Rock Center
Coming up on Rock Center, insider accounts that have never been broadcast before about Scientology, including Harry Smith's exclusive interview with Paul Haggis. The Oscar-winning writer and director is the most prominent Scientology member in Hollywood to break away after spending more than 30 years as a member.
"I was ashamed of my own stupidity, of how I'd been, could have been so purposely blind for so many years," Haggis told Rock Center's Harry Smith.
Smith also talks to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, who has written a controversial new book about the Church of Scientology titled, ‘Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.’
Harry Smith’s full report airs Thurs., Jan. 17 at 10pm/9c on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.
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Didn't I see this last year? Or was it two years ago? How many times can this story be rehashed? I like his movies and Mr. Haggis is entitled to his opinions but I'd sure prefer to see him make films instead of joining the tabloid tv circuit.
I expect Paul Haggis will re-rehash his red herring nonsense about Scientology being somehow anti-gay.
But there's no way to reconcile his persistent story with what I hear from openly gay Scientologists I know who happily laud how Scientology has helped them!
Besides, per Hubbard's theology, we're all immortal souls returning time after time in different bodies. Logically, sometimes you'd be male, sometimes female. That's gotta be confusing. What do you do when some hundred-year-old, unwelcome memory or feeling or emotion comes roaring in?
So, while any religion can have a few bigots--our President just escaped having one deliver his inaugural benediction!--Scientology's theological tenets couldn't care less about sexual orientation.
It's time to play "SPOT THE SCIENTOLOGIST RESPONSE!". Your cause is lost, HillRunner.
@ BradG1916
Cult spotted
Lisa kist
(obviously)hillrunner
a viewpoint (is in deep)
Roy from M (suspect)
Bar all that, i do feel sorry for people in any coersive group.
Why? Well how do most people join anything?
A friend approachs.
God bless the internet, this cult is on life support now!
I hope.
Scientology's theological tenets are that anything said by Source is infallible, so you are stuck with all the ugliest things that ever came out of L. Ron's mouth. His remarks about "Tone Scale 1.1" are from the most embarrassing, but they have cost you.
HillRunner, you are so full of it. Scientology is loaded with Anti-Gay sentiment. There are NO openly gay Scientologists. Hubbard said himself that gays were some of the most disgusting people on earth. That they seek to subvert everyone around them and they should be disposed of quietly and without sorrow. So shove your lies where they belong. You are either a liar or you are deluded. I refer anyone here to the book called "Science of Survival". It says everything that I just said.
I was kicked out of Scientology's Sea Organization for being gay, and subsequently spoke out against Scientology because I had become disillusioned. I posted an anonymous story online and then I was kicked out of my house and my family doesn't speak to me simply because I told the truth about what happened to me in the Sea Org, online.
Any group that harasses and intimidates people into silence is a group that is up to no good. Scientology gives out NDAs like candy and pays out hefty sums to get people to sign them. I am sick and tired of Scientologists like HillRunner lying to protect their religion. These people are deluded so much that they defend something they know is wrong.
They also act like children when anyone disagrees with them. As you'll no-doubt see in this comment thread. None of them that are commenting here actually watched the show because if they did they would be sent to confess their sins in an interrogation while attached to the e-meter. It's part of their religion.
I should also add a part I missed in there about how the Church tracked me down using my anonymous story, showed an edited version of it to my parents and that is when my parents subsequently threw me out of the house.
Sorry if the comment is kind of emotional, but as you can imagine this topic makes me heated.
I worked for the Sea Org from Sept 2001 thru July 2004. I was 15-18 years old (having turned 18 a day or two before being kicked out for developing a relationship with a fellow staff member of the same sex).
So why do you get sent to Ethics at Flag if you're gay???
Remember HCO PL 13 AUG 1970 PR Series 2,
"Thus the law NEVER USE LIES IN PR"
If you can't even apply your own policy, you're just digging a deeper hole.
I thought this was a well produced and extremely informative story by Harry Smith. I was in tears as I listened to the tragic accounts of these people who are treated like prisoners of war and who suffer from such despicable treatment from their "church" that I don't know how anyone who has an ounce of compassion or basic human kindness could criticize anyone but the ones responsible, and that is the Church of Scientology.
Anyone voicing criticism of this story obviously has not watched it. It's clear that the Church of Scientology is upset that we know the truth about their abusive actions and vindictive treatment of people whom they deem as enemies. Why aren't they interested in ceasing this abuse?
Thanks for showing America the truth, NBC. You are helping to expose these atrocities, and providing a way for more people to become aware of them. Kudos to all who contributed to this piece!
You think RockCenter is tabloid? What a laugh. You and Hillrunner are so obviously cult members and so oblivious to how obvious it is outsiders.
It will be rehashed until Scientologists do something about the corruption at the top.
