Here’s the full video of the interview J. Swift did with me this summer at Karen De La Carriere’s. It covers many aspects of Scientology. Although some parts have been released earlier, such as the part where I talked about how the church tried to manipulate Google, the full video covers many more aspects of Scientology. Feel free to leave comments also on my YouTube channel.
Update: David St Lawrence has an extensive analysis of the interview.
Geir Isene - uncut 
To leave a comment on the youtube it is needed to create or log in to your youtube channel. Just saying.
Right.
One could of course just leave a comment here.
You’re too optimistic at 39.52 min…”It will die”…”It will corrode”…Geir, teoretically you’re right…But what if the church will adapt to a specific type of newcomers (tech people, teenagers, university rookies) and promote a new type of message, hiding the lie very, very deep?
They cannot adapt. They must follow Hubbard’s policy and methods to the letter. Only he could make changes and facilitate adaptation. And he is dead.
If they were to adapt, they would lose credibility as they would then be seen to deviate from the scripture – and that in itself would be devastating as it would open up for all kinds of deviations and that in turn would lead to a corrosion of the church (but leave the working parts to survive).
So, the church is in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”-situation.
If the situation is as you describe it, well…there are good news 🙂 Can you approximate a term in which the whole “business” will…”bankrupt”?
Dragos, then Scientology has the possibility of one day becoming an acceptable mind-numbing religion doing the thinking for its adherents like other religions. The core doctrines in themselves are an unimportant part of the controversy. It is their unreasoning brutal gestapo attitude toward everyone which is the actual problem. I don’t believe the Xenu story is more troublesome to the Church’s future than the Triune God-head and Blood of Christ has been a problem for Christianity. Christianity remember was not always the powerhouse that it is today and gave up much of its brutality except for some examples such as Serbia in the 1990’s. Islam went the way of Scientology turning a blind eye to their own brutality and has succeeded so far but it has been slow progress. Is Islam succeeding today using brutality to wipe out the infidels or as the Jews say “goy?”
It depends on what you understand regarding the brutality context. Historically speaking, they were conquerers since 1453, when Constantinopole falled. But that was not exactly Jihad. The Islam problem as we know it today lasts since 1948, after Israel got independent. Serbian’s brutality was a real fact, but the killer instinct was political, not necessary religious.
Chris, right you are, ” The core doctrines in themselves are an unimportant part of the controversy “. Any religion has a variety of paranormal belief, nothing to hide or being ashamed about :-). May be the problem with scientology is his ” scientology optimal solution formula ” that lead the scientology sheeple (dependant and independant alike ) to commit any ethical transgressions in the name of faith, just using the islam way of handling problems. Of course, to modify this eight solution formula will broke the scientology monolite and the subject will corrode and eventually die in my view. I explained this on some comments here:
https://isene.me/2012/02/20/an-open-letter-to-scientology-critics/
Hola Rafael! I’m not exactly disagree with you, the problem is that I see Scientology as an enormous industry. That’s why I considered Geir a bit too optimistic.
Hola dragos, this is a good one, ” Scientology as an enormous industry ” , from this viewpoint, scientology could last thousands of years before dying as a corporate entity.
This is exactly what I believe! Or more precisely, this is exactly what I’m afraid of 🙂
ENRON was an enormous industry.
It’s not the same, Geir. ENRON didn’t operate with people’s mind. Anyway, let’s hope you’re right and in maximum 10 years Scientology will be history.
I am just saying that giants can indeed go belly up. And Scientology’s PR is more damaged and the media is more on to the CoS… so my hopes are not entirely unfounded 🙂
Religion is a commercial and political tool. It’s purpose is to gain control of hearts, minds, and wallets.
It depends, Chris. I’m Orthodox Christian, my heart and mind is full with Christianity, but honestly I never felt the Church is tempted by my wallet. I never experienced a situation in which the Church asked me money for something. The only thing I buyed in the Church are candles. And it’s about 10 cents one candle. Only 10 cents….
I only have my American experience to draw from. Here, our roaring capitalism seems to extend to religion. I would never try to tell you what to think about your own spiritual life, but when another does, then that is religion. This can be from mild to strenuous, but it is present in religion and its purpose it control.
Thanks for posting this. It was great to watch the interview in full.
I just read “Stolen Innocence” by Elissa Wall, whose testimony brought down FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs. She had to go into witness protection during the trial, because she was so hated by cult members. The government seized the $100 million trust that owned the FLDS church’s assets, because the cult was using the property to house families and kick out the underage boys (too much competition for the older guys who wanted more young wives.)
I agree that the world of Scientology will stop spinning one day, when Miscavige is hauled off in hand cuffs, or perhaps goes on the run with suitcases of cash, his mistress Lou, and a few goons. I worry about the “true believers” – what will happen to them then? Suggesting they watch Debbie Cook’s testimony on YouTube is even too much. I guess it’s too destabilizing, too frightening. DM is Jesus to some.
