New Scientology video surfaces

In a subtitled video that popped up in a few places on the Internet early this morning -- Glosslip.com found it, and it was later picked up by Gawker.com and other sites -- Scientology leader David Miscavige is shown speaking to an audience about both the religion's multipronged campaign for the "global obliteration of psychiatry" and its international effort to disseminate a booklet, authored by Church founder L. Ron Hubbard, that the organization uses for outreach. The video appears to have been made in 2006. Miscavige mentions the value of "corporate tie-ins" and implies that multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, 7-Eleven and Dell Computer have been involved in distribution of Church literature.

In describing the workings of what he called "the 2006 campaign for the global elimination of psychiatry," Miscavige boasts of a coordinated international public relations attack meant to damage and discredit the psychiatric profession, its revenues and the drugs it employs.

"That campaign was expressly, maybe even diabolically, engineered to ignite both government action and media blizzard," says Miscavige from a lectern. "Our Mental Health Adjustment Kit essentially works like a 'smart' bomb in that it sniffs out 'psych' fuel lines and blows the funding mechanism."

"To put it bluntly," he continues, a moment before receiving rousing cheers from a large audience, "we booby-trap the whole psychiatric ecosystem."

Miscavige also goes into detail about a program he refers to as Operation Planetary Calm, whose goal is the worldwide distribution of Hubbard's "The Way to Happiness," a text the Church of Scientology refers to as a nonreligious "common-sense guide to happier living," according to a website registered under the address of the church.  Part of the strategy, he says, is "corporate tie-ins."

"Multinationals tend to have Third World image problems," he notes as snippets of video play.  "So this is what they're doing about it -- Coca-Cola Pakistan with a braille edition for the blind ... Philips Electronics, likewise all over Pakistan, and Dell Computers all over Africa."

Miscavige also implies that 4,000 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan carry the book, and adds that "the numbers grow even larger when you follow the campaign trail into Taiwanese schools -- to date, it's 250,000 by order of Taiwan's Ministry of Education."

At one point, a computer animation depicts a giant grenade, labeled "Psych Buster," exploding near a building labeled "government" and another building, perhaps a bank, with a large dollar sign on its side.  Miscavige repeatedly invokes end-times biblical tropes such as "plagues," "parting seas" and "apocalyspe," and cites the goal of breaking "the dark spell cast across Earth by psychiatry."

After a message was left with the church seeking comment on the apparently leaked videos, links to which were initially sent to The Times by investigative journalist Mark Ebner, a spokesman identifying himself as Kendrick Moxon returned a call to say he was aware of the video.  He described it as "an edited copy of a pirated video."

"Some sort of an excerpt is what it appears to be," he said, and did not deny that the video represented a real event.

Late calls to Coca-Cola seeking comment were not immediately returned.

As of this writing, at least three copies of the video had been posted on YouTube, the most-watched of which had fewer than 10,000 views. 

Read the entire transcript here.

Note: The comments are getting to be a bit redundant and off-topic at this point, so I'm closing them for this post. 

Comments

[Rook]

Took the scientologists awhile, but they finally joined the conversation. Hi gibber. What OT level are you?

Psychiatry does harm. Doctors are sued all the time for mal-practice. This is not anything new. But to paint the entire profession of psychiatry as evil, would be the same as saying that all docotors are evil, because there are abuses in the medical system.

Scientologists "war" on psychiatry is simply a diversion tactic. A way that upper management can get the sheep to herd around a cause, while taking all of your money during auditing sessions. Good luck with that.

[Ben Brown]

Anon, I am not a scientologist. What I have read of them seems really bizzare. But they're right about psychiatry. I suppose some people would think that the idea of secret underground bases conducting socio-eugenical programs accomplished via the use of subliminal microwave technology and DEW (directed energy weapons) as far-fetched.

Do you think the gov't would tell us if there were? Wouldn't seem plausible, with the above noted secret weapons technology, that anyone pursuing the issue would be LABeled as mentally ill as a method of discrediting them? If so, then the psychiatric 'industry' must be complicit. The perfect front, if you think about it.

[Bill McCreary]

Simply put, psychiatry saved my life. How anyone could be against such a noble science baffles me.

Hopefully the mainstream media will find the courage to report on the wrong doings of the Church of Scientology before it is too late. Thank you "Anonymous" for enlightening me via the internet of the horrible crimes of this organization that for too long have been ignored by society.

It is time for people to stand up. I will stand with you peacefully on Sunday.

[Tom]

Seriously, folks...ever see those "Psychiatry Kills!" displays in Hollywood? That's just plain batty. Neither I nor my family has had any contact with psychiatry or psychiatric drugs (to my knowledge), and I believe that a lot of these conditions are better treated without over-medication, but isn't it just a bit convenient that their primary marketing tool (auditing) happens to be a direct competitor to the discipline of psychiatry? And the argument that it KILLS (with accompanying picture of patient in shock treatment a la horror films) a little over-the-top? Where is Woody Allen to counterbalance the negative press? He obviously loves the field with all the references in his films.

I think I'm going to start a business -- I mean cult -- darnit! I mean religion -- where the main draw is predicting the weather, so I'll start an all-out war against an even greater enemy than psychiatry -- meteorology! Who believes in weather forecasts anyway? And when they're wrong it costs lives! METEOROLOGY KILLS! I can see it now.

[Bill McCreary]

For more information on this dangerous cult:

xenu.net
whyaretheydead.net

[Ben Brown]

Bill McCreary; No offense intended but are you sure it was 'psychiatry' that saved your life? Almost all mentally based ailments can be treated by a Family Physician to perscribe medicine and a Therapist to talk to. I get alarmed when I hear that psychiatric drug perscriptions among college student have risen 450% over the last 25 years.

