“Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath”/A&E
The second season of “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” is set to premiere on Tuesday at 9 p.m. But before you tune in, you’ll want to get caught up on all the revelations about the notorious church from the show’s first season.
After splitting from the church in 2013, “King of Queens” star Leah Remini gave other former Scientologists a platform with the A&E series to discuss their experiences.
She was joined by former high-ranking people in the organization, who each have stories about secretive teachings, alleged shady business dealings, and purported abuses of its followers, former members, and their families.
In the upcoming season, Remini is stepping up the stakes. She hopes to provide enough evidence of wrongdoing to prompt a federal investigation into the religion.
“I’m talking about the FBI, the police, the Department of Justice, the IRS,” Remini said. “If the FBI ever wanted to get anywhere, all they would need to do is do a raid. Everybody who’s ever gone to Scientology has folders, and anything you’ve ever said is contained in those folders.”
The church declined to take part in the series. It said that the statements Remini and the other contributors to the show have made about Scientology are false and driven by a desire to profit or gain publicity from their time in the religion.
To prepare you for the season two premiere, here are all the most shocking revelations about Scientology, according to the show:
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was under investigation in multiple countries and lived on a ship supposedly to evade any one country’s jurisdiction.
“Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath”/A&E
Scientology’s former international spokesman Mike Rinder explained that in the early years of Scientology, the church was under investigation for being a cult. In fact, Australia banned the church in 1965 after an investigation.
L. Ron Hubbard lived on a ship called the Apollo. Rinder described it as the “floating headquarters for Scientology.” Since he was being investigated by the UK and other countries, Hubbard found that he could sail away into international waters when necessary and away from the jurisdiction of any one country.
Hubbard based Scientology on his claim that he healed himself from war injuries — a claim that “Going Clear” author Lawrence Wright says is fabricated.
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Lawrence Wright, the author of the best-selling book on Scientology, “Going Clear,” says his research found that Scientology’s documentation of Hubbard’s injuries and military service was faked.
Wright said his research into Navy documents found that Hubbard had no serious injuries, which Wright sees as a major fault in the church’s foundation.
Additionally, Wright said he found that Scientology’s claims that Hubbard received many military service awards and records were false. In response, Wright said, the church told him that the records were “sheep-dipped” — that the military created a whole set of fake documents to cover up Hubbard’s covert military duties.
“That’s the person that the church has to protect,” Wright said. “With encasing [Hubbard] in this myth, they try to cover the efforts of people like me and others to uncover the truth.”
David Miscavige rose to lead Scientology by capitalizing on Hubbard’s death.
REUTERS/Luke MacGregor
After steadily rising through the ranks and becoming Hubbard’s adviser, David Miscavige announced the founder’s death in 1986. Hubbard’s passing was framed as an intentional decision by him to leave his body to go onto even higher levels of spiritual being.
“The core belief of Scientology is that you are a spiritual being,” Remini said. “L. Ron Hubbard had reached, obviously, the highest level of Scientology there was to reach, promoting this idea that there’s an afterlife, and he found the answer to it by deciding to discard this body to go explore new OT levels. All of this is bulls—. L. Ron Hubbard died of a stroke.”
As Hubbard’s closest adviser, Miscavige assumed the leadership of Scientology. His official title is chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center. But according to Rinder, Miscavige likes to refer to himself as “the pope of Scientology.”
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
