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Author : Nancy Many
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781441566874
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (668 download)
Download or read book My Billion Year Contract written by Nancy Many and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Author : Marc Headley
Publisher : BFG Books Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0982502222
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (825 download)
Download or read book Blown for Good written by Marc Headley and published by BFG Books Inc.. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marc Headley started working for the Scientology organization in 1989. After leaving in 2005, Marc posted bits and pieces of what went on at the Scientology headquarters (known from inside as the International Base). Marc posted anonymously under the screen name of Blownforgood aka BFG. In September 2008 Marc was invited to speak to an international conference of European government representatives regarding the Scientology organization and their abuses. It was at this time that Marc revealed his identity as Blownforgood. By 2009, the internet posts Marc had written over the years had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, but still there were people who questioned their validity. Stories of grown men being thrown into dirty lakes and pools as punishment? Physical abuse never reported to authorities? How could this happen in modern day America? Two years after Marc wrote about these things and posted them on the internet, a Pulitzer Prize winning U.S. newspaper printed accounts from former staff member who worked at the Int Base that matched and confirmed what Marc had written about. Not only that, Scientology officials admitted that these things had taken place! Find out what they did not talk about in Blown for Good.
Author : Lawrence Wright
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385350279
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)
Download or read book Going Clear written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower comes “an utterly necessary story” (The Wall Street Journal) that pulls back the curtain on the church of Scientology: one of the most secretive organizations at work today. • The Basis for the HBO Documentary. Scientology presents itself as a scientific approach to spiritual enlightenment, but its practices have long been shrouded in mystery. Now Lawrence Wright—armed with his investigative talents, years of archival research, and more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—uncovers the inner workings of the church. We meet founder L. Ron Hubbard, the highly imaginative but mentally troubled science-fiction writer, and his tough, driven successor, David Miscavige. We go inside their specialized cosmology and language. We learn about the church’s legal attacks on the IRS, its vindictive treatment of critics, and its phenomenal wealth. We see the church court celebrities such as Tom Cruise while consigning its clergy to hard labor under billion-year contracts. Through it all, Wright asks what fundamentally comprises a religion, and if Scientology in fact merits this Constitutionally-protected label.
Author : Jenna Miscavige Hill
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062248499
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (622 download)
Download or read book Beyond Belief written by Jenna Miscavige Hill and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige, was raised as a Scientologist but left the controversial religion in 2005. In Beyond Belief, she shares her true story of life inside the upper ranks of the sect, details her experiences as a member Sea Org—the church's highest ministry, speaks of her "disconnection" from family outside of the organization, and tells the story of her ultimate escape. Piercing the veil of secrecy that has long shrouded the world of Scientology, this insider reveals unprecedented firsthand knowledge of the religion, its obscure rituals, and its mysterious leader—David Miscavige. From her prolonged separation from her parents as a small child to being indoctrinated to serve the greater good of the Church, from her lack of personal freedoms to the organization's emphasis on celebrity recruitment, Jenna goes behind the scenes of Scientology's oppressive and alienating culture, detailing an environment rooted in control in which the most devoted followers often face the harshest punishments when they fall out of line. Addressing some of the Church's most notorious practices in startling detail, she also describes a childhood of isolation and neglect—a childhood that, painful as it was, prepared her for a tough life in the Church's most devoted order, the Sea Org. Despite this hardship, it is only when her family approaches dissolution and her world begins to unravel that she is finally able to see the patterns of stifling conformity and psychological control that have ruled her life. Faced with a heartbreaking choice, she mounts a courageous escape, but not before being put through the ultimate test of family, faith, and love. At once captivating and disturbing, Beyond Belief is an eye-opening exploration of the limits of religion and the lengths to which one woman went to break free.
Author : Mike Rinder
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982185783
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)
Download or read book A Billion Years written by Mike Rinder and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the highest-ranking defectors from Scientology exposes the secret inner workings of the powerful organization in this remarkable memoir that is “not only a cautionary tale but also an inspiring story of resilience” (Leah Remini, New York Times bestselling author). Mike Rinder’s parents began taking him to their local Scientology center when he was five years old. After high school, he signed a billion-year contract and was admitted into Scientology’s elite inner circle, the Sea Organization. Brought to founder L. Ron Hubbard’s yacht and promised training in Hubbard’s most advanced techniques, Rinder was instead put to work swabbing the decks. Still, Rinder bought into the doctrine that his personal comfort was secondary to the higher purpose of Hubbard’s world-saving mission, swiftly rising through the ranks. In the 1980s, Rinder became Scientology’s international spokesperson and the head of its powerful Office of Special Affairs. He helped negotiate Scientology’s pivotal tax exemption from the IRS and engaged with the organization’s prominent celebrity members, including Tom Cruise, Lisa Marie Presley, and John Travolta. Yet Rinder couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that something was amiss—Hubbard’s promises remained unfulfilled at his death, and his successor, David Miscavige, was a ruthless and vindictive man who did not hesitate to confine many top Scientologists, Mike among them, to a makeshift prison known as the Hole. In 2007, at the age of fifty-two, Rinder finally escaped Scientology. Overnight, he became one of the organization’s biggest public enemies. He was followed, hacked, spied on, and tracked. But he refused to be intimidated and today helps people break free of Scientology. “An intensely personal, cathartic memoir of blind allegiance, betrayal, and liberation” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), A Billion Years reveals the dark, dystopian truth about Scientology as never before.
