Tag Archives: Lawrence Wright

Going Clear Movie, Part 4 Hana Eltringham

Posted on August 2, 2017 by | 10 comments

Going Clear Movie Part 4, Hana Eltringham.              

 transcript

Mark Rathbun:  Hana Eltringham is brought in at 27:30 into the movie.  Hana Eltringham has been a known drama queen on the subject of Scientology for many, many years.  The omissions are amazing. She is very dramatic. But there is no balance whatsoever. Number one, a lot of what she says is discredited by the fact of what she said in the book.  What was she trying to get out of Scientology? After all, that is what Lawrence Wright said this was all about.  The movie, the book the whole thing, “what allures you?”  What allures her was, she had some involvement with a crazy aunt who was a Rosicrucian that told her that Rosicrucian mythology said “later in the century there is going to be a redhead guru that appears, and he is going to be a vessel of God.” And, that is why she joined. Because L. Ron Hubbard had red hair; and she wanted to be at the feet of the Lord.  No wonder she didn’t understand anything she studied in Scientology. She wasn’t there for that. She wanted to be a supplicant to the chosen one.  Number two, she condemns the whole subject and says it’s a fraud. Just like Haggis, “I knew it was a fraud when I saw this stuff”, and yet, she is in it for another twenty years after she has “already determined it’s a fraud.”  Even after she left the church of Scientology, she was still trying to monopolize the technology of Scientology.  She brought suit for a billions dollars to try to destroy the church. It was booted out of court.  It was only then that she picked up this whole schtick of the dramatic damsel.  Just context. They use her and Paul Haggis, who were people who just either didn’t get the subject or didn’t want to get it, to talk about the core of Scientology. So, the bizarre that we’ve come to now (through twenty minutes of Gibney’s film) is just compounded through that.  Look, Larry Wright had me devote all manner of time to go through it with him so that he would understand Scientology…watch the film and see how much explaining of Scientology I’m doing.  Zero. They’ve literally taken some bites of where I had some criticism of the organization personally, and nothing about the substance of Scientology. It is based on the invention of Gibney and Wright, and then exacerbated by Eltringham and Haggis.    

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Going Clear Movie, Part 3 – Tony Ortega, anti Scientology propagandist

Posted on July 27, 2017 by | 43 comments

 

Going Clear Movie Part 3, Tony Ortega – Anti Scientology Propagandist, transcript:

Mark Rathbun:

At 25:30 of the film, Tony Ortega shows up.  I participated in a documentation that happened a year or two earlier that dealt a lot with my thoughts and perspectives about Scientology.  I was being relatively objective about it. The one thing that bothered me about it was they used this technique of interjecting Tony Ortega into it. The technique was they would press me on things – like the IRS, like there was something untoward about Scientology’s tax exemption, and I am not going to say that because it wasn’t true. I did say, “hey, we fought fire with fire, and we won, to get to the table; and then we were treated like a normal citizen. And we passed with flying colors.”  But they want me to say, no, no, you coerced it or you did it fraudulently.  And I won’t say it. So, they get me saying something about the rough stuff that was going on when we were going head to head with the IRS, in order to get too the table.  So then they bridge it with Tony Ortega just blithely saying, “Oh, yeah, they fraudulently got the exemption and – all this stuff that Marty is talking about, intimidated them into doing it (granting exemption).” So, he was used as bridge to get me to say all the false things I wouldn’t say throughout the movie. So, Alex Gibney, the great auteur – he is a lot like Mike Rinder, I don’t know if he has had an original thought in his entire life – because he used the exact same technique.  Tony Ortega’s name does not appear in Lawrence Wrights book and yet he is the most quoted people throughout the documentary. (Holds up book) He is not in this book!

