Comments

1. #1 Anonymous

   March 21, 2010

   Anyone dissatisfied with the wonky sound quality of the Youtubes can watch the piece on demand on the ABC/Four Corners website, here.

2. #2 Haynsworth

   March 21, 2010

   ABC has trully departed from being worthy of calling itself a news reporting agency. This article is worthy of the national enquire. This is the sort of material I grade poorly coming from my highschool students. ABC really needs to go back to the basics of good jornalism.

3. #3 Alyn Turner

   March 21, 2010

   I was a Scientologist, both as a public person and as a staff member for a period of some 14 years and I can say, hand on heart, that these witnesses are highly credible. I did not witness each and every aspect of what they say about Scientology but what they say about the organisations of Scientology reflect exactly the mentality I found within it. To some degree committed Scientologists, including the Scientology spokesperson you see in the film, Tommy Davis, are victims themselves. While locked within the organisation they feel duty bound to only ever say what the documents of L. Ron Hubbard have instructed them to say and those documents do not allow what we would ordinarily recognise as honest discourse. Furthermore, the documents command those in Scientology who have been given positions of power to do all they can by almost any means possible to harass anyone who criticizes Scientology. Such people are hand-picked to obey to the letter of these documents and drilled and coached to the nth degree never, ever to stray.

   The semi-military arm of Scientology, the Sea Organisation is run under the same black and white rules of you being either with them or against them with no place for thought in between. Total obedience is demanded. It is ironical that the main stated goal of Scientology is to bring people Total Freedom. A less free-thinking group of people (other than arguably Hitler’s Nazi Party) is hard to imagine.

4. #4 Tom Jones

   March 21, 2010

   $cientology is as bad as Islam, though thankfully much smaller.

5. #5 john warnes

   March 21, 2010

   Its all true….I was guilty of the acts described against Sea Org members in the name of saving the world. I was one of the highest ranking Sea Org executive in the US for a time in the 70′s…I apologize to those I mistreated in the name of Scientology…Tommy Davis is one day going to apologize as well…for being a dupe…but I would have done the same as a ‘true believer’…its a form of brainwashing using the best of people to forward a group agenda that only cares about the group…individuals be damned…eventually you figure out the group is individuals and you escape…John Warnes

6. #6 Mary McConnell

   March 21, 2010

   Definately a must see!

   One of the most revealing interviews, which can be seen on the right of the page at the 4 Corners you provided a link to, is that of former scientologist Hana Eltringham Whitman.

   Hana was a long time Scientology ‘Sea Org member’ beginning as a young woman, when L Ron Hubbard was there and she was rewarded early on for her youth and dedication when Hubbard chose her to be Captain of 2 of his ships. Some of her very credible testimony here, about her life there and about the madman Hubbard, was on the internet when I first searched the cult after having left 10 years before. I have alot to thank Hana for because even though I’d left, I never spoke to anyone about my experiences and after reading Hana’s affidavits and such I finally came to know what it means to be free from Scientology.

   I wish the Aussie gov’t understood why there should be an inquiry. Of the many that don’t for fear of retribution, these people who spoke up are credible and their stories ring true to many ex members, myself included.

   Their bravery and this excellent expose are opening up the door to understanding what others are protesting.

7. #7 Quantos

   March 22, 2010

   GrrlScientist, in fairness to ABC Australia who did all of this good work, you should include a link to the original website in your actual post. Though there is one in the above comments, as the author of this post, it is only fair to cite and link to the original source you borrow so much content from.

8. #8 Sharone Stainforth

   March 22, 2010

   I was a Commadores Messenger on Hubbards ship the Apollo, a long with Hana Eltringham back in the late 60s. Hana is a very credible wittness. If it hadn’t been for her I probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ship.

   As a child I never understood why the adults got so hooked into Hubbards madness. It has taken me most of my life to come to terms with what went on. The most appalling thing to me, today, is that it is still going on, and has been for all these years. It has taken years for many people to come out and tell their stories of life inside scientology and especially the Sea Org.It took me nearly 40 years to talk about it, and I probably never would have, had it not been for a chance encounter with an e-meter.

