Critics split over DDoS attacks on Scientology Websites associated with the Church of Scientology are intermittently unavailable today after an internet activists group calling itself Anonymous declared war on the controversial organisation. In a statement posted via video on YouTube and through various internet sites, Anonymous claimed its actions were designed to …
The group is a merger between the chans including among others 4chan and 7chan. The word anonymous is used to describe anyone from any of the chans, since as the name suggests everything is posted anonymously.
e.g.
"Hey Anon, find this MySpace profile and win 100 internets"
I don't agree with Anonymous' use of DDOS attacks, but hey, I can't stop 'em... and if anyone had to be DDOSed, I suppose you couldn't find a better and more worthwhile candidate. Why don't hackers, spammers and virus writers contribute to society like this more often? I'm sure they'd get a lot more support that way...
While I understand and agree in principle with free speach meaning allowing even those you disagree with their say, society as a whole MUST impose limits. Perhaps the best known example of this is the statement "The right of free speech does not carry with it the right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre."
By Andreas Lund's argument, confidence tricksters and fraudsters would be protected in their false and misleading claims by the "right of free speech". A health-product vendor could falsely claim that some magic herb he sells cures cancer, and be protected in this claim by the "right of free speech". Obviously, for our society to function, we have to draw the line somewhere.
It has been demonstrated many times - Mr. Lund even admits it himself - that the CoS is a criminal and fraudulent organisation whose activities have destroyed lives and families. The legal system has proven powerless to destroy this organisation. Why the CoS hasn't been branded as a "terror group" or simply outlawed as a crime syndicate by now is beyond me.
Since the governments of the world are not doing anything about this obscene cult, it falls to We The People to take matters into our own hands. This is what Anonymous have done, and I fully concur with their actions. This isn't playing into the CoS's hands. It is doing something serious about ridding our society of an insidious and poisonous social disease.
The Church of Scientology may be a bunch of litigious wankers but you can't defend your right of free speech by taking someone else's away. Tom Cruise is the best thing that ever happened to those aimed at stopping this plainly dangerous cult, it's probably better just to let the former Mr. Kidman just keep talking bollocks and he'll do the job for you. But we can't turn into vigilantes however tawdry our system of justice is, it's still better than lynchings.
This "Anonymous" group sounds lilke a bigger bunch of nutters than the Church of Scientology. I agree with Andreas Hendal-Lund: Anonymous denial-of-service attacks are only going to make people sympathise with the Scientologists.
Frankly, give me a Scientologist to an anonymous denial-of-service hacker anyday, thank you.
Whilst ‘Operation Clambake’ may be in agreement with old Voltaire quote (i am not even gonna bother repeating it, we all know it), freedom of speech has limitations and should not be used as a ‘get-out-of-everything’ card, $cientologys use of ‘freedom of speech’ has ensnared thousands of vulnerable people, who have been scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and have had their lives ruined; the financial loss to the CO$ victims is the amongst the lightest of effects it followers have suffered.
I fully support Anonymous in their attack on this repugnant cult, and only hope that the CO$ are put through the same stress, worry and loss, their victims have been.
Basically, f*** ‘em.
Steve Roper wrote: "[...] society as a whole MUST impose limits. Perhaps the best known example of this is the statement 'The right of free speech does not carry with it the right to shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre.'"
Unless, of course, there's a fire. This may be such a case.
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A religious organisation that you have to be an active member of in order to follow the religion.
Splitting the CoS down the middle into the Traditional CoS and the Reformed CoS would do a lot of good for the religion but sadly it would be blocked by copyright law. Imagine if the Bible were suddenly copyrighted to the Catholic church.
Such groups as CoS are allowed to fester away because those who wield power in our UK/US societies don't want to have to try and explain in public the difference between their religeon and a load of made-up hokum used to control the weak-willed.
It's all bullshit but those who profit from bullshit will be reluctant to condem someone elses in case their house of cards collapses along with them..
Number of real wars started in the name of Scientology.. none as far as I know.
Number of real wars started in the name of Christianity.. I've lost count.
They won't want people thinking about that too hard will they?
if Xenu has enough technology to design spaceships that look like DC-10s and soul catchers, then the Scientologists must have mastered the concept of a packet-switching network (like in "Independence Day") and DDOS attacks should be the equivalent of a fly to be swatted away with impunity.
(Unless, of course, it is all bunk!)