Ortega will say whatever the anti Scientologist wishes

Tony Ortega comes in and makes any statement you need him to make in order to keep your false narrative flowing.  That they had to go to him, when he didn’t even appear in the book… I phoned Gibney after the fact and said to him, “you know what,  you are going to get all these accolades because it is very popular to jump on Scientology right now, but in the long run that was the biggest mistake you ever made, bringing this guy in.  And he didn’t deny it.  He just said, “well, I can’t throw him under the bus.”  And I said, “I’m not asking you to throw him under the bus. I am just telling you, I’m just informing you.”  And the context in which this came up was, Gibney wanted me to come to New York to the big international press day where they had this whole convention set up with every media under the sun, moon and stars. And I said, “ok, sure”, initially. And then I find out because Tony Ortega is all over it the he and Mike Rinder are going to be there.  And I told Gibney, “I don’t want to be an exhibit in a freak show. If somebody wants to talk to me, I want to have mature conversations about Scientology.  If you have something like that I’ll do it.”  So, I took Alex Gibney to school on Tony Ortega and why I wouldn’t want to associate or be involved with him.  Because it was a big juvenile delinquent style trolling game for Ortega.  And Mike Rinder was steadily becoming one of Ortega’s acolytes.  I told him “I don’t want to get into arguments and mess up your movie premiere; and I don’t want to have that type of juvenile discussion, game playing.”    And of course, I was right. 

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Going Clear Movie, Part 2 – Phony Haggis narrative, deceptive editing

Posted on July 21, 2017 by | 80 comments

Going Clear Movie Part 2, Wright, Gibney Deception, transcript:

Mark Rathbun:  At 6:15 in the film Wright says “I’ve studied Jonestown, radical Islam”, go give his qualifications I guess and to give comparatives. I spoke to this guy for hours and days about religions and things he had written about “Methodists, Satanists, Atheists, Catholics”, everything but Jones town and radical Islam.  But, all the sudden, Larry Wright is an “expert” on Islam and Jonestown because they are going to implant this idea real early to give you…”we are going position Scientology right from the beginning with my new invention.”  Wright says right after that, “My goal was not simply to write an expose, it was to understand Scientology.”  Now, I’ve done a whole analysis of the book and just with my personal experience with Wright, that is most false he could possibly make.  I mean, I’ve gone through it chapter and verse; and it is a complete, utter lie.  His goal was clearly to write an expose from the beginning. Anything that had anything to do with bringing an understanding about Scientology – which he got in spades from me over days, weeks and months – none of it made it into his book. So, this is just a complete and utter lie.  So, he sort of create this aura of objectivity which is false.

Phony Haggis Narrative

Gibney does a good job, as Wright did, of shifting the timeline back and forth. So, he is kinda of telling a narrative, but he is real liberal moving things around and not dating them so that, like I said before, you end like it is all in present time.  So, at 7 minutes into they skip back to Paul Haggis and was what was he trying to resolve by getting into Scientology.  And Haggis says, “I’m in love.”  You go back to the book and he’s asked the same question and he answers that he had bad grades and he was going nowhere.  They have just created a second, new script.  Then Haggis said he told his wife “it could save our relationship.”  Nowhere in the book does he talk about their relationship being a problem, let alone a reason for joining Scientology.  Not in the book, not in the film, nowhere else.  It is all of the sudden a new, invented scenario. 

More Phony Haggis re religion

So, at 7:45 into the movie Paul Haggis said he was troubled when he found out Scientology was a religion.  Of course, because he is such a deeply intellectual person it was troubling.  Except that in the book, his first encounter was on the street, and it was not about somebody telling him about a cult in New York (yet another tale Haggis wove), it was a guy handing him a copy of the book Dianetics which Haggis flipped open and it said “Church of Scientology of London, Ontario.”  And Haggis’ response to “Church of Scientology of London, Ontario” was “take me there!”   But now we’re doing the movie, and we’re really going to influence the Hollywood people and really marginalize Scientology, so we just rewrite the script. Now all the sudden, Paul “the intellectual”, was troubled when he found out it was a religion. 

Deceptive editing

At 9:10 Spanky Taylor comes in – and, I don’t know Spanky Taylor from Adam – but I do know that the whole way that they have edited this film, she all the sudden says from nowhere she signed a billion year Sea Org (Scientology Fraternal Order) contract.  There is no possible way – and I was in the Sea Org for twenty-seven years and another ten years afterwards with a lot of interaction with Sea Org members – and there is not a single one of them who doesn’t have some sort of life-changing, life-altering sort of miraculous experience through Scientology before signing a billion year contract.  And they just dramatize you know, she says “they just couldn’t hold me back!”  Right? Well, what was it that you experienced that put you in the state that you couldn’t held back?  But Gibney is like, “we’re not going to put that in here.”  So, it is really sleazy editing. 

