Adams County District Attorney Don Quick filed charges against William Rex Fowler in the shooting death of 42-year-old Thomas Ciancio, his former business partner at Fowler Software Design.
Investigators say Fowler shot Ciancio three times in the head with a 9mm Glock handgun when Ciancio came to Fowler Software Design to collect $9,900 in severance pay. [...]
Employees of the software company told investigators Ciancio had blamed Fowler for the company’s recent financial difficulties.
The employees said Fowler had taken about $200,000 of the company’s money without asking and gave it to a church or charity, according to the arrest affidavit. [...]
Investigators say the gun was registered to Andrew Hyung Fowler, 26, who lived at 1413 L. Ron Hubbard Way in Los Angeles when it was purchased. In interviews with police, Andrew Fowler said he gave the gun to his father for Christmas in 2007.
Police also found a briefcase and a typed note, dated Dec. 30 and signed by Fowler. The note said nothing confidential was in the satchel and that it should be given to his wife, Janet.
When Janet Fowler was interviewed by detectives, she demanded the briefcase.
“It is important to me and my church. It is religious material and I want it now,” she said to investigators. “Even if you looked at it, and read it, you would not understand anything in it. Because it is way above a normal person and you would not know what it meant. I want it back right now.”
Janet Fowler also reportedly told investigators that her husband “is a Scientologist and would not have gone without a fight. He would have grabbed a gun in a struggle and would not have let someone shoot him.”
Pasadena Babalon is a new stage play dealing with the life of rocket pioneer Jack Parsons, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet General Corporation.
Theater Arts at Caltech (TACIT) director Brian Brophy (Shawshank Redemption, Day Without a Mexican, Star Trek: The Next Generation) will direct the play penned by George Morgan, author of last year’s well-received Rocket Girl.
Babalon takes the audience on a journey through mid-1930s Pasadena up until Jack’s untimely death in 1952. Surrounded by a gallery of characters from Aleister Crowley, L.Ron Hubbard, Theordore Von Karman, and many others, the play examines the nature of genius with its unintended consequences, black magic, military contracts, and the formation of JPL.
More than 1,000 unreleased recordings of lectures by L. Ron Hubbard and reams of corresponding writings have been unveiled in the culmination of a 25-year project to locate, restore and transcribe lost pieces of the Scientology founder’s work.
Though sure to be derided by the church’s many critics, its followers say the materials amount to an opportunity to deepen understanding of the religion and to release the last known unpublished Hubbard works dealing with Scientology and Dianetics.
“It would be like discovering that Buddha, unbeknownst to anybody, had sat down and wrote down the entirety of his discoveries and it could be verified that he wrote it,” said Tommy Davis, the church’s top spokesman.
They advanced to the Church of Scientology’s highest spiritual level, to “Operating Thetan VIII,” a vaunted realm said to endow extraordinary powers of perception and force of will.
But Geir Isene of Norway and Americans Mary Jo Leavitt and Sherry Katz recently announced they were leaving the church, citing strong disagreements with its management practices.
Isene left first, a decision that emboldened Leavitt, who inspired Katz. Such departures are rare among the church’s elite group of OT VIIIs, who are held up as role models in Scientology. The three each told the St. Petersburg Times that they had spent decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach the church’s spiritual pinnacle.
All three stressed their ongoing belief in Scientology and say they remain grateful for how it helped them. Yet they took to the Internet — an act strongly discouraged by church leaders, who decry public airing of problems — to share their reasons for leaving. They said they hoped it would resonate within the Scientology community.
A man claims the Church of Scientology forced him to work as a “virtual slave” for 16 years at jobs ranging from washing pots and pans to restoring old films produced by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. John Lindstein says he was kept “busy, poor, tired, and uninformed” by Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige at the church’s ranch in Hemet, and feared that “things would get even worse if he did not work as ordered.”
Lindstein’s Superior Court complaint alleges human trafficking and violations of hour and wage laws at the church’s “Gold Ranch” compound near Hemet, a semirural area east-southeast of Los Angeles.
Lindstein says that from 1990 until 2006, starting when he was just 8 years old, he “performed this work as a virtual slave, working 16 to 24 hours days with no sleep, no time off and no personal freedom” at Gold Base, a mysterious and once-secret headquarters that “resembles a prison camp,” with razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts and three roll calls each day.
