Ian Rafalko on Scientology's new push for social media relevance Tony Ortega May 24, 2026

[Karen#1]

[SF’s Aaron Kyro, making his pitch]
We’ve been meaning to give a shout out to Mother Jones journalist Anna Merlan, someone we’ve admired for a long time, for her great look at Scientology recently.

Did you see it? She wrote about how Scientology, which for a long time tended to neglect its social media presence, suddenly has a lot of younger staff members trying to promote Dianetics at places like TikTok and Instagram, with some pretty strange results.

We were happy to see that she interviewed Alex Barnes-Ross and the recently defected Amir Essalhi, who were both involved in publicity campaigns when they were in Scientology.

But it also reminded us that at least part of the current push for more videos is being directed by a man who tries to keep his deep Scientology involvement from his massive audience: Dr. Eric Berg, the chiropractor who has a huge following at YouTube for his nutrition advice.

We know this thanks to his son, Ian Rafalko, who shared with us leaks of Dr. Berg giving lessons to young Scientologists for how they could create accounts and make videos.

And Ian keeps sharing great stuff with us. He sent over this video that came out of the San Francisco org, and it features a very familiar face, Aaron Kyro, the skateboard guy we’ve written about numerous times…


Ian also sent us a new video from Scientologist actor Jason Dohring, who has also been part of the new Dianetics campaign, and who made this video about what would go on at the most recent Dianetics anniversary party in Clearwater, Florida…


We asked Ian for his thoughts about this new emphasis on social media and video…

The most I can say about this new strategy is that it is not directed towards the public. If they can pull in some public, great, but they are focused on creating an image for the second and third generation Scientologists, telling them that things are going great. But every piece of promotion lies about the production stats. It’s an open secret that no matter how dead your org is, if it’s new, David Miscavige will say it’s 10X the stats of last year.

So long as you just smile, embellish (or directly lie) and never ever acknowledge the elephant in the room, they convey an image of success to the public.

Also, don’t ask me why or how, but I think they are lessening their restrictions on who goes OT. From what I can see, people who would have previously been banned from the levels are now given the green light, and they can mass publish more Facebook photos about it.

I think Miscavige is nervous about how pervasive the bad PR is getting.

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ACLU sues Clearwater on behalf of Save the Garden​

We’ve been on the road the last few days, but we have been keeping an eye on things, and we are aware that the ACLU is suing the city of Clearwater for rejecting the 8,000 signatures gathered by the Save the Garden group, which is attempting to put a referendum on the ballot there that would change the way the city vacates streets.

We agree with the ACLU that the Clearwater clerk gave bad advice to the Save the Garden group about how it could gather signatures, and was wrong to reject what was submitted.

We’ll check in with Wise Beard Man soon about the various developments going on in that beleaguered town.
Read more:

Ian Rafalko on Scientology's new push for social media relevance

We’ve been meaning to give a shout out to Mother Jones journalist Anna Merlan, someone we’ve admired for a long time, for her great look at Scientology recently.

tonyortega.substack.com

 

[Enthetan]

The important part about social media, and the internet in general, is that OTHER people can say things about YOU, and it's hard to stop them.

This was the downfall of Scientology since the Internet became a thing.

Back in the 1970's, there was a TV series, Kung-fu, starring David Carradine as a wandering Shaolin monk.

The story narrative described a Shaolin as:

Look for him - he cannot be seen

Listen - he cannot be heard

Reach for him - he cannot be touched

Such was the early internet

"Look for him" : People could post things anonymously to newsgroups, like alt.religion.Scientology. OSA would have a hard time finding their identities.

"Listen" - People could communicate in ways that were hard to monitor or intercept.

"Reach for him" - Good luck swatting hundreds of anonymous users, most of whom did not have huge assets to threaten.

Scientology PR policy revolved around the ability to threaten lawsuits against publishers. But a sledgehammer is not that effective against a swarm of biting ants.

When OSA tried going after internet newsgroups using technology (cancel bunny), it just resulted in LOTS of tech nerds, with time on their hands, getting pissed off at them, and deciding to join the war.

Scientology's Internet Wars | Watchman Fellowship, Inc.

www.watchman.org