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Going Clear Movie, Part 1 Overview, Hysteria Creation

Posted on July 16, 2017 by | 22 comments

 

Going Clear Movie Part 1 Overview, Hysteria Creation, transcript:

Mark Rathbun:  After my experience with Harry Smith (NBC Rock Center)  trying to get me to discredit the legitimacy of Scientology’s tax exemption on behalf of Lawrence Wright (see Going Clear, Part 19 – IRS and NBC’s Attempted Ambush),  I never heard from Larry Wright. For a year and half I had been fielding continuous phone calls with Wright with him clarifying things we had discussed.  I had written my review of the book and posted it, which wasn’t too kind.  In late 2012 Mike Rinder said “hey, I’m working with Alex Gibney on this movie about Wright’s book.  That was real odd. I had been disengaging for some time from the whole Anti-Scientology business.  Rinder wanted to know whether Gibney could call me. I said “sure, he can call me.”  So Gibney called late in the year to set a time for an interview.  This is my take on the movie, now seeing his final product.  First of all, I refer to it as McDocumentary and I refer to Gibney as a sort of McDocumentarian. I did look at two previous documentaries he’d done  which I knew something about the facts of. One was Enron, The Smartest Guy in the Room. I had read the book. And the other one I was familiar with was the pedophile priests scandal. I thought Gibney’s movies on they were some of the most  lazy, boring things I had scene. So I wasn’t really impressed.  So when I saw Going Clear, I was kind of taken aback by how emotional he made the whole thing.  I mean, he couldn’t have made the Catholic pedophile priest scandal more mundane, banal and boring. And yet you had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children being violated and continuing to be violated.  So, I was kind of shock to see in the Scientology movie to really make the story  – which by then to me, I’ve gone through the book with you – Gibney makes it this super melodramatic, emotional thing.  And that is why at event on the movie that I spoke in Austin I referred to Gibney as an auteur.  To me, it was like he dramatized the whole thing.  He wound up dramatizing Wright’s work which supposed to be a work of non-fiction.  After the movie came about, because the only things in it that hadn’t already been published before were uttered by me – and that was a very small body of stuff – I was the only one the media wanted to talk to.  So, they are up at the Sundance Film Festival (where it was initially released).  I hadn’t heard from these guys in forever. All of the sudden I’m getting all these text messages from Mike Rinder and Gibney’s people. Now they are all frantic, because they are all up there taking bows on the stage and nobody wants to talk to Rinder, they don’t want to talk to Marc Headley, they don’t want to talk to Tony Ortega.  And all these guys are up there at Sundance, trying to jump into the spotlight. So, I got sort of thrust into this thing. I did a little media at the outset.  Because my face was out there connected with the movie. And I started getting emails because this was an unprecedented amount of exposure for an anti Scientology piece.  And I started getting emails from all over the place from people connected with Scientology.  I found myself having to defend Scientology because these people were just hysterical.  That was the effect that the movie had.  Like I’d get this stuff about children because Spanky Taylor says in the movie that something happened; and they have no idea that she was talking about 1978. I mean, put aside whether it is exaggerated, put aside whether it is true.  The one thing I do know is that it happened in 1978. The people who watched the movie had no idea.  They think that whatever she is griping about is happening right now.  So, I’m having to calm people down, “now, wait a second, that particular thing that has got you so tied up, that happened in 1978. Scientology has not even had child care facilities since the mid-eighties. Ok, that’s thirty years ago.”   I mean, these are the types of responses I’m having to give people.  “Calm down”, right?  I mean, paranoid things. A lot of them were former members who were like completely convinced that phones were being monitored. And I’d look at the circumstances of the person, I’d say, “Look man, first off they aren’t doing any of that stuff, but second of all, you are the last person on earth they would be interested in.” I mean this is like he just created this hysteria. Because there hasn’t fresh accusations about Scientology in the past ten years, the Anti Scientology people are just rehashing stuff.  And they are rallying around this idea about ‘disconnection’; saying it is the most horrendous thing, this policy of disconnection, which is basically shunning.  A lot of messages and calls had to do with that.  So there business connections and family members who had connections with Scientology who were all in an hysteria about “I’ve have to resort to something radical to either get the person out of Scientology, or disconnect so they can’t hypnotize me in some way.” It really was shocking to me.  I’d been out for a long time and I have sort of involved in the anti Scientology area, and I’d never seen such hysteria before.  So, I just handle every inquiry, the person in front of me, one by one.  So, I literally found myself having to put things in context for people.  The impression created to people at large was, they cherry picked the most sensational accusations from 50 years – because they indicted L. Ron Hubbard from the age of 12 – or from 40 from the inception of Dianetics itself, all the way up to present time and communicated it such a way as to say “this is all happening now and it is a clear and present danger to you.”  And if you go down the roster of the people who are creating the most hysteria, they are 35 years before, 50 years before, and 65 years before the present respectively. And they are people talking about things that happened that many years ago. So, accuracy be damned, or accountability for hype and exaggeration be damned, all that stuff is  highlighted then thrust on you. It created an impression. I know from first hand because I was sort of becoming the point person for those so effected. And literally to a one I found myself trying to get people to calm down, “hey, that’s not happening.”  Whether it did or didn’t happen before, it was mainly about putting things in time sequence.  I ultimately came to the conclusion that Gibney is a fantastic propagandist.  Because he created this emotional and deep guttural fear and terror of something that does not exist. 