Does this mean that the CoS will die by the finger?
*Ahem*, just before I get my coat...
I agree with what the Annonymous legion are up to from one point of view, because if governments will not fight the evil of cults, then perhaps these virtual vigilanties could shut down the marketing capabilities and online payment facilities of these cults; thereby protecting depressed yet hopeful innocents from being turned into brainwashed cash cows or sex slaves.
Granted the 'legion' may not actually be able to do much because they are only attacking on online prescence with a DoS attack, and not for example, hacking in and spreading about all of their secret information all over social sites and the rest of the internet.
Yet, if they did, it could be no more illegal or morally incorrect than the UK government giving away tens of millions of personal data files and even hundreds of top secret military files etc to foreign organisations, or letting it get lost in the post, or letting it get nicked out of cars (complete with a hard disk which contains unencrypted data which was deleted but perhaps not overwritten).
As others have said, dumb move. First, DDoS attacks are illegal, no matter who the victim is. Second, you are just handing the clams an enormous stick to beat you with.
Scientology loves publicity, it loves to play the persecution card, it loves to have someone to attack, and more than anything it loves to have someone to sue (search for the name "Keith Henson" if you think I'm not serious).
Instead, fight back by urging people to take a look at www.xenu.net.
Considering the church was created by a B grade Sci-Fi author I'm surprised so many people are duped into it. Bout time someone chose to act as a balance.
Based on the behavior of the Church of Scientology I think it's only fair a counter group respond in just an immoral way. Get what you give.
As soon as anyone is in fear of saying what they feel the line has been crossed and something must be done about it!
I wont pretend to be the one to decide just how that should be done. After all a super power with a great deal of money, power and resources behind it, has failed to answer the question itself.
From their point of view; Church of Scientology should chill out and enjoy the fruits. The antagonistic behavior is only going to make their own lives harder.
(To The Register, I hope you don't start omitting material because of pressure from them.)
P.S. I wasn't too keen on Tom Cruise since he joined, but this recent (dodgy) interview (for me) has put him in the same list as Michael Jackson, and Hitler and the like...
All the denial of service crap is only advertising the scientology website. they would be FAR better off with a co-ordinated google-bomb attempt to move xenu.net to 1st position in the google search rankings for the word "scientology". Most webmasters would lend a hand with that, I think - posting a pre-formatted page linking the word scientology to xenu.net somewhere on their sites. I know I would.
And ok, for laughs then maybe a couple of xss redirects if they could find a vulnerability ;)
LRH may have been a bit B rate, but he was still pretty good on occasion, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that he not only had a good sense of humour, but originally set up CoS as a bit of a joke.
With a sci-fi writers long term vision, i was thinking how much more interesting it would be if he did it all deliberately to destroy organised religion, as other posters have pointed out, the difference between one fictional entity and another may be hard to define, so if he made CoS obnoxious enough to to come to official attention, under the right circumstances it just might be enough to bring it all down..
unlikely i know, but it's friday afternoon and i like to day dream the world isn't all bad.
I choose Paris, because she'd never get the joke
a) Church? Cult? In the case of Scient*l*gy, it's moot. Pretty much no government will recognize them as a religion of any kind.
b) Obviously, it would be the Church of the Cult of Scientology. Duh.
c) Because all the world's ills are caused by alien ghosts, it is appropriate to use the alien icon in any comment related to CoCoS.
You know the odds are that anonymous is just a 15 year old pimply hacker.
Or Andrew Morton.
I have to agree with Andreas though about taking the Voltarian stance on this.
It is something that americans arent familiar with because we censor debates on topics.
There is no discussion about gays because you are not allowing debating. You have to accept and if you dont: you are labeled a homophobe.
Same thing with Israel, there is never any debate. Just the idea of debating is cause to be called an anti-semite (never mind that the term is idiotic to anyone who knows what a semite is)
I have to pimp Andreas though (www.xenu.net), his work is tremendous and he does this under duress. The cult is vindictive, dangerous and extremely abusive and are masters of harrasment, intimidation and psychological warfare (just look at the BBC reporter who lost it when confronted by the cult members).
Utmost respect for the work he does and for his principles.
anonymous
The internet is large, that is to say, the theater is not crowded. You would have to actually GO TO an internet site to read Scientology. You would have to actually WALK INTO a Church of Scientology to take a course. You would have to actually PICK UP a Scientology book (among 1000s of books) at a public library. The argument that other people's opinions should not be expressed because you disagree with them, stinks. My take off on this issue? Beatty has joined with selected psychiatrists, psychiatry is defending itself in the only way it has ever had real effect. Behind the scenes, underhanded, utilizing the knife, long held behind the back.