Author : Hugh B. Urban
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691158053
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)
Download or read book The Church of Scientology written by Hugh B. Urban and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientology's long and complex journey to recognition as a religion Scientology is one of the wealthiest and most powerful new religions to emerge in the past century. To its detractors, L. Ron Hubbard's space-age mysticism is a moneymaking scam and sinister brainwashing cult. But to its adherents, it is humanity's brightest hope. Few religious movements have been subject to public scrutiny like Scientology, yet much of what is written about the church is sensationalist and inaccurate. Here for the first time is the story of Scientology's protracted and turbulent journey to recognition as a religion in the postwar American landscape. Hugh Urban tells the real story of Scientology from its cold war-era beginnings in the 1950s to its prominence today as the religion of Hollywood's celebrity elite. Urban paints a vivid portrait of Hubbard, the enigmatic founder who once commanded his own private fleet and an intelligence apparatus rivaling that of the U.S. government. One FBI agent described him as "a mental case," but to his followers he is the man who "solved the riddle of the human mind." Urban details Scientology's decades-long war with the IRS, which ended with the church winning tax-exempt status as a religion; the rancorous cult wars of the 1970s and 1980s; as well as the latest challenges confronting Scientology, from attacks by the Internet group Anonymous to the church's efforts to suppress the online dissemination of its esoteric teachings. The Church of Scientology demonstrates how Scientology has reflected the broader anxieties and obsessions of postwar America, and raises profound questions about how religion is defined and who gets to define it.
Author :
Publisher : Jerry Stokes
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 533 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)
Download or read book Changing World Religions, Cults & Occult written by and published by Jerry Stokes. This book was released on with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Author : Hugh B. Urban
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520962125
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)
Download or read book New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements written by Hugh B. Urban and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of new religions and is organized to guide students in their learning. Each chapter focuses on one important issue involving a particular faith group, providing readers with examples that illustrate larger issues in the study of religion and American culture. Urban addresses such questions as, Why has there been such a tremendous proliferation of new spiritual forms in the past 150 years, even as our society has become increasingly rational, scientific, technological, and secular? Why has the United States become the heartland for the explosion of new religious movements? How do we deal with complex legal debates, such as the use of peyote by the Native American Church or the practice of plural marriage by some Mormon communities? And how do we navigate issues of religious freedom and privacy in an age of religious violence, terrorism, and government surveillance?
Author : Chris Shelton
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781522879329
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (793 download)
Download or read book Scientology: a to Xenu written by Chris Shelton and published by . This book was released on 2015-12-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Scientology really? Behind the glossy logos and sleek advertisements and South Park parodies, what do Scientologists really believe and practice? Is it really a religion? Who was L. Ron Hubbard and why did he start it in the first place? Is their "technology" for real or just so much New Age pseudoscience? Former insider Chris Shelton grew up in Scientology and worked for it for 25 years. This critical analysis covers the key aspects of its beliefs, practices and structure from the bottom to the top, including not just the confidential Xenu story but details all of the upper level scriptures. Chris goes into detail about what goes on inside Scientology churches, why their members get involved in the first place and what it takes to get out should someone decide to leave. An informative guide for anyone who has been involved with Scientology in the past as well as anyone who wants to understand what it's really all about.
Author : Daniel Enstedt
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004331476
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)
Download or read book Handbook of Leaving Religion written by Daniel Enstedt and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-10-07 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Leaving Religion introduces a neglected field of research with the aim to outline previous and contemporary research, and suggest how the topic of leaving religion should be studied in the future. The handbook consists of three sections: 1) Major debates about leaving religion; 2) Case studies and empirical insights; and 3) Theoretical and methodological approaches. Section one provides the reader with an introduction to key terms, historical developments, major controversies and significant cases. Section two includes case studies that illustrate various processes of leaving religion from different perspectives, and each chapter provides new empirical insights. Section three discusses, presents and encourages new approaches to the study of leaving religion.
Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004330542
Total Pages : 620 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)
Download or read book Handbook of Scientology written by James R. Lewis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-01-05 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Scientology brings together a collection of fresh studies of the most persistently controversial of all contemporary New Religions.
Author : Norah Piehl
Publisher : Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN 13 : 0737767774
Total Pages : 126 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (377 download)
Download or read book Cults written by Norah Piehl and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2012-12-28 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This assembly of essays explores issues related to cults, including the differences between new religious movements and cults, how ordinary activities and organizations can become cult-like, and whether or not the government should interfere with cults. The essays presents diversity of opinion on the topic, including both conservative and liberal points of view in an even balance. Readers will explore how respected organizations can deteriorate into cults. They will look at how law enforcement reacts to religious sects. Another essay analyzes whether Falun Gong is a movement, uprising, or cult. Essay sources include Mitch Horowitz, Arian Campo-Flores, Hugh B. Urban, and Catherine Elton.