Fictionology’s central belief, that any imaginary construct can be incorporated into the church’s ever-growing set of official doctrines, continues to gain popularity. Believers in Santa Claus, his elves, or the Tooth Fairy are permitted—even encouraged—to view them as deities. Even corporate mascots like the Kool-Aid Man are valid objects of Fictionological worship.
“My personal savior is Batman,” said Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Greg Jurgenson. “My wife chooses to follow the teachings of the Gilmore Girls. Of course, we are still beginners. Some advanced-level Fictionologists have total knowledge of every lifetime they have ever lived for the last 80 trillion years.”
“Scientology can only offer data, such as how an Operating Thetan can control matter, energy, space, and time with pure thought alone,” McSavage said. “But truly spiritual people don’t care about data, especially those seeking an escape from very real physical, mental, or emotional problems.”
McSavage added, “As a Fictionologist, I live in a world of pretend. It’s liberating.”
The French branch of the Church of Scientology has been fined $900,000 for defrauding vulnerable followers, a Paris court has ruled.
But the group, which is officially considered a sect in France, was not banned from operating in the country.
The group’s lawyer said they would appeal against Tuesday’s verdict.
The court convicted six group leaders, the Scientology’s Celebrity Centre, and its bookshop of organised fraud for preying financially on followers in the 1990s.
Hawkins’ ads featured simple questions like, “Why are you unhappy?” in white print against a black background, backed by edgy music supplied by Hawkins’ friends, and finally, a shot of the Dianetics book splashed against a volcano. The ads cost around $2,000 to make, yet within months of their first nationwide appearance, Dianetics made the New York Times Best Seller List for the first time since its initial publication in 1950″‘and a special commemorative edition of the book was printed to mark the occasion.
Hawkins estimates he made more than $200 million for the church in his 35 years of marketing Dianetics. Nevertheless, he ultimately paid for his success by being thrown out of the church in 2005. Now living in Portland, Hawkins is writing a book about his experiences in Scientology.
Craig Baldwin, director of Tribulation 99 and Spectres of the Spectrum, is screening a new movie about Jack Parson, L. Ron Hubbard, Margaret Cameron and Aleister Crowley called Mock Up ON Mu.
SF360: Back in the ’60s, dimwit journalists would ask McCartney and Lennon what they wrote first, the music or the lyrics. In your case, do you write a script and find the footage to illustrate it or do you have chunks of footage you love and invent a narrative to fit them?
Baldwin: The question is always asked after every one of my films. It’s a process. If I just dive into my archive, I wouldn’t get out of my archive. There has to be kind of a map, a direction. The script was not written when I shot the [original] material. I found the story of Jack Parsons, as a myth, as a schematic, as a way forward. These subject areas/ or themes would be included: the occult, the aerospace-rocket stuff, mind control, all this brain stuff that’s obviously a parody of Scientology, desert landscapes, military-industrial, the moon/outer space. Without a script, even though I knew the story, you can go out into the desert and shoot people looking into the meteor crater. It’s mythic, adds scale, is cinematic. So the two come toward each other”‘the accumulated ideas you have and the accumulated materials you have. I probably should have been a little more in control of my material. The best model for me was the underground film”‘this is a term you hardly hear anymore”‘you go out with people who may or may not be paid actors and you just generate ideas in a great location. I did that with Spectres too. Went down to the Salton Sea and got some good shots. It’s not a realistic movie, it’s a series of ghostly gestures. It’s all shot without sound, and you add the voices later. It is this idea of a personal commitment and a personal engagement with the project. Would I be a painter if I didn’t like to paint? That’s preposterous. There’s a certain amount of that in filmmaking, Filmmaking is absolute masochism, just so you know. Sometimes you have to burn some film that you’ll never use. You just have to be generous with yourself, and with visual possibilities.
#5.On His Native American Upbringing …
#4.On His Study of Nuclear Physics …
#3. On L. Ron Hubbard, War Hero …
#2.On Living The Drug-Free Lifestyle …
#1. On Inventing the Concept of a Moral Code …
The telephone rings, and a voice on the other end says that Anonymous is in crisis mode.
It’s March 13, two days before Anonymous’ second protest against the Church of Scientology, and things are starting to get serious. Rumors abound that Scientologists are flying in investigators from church headquarters in Clearwater, Fla., to Washington. Reports have come in that people involved in Anonymous–”anons”–have been followed, and a series of videos have been posted on YouTube purporting to show anons without their masks and listing their real names.