"Why the CoS hasn't been branded as a "terror group" or simply outlawed as a crime syndicate by now is beyond me."
Simple: because it's called a religion and people stupidly think that "religions ought to be respected". So politicians don't want to be seen disrespecting anything remotely associated with religions, cults, whatever.
Give Scientology another, say, 100 years or so and they will be something like the Mormons. Who knows, Cruise's great-great-grandson (or daughter) might even be running for President of the USA by then...
Anonymous pick their targets at random, this was just something that was in the news and was decided that it would make a good hate campaign.
True anons don't care that L Ron Hubbard was the world's biggest troll, they don't care about all the people who have had their lives ruined or ended, they don't care about the attacks on freedom of speech or Scientology's lawyers suppressing the internet.
Hal turner thought it was about race, Scientology think its about religion, The RIAA think its about piracy.
They are all wrong. It's only about the lulz
"...people stupidly think that "religions ought to be respected". So politicians don't want to be seen disrespecting anything remotely associated with religions, cults, whatever."
And how does that work with with Islam? A large, ancient, organised religion that has its branches growing from the same roots as Judaism and Christianity.
Oh.. you mean *American* religions!
...is that they essentially take everything and anything that Hubbard ever said or wrote and merge that into their system of beliefs. He once got sidetracked during a lecture or speech or something of that type, and he managed to get onto the topic of Calculus.
He doesn't like calculus, apparently because he opened a book and didn't immediately understand what dx and the big S (integral sign, I'd imagine) meant, so the whole concept must be worthless. He went on to describe what we need, which is apparently a simple math of rates (That would be impossible, Calculus is complex because it has to be...)
So those 'Scientologists' now do not believe in calculus. I don't know how far through a given day you can get without running into something with calculus involved. More or less anything that's been engineered since forever ago probably had some calc in it's design somewhere. Or was made with tools that were designed with calc.
Maybe they just don't believe in actually doing calc themselves. I just don't get how someone might manage to avoid believing in a human-invented system of math. Its like not being too sure that hexadecimal exists.
Note: This is according to a pamplet that they gave me (While I was asleep... who comes to the door early on a weekend?) and backed up by various Internet 'information.' So it could be totally wrong. But it seems right enough.
No, not really, they are all cults. If you are going to fall for one, then that is your own dumb fault. If you pick one that you have to sign your house over to, then you are really dumb, but still probably not as dumb as if you join one where you have to have cosmetic surgery on your penis.
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my previous comment didn't make it through moderation (due to being long and drawn out, I expect), and the related link (originally presented by El Reg) appears to have been taken off the web...
Rather than try to reiterate what I previously tried to post I'd just like to say: @MichaelG... It may have happened already; check the Swedish site....
@MichaelG - "Granted the 'legion' may not actually be able to do much because they are only attacking on online presence with a DoS attack, and not for example, hacking in and spreading about all of their secret information all over social sites and the rest of the internet."
Apparently at least one of them has done just that (hacking some secret info)
Not posting any links obviously but it was accessible from digging around at (at least one of) the links provided by El Reg. Apparently torrents are available, documents that the Cult of Scientology usually sell for hundreds of dollars
I was on the verge of agreeing with the good Mr Heldal-Lund, I have much respect for the man, and then I saw this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pPol_m8wm8Y
which is pretty tame, but reminded me how this dangerous cult messes with people's minds.
After John Sweeney's unfortunate outburst (Panorama - Scientology and Me), postings appeared on the web alleging that these people have a big book of scripts which are designed to get journalists/critics to respond with irrationality or worse.
Apparently their goading of him was "textbook".
To those wondering what the fuss is about C.o.S., I have to say: is that what you want your religions to be doing?
Also a google search for "Ken Ogger" pulls up some pretty disturbing results.
"Black Dianetics, Black Scientology, reverse processing, or whatever one chooses to call it is essentially psychological warfare. Typical to Hubbard's style, GO and OSA used, and OSA continues to use, psyops designed to destroy their perceived opponents. "
I have no sympathy for these people, and I've decided I concur with "anonymous"
Any. Means. Necessary.