I’ve had “true believers” report my critical comments to my husband (so he’ll stop me?). How chauvinistic! No, he isn’t going to punch me around so I become submissive.
I’ve had some ugly exchanges with OTs recently, but I am very worried about them. Their fear of the Cof$ is deep and debilitating. What kind of friend would I be to say nothing, while they stand there, on a train track as a high-speed train approaches. “TURN AND RUN!” I keep yelling, “COB is an SP. FIND OUT WHAT YOU ARE SUPPORTING.” It is not making me popular, but it’s what I would want done for me if I were trapped in Scientology.
Yup. You are right.
What is wrong with industry? We have movie industry, music industry…level of aesthetics. Industrious means diligent. Also means energetic, devoted to an activity.
Geir
A humble and sincere question.
What does being spiritual mean?
I don’t know.
HaHa…what do you feel and perceive when you hear and use this word?
I’m not so much interested in being anything. And even doing is inferior to accomplishing.
I understand it. The word ‘being’ is not only ‘some-THING’. In the example: the letter is being written, being means ‘in the PROCESS of’. Spiritual means ‘ pertaining to or consisting of spirit’.
If…if it is really one Spirit, one God, when you said in the video ‘you LOOK spiritual’,
can it mean that what you look at, his body, what you hear, his words are the products of the one Spirit and through the process of his communicatING and you duplicatING to the source the space in between disappears and what remains is the
BE……the Be in a continuous process (-ing)?
Observing and duplicating are not doingnesses…..accomplishing….HaHa…you get your A-circle!
Haha…I wrote ‘yo’ meaning it is going to disappear…I mean duality. Your favourite quote (mine too) by Brendan: ‘Cut the Us and Them’. I add: Cut the Me and You. Cut the space. That is: duplicating to the Source.
THE purpose here is this, fully, if it has not happened yet. I don’t know…a little task to accomplish by the evening…talk to you then.
Good evening, Geir
My homework got accomplished. How about yours? Don’t come up with ‘Tame birds talk about flying and free birds fly’ as if there is no spoon, there are no birds either.
Hi, so how about yours? A little help: in an early exchange I asked you a question:
‘How do you see ME?’ Do you remember what your answer was?
http://tomstine.com/a-must-read-an-interview-with-adyashanti-in-the-sun-magazine/
Thank you for your blog, Geir. More in detail tomorrow.
Geir, not much to say. The details are above in the form of your posts and the comments. Thank you for the opportunity to observe and experience the diversity of viewpoints and opinions and for the opportunity to recognize the underlying ONE SOURCE out of which they arise. I wish the recognition of this Source for all the participants of the book event tomorrow. Thank you!
A truly impressive interview. Wise proposals to OSA, clear views on DM, Scientology and its situation, always straight getting to the point.
You are a living example that also very intelligent people can get into the Scientology trap, not realizing that while they strive for spiritual freedom and knowledge they become blind folded at the same time, giving up their personal freedom, becoming a slave of the cult.
Unthinkable: If these Swedish OT VIII guys on the Freewinds would not have proposed to DM that you should become the ED of the Oslo org – you might be still a member, still an OSA consultant.
I disagree with you how you describe David Miscavige who has managed to extract Billions of Dollars parishioners, based on lies. Yes, what he has achieved is impressive, has been a daring escapade – but only leading into a dead-end road, as we know. And to many many people with all sorts of problems.
You argue that he had had no other choice since he had to follow LRH policies – which had obliged the leaders not to make any changes.
I certainly understand, get your point. But I think that within his possibilities – after having become a dictator – he could have made changes for the better instead for the worse. He could have made it more attractive to become a member or staff or SO member. These were dedicated people, loyal to the church. However, he treated them badly, even strengthened LRH’s ways of intimidating, suppressing, exploiting and punishing people.
He had missed his chance.
And taking your proposal to OSA how to deal with the Wikipedia problem:
If the church would have behaved this way towards the public (‘Yes, we have made mistakes but promise to do better from now on. Journalists are invited to come and see’) then Scientology WOULD have expanded. much faster than it did when it still expanded.
And DM could have presented on the internet how the number of members increased, minute by minute.
This would have been against LRH policies – but I am sure that DM could have explained to his parishioners that there had been a few ideas and LRH policies which did not deserve to be still followed as they obviously were destructive.
He could have made it understood that LRH had not been perfect, not without mistakes.
DM had had the chance to become a Martin Luther of the Church of Scientology.
But he had fucked it up. Entirely.
Fortunately.
Fortunately because even without many harmful practices the essence of the Scientology system would have survived. And this stands for “Only WE have the solution to save the planet” and therefore we are entitled to do whatever we consider necessary to achieve that goal.
A pity. I wish that the tools LRH had developed which can help people could be studied and applied outside of a dogmatic organization.
Yes, that is already happening. And it will be even more after the church will fall apart. But there is and will be a very negative image of everything connected with Scientology for a very long time.
You are brilliant Geir. Fantastic piece of work!
Thanks Lynne. Feel free to spread it near and far.
Coming to Norway anytime soon? 🙂