[Peggo]

I suspect the LA Times and some of their best advertisers benefit a great deal from psychiatry cooking up new "diseases" so they can develop new meds to treat them. Like to the tune of more than 100 million prescriptions for antidepressants a year. I'm disappointed in Sarno's research. He obviously went to YouTube to watch this clip. He could just have easily taken the time to watched the documentary that is the subject of the activity David Miscavige is talking about, part of which is up on YouTube too at http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=FPUHUpfDVgY. One other thing. There are visitors who are using this article as an opportunity to denigrate and vent hatred for Scientologists. Mr. Sarno, that is one of the products of your irresponsible, one-sided and badly researched reporting.

[Luisa]

Psychiatry does not keep its promises and without government funds they would be long gone. I have seen the conditions in several psychiatric wards and most "patients" there are just stored away for plenty of bucks, paid by their insurance or government funds. Without their pills to drug up patients the psychiatrist (at least the one in a hospital) would have to show his true effectiveness and everyone would see that he cannot cure anything, not even help his patients to feel relieve. It is big money he eats from us, missing somewhere else bitterly. I mind the language used in the clip, a bit rough, but I agree to the purpose. It's a fraud and defrauding the tax payer by the billions. Let's ignite these "smart bombs" and cut off the tax payer's funding to Big Pharma and their puppets.

[JeraldR]

While I am a critic of scientology i also know there is a lot more work that needs to be done in the mental health field. But like every science constant study brings constant change. Why are 450% more students on meds?
Could it be that there are 1000% more students now than twenty years ago? Could it be that the same of having a mentall illness is no longer keeping people from getting the help they need?
Very few people recive EST anymore and even that has changed over the years to where it is much safer and you have to give CONSENT before it can be done anymore.

Scientology hates the press, the mental health field and anyone who have the guts to question their bad actions. You can learn much at xenu.net and xenutv.com They hate that they are completing against the doctors who spend a life time of training and careing for people.

Hubbard had no TRAINING in any real feild of study, miuch less the mental health fields. At the time of his death he was hideing from a four year prison conviction.

Google " dispose of quietly and without sorrow " to see what scientology really thinks of the mentally ill.

[OnlyFair]

Supposedly David Sarno is the Times' Internet culture and online entertainment writer. I don't find it cultured or entertaining. Sarno missed the whole point of this video--that Scientologists are determined not to allow psychiatry to create a "Brave New World" where all of life is a "disorder," not curable and only capable of being "controlled" by drugs (which, unfortunately, cause violence, suicide ideation, school shooters...you know, a few unfortunate side effects).

[Una]

So here we have a half-baked reporter who writes a skewed story, misrepresenting an important humanitarian activity (and that is exactly what David Miscavige is talking about and Sarno is misrepresenting because CCHR is cleaning up the field of mental health from the grotesque abuses committed by psych and ignored by the mainstream media). If Sarno had taken the time to watch the whole event (which he could easily have done) it would have been obvious to him what he completely missed -- that the cartoons are jokes intended to provide some comic relief to a gruesome social problem. And what's the upshot? Incited hatred. What makes this kind of reporting different from an Imus spewing racial slurs? Why aren't more people outraged at how Scientologists are being treated in this article?

[Jay]

This is an attack against a religion. It should be looked at that way, not as something justifiable. Such attacks are despicable wherever they occur, whether it is some croat bashing muslims, or some nazi attacking jews, it is still despicable. For the LA times to forward such info is completely repellent. If any reporter tried to come up with such a story about any other religion, it would be shut down in a hearbeat. But the LA Times, in its infinite wisdom, is a huge recipient of advertising dollars from Big Pharma, which the Scientologists are trying to put out of business.

Go figure. Someone has to be paying for all this negative publicity. Who?

And what religion will be targeted next week by this rabid reporter?

[gibber60]

There's only one thing I find more annoying tonight than this article. That's all the stupid posts. I wonder how many ***holes are glued to their computers, waiting to post their drivel. My guess is three of you. Hey. Lets get some originality here.

[MarieG]

Have to comment on helping the homeless ... there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of Scientology Volunteer Ministers helping during and after Katrina, after the tsunamis, during floods in Oregon, and hundreds of other places around the world. Thousands of Scientologists either volunteered themselves or helped support those who did.

As for psychiatry - it DOES kill. Between deaths in psychiatric institutions, as a result of psychiatric "treatments" such as electro shock, insulin shock and others, direct drug side effects (particularly in the elderly), suicides of those on psych meds, deaths of those on psych meds who went on murdering rampages ... psychiatry DOES kill. And it kills frequently and a lot.

[gibber]

Hey there Rook. Sorry. You are so misinformed it's pathetic.

[peggo]

Thanks Jay. That's exactly the point.

[Aeros]

****FREE SPEACH ALERT****

This video has disappeared from YouTube, most likely due to a "Copyright" claim by the church of Scientology. Apparently these people don't like there own speeches. Get it back out there people.

[Tom]

I guess the local "churches" of Scientology got the calls out to post last night.

I praise whoever is leaking these videos. Maybe it will finally bring this cult down from the inside out. And these are officially sanctioned instructional material! The best part is they produce this themselves, then claim it's chopped up and taken out of context. Are those bizarre "Psych Buster" CGI bits taken out of context? That's some deeply disturbing, wacky stuff. Blowing up banks? How about a "Scientology Buster"? How would that be received in your hallowed mid-warp halls?

Yes, this forum should turn into a place to discuss Scientology, since that's what the article is about. Not about an errant posting on YouTube, but a video produced by Scientology.

I'm all for an even-handed discussion of psychiatry, but to me this is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Scientology and its approach has no place in mainstream academic discourse on this subject, and it should be completely ridiculed, if it can't be ignored, by sane society.