In spite of the overwhelming evidence that there is no expansion, that Miscavige has been lying to them, that huge financial irregularities are the norm and that the "tech" has been altered, Scientologists continue to insist that things are all right.
I think that this is a new interview. Yes they might be re-hashing the same thing over and over, but it might be new information to someone new. Keep all the information coming.
It must be Scientology's time given the amount of exposure it is getting and the interest in the subject. Of course the naysayers will endorse the much-hyped controversy but others will be looking at scientology's websites and reading Hubbard's books. I for one find this all very interesting because I tend to believe that if the media is saying something it probably isn't true, which leads me to look for why certain ideas, things, people and groups are opposed when they offer an alternative viewpoint on what society sees as the status quo. Scientology seems to be challenging many things, including the monopolies on mental health and technocracy of the Western world. Perhaps it is an idea whose time has come. We wait with interest.
Your viewpoint is one of a true believer: You are literally blind concerning your cult, and incapable of SEEING. Scientology is as close as one can get nowadays to Nazi Germany of old: Created by a psychotic madman, it is a paramilitary, quasi-fascist business, a brainwashing cult of psycho-terror.
Scientology's time was the early 50's. Its B-movie sci-fi picture of the world has not aged well. Neither has the Cold War paranoia.
Lol! However, if Hubbard is saying something it's DEFINITELY not true.
The only exposure Scientology is getting is that of warning the public to stay away. The 'interest' the public is showing, as you put it, is not in Hubbard's product, but how these atrocities could have occurred in civilised and supposedly free society, running unchecked for decades.
Not to mention spotlighting a man who is committing crimes of various nature including fraud. Don't you care the man is eating Lobster courtesy of your donations, while you have to put up with beans and rice because you have no money left?
@whingeybingey:
What terrible unfairnes to Mr Hubbard! it is a well-known fact that Hubbard (whose lips moved whilst reading) only lied at two times in his life- When he was breathing or his lips were moving...
As he is doing neither of those things now (as he flies around space doing more of that 'research' he was unable to show any of when he was being a 'scientist' before he decided to call it a 'religion'), think we can say without fear of contradiction that he has at last become a totally honest man...
a. viewpoint's comment is a glowing example of Scientology PR fail. It sounds robotic, and hits one of Scientology's favorite, well-worn, and frankly outmoded obsessive talking points: The Shrinks Are Out To Get Us With Their Monopoly! It's so very L. Ron Hubbard Fifties Retro. Makes me long for a Martini with a Vistaril-stuffed olive.
The Scientologists who commented assuredly did not watch the segment, since they only address, in the vaguest terms, those elements that were advertised ahead of time. What, no mention of the family who were disconnected from their daughter, who broke into tears as she accounted putting a lonely 8 year old to bed, a child who had been left to the tender care of the Sea Org by her cult-addled parents? To skip blithely over that powerful segment shows either a monstrous lack of simple human feeling, or ignorance that it was shown.
No doubt the poor drones were let onto the internet to do their spamming duties, and aren't able to read any responses.
I've read the excerpts from Lawrence Wright's book involving the complex relationships between Tom Cruise and John Travolta and the Church of Scientology and found them compelling.There is a dark side to Scientology that even slick public relations cannot fully sweep under the bed. Paul Haggis never overdoes his comments on Scientology but seems to have considerable respect for Lawrence Wright's difficult work, some of which has appeared in the New Yorker. If my memory is correct, the Hollywood Reporter has run a fair amount on the new Wright book.
Come on! Really? Do you believe any and everything you read is true? Inject some critical thinking, my friend. The Wright book is full of factual flaws, many of which are being revealed by Church as I right (pun intended) this. If there are 200 factual errors in the book, why should you believe the rest of it is true? Only someone with an inherent bias or agenda would do so, and if that's the case, then nothing I say will change your mind, not my own positive experience, not that staggering amount of social betterment programs run by the church, etc.. Additionally, FYI, Tom Cruise is a great man who donates more extravagantly than most of us to both secular and non-secular charities every year. He's a good person. It pisses me off frankly, that anyone with a pulpit can attack him at will. It's pure BS. -A Scientology Parishioner
The recent criticism of Scientology is nothing new. For example, look up the May 6. 1991 Time magazine cover story "Scientology: The Cult of Greed."
Migia "The Wright book is full of factual flaws, many of which are being revealed by Church as I right (pun intended) this." I wonder how they/you know this considering the book hasn't been released yet.
Well, considering LRH claimed he was a physicist and an engineer, yet neither of these claims are true per his actual school records your statement makes for this question:
If L. Ron Hubbard made 200 (at least) factual errors or outright lies about himself, his education, his war record and his activities, (as documented by comparing his own writings and recorded lectures with the existing documents pertaining to the claims, such as his Navy war record papers, ship manifests of the ships he traveled on as a youth, marriage and divorce records showing his bigamy, etc.), can we then also reject the entirety of his so-called religion of scientology and his writings as false? It is the same standard. Is it not sauce for the gander?