The videos appear alongside a video released by the church, titled “Anonymous Hate Crimes,” which calls the group terrorists. Down in Clearwater, the church has applied for a restraining order against planned Anonymous anti-Scientology protests on the Ides of March, but the D.C. permit is secure.
Things seem to be going down pretty much the way ex-Scientologist Arnie Lerma said they would, and paranoia is running high. It’s a woman’s voice on the phone, but she won’t reveal her name, only that the recipient of the call has met her before–she wishes to remain Anonymous.
Recently, Radar reported on Scientology’s short-lived attempt to beat its Guy Fawkes mask-clad antagonists “Anonymous” at their own game: scary YouTube videos. A clip posted by a Sciento associate under the name “AnonymousFacts” displayed the names and personal information of several supposed Anonymous members and accused the group of violent threats and terrorism. YouTube quickly took the video down and suspended AnonymousFacts. But the hassle for at least one of the three men shown didn’t end there.
[...]
Later a friend of the family came over and said Mr. Mustachio was hanging out in front of the house and had asked her if she was Jonathan’s mom. When she said no, he waited until Jonathan’s parents did arrive, then handed them the file and said, “This is a courtesy letter. No charges are being filed yet. But your son may be involved in terrorist activity.” And then he left. Inside the package was a letter accusing Jonathan of terrorism and a DVD copy of the YouTube video, he says.
[...]
Jonathan said the DVD of Scientologists’ video and the accusation that their son was a terrorist concerned his parents. “[They] told me that while they understood what I was doing, it’s not worth it to have psychos threatening our family. And I agreed.” He’s publicly declared he’s done with Anonymous. “I can’t. I live at home, and these creepy guys started knocking on our door and handing my parents letters … Anyway, I’m not protesting anymore.”
Some of this stuff has been floating around the Internet over the past few days, but Cabinet of Wonders ties it all together:
The English-language term “Scientology” originated neither with Hubbard nor Nordenholz, but with philologist Allen Upward, who coined the term in 1907 to ridicule pseudoscientific theories.
Possibly more interestingly, is the history of the E-Meter . It was invented by chiropractor and sci-fi author Volney Mathison, based on his study of lie detectors. Mark Pilkington looked at this aspect in an article he wrote for the Guardian.
Shawn Lonsdale, a vocal Scientology critic who both directed his own anti-church documentary and appeared in a BBC Panorama documentary titled Scientology And Me, was found dead in his home over the weekend in an apparent suicide, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
While authorities do not suspect foul play, the same cannot be said of the Internet message board posters who are alleging that church members harassed Lonsdale into committing suicide-if they didn’t actually directly off the guy and make it look like a suicide. “This is a little TOO suspicious. Coincides with our attacks?” writes one Anonymous poster, noting the proximity of Lonsdale’s death to the recent spate of public anti-Scientology protests. Over at the Times’ website, accusations are more direct: “An apparent suicide? Maybe it was staged to look like a suicide. Has anyone noticed how many Off-Duty Officers work for Scientology! These will be the same officers investigating this Suicide???? An investigation with Impartiality? Justice Denied?”
I’ve been following this as it develops. Here’s the press release:
CLEARWATER, Florida – Anonymous announced their intention to combat the activities of the Church of Scientology on Monday. A spokesperson said that the group’s goals include bringing an end to the financial exploitation of Church members and protecting the right to free speech, a right which they claim was consistently violated by the Church of Scientology in pursuit of its opponents.
This announcement came as a response to attempts by the Church to keep secret an internal video meant to be viewed only by Scientologists, featuring actor Tom Cruise. Despite their efforts, the movie was leaked and rapidly spread across the Internet. The video caused much controversy, and members of Anonymous posted a message to several of their websites proclaiming war against Scientology. Soon after, Anonymous struck at the church; they blocked access to its website, made prank calls, organized protests, distributed anti-Church pamphlets and information, and extracted secret files from the Church of Scientology and its parent company, the Religious Technology Center.
Inspired by the release of Tom Cruise’s secret Scientology video and the Church’s attempts to suppress it, Anon promises an all-out war in the following hokey but entertaining video:
For further information, check out the Gawker post. It has some notes and links.
Electrodes have been used to trap, interrogate and release individual bacteria in a bio-electronic circuit that could be used to construct nanoscale machines.
“One of the great challenges of nanotechnology remains the assembly of nanoscale objects into more complex systems,” says Robert Hamers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We think that bacteria and other small biological systems can be used as templates for fabricating even more complex systems.”
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