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Going Clear, Part 21- Headley lawsuit, FBI sting

Posted on June 19, 2017 by | 10 comments

Going Clear, Part 21 transcript:

Mark Rathbun: A key part of the anti-Scientology narrative as partially authored by Lawrence Wright, continuously published by Tony Ortega, endlessly repeated by Mike Rinder and other outlets on the troll farms, is: ‘Dang, we had Scientology – the FBI was right on them yet they got saved by this thorny Constitution interpreted by limp-wristed liberal justices of the Ninth Circuit.’  That literally is an invented narrative on several levels. The first level is this, if you read the opinion you don’t need the Constitution, you don’t even need a constitutional analysis.  First of all, the Ninth Circuit’s statement of the constitutional protections afford to religion is absolutely accurate. That it was applied to Scientology is absolutely nothing new. It has been consistently applied by courts for decades.  So, there is no news there. But, if you read the opinion, the court did not even need the Constitution. It found on a factual basis, if you literally broke down the facts, it didn’t even need the Constitution, because they found facts didn’t support the civil wrongs that were alleged.  Now, we know that the FBI investigation was prompted by the Headleys and really that was the core of their case.  The court said ‘factually’ they don’t have a case.  Factually.  Now, the problem is compounded. As early as April 2010 the only significant ‘defector’ from high up in Scientology who said anything after 2090 was John Brouseau.  And I arranged for John Brouseau to speak with the FBI.  And John Brouseau told the FBI, “I have seen no violence on behalf of David Miscavige or anybody else at the upper levels of Scientology. I have seen no evidence of anything they call the ‘hole’ for the several years that I have been there – since most of these people (who had already spoke to the FBI) left the church.”  None of the stuff that was the advertised crux of the FBI investigation existed. The only percipient witness, the only person who was in a position to know and a position to see – who was speaking to the FBI on behalf of the complainants (the Headleys), said ‘there’s no there there.’  And that in effect was the end of the FBI investigation.  The only conversations that I had with the FBI after that point (when Brouseau had testified) were about how to sting Scientology executives on a potential obstruction of justice rap.  In other words, do that the FBI usually does to somebody in a white collar case. 88% or 90% of the time, when they are going after somebody in a white collar case, they get them covering up.  I told them, ‘you can troll them.’  In FBI lingo, that is ‘sting them.’  Get them to do something stupid.  And in fact the FBI engaged in it.  And Scientology didn’t take the bait.  And now even the sting was over by 2010.  So, this whole narrative about how the Constitution saved Scientology from scrutiny by the FBI was entirely invented. Lawrence Wright said he was going to cover it in his (New Yorker) article because the FBI has a dismal record when it comes to dealing with “cults.”  Wright said, “sometimes they need incentive.” So, clearly Wright was trying to give them a black eye to incentivize them to go after Scientology. It is quite the motivation of an unbiased journalist, right?  

