Karen#1
Well-known member
TONY ORTEGA
Excerpt:
Ten years ago, we were fortunate to be asked to help publicize a remarkable leak of videos. They were full interviews of numerous people who were part of a 1997 television documentary about the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that appeared as part of the UK Channel 4 program Secret Lives. We posted them individually in 2015, but we wanted to give them a new home here at our ad-free Substack, and put them all together for you today as part of our Saturday bonus story program. We think these film makers and their subjects did a terrific job explaining the real Hubbard.
In 1997, Channel 4 in the UK aired an hour long documentary titled Secret Lives – L. Ron Hubbard. We’ve posted it here at the Underground Bunker in the past, and it’s long been considered one of the better documentaries about the organization and its founder. It contained interviews with key people, such as Hana Eltringham Whitfield, who captained one of Hubbard’s ships as Scientology was run from sea in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It also featured a brief interview with Forrest Ackerman, the famous science fiction promoter who was once Hubbard’s literary agent.
And now, the raw footage of Ackerman’s entire interview — most of which did not make the finished documentary — has been released. It’s a real treat!
The 25-minute interview begins with “Forry” talking about meeting Hubbard for the first time. He then relates a tale about Hubbard as a skilled stage hypnotist — something Atack has told us about numerous times.
Hubbard and hypnotism are central to Scientology, Atack tells us, but almost nothing angers Scientologists more than to tell them their “wins” are the result of hypnosis.
Ackerman also describes Hubbard chewing tobacco and spitting as he drove, and he jokes that Hubbard’s followers would love to find those places in the road where Hubbard spit so they could dig them up to worship them.
READ MORE
tonyortega.substack.com
Excerpt:
Ten years ago, we were fortunate to be asked to help publicize a remarkable leak of videos. They were full interviews of numerous people who were part of a 1997 television documentary about the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that appeared as part of the UK Channel 4 program Secret Lives. We posted them individually in 2015, but we wanted to give them a new home here at our ad-free Substack, and put them all together for you today as part of our Saturday bonus story program. We think these film makers and their subjects did a terrific job explaining the real Hubbard.
In 1997, Channel 4 in the UK aired an hour long documentary titled Secret Lives – L. Ron Hubbard. We’ve posted it here at the Underground Bunker in the past, and it’s long been considered one of the better documentaries about the organization and its founder. It contained interviews with key people, such as Hana Eltringham Whitfield, who captained one of Hubbard’s ships as Scientology was run from sea in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It also featured a brief interview with Forrest Ackerman, the famous science fiction promoter who was once Hubbard’s literary agent.
And now, the raw footage of Ackerman’s entire interview — most of which did not make the finished documentary — has been released. It’s a real treat!
The 25-minute interview begins with “Forry” talking about meeting Hubbard for the first time. He then relates a tale about Hubbard as a skilled stage hypnotist — something Atack has told us about numerous times.
Hubbard and hypnotism are central to Scientology, Atack tells us, but almost nothing angers Scientologists more than to tell them their “wins” are the result of hypnosis.
Ackerman also describes Hubbard chewing tobacco and spitting as he drove, and he jokes that Hubbard’s followers would love to find those places in the road where Hubbard spit so they could dig them up to worship them.
READ MORE
Secret Lives: Full set of documentary out-takes about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
Ten years ago, we were fortunate to be asked to help publicize a remarkable leak of videos.
tonyortega.substack.com