Author : Stephen A. Kent
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (161 download)
Download or read book Scientology in Popular Culture written by Stephen A. Kent and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This multidisciplinary study of Scientology examines the organization and the controversies around it through the lens of popular culture, referencing movies, television, print, and the Internet—an unusual perspective that will engage a wide range of readers and researchers. For more than 60 years, Scientology has claimed alternative religious status with a significant number of followers, despite its portrayals in popular culture domains as being bizarre. What are the reasons for the vital connections between Scientology and popular culture that help to maintain or challenge it as an influential belief system? This book is the first academic treatment of Scientology that examines the movement in a popular-culture context from the perspective of several Western countries. It documents how the attention paid to Scientology by high-profile celebrities and its mention in movies, television, and print as well as on the Internet results in millions of people being aware of the organization—to the religious organization's benefit and detriment. The book leads with a background on Scientology and a discussion of science fiction concepts, pulps, and movies. The next section examines Scientology's ongoing relationship with the Hollywood elite, including the group's use of celebrities in its drug rehabilitation program, and explores movies and television shows that contain Scientology themes or comedic references. Readers will learn about how the Internet and the mainstream media of the United States as well as of Australia, Germany, and the UK have regarded Scientology. The final section investigates the music and art of Scientology.
Author : Neil Shubin
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307377164
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)
Download or read book Your Inner Fish written by Neil Shubin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-01-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.
Author : Andrew Gold
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1035002639
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (35 download)
Download or read book The Psychology of Secrets written by Andrew Gold and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2024-04-11 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Andrew Gold is the new Jon Ronson. Smart, funny, brave and deeply thoughtful, The Psychology of Secrets is an absolute must read' - Will Storr, bestselling author of The Status Game and The Science of Storytelling Cult leaders, murderers, psychopaths – and you. Take a deep dive into the bizarre psychology of secrecy with Andrew Gold, award-winning investigative journalist and host of Heretics. We all keep secrets. 97 per cent of us are hiding a secret right now, and on average we each hold thirteen at any one time. There’s a one-in-two chance that those secrets involve a breach of trust, a lie or a financial impropriety. They are the stuff of gossip, of novels and of classic dramas; secrets form a major part of our hidden inner lives. Andrew Gold knows this better than anyone. As a public figure, he has found himself the unwitting recipient of hundreds of strangers' most private revelations. This set him on a journey to understand this critical part of our societies and lives. Why do we keep secrets? Why are we fascinated by those of others? What happens to our mind when we confess? Drawing from psychology, history, social science, philosophy and personal interviews, The Psychology of Secrets is a rollicking journey through the history of secrecy. -- 'Andrew Gold is - but should not be - one of our culture’s best kept secrets. He is a truly edgy journalist, broadcaster and writer' - David Baddiel, bestselling author of The God Desire
Author : Bruce Clark
Publisher : Penguin Random House South Africa
ISBN 13 : 1415204640
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (152 download)
Download or read book Love, Sex, Fleas, God written by Bruce Clark and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bruce Clark is the world’s best dad. Born and raised as a Scientologist, the religion-cult’s practices were his only reference points. At age 16, disillusionment had set in, and he was spewed out onto the streets uneducated and livid. Deep into adulthood he remained pretty much like that, until the love of a good woman grounded him. They got married and, at age 47, he was a father. His story begins there. Love, Sex, Fleas, God is Clark’s terrifically sad and funny account of life and parenthood seen through the eyes of one who knows about vulnerability. A father who would do anything to protect his children and rear them well, and a man who feels a stab every day as his wife leaves for work. Tending to infants, gently nudging their ascendency, becoming barely more than their launch pad into life, Clark’s story is What Women Want turned on its feet.This book makes you laugh and cry. It grips your heart and shows both the adult and child in you how frail and glorious a human life is.
Author : Eileen Barker
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317063619
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)
Download or read book Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements written by Eileen Barker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Religious Movements tend to start their lives with a number of unequivocal statements, not only of a theological nature but also about the world and appropriate behaviours for the believer. Yet these apparently inalienable Truths and their interpretations frequently become revised, ’adjusted’ or selectively adopted by different believers. This book explores different ways in which, as NRMs develop, stagnate, fade away, or abruptly cease to exist, certain orthodoxies and practices have, for one reason or another, been dropped or radically altered. Sometimes such changes are adapted by only a section of the movement, resulting in schism. Of particular concern are processes that might lead to violent and/or anti-social behaviour. As part of the Ashgate/Inform series, and in the spirit of the Inform Seminars, this book approaches its topic from a wide range of perspectives. Contributors include academics, current and former members of NRMs, and members of ’cult-watching’ movements. All the contributions are of a scholarly rather than a polemic nature, and brought together by Eileen Barker, the founder of Inform.
