Meeting Magoo and WBM

So the protests continue. We have now started raiding Bristol. Although there is no visible $cientology presence here there have been incidents here in the past, such as the suicide of Richard Collins in 1996. He jumped to his death from Clifton Suspension Bridge after being harassed by salespeople from the cult trying to book him onto new courses and prevent him leaving.

The Jive Aces, a $cientology swing band played a gig in Bristol recently, drawing some belated attention from Anonymous. We plan to hit their next gig here in September. The band are also playing at a summer party at St Hill, East Grinstead on 3rd August. Plans to protest the town and manor on that date are already in place.

We won't sit back and let Bristol become a recruiting ground for this cult. With the losses and disruption being caused by Anonymous worldwide, it would not surprise me to see the cult trying to put roots down in new territory that they believe to be free of Anonymous. If we make a lot of noise now they shouldn't get a chance.

At the last Bristol mini-raid on 5th July we got a good response from the public and managed to find a few new recruits for the main event on 12th July. The next Bristol raid is scheduled for 9th August.

London on the 12th was epic. Numbers were up from May and June, in no small part down to Anons flocking in from Brighton and further afield to meet Tory "Magoo" Christman and Mark "Wise Beard Man" Bunker who we flew over from California to be with us.

I was excited about meeting them, but never imagined I would end up going to dinner with them! They were in high demand all day and generously hugged all those who approached them, WBM even allowed people to stroke the beard! At the end of the day, after much nattering in the pub post-raid (I sat at a table with some Bristol Anons and Tory, as well as Anonyunderpants from York), we moved on to a rather nice Chinese restaurant. It was slow going, due to poor Tory's bad feet and there were about 25 of us, so we couldn't all be seated together.

I ended up at a table with my parents, a rather nice cult researcher, some Bristol/South West Anons and the celebrities. It was slightly surreal, but excellent fun and an experience I'm not likely to forget!

What's Happening?

Here's what's been going on in my life:



And:

Although numbers were down this month due to exams for so many Anons, hopes are that June, July and August will be beyond EPIC. The $cientologists are getting visibly more touchy about these protests. They have reached the point of complaining to the police about every little thing in order to disrupt the protests. Unfortunately, the City of London police are pretty well under their control (see here), which makes the protests at Queen Victoria Street a bit risky (see the 2nd video above). Luckily the Met are much more hardy against corruption and bribery and give us a pretty loose leash at Tottenham Court Road.

See you 14th June: Operation Sea Arrrgh!

Scientology and Falling Out

I have been part of an online Pagan community for a while now that I have got along fine with. Other groups I've joined I have quickly left again because of not clicking with the people there very well. This group though has been very friendly and there have been few differences between us. Lately however I seem to be falling out with people there more and I don't know why.

Maybe I got comfortable enough to reveal a bit more about my opinions on things and it turns out I'm just as different from them as I was from other groups before. I'm not great with people, I'm opinionated in a way that most other people aren't and I'm usually guarded about my views because I've had disagreements with people in the past that have ruined friendships.

One of the fallings out recently has been on the issue of Scientology. Very few people will know why I feel the way I do about it because I don't come out and tell people as a general rule, it's not my place to divulge it. I admit to being biased on the subject and last week after the Panorama programme, it came up on this forum.

One of the women I usually get on well with disagreed with me. I was arguing that Scientology is a cult and not a religion, she is of the opinion that the only criteria for a religion is that someone believes it! She's free to believe that, of course, but from an academic perspective it is vastly more complex than that. So we seem to have had this falling out over it, not to mention other members of the forum who are not Pagan, who I do not interact with as much, who are arguing that it is a religion on the basis that all religions are corrupt and guilty of brain-washing etc.

I find it frustrating to deal with people like that. They have their own bias that prevents them from seeing religions in a neutral way, just as I have my bias against Scientology and it simply doesn't make for healthy debate. They gang up on me as the most outspoken person against it on the discussion, no other bugger has stuck around to argue my corner with me, even though plenty of people have put their oar in to say the same as me.

I wish I was more able to back away from these discussions when they get heated, I don't want to appear to be backing away because I know I'm wrong, when that's not the reason for me backing down! I don't believe I'm wrong. Not on this. I believe my opinion is valid. I also think that I have a more healthy view of religions in general and it's hard to get through to people who have decided that all religons brainwash people!