(for great justice)
oh and Terryeo, it's not the disagreement of opinions that's the problem, it's the manipulation of other people. If you've been misled into the opinions that you hold, that doesn't give you the right to mislead others.
Hypnotism and cod NLP.
L. Ron Hubbard.
Look into it.
Most of you have probably never heard of the chaser here in Oz, but they were actively recruiting for the cult in a segment. I cannot help but share...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVx5pIi00Mo
I agree with some previous posters, any rational person surely can see this mob for what they are! denial of service attacks means that people cannot view what they have to say and go.....HUH?
IIRC LRH originally created Scientology for the explicitly expressed purpose of transferring money from the pockets of credulous idiots to his own.
Credulous idiots clambered over the top of each other to throw their money his way.
@some others.
The cult is highly adept at misusing the law to stifle free speech which is critical of them. As far as they are concerned there is not such animal of "Fair Use" when it comes to quoting their material, or even hotlinking to material they themselves publish. And so far they have generally managed to get the courts to agree. Thus they make it very difficult to put forward a rebuttal to their words/teachings that can be followed by Joe Pubic.
I had one once try to play silly buggers (perception games) with me, with a kiwi fruit. Pity he only got damp trousers for his troubles. I was hoping for screams of agony.
Hmmm , does this explain the German Governments current refusal to let them register as a church and the heavy whack a mole style attitude coming from the US State Department to push for recognition regardless of the fact that it is an evil cult of cash sucking vampires as the Germans see it from afar !
Should we not be more supportive of the German peoples representatives and thus start a precedent for the rest of the world one country a time to have them re classified as a non religious kooky fantasy cult !
Minus any tax breaks the drain of normal business taxes will empty their coffers and war chests in double quick time thus starting the process of self implosion as the members drift away first in small numbers then an ever increasing tidal wave that will deplete their ranks !
As with all kooky religious nuts and fruit loop fringe groups one can only eliminate all but the hard core minority 0.1% anyway for that is the nature of the beast total suppression will merely force it underground to fester and suppurate like incurable gangrene!
As for religions being used for the justification of any war it is more likely the wowsers who stole raped and pillaged like a bunch of no good evil parasitical pirates seeking the local treasures , land and anything else they could steal or whatever their hearts desired at the time in later life seeking to atone for their evil bad deeds of infamy and wholesale murder , part with two centavos in the peso stolen to buy off the local church to become a saint to hide their sinning evil past from judgement day that comes to us all in the end or so we are brainwashed to think for as with all churches it is about worldly goods for they have to live too and life is not free as someone always has to pay for them !
So instead of denial of service no matter how well intentioned it is one should seek alternative creative ways to expose these parasitic religious kook charlatans leaders for what they really are in real life although even when caught with the pants down and face in the feeding trough judging by the gullible wankers in many US Bible belt states they prey upon the people's mindset to seek forgiveness which unfortunately many do grant for they need a tiny sliver of something inconsequential and surreal to cling too as they have no other life outside the small communities they live in!
So thus the tammy fae's and the jimmy swaggart 's conduct business as usual with their slick lies and extorting ways to empty their wallets and purses of everything so they can maintain their rank evil parasitic lifestyle like a bunch of evil vampires bleeding these communities dry in the very name of religion and false salvation !
Truly they are worse then evil parasites indeed for they build cynical false mausoleums of hope filled with false images and gods and then prey upon the peoples need to belong as a community in a rapidly changing world and landscape that we live in !
i'm all for this
about time someone did something about these scientology ****s
where do i sign up to join the Anonymous collective? can i donate to help the cause?
will their DDoS software run under vista or do i need to wait for SP1?
(there seem to be a lot more anonymous coward posts on this story than usual - are all worried there might be retribution from the scientologist to anyone who posts their approval? that said, they'll probably just subpoena El Reg's databases so they can work out the account of each posting)
> ...with the actions of the 4Chans and 7Chans. My Freedom of Speech will be gone
> and yours as well because a sick group of brainless idiots thought it is a good idea
> to censor the web. Anons, you suck
That's going to happen anyway in fact it already is. No matter what happens an excuse will be found to justify it. Once the infrastructure to "protect the children from pedophiles" is in place it will be turned and used against us all.
