Scientology book exposes religion's celebrity pandering: Neil Macdonald

[cbayer]

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/01/scientology-book-exposes-religions-celebrity-pandering.html

Thursday, January 31, 2013



There's a new book generating a lot of voyeuristic delight across America, but good luck getting the Scientology expose in Canada. Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, recently reviewed by CBC's Neil Macdonald, has been released in the U.S., but is not going to be published in Canada, according to reports.

The religion's practices and inner-workings are highly guarded by its members, so Wright's meticulously researched expose has been highly anticipated by those wanting to know about the religion that attracts so many celebrities.

"It reinforces what a lot of Americans want to hear about Scientology," said MacDonald. "That it may well be a legally acknowledged religion, but it's also really, really weird and so are its celebrity members." A number of Hollywood stars belong to the church, like John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman and -- of course -- Tom Cruise.

MacDonald says the book's juiciest details lie in the granular explanations of the organization's teachings. Basically, Scientologists believe aliens once lived on Earth -- formerly called Teegeeack. A dark lord, Xenu, destroyed the aliens by stuffing them into volcanoes and attacking them with hydrogen bombs. Now, humans have these aliens' spirits attached to them, which the church of Scientology helps people unattach from them via counselling courses that can cost thousands of dollars.

more at link

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I just started reading that book,

and already I'm both fascinated and horrified. It's amazing how gullible people can be if you know which of their buttons to push.

[cbayer]

2. I have heard the author interviewed a few times and he seems to have really done

his homework.

He published this despite serious legal threats from the scientoligists.

[truebluegreen]

3. True.

But I think that when I read about almost any religion.

[SwissTony]

4. I'm going to order this book from amazon.com.

It's not for sale from amazon.uk either.

I'd also recommend

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman

which I read late last year.

[cbayer]

5. I wonder why it's not on amazon.uk

Do you think they were successful in blocking it? It's getting a lot of press over here, so I find this surprising.

[SwissTony]

6. British libel law.

If you publish something about me I don't like, I can sue you for libel in a British court, if what you write can be read in England or Wales. Even if neither of us lives in the UK. Even if it's not actually published in Britain. The British have a term for it - libel tourism!!!! There's a wiki entry.

And Scientology is notoriously litigious. So, no British printer is willing to take the chance and amazon.co.uk could be sued for supplying the book to England and Wales.

Here's the Guardian review and the first 3 or 4 comments touch on this topic

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/30/going-clear-lawrence-wright-review?INTCMP=SRCH

[cbayer]

7. Ah, I remember having read something not long ago about the lack

of 1st amendment rights have some significant impact in the UK when it comes to publishing.

Thanks for this information.

I think this guy had some difficulty finding a publisher due to threats of a suit from the scientologists.

[SwissTony]

8. Scientologists don't even have to explicitly threaten.

The threat is implicit and real.

Dreadful laws.

Edited to add wave back at you smilie.

[SwissTony]

11. Here's an excerpt from the Libel Tourism link i gave.

The Ehrenfeld Case


Khalid bin Mahfouz and two members of his family sued Rachel Ehrenfeld, an Israeli-born writer and United States citizen over her 2003 book on terrorist financing, Funding Evil, which asserted that Mahfouz and his family provided financial support to Islamic terrorist groups. The book was not published in Britain, although 23 copies of her book had been purchased online through web sites registered in the UK, and excerpts from the book had been published globally on the ABC News web site. Ehrenfeld was advised by English lawyer Mark Stephens (solicitor) to claim that the suit in England violated her First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution and chose not to defend the action. Instead, she countersued in the U.S. In his judgment Justice Eady criticised Dr. Ehrenfeld for attempting to cash in on the libel action without being prepared to defend it on its merits and specifically rebutted her suggestion of forum shopping. Eady ruled that Ehrenfeld should pay £10,000 to each plaintiff plus costs, apologize for false allegations and destroy existing copies of her book.

Eady has been internationally criticized for his perceived bias in the case and his general restrictive approach to free speech. Additionally, the libel laws which were applied are under scrutiny in England, where calls for libel law reform have increased since Ehrenfeld's case. Analyzing English libel law, the United Nations Human Rights Committee cautioned that: "practical application of the law of libel has served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as "libel tourism." The advent of the internet and the international distribution of foreign media also create the danger that a State party's unduly restrictive libel law will affect freedom of expression worldwide on matters of valid public interest."

[cbayer]

12. Thanks for that. Glad to here that the libel laws are being looked at

more closely.

I am surprised that it's been allowed to stand for this long.

Didn't this come up in the Murdoch case as well?

[SwissTony]

13. Yes, but much more so in the Maxwell situation.

Maxwell was a crook. He ripped people off, he robbed pension funds. (I don't think even Rupert's as bad as Maxwell - but don't quote me).

He threatened anyone with massive libel suits even when people knew the complaints were true. Newspapers just could not face up to the extremely high legal bills, because Maxwell would just drag out the case, accumulating huge legal costs which the accusers could not match and they would have to eventually concede (sp?)...and then pay his costs. So, it was a lose/lose situation for them. So, nobody really sued him.

He "conveniently" fell off the back of a boat and "drowned". Yeah, right. Wanna buy a nice bridge in San Francisco?

[cbayer]

14. So the current law gives much more leeway to those with money.

They can hire lawyers to file libel suits even when they are guilty of what they are being accused of.

That really stinks.

[SwissTony]

15. Absolutely.

And the accusers end up paying the bill. Even when they are entirely in the right.

That's something that happens in many legal systems. If you have lots of money, you have more chance of getting off. Irrespective of how guilty you are. But it's particularly bad when it comes to Libel law in England and Wales.

Scientology "won" their tax-free status in the US because the IRS couldn't afford all the minor court cases they brought against the IRS.

[cbayer]

16. The man who wrote this book talks about how scientology beat the IRS.

Even though I had plenty of reasons for distrusting and disliking the whole scientology movement, he give even more.

[SwissTony]

17. Yes, they wore the IRS down by out-lawyering them.

The IRS couldn't afford to keep fighting them about their "religion" status.

[okasha]

9. Appalling.

You mention England and Wales. Is Scots law different?

[SwissTony]

10. Yes, it's much more reasonable.

But a book can be imported via Scotland. One example was a book called Spycatcher written by a former MI5 operator called Peter Wright, who was then living in Tasmania, Australia. The book was banned in England and Wales, but could legally be bought in Scotland.

Now, you could argue that Wright was a bit of a twit. I certainly thought he was - I'm Australian and was living in Oz at the time and saw several interviews he made. Didn't seem the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the British Government made themselves look stupid by banning the book when it was so freely available in Scotland, mainland Europe and the rest of the world.