I was a scientologist for 27 years. I found out that hubbard died, per the records from the sheriff's office and county clerk, with a psych drug in his body and long unkempt hair finger and toenails, suffering from physical debilitation due to a stroke. If hubbard was the exemplar of "O.T.", then why did he die in such pedestrian disarray?
Holy crap Migia, even if the church wasn't lying about the 200 factual flaws that does not even hold a candle to the hundreds of thousands of flaws in Hubbar's work. The man barely had a naval career, and he certainly didn't graduate college. He was a practicing satanist with Alister Crowley. The cross of the Church of Scientology is based on the satanic cross that Alister Crowley used.
If the Church of Scientology wants to talk about being factually correct, then they should probably look at their own BS that they call Hubbard's biography before calling Mr. Wright out on his book.
Reading that nonsense about how Haggis wa going to 'rehash' the 'nonsense about Scientology being slightly anti-gay', I almost choked on my sandwich... Of course he wasn't, because Scientology is explicitly, per Hubbard, extremely anti-gay... Hubbard called gays perverts who were equal on his silly little 'tone scale' to 'covert hostility'...
But hey, what did he know about Scientology, he only created it, right? How about all the money (from people's 401 k's, their ids' college funds, their own mortgages that were pent on prop 8 in California...
Then I was going to say, I've met a great guy on line who was thrown out of the church and rejected by his own family (another non-existent Scilon practice called 'DISCONNECTION, tight, Hilly?), a wonderful young man named-- and then I saw who else was commenting!
Hi, Derek! Folks, Derek knows all to well what he's talking about, much more than these little attack dogs who have been given permission to risk real info by going on the Internet tonight (Scientology has blocking software, lie the sort you use to keep porn and violence from your kids, for their members, who they treat like kids, to keep them from running into any facts about Scientology).
Derek was expelled by the 'church' rejected by his family, he has begun to build a new life in the real world... His story is moving and heart-rending, but I'll leave it for him to say what he wished to say. Just know, that... Truth is involved, and some of you may not be used to it... You'll get used to it though guy, don't be afraid...
Come into the water, really, it's wonderful! Your friends and family will catch up, eventually, I promise...
Migia, really? You've already finished the book that only came out today? They really are creating supermen over there at LRH Industries, aren't there?
Holy cow, you Scilons can even know what is in books, to an exact figure, without ever opening it.
How much is it to sign up?
Let it go, LisaKist. It won't work. Scientology's attempt at 'handling' the internet was stillborn many, many years ago, and it's way too late for new approaches to stifle entheta. LOL. Folks are blowing this criminal, corporate cult like flies now; and it's about time! No more coerced abortions for Sea Org women, no more disconnections from family, no more "rehabilitation" in the RPF, no more group think, no more lies, 100-hour work weeks, no more beans and rice, no more Hubbardspeak, or TRs baby! Scientology was, is, and always will be a con.
I think you forgot; no more patient abuse/deaths at Narconon.
Mr. Haggis left the cult of Scientology when he was made aware of the shocking human rights abuses rampant in this "church." That information had been around for some time, and it has been added to over the years. Not just "rehashes" as stated above. People pay attention when they are convinced that information is correct. Scientologists are trained to reject or reframe what L. Ron Hubbard called "entheta" - anything which questions or exposes the truth about this corporate scam disguised as religion - so repetition of this information is often necessary to break through the wall of Hubbard's sociopathic lies and cultic indoctrination. The fact that certain, high profile Scientology celebrities have definitely been aware of some of the human rights abuses in the practices of their religion is new information; it had been assumed, for the most part, that they were in the dark. So no "rehash" here. No "tabloid tv circuit."
"Smith also talks to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, who has written a controversial new book about the Church of Scientology titled, ‘Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.’"
Scientology posters- you made 2 "Clears" at ASHO last month in LA. A that rate it will take you 2000 years to clear that one zip code much less the city. You will never clear the planet. Math is math. Do some.
Meanwhile your fearless (height challenged) leader Dave Miscavige lives like a king spending all of your money to keep up with his buddy Tom Cruise's lifestyle. He spends more money on food in a week than one of his Sea Org workers makes in a year.
Your are the fastest shrinking cult in the world.
I should know. I worked with Dave Miscavige for 15 years. His actions proved insane and he will go down with the ship. If you chose to stay on board, hope you know how to swim...