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Going Clear, Part 20 Wright’s Straw Man

Posted on June 19, 2017 by | 5 comments

Going Clear, Part 20 transcript:

Mark Rathbun: Wright sets up a couple of straw men. They are related. The first straw man is the idea that Scientology is all predicated on the idea that Hubbard cured himself from being crippled and blinded and that this all happened at the Oak Knoll Naval hospital.  First of all, and I went through this in spades with Wright, demonstrating that that is a straw man.  It is a false premise.  The representation does not really exist, number one.  And number two, what actually happened at Oak Knoll didn’t involve L Ron Hubbard. And I gave him all the lectures where Hubbard covered it.  Hubbard did not say that he cured himself at Oak Knoll Naval hospital. He said he discovered the fundamental techniques of Dianetics by engaging in two-way communication therapy of sorts with people who were recovering from illnesses there.  And he talks about it at length and in detail. If you know anything about Dianetics and Scientology you can see. I gave him all the materials and explained it to him for days and gave him the primer so that he could understand it.  It makes perfect and logical sense.  Wright’s invented theory is based on a straw man. 

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Going Clear, Part 19 – IRS and NBC’s attempted ambush

Posted on June 18, 2017 by | 10 comments

Going Clear, Part 19 transcript:

Mark Rathbun: The only media that I was asked to participate in when the book Going Clear came out in January 2013 was when Larry Wright asked me if I would be willing to go to New York to interview with NBC’s Rock Center. Wright said “you are a central person in this whole thing; so, could you do that and talk about the book?”  I said, “sure.”  And I don’t even know if I had read the book by that point.  I flew to New York. I spent an entire half a day with Harry Smith (NBC New). It was this elaborate set up.  It was in the Waldorf Astoria in this old, historic room – it was like a library.  We were there for an entire morning and into the afternoon. In the entire time we were in there, Smith did what Larry Wright had done with me a year or two earlier.  He tried to get this generalized statement that Scientology’s tax exemption was fraudulently or illegitimately obtained.  And he tried angle after angle on me. It was like Larry Wright redux.  Larry Wright had gone through the same thing with me.  And I went through chapter and verse and detail about how you don’t get it. ‘Yeah, there was some hardball, but you don’t get it, when the IRS is coming after you have to play hardball back or you meet your demise. You are getting all caught up in these tactics, and the bottom line is, the thing they just want to write out of history, is: All the hardball tactics did was get us to the table.  And at that point they (the IRS) held the cards and every anti-Scientology voice, every person who had been there (the IRS) for twenty years and had this deep institutional bias – every one of them was fully heard. And we had to answer to every one of them; and this went on for two years.  And Harry Smith is looking at me, like he is pissed. He can’t believe that there is all of this information coming out. All he wants is to get to ‘cut and print’ on ‘the whole thing was a sham.’  And so, it went on for three hours.  It got to the point where, like it had with Wright a year and half earlier, of sort of this testiness and disappointment. We finally finished. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and get back home.  So, unsurprisingly, I guess, two weeks later the show plays and I’m not in it.  Very clearly, what is what Larry Wright sent me to New York for and what Harry Smith was briefed on to get.  And, they didn’t get it.  So, they just cut it out.

