Skeptic Mag, Jan 2012 vol17#1 Special Section on Scientology

Sponge · **Posted:** Mon Jan 23, 2012 5:03 pm

Plaintext of Cover:
SCIENTOLOGY
New Revelations on the History, Future,
and Reformation of Scientology
Plus: Is Scientology a Cult?

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/
Current issue: Volume 17 Number 1 (in print/via subscription)
(Current subscribers should receive this issue by mid-February.)

Special Section on Scientology

Is Scientology a Cult?
by Michael Shermer

The Decline and (Probable) Fall of the Scientology Empire!
by Jim Lippard

There is some indication of the content of latter article from author Jim Lippard's blog entry 19th Jan 2012:
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2012/01/dec ... ch-of.html
snippet...

Jim Lippard wrote:

[...]

I also hoped to devote a bit more space to what I allude to in my first footnote, referencing John Searle's The Construction of Social Reality, pp. 90-93 and 117-119, about how institutions can quickly collapse when collective agreement about social facts is undermined, as seems to be happening at an accelerating pace within the Church of Scientology.

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other discussion:
WWP: https://whyweprotest.net/community/thre ... ver.99101/
All Jim Lippard blog entries since 2005, tagged with subject of scientology: http://lippard.blogspot.com/search/label/Scientology

triumph · **Joined:** Fri May 27, 2011 1:58 am **Posts:** 341

Skeptic editor Michael Shermer recent hits
The Real Science behind Scientology
published November 2011
http://www.michaelshermer.com/2011/11/t ... ientology/

author Jim Lippard's blog
http://lippard.blogspot.com/

Don Carlo · **Joined:** Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:20 am **Posts:** 8170

I'll buy this to show support, and to show other people. Michael Shermer and Jim Lippard, thanks.

Sponge · **Posted:** Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:31 pm

The Decline and Fall of Scientology? Skeptic Magazine Makes the Case
by Tony Ortega, Village Voice. 26th Jan 2012
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninsca ... keptic.php

Quote:

A colleague of mine once explained to me why he keeps away from Scientology stories at his publication (which will remain nameless).

He wasn't concerned about the church's reputation for litigiousness, and he wasn't worried that a story about Scientology's most recent controversies and excesses wouldn't resonate with readers.

No, his reluctance was much more quotidian. "The problem I always have with Scientology stories is the massive backstory, which is an obstacle that fails the cost-benefit test," he told me.

I completely understood where he was coming from. It isn't easy dealing with the steamer trunks of baggage that come with explaining new developments in Scientology. Which is why I'm all the more impressed with the job Jim Lippard pulls off while he deals with all of the complex backstory in an upcoming issue of Skeptic magazine, and which editor Michael Shermer gave me an advance look at.

[... continues in article link ...]

Sponge · **Posted:** Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:46 pm

This issue should have been out by now. Anyone get a copy? Feel free to post your review.

STC · **Joined:** Fri Feb 03, 2012 2:07 pm **Posts:** 6

IRL photos of this on news stands, anyone?

Is this for sale on the iPad and/or Kindle?

Tony Ortega's article about this is brill =====> http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninsca ... keptic.php

bubbler · **Posted:** Mon Apr 09, 2012 4:48 pm

Finally got a copy.

Nothing really new here for most board members, but its all there in one place for those that know nothing about it. The magazine devotes some considerable space to the subject, with three separate articles.

"Is Scientology a Cult?" by Michael Shermer answers the question "yes" and tells why for two pages.

"Galactic Overlord Xenu Strikes Scientology" by the tireless James Randi reports some history and the latest with the Australian labor flap.

The main article is ostensibly a book review of Reitman and Urban's tomes, but its really an expert condensation of the eleven commercially available books (although I didn't know "The Road to Total Freedom" by Roy Wallis), with two pages of informative footnotes that DC would approve of. It includes all the shocking & documented highlights, at least one per paragraph and sometimes more.

Title:
The Decline and (Probable) Fall of the Scientology Empire
Chapters:
L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and Scientology's Transition to a Religion
Operation Snow White and Tax Battles
Nominal Reform and David Miscavige's Assumption of Power
A Few Scientology Policies Associated With Claims of Abuse
Internet War and Lisa McPherson
Tom Cruise, South Park, and Anonymous
What Moves the Needle of the E-Meter?
Conclusion

One can get a feel for the tone from the opening:

"There once was a man who considered himself an explorer, a military hero, a mystic, a philosopher, a nuclear physicist, and an expert in human nature. In fact, he was none of these. He was an adventurer, a writer of pulp fiction, and a teller of tall tales. He was a college dropout, a bigamist, convicted of petty theft and fraud, and named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to infiltrate and steal information from U.S. government agencies. Despite his unimpressive physique, he was a larger-than-life, charismatic figure who persuaded thousands of people to believe in and pay large sums of money to learn more about a view of the world he constructed from a foundation of pseudoscience, bad philosophy, science fiction, and space opera. He came to believe his own claims of developing the power to shape the world to his tastes and improve one's physical and especially mental states through specific techniques he invented that precluded all psychiatric drugs, and yet he died alone with matted hair and rotting teeth, with the anti-anxiety drug Vistaril in his system ... After a short period of uncertainty after his death, another man assumed authority by systematically eliminating potential competitors and controlling the flow of information within the organization(s)."

Skeptic Mag, Jan 2012 vol17#1 Special Section on Scientology

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