Debby Cook, the head of Scientology's "Flag" megachurch in Florida, testifying in Texas court about torture and abuse of church members; Several deaths and lawsuits at Narconon (a Scientologist drug rehab chain); Scientologist actor Johnny Lewis killing himself after possibly murdering an elderly woman; Criminal charges brought against the church by Belgian federal prosecutors; getting banned in Kazakhstan and now this.
I doubt Scientology will see the end of the decade. I just really hope they don't go like Jim Jones, Branch Davidians or Aum Shinrikyo in its final days.
If you're a Scientologist, now's the time to blow; don't let them take you down with the rest of the ship
Scientology is a big hoax. I started in 1973, and it ruined my life. I gave all my money to them because they told me I would attain spiritual freedom. After 25 years I lost over $50,000 in actual fees for services(so called donations); and substantially more in other ways. I never did finish school because I was told that Scientology was all I needed to know. I never married, and never had a long relationship because I could not marry someone that didn't believe in the church. OT levels are just imaginary. The church keeps everyone on the hook because they think they will eventually attain spiritual abilities. Hubbard himself was nothing but mortal. He spent the last years of his life living in a trailer hiding from arrest warrants. His body was full of drugs. After he died, he did not miraculously reappear to let everyone know he could exist outside his body with full cause over matter energy space time, awareness, ect. And as the Commodore of the sea org whose members sign a billion year contract, it seems this scam artist deserted ship. Hubbard had no control of his death, and even failed to establish a replacement. Hence Mr Devil Miscarriage took control and does whatever he pleases, squirreling away billions of dollars from donations into secret accounts. Despite all the church's statements proclaiming the importance of ethics and justice within its organization; nothing could be further from the truth. Just look at their “products”- OT's- they have no special abilities, and are as mortal as everyone else on this planet.
Scientology is a big hoax. I started in 1973, and it ruined my life. I gave all my money to them because they told me I would attain spiritual freedom. After 25 years I lost over $50,000 in actual fees for services(so called donations); and substantially more in other ways. I never did finish school because I was told that Scientology was all I needed to know. I never married, and never had a long relationship because I could not marry someone that didn't believe in the church. OT levels are just imaginary. The church keeps everyone on the hook because they think they will eventually attain spiritual abilities. Hubbard himself was nothing but mortal. He spent the last years of his life living in a trailer hiding from arrest warrants. His body was full of drugs. After he died, he did not miraculously reappear to let everyone know he could exist outside his body with full cause over matter energy space time, awareness, ect. And as the Commodore of the sea org whose members sign a billion year contract, it seems this scam artist deserted ship. Hubbard had no control of his death, and even failed to establish a replacement. Hence Mr Devil Miscarriage took control and does whatever he pleases, squirreling away billions of dollars from donations into secret accounts. Despite all the church's statements proclaiming the importance of ethics and justice within its organization; nothing could be further from the truth. Just look at their “products”- OT's- they have no special abilities, and are as mortal as everyone else on this planet.
Scientology ruins lives after presenting itself as the only solution for spiritual salvation and endless carrot-dangling. Scientology is the epitome of betrayal.
you can replace the word scientology in your comment with any religion.
The young man named Derek Bloch who has so eloquently commented here has suffered disconnection from his parents and siblings under the direction of the Church of Scientology. It is a forced disconnection.
Derek is such a terrific person. He is intelligent, kind, compassionate toward others witty, handsome and most importantly, he misses his family very much. I would be proud to have my sons grow up to be just like him.
Mr. and Mrs. Bloch, please don't waste any more time allowing your church to decide who you can speak with, associate with or to love. Pick up the phone, call your son, and welcome him home with open arms. You will never regret making your family whole again!
Second that, MidwestMom. I'd be proud to have him as a family member and can't fathom how his parents could willingly disconnect from such a wonderful young man just because their church told them to because he's gay. It's yet another heartbreaking story of a family torn apart because of the hideous policy of disconnection. And to any cult member who claims it's "voluntary" that's a lie and you know it. Church members are threatened with everything the church has in it's arsenal, including your so-called "private" confessional files, to disconnect from those the cult deems an apostate, not worthy, critical or an SP.
Thank you for your support! I love you guys!!
What they did not tell you on Rock Center is that the Scientology people that are in the Sea Org that have kids let the Scientologist leaders of the Sea Org take the kids from them as young as baby's to a schooling facility located on the Soboba Indian Reservation about five miles from the Sea org location witch is Gilmen Hot springs ca located in the north side of Hemet and San Jacinto valley! The last time I was at the school there was at lest 35 or more children there from baby's to young teens. The school is ran by the Scientologist and are brought up as Scientologist! The kids get to see their parents at lest once a year, they are bused over to the Sea Org compound...
They don't have to any more. They have Will & Jada Smith's "school" the New Village Academy to send them to in order to get indoctrinated by Scientology!
I guess Haggis won't be working on a Mission Impossible movie any time soon.