Look at Every law in the UK with "Freedom" in it. They all take away more than they give. The Freedom of Information Act allows us access to minor stuff but creates watertight exceptions for things we need to know about. The Freedom of Speech provisions in the Human Rights Act basically say we can say or write what we want as long as the Government doesn't think it needs to be prevented for "public order" or "the prevention of crime." In other words we have the freedom to say whatever the Government thinks we should.
Mr Brown, I want freedom, the most precious freedom to live my private life as I see fit without you meddling in it as long as I don't hurt anyone else.
You appear to be implying that because the internet is much bigger than the collection of libraries/websites/lectures/churches/pamphlets etc then people are more or less free to choose Scientology or keep away from it.
You also appear to be saying that psychiatrists have an ulterior motive in their actions and that these may somehow be negative, possibly with connotations of violence.
The thing is, few websites on the net have as much money pumped into their propaganda as a religious organisation with hundreds of millions of dollars of disposable income from the donations they receive.
Even fewer of those religions actively seek out anybody or any site which derides them or counters them and then spits forth the amount of bile, venom and lawsuits or repetition of dogma that the few do.
Even fewer of those religions actively purchase land all over the world and then try to push thier dogma on citizens walking down the street, even fewer than that have the money and the lawyers to oppress or get at people or even to influence governments.
I disagree with all of these religions because (whilst I still have freedom of thought and movement to a large degree, subject to my own morals and so forth) - they are attempting to limit that freedom; no matter what their intentions behind that limiting of freedom might be.
Lastly, to address your concerns re the psychiatrists.
My own opinions are that psychiatrists are merely people who we pay to ask us questions in an orderly fashion so that we get the answer to the question we really wanted to ask ourselves and find out what our problem is.
I have read somewhere that that is what Scientologists claim dianetics is.
So how could that be bad?
This is mostly "for the lulz", anyone expecting this powerful and wealthy cult to be taken down by Anonymous having a laugh in their spare time is (sadly) delusional. By the same token those claiming this is somehow depriving Co$, with their multi-million dollar propaganda machine and huge number of front organisations, of their free speech are simply wrong. However it *is* achieving a few worthy things :
- Ensuring that the video of Cruise spouting batshit insane nonsense that Co$ tried to suppress is getting played again and again on mainstream news.
- Spreading further the hilarious UFO-cult story of Xenu that Co$ would rather you didn't hear till you were sufficiently indoctrinated to believe it.
- Making Co$ look very silly and pissing them off. They claim to have 8 million members, many of them with awesome mind powers over the very fabric of space and time, yet they can't keep some websites up against a rather amateurish DDoS? Lulz.
Just visit http://www.whyaretheydead.net/
Also, @heystoopid, The CoS also tried to get tax-exempt charity status in the UK, but were rejected by the Charities Commission on the grounds that "they didn't benefit anyone in any way" (my wording, can't remember exactly)
They are also responsible for apparently the largest infiltration of the US Government in history when they went to get tax-exempt in the US...
http://www.clambake.org/archive/go/ops/go732/go732.htm
They need taking down, you can't fault Anon for taking up a worthy target every now & then...
"What the hell is it about Scientology that gets up everybody's nose? Are these fringers murdering people in the streets; stealing babies; putting saltpeter in our drinking water? Why do an equally silly bunch of fringers think they are a threat?
I want answers now!" -Robert Belcher
Ahh well now. It is my understanding that the cult (and I will call them a cult), use group pathology.
Trying to convince sombody of somthing is very hard one on one. A group telling them its true is much more effective.
Being part of a group or peers, and all coming to the same conclusion is even more powerful. In this way you can be manipulated, even normal sane people. Infact its your sanity that works against you.
It is aledged that the aformentioned cult use this group theropy (the exact wording escapes me at the moment) to create a very strong opinion in the subjects. This is the same phonomonen that happended in the london bommings (all be it for a diffrent cult).
How you do it?
Get a group of people, let them all get to know each other, and start 'radicalising them'. The cult does this in a number of ways. Basicly you want the people to bond with each other as this increases the effect, and you want them to see each other as separate from 'everybody else'. This causes bonding, not unlike you see in solders, miners and other groups. It is this bond that is then welded like a weapon. The most effective way I belive is by using 'plants' in the group, preferabley persuavie and ' genuine'. Then of course you need somthing to keep your group togeather, so you now give them a common cause, and at the begining of course its simple things like coming to meetings, helping each other out and slowly you twist there views and change what is normal and true.
