“There seems to be a level of hypnosis or brainwashing or whatever you want to call it, and this training is a way of getting people hypnotized. And there’s a lot of patter that you’re constantly hearing that helps you get in that state,” he says.
Boys and girls, your homework is to check out the excruciating, unrelenting, and totally engrossing piece in the Village Voice about ex-Scientologist Jason Beghe, a B-list TV star who paid over one million dollars and was stuck inside the cult's black hole for twelve years. (Scanner Emily spoke of this individual just the other day, breaking the story in Sloppy Seconds.) The story, by Voice scribe Tony Ortega, is chock-full of gems like this one:
“Not one auditing session—which are supposed to be private—is not recorded on film,” he says, and claims that secret cameras are used at every session at the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles, recording sessions that for Scientologists are supposed to be something like confessionals in the Catholic church.
“Will Smith is supposedly dabbling in Scientology. Let Will Smith know that his shit was fucking recorded. And tell him to look them in the eye and see if he believes it when they deny it.”
And the closer:
“Scientology seduces you into thinking that it’s a process through which you can truly become yourself. But ultimately, what it turns you into is a Scientologist—a brainwashed version of yourself.”
Fuck baseball, this is the stuff we should be having Congressional hearings on. Um, that is, if we have to have Congressional hearings when we can just try out that latest nukes on the Scientology compounds of this country.
Read the full story at the Village Voice site. You should also check out this great first-person narrative about invading the Church's headquarters in New York City.
Previously: Sloppy Seconds...