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Going Clear, Part 18 – BBC’s John Sweeny

Posted on June 18, 2017 by | 5 comments

Going Clear, Part 18 Transcript:

Mark Rathbun:  Wright goes into how allegedly the BBC’s John Sweeny “never had such emotional and psychological pressure placed upon  him as he did with Scientology”; even though he covered the war in Bosnia and Chechnya and other kinds of similar business.  Then Wright downplays Sweeny’s meltdown where he screamed obscenities at Scientologists by saying that “Sweeny shouted in an oddly slow cadence.”  Total euphemism for a guy having a mental meltdown on the middle of a set.  Sweeneys producer, Sarah Mole, and Sweeney himself both told me unequivocally that the entire story that Sweeney did (wherein the meltdown occurred) on Scientology that Larry Wright is referring to, was a trolling operation.  There was no subject of investigation.  They did not even have a phony reason, like Larry Wright gives in his book, for his “investigation.”  Instead, they literally set forth to conduct a trolling operation to see what reaction they could cause from the church and that would be the subject of the piece.  In other words, we’re investigating you and we’re going too be as noisy obnoxious as we can and we’re going to document your reaction to that.  And that was the entire thing. So, for Wright to position John Sweeney as some seasoned, brave guy who undertook an even braver task to look into Scientology is complete and utter fiction. 

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Going Clear, Part 17 – Haggis Resignation Letter

Posted on June 17, 2017 by | Leave a comment

Going Clear, Part 17 transcript:

Mark Rathbun:  Wright alleges that  “by October (2009) Rathbun got hold of the letter (Paul Haggis’ Scientology resignation letter).  Actually, I have an email dated 23 August where I am already talking to Haggis, not only do I have the letter I am giving Haggis detailed, meticulous instructions about how to present it deceptively to media contacts that I have established – this is two  months prior to October.  It didn’t as Wright states “find its way” to me; Paul Haggis sent it to me directly by email. Paul Haggis consulted with me every step of the way, how he should position this and how he should do this.  Quote from Going Clear:  “He (Rathbun) called Haggis who was shooting (film) in Pittsburgh and asked if he could publish the letter on his blog.”  In fact, two months earlier than that Paul Haggis wrote to me (Rathbun) and made me the coordinating point on seeing to it that his letter was published.  So, how could I be asking him to publish it two months later?  I coached Haggis through every step of the way on the release of his letter. What a prima donna. This process went on for two months.  (This was part of the phony narrative making Haggis look like he was operating on his own initiative, the John Wayne narrative. It was invented.)

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Going Clear, Part 16 – More Paul Haggis Inventions

Posted on June 17, 2017 by | Comments Off on Going Clear, Part 16 – More Paul Haggis Inventions

 

Going Clear, Part 16 transcript:

Mark Rathbun:  At page 319 Wright goes back to his narrative on Paul Haggis.  Wright writes “Haggis was casting the movie The Next Three Days in the summer of 2009 and he asked Jason Beghe to read a part for his detective.”   Wright writes about Haggis connecting back up with Jason Beghe.  This is like a film script from Haggis.  Quote: “‘I just want you to know I am no longer in Scientology,’ Beghe told Haggis when called. ‘Actually, I am one of its most outspoken critics; the church would be very unhappy if you hire me.”  The whole thing sounds dramatic and daring on Haggis’ part. In reality, the matter was quite mundane.  Wright omits that the reason Paul Haggis called Jason Beghe is because I already told Haggis that Jason was out of the church. I also asked Haggis to do ME (Mark Rathbun) a favor and find some work for Beghe who was nearing need of psychiatric care for anxiety of his long spell of no work  in Hollywood.  He was a wreck. His confidence was shot.  That is all omitted.  So the invent a ‘cold call’ by Paul Haggis to Beghe.  They make Paul look like   strong me like “hey, when I decide to cast somebody, I cast somebody.”  Wright makes Haggis out to be John Wayne.  Wright makes it look like Haggis is learning for the first time Jason is out of the church when he calls to cast him. Which is bullshit, because the only reason he is calling is because I already told him he was out of the church.  I gave Haggis Jason Beghe’s entire history. I had Haggis watch all of Beghe’s antiScientology videos on Youtube – all before Haggis ever called Beghe, or even had the idea to call Beghe.  It is like they (Wright and Haggis) are living a Hollywood fantasy.  They make Haggis look some sort of macho guy. I mean, Haggis spoke to me for DAYS before he would make the Beghe call I asked him to make.  This is all invention. 

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