   I believed as a young child that the e-meter was like a god, just like most thought of Hubbard, and I believed that the e-meter could read you’re thoughts.

   My hope is that more people get to see these videos on ABC and that an enquiry his held into the abuses that are rife in the world of Scientology.

   For myself and I’m sure many other people, it’s a shame the ban on scientology both in Australia and England in the late 60s wasn’t kept in place.

9. #9 Jeanne

   March 23, 2010

   Sharone, I feel very sorry for you, not because of what you say happened to you when you were a child, rather because you are making a huge mistake, attacking people who are helping people. Scientologists are getting kids off drugs. They are saving lives in disaster zones. They volunteer hundreds of thousands of hours in their communities and do whatever it takes to improve things in their area. These are good people you are talking about. You have been gone for 40 years? I’ve been in Scientology as long as you’ve been gone. I can tell you one thing. You are NOT describing Scientology. Whatever you experienced was probably caused by a couple of odd balls who blew off years ago. Like Hannah (who my the way was one of the strangest people I met in 40 years as a Scientologist).

10. #10 Anonymous

    March 24, 2010

    @Jeanne-
    Nice direct link to Scientology.org (a honeypot, btw) in your sig. If you so prominently represent Scientology, then you wouldn’t be shy about coming back here and leaving your full name?

    Hana (you spelled her name wrong, Jeanne) will be appearing at a major conference in Hamburg Germany on March 26, along with Jesse Prince, Bruce Hines, Marc Headley, Wilfried Handl, Markus Stuckenbrock, Lino Bombonato, and experts Graham Berry and Ursula Caberta.

11. #11 Alyn Turner

    March 27, 2010

    It seems the war of words will go on forever but one thing I do know from over a decade in Scientology is that from within the Scientology organisation your only “truth” is what your ‘supposed’ to say. Once you leave Scientology the relief is enormous. Why? Because you experience again what it feels like to be free to truly speak your mind, to choose for yourself what seems to make sense to you and not to be always thinking of “what if I say or think this, will it come up in a Scientology session and get me into trouble or cost me money to have it processed?” That’s not life. That’s not living. And that’s CERTAINLY not freedom.

    Many Scientologists are telling their truth when they say they have had great times in Scientology. I did myself. Some of the people I met in their were some of the best people I ever met. But, there is a fear at the back of each Scientologist’s mind, that they’ll think some “wrong” thought, say some “wrong” thing and make the powers-that-be in Scientology down on them like a ton of bricks, either harassing them, setting a detective on them or attempting to smear them and destroy them.

    These latter are part of the dirty little “secrets” of Scientology. The organisation is part wonderful, I loved much of my experience of it. But it is also part rotten, sinister and coldly fascistic. Until Scientologists are TRULY free to speak their minds without fear of their own people everyone should be very careful not to take their words at face value. They will basically say ANYTHING to avoid the truth if it is perceived as harmful to the reputation of L. Ron Hubbard or of Scientology in general.

12. #12 Sharone Stainforth

    May 11, 2010

    In reply to Jeanne- March 23/2010.

    No, you have that all wrong. You see I feel sorry for YOU. You have been a scientologist for 40 years, that’s some serious brainwashing.If you would just listen to Tommy Davis, you would know brainwashing is a crime.

    What you have got right is the odd balls,there were a couple of extremely odd balls and their names were Lafeyette Ronald Hubbard and MarySue Hubbard. Lafeyette went into hiding and died, sorry to dissapoint you, but he won’t be coming back and MarySue Hubbard went to prison with several other scientologists from the Guardians Office for infiltrating the US government offices. Unlike what you have probably been told, they did not steal copy paper. You think “the church of scientology” cannot afford its own copy paper?

    When you finally find the courage to look at all the lies you have been told, get back to me and maybe we can discuss why we feel so sorry for one another.

    As for Hana Eltringham, if it wasn’t for her, I would most likely still be in the same place you are, then I would have something to be very sorry about