infiltration has now turned into an epic PR flap. From The Vancouver Sun:

A Vancouver principal said his school was uninformed when it invited a group affiliated with the Church of Scientology to speak to a student assembly last month about human rights.

John Bevacqua, of St. Patrick regional secondary school, said he hadn’t been aware that Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) is part of the Scientology movement until it was brought to his attention by a staff member shortly after the group finished its presentation.

“It was very unfortunate that they were not as forthcoming as they needed to be,” he said of YHRI. “It was a lesson learned.” The group was invited into the school on the recommendation of students who had heard representatives speak at a conference and were impressed with the message. The students gained the support of teacher sponsors, who vouched for the group and extended the invitation, Bevacqua said….

Susan Kerr, a Scientologist and Vancouver spokeswoman for YHRI, said the group was formed several years ago to educate young people about human rights, and its connection to the Church of Scientology is irrelevant.

“This has nothing to do with the church proselytizing,” Kerr said in an interview.”It’s just about human rights.”

Gerry Armstrong, former Scientologist who knew L. Ron Hubbard personally, commented on this story on alt.religion.scientology:

Susan Kerr is the cult’s “Human Rights Director” in Vancouver. As the Scientology v. Armstrong case shows, she is *contracted* in fact to suppress and destroy basic human rights. And not just mine, but the human rights of anyone who would act in concert with me, which is anyone who would associate with me….

During the first protest at the Vancouver org this year, February 10, the Scientologists brought out and held up a Youth for Human Rights International banner as a response to the protesters and to promote themselves as human rights supporters to the public.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23656780@N03/2255858623/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23656780@N03/2255854357/in/photostream/

Using the YHRI banner for that purpose was probably a screwup because YHRI tries to separate itself from the “church,” as the Vancouver Sun article, and Ms. Kerr demonstrate. Scientology has not used the banner in the 3 subsequent protests.

EDIT: The reporter of this event has a blog.  In after Terryeo!

An update on the Philadelphia situation:

Body Thetans, the souls of executed aliens that are attached to our bodies today, is a doctrine in the high levels of Scientology that is denied to the public and to Scientologists who have not reached the appropriate level.

Here is a “Grampa John”, a beloved Scientologist at the Hollywood Centre, confirming his belief in Body Thetans.

Anonymous

Some people allege that there is a doctrine about, let’s say, Body Thetans.

John

Uh-huh.

Anonymous

Um, that it’s not introduced until there has been a whole lot of prior auditing.

John

Correct.

Anonymous

Now is it possible that, because of the [unintelligible], at that point when that’s introduced that people are a little more suggestible and maybe that they’re confusing their imagination with what their perceiving?

John

I’m not quite sure if I understand the question, are you asking should it be– can it be introduced earlier?

Anonymous

No, I’m saying do you think that it is imaginary or real, are there really Body Thetans in peoples’ bodies, have you experienced that it is true?

John

Oh yeah. Absolutely.

Anonymous

So,like in my way of thinking, everyone’s responsible for their own experience, their own body. If you bump your arm and it hurts, it’s probably hurts because you bumped your arm. It doesn’t hurt because there’s an entity in there.  So do you guys generally believe there are entities in your bodies?  [unintelligible]?

John

That is something– everyone has to find out what’s real for them.  But to answer your first question, yes, if you bump your arm or your leg, you’ve bumped your arm or your leg.  Okay?  It’s not something else going on.  There are other things that other entities and things, or mental image pictures that you read about in Dianetics, they have an affect on the being.  They can affect the body or they can affect you.  So those kind of things can occur, but again if it isn’t real, true for you, it’s not true.  You have to find something that’s real to you.

The National Post in Canada published an oped on the situation with Epic Nose Guy in Lolndon.

On May 10, a teenager protesting peaceably outside the London headquarters of the Church of Scientology had a placard confiscated by London Police, who deemed it criminally “insulting.” Crown prosecutors refused to follow up, which was hailed as a “victory” for free speech.

Some victory. The sign was being wielded by an unidentified minor, who was taking part in the latest of a series of Internetorganized “anonymous” protests.

If protest materials can be confiscated, then not much is left of the right to protest against Scientology.

“Internetorganized” is now a word.

Scientology has had a push to up their stats since the Anonymous uprising began. It seems the “fastest growing religion” on Earth today, with all their “8 million” members, could only muster selling 2,257 copies of Dianetics worldwide. The breakdown:

24-May-2008 11:12 PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
INTERNATIONAL TOTAL: 2,257
BRIDGE PUBLICATIONS TOTAL: 748
NEW ERA PUBLICATIONS TOTAL: 1,509

Leading the sales was the European Union with 672 sales; the UK had 235; the Western US had 170; the Eastern US had 104. Rock bottom was Canada at 18 sales nationwide, in a country of 33 million people.

The following orgs sold ZERO copies, with the ones that sting the most in bold: (more…)

The Guardian and TMZ are now reporting on his cult school. Will seems to have backed the wrong horse in this race.  Whassa madda wid you, Will Smith?  You’re causing Hancock to bomb before it even comes out.

What a horrible way to end a career.

Karin Pouw, check your voicemail.

Bad COB Davey Miscavige.  BAD BAD MIDGET.

Send this note to COB David Miscavige, “The Mad Midget of Hemet” - it’s about time he reeled Karin Pouw in.  She slipped up in a recent sitdown with the Village Voice, accidentally spilling a bit of R6 to the wog reporter:

But Pouw said something even more amazing at that lunch. Some Scientologists, like John Travolta, make the claim that you can be a Christian and still be a Scientologist as well. But didn’t Hubbard, I pointed out, write in his Xenu story that Jesus was, in fact, just a bit of programming that had been inserted in our psyches? How was it possible for a Scientologist also to be a Christian if Hubbard claimed that Jesus was just a figment of the imagination?

Well, you can imagine that the lunch got pretty heated at that moment, and Pouw was clearly angry that I’d put her on the spot on her own turf. But eventually, she blurted out, “So we think Jesus is a figment of the imagination! So what!”

What a moment. That’s not something I expect to see on Scientology brochures any time soon.