By causing them to disaccosiate with there normal pals and famely there bond to the group becomes stronger. As you sever one connection the others become stronger untill the only connections the people have left are to the cult.
Needless to say that is a rather rough way of saying it, however it is the most powerful force in phsycology, group therepy. And when used for good, for healing and other proccess (to deal with alchohulisim, drug addiction ect) it is a very positive force.
I am going to stop now because its far to early in the morning, my spelling and english have suffered. I have been at group things before and at the time did some reading on it. However in my 5 second internet search I could not russle somthing up for you to read, so go find it your selfs.
On a side note, the Ano thing, well I would not say its my chosen format of attack I would rather they were just outlawed.
It does however at least more or less leave the poor smucks at the bottome of the cults heape out of the frakis more than more physical vandalisim and violence might of.
Anyway I am off to read a link or two posted by ano cowerd above.
Many years ago, before he died, (obviously), I was acquainted with James (Jim) Blish, a moderately well known SF author.
When he was young, he lived in New York and mixed with a group of other SF writers - all of them broke, of course.
One of these was L Ron Hubbard, who was thoroughly fed up with being broke, and took seriously one of those late-night-after-a-few-beers conversations, in which it was suggested, by Fred Pohl, if I remember correctly, that the best way to get rich quick was to found a religion.
A lot of silly ideas were then thown around, as you do, and in due course Hubbard set up the miracle of double-talk and flim-flam that is Scientology.
It's not even a cult, it's just a snake oil scam.
Oh, and I have also heard that he did not actually write those Battlefield Earth books himself either.
Hey look, 4chan made the news again.
Wankers like the guy who posted the youtube video do NOT represent 4chan, or anonymous. They kinda ruin the whole point of being anonymous, putting a name and "cause" to it all. 4chan just likes causing trouble, there's no motives, and scientology is just another one of it's common victims.
Hilarious that the media keeps up the drama though.
What a really kewl video.. the synthetic voice (was that Microsoft Bob or Mike?)... the images.. the speech..
Frankly, if I was in SEAORG, I would find this very scary...
WE ARE ANONYMOUS
WE ARE LEGION
So kewl.. take the battle to those Scientology cooks! Awesome!!! I wanna join! I want to be legion! Where do I sign u... OE! A PORN LINK!
<HTTP 404 - user not found>
No not that word you dirty boy, but the "cult" word. I'm about to don my flame retardent suit as I don't see it as any more of a cult than Christianity or Islam (plus others). Its most "dedicated" members will go to almost any length to stand up for their beliefs (which holy wars, terrorists and the like prove regularly about the mainstream religions). Its members "donate" money, which makes the church rich (back a few centuries ago, the church was the richest organisation in England).
I don't actually think religion is a bad thing, for those who like to follow it, but religions and religious people in general are among those least able to accept criticism of their beliefs, and tend to unfortunately attract a lot of people who just need a justification for their violence.
Personally I find the attraction of the Pastafarians much greater than that of Scientology.
www.venganza.org
Apparently in 1991 Time Magazine ran a feature story on this lunatic fringe cult and then spent the next ten years and a small fortune in legal fees fighting their frivolous legal actions in court before winning !
This was lifted from a digg user submitted article link= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972865,00.html
The cult was pure snake oil then and like the many headed hydra has gotten far worse as time goes on and has shifted a gear into one that is a pure bloodsucking parasitic vampires that will stop at nothing to relieve all worldly goods and assets it can get from the suckers dupes or any other victim they can snare and will resort to every known dirty trick in the book and then some to get their way in life !
I'll let you decide as that is what true democracy is all about !
Sorry, i got stuck on the entire newsgroup for Usenet bit. Put it as an acronym and you get arse. Just what people make of themselves when joining. I remember when they had a bit tent up in Birmingham - you couldnt see in to see what they were doing in there, and everyone who came out looked a little groggy ;)
Reason for Paris should be obvious!
CoS is nothing. I know of one cult where virginal women are made to marry the cult leader even though he died and spend their lives in seclusion and poverty dressed in the mediaeval equivalent of the current Islam full body cover veil.
This cult btw has millions of followers and includes an erstwhile Prime Minister of GB among its adherents. It also retains millions of dollars in assets which it has taken from its followers over many centuries under false pretences i.e. give us money and you will be saved.
I could go on but you get the picture.
It also started out as massively unpopular but once it gained political power it became respectable and squashed all further political, religious and social opposition ruthlessly
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