Talk:Bare-faced Messiah

Non factual opinions

Prioryman: The Background and synopsis says "an internal letter in which he suggests that Scientology should pursue religious status for business reasons" ok this is taken from a reference, but that's a Washington Post review of a legal judgement. The actual passage in the book, is quite different from this person's opinion of what they want it to read. BFM page 179 quotes from a letter which does talk about business, yes, if you read the book it was just after several organisations had become insolvent, but then LRH says "I await your reaction on the religion angle.. In my opinion, we couldn't get worse public opinion than we have had or have less customers with what we have to sell" Note this does not suggest that becoming a religion would be good for business, it says things would be no worse than they are.

To get a little technical here, in Germany "the Federal Supreme Administrative Court decided that an association does not maintain a commercial business operation, if it offers services to its members in the realization of its idealistic purpose" Mission Neue Bruecke Stuttgart vs State of Baden-Wuerttemberg http://www.cesnur.org/testi/stuttgart_en.htm

You want to use original source as much as possible, therefore the book takes priority over opinions about the book three times removed from it in the Washington Post. And what better than the source, LRH, what he actually said in the letter referred to.

The comment about "his daughter" doesn't clarify the relationship, so I put that in. Its not opinion from me, its from the book.

Clearly the sources are all disaffected Scientologists so that bias is in the book and there is a passage where he quotes two sources about the same event and they said diametrically different things about LRH at the time.

BFM is quite an interesting book to a Scientologist who has sufficient grounding in the subject. Of course LRH was a man and had frailities. But the book puts in gratuitous vicious caracatures and in places is plainly wrong - example, he says LRH said he was Cecil Rhodes in a previous life but he didn't know Cecil Rhodes was a homosexual. Fact, I checked that out and the only known facts are that Rhodes did not marry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes#Sexuality This is an example of the hatchet job that Miller does from time to time through the book.Drg55 (talk) 10:17, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Permission of author to reproduce book on the Internet

According to:

Bare-Faced Messiah is out of print now, but this argument remains no less strong. That is why I have reproduced the book on the Web, with Mr Miller's permission; not because I have any desire to damage the Church of Scientology but because I believe strongly that it is in the public interest to make his well-researched book available to a wider audience. Here for the first time, then, is an electronic version of Bare-Faced Messiah.

• Chris Owen - Bare-Faced Messiah: Foreword

Cirt (talk) 05:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Funny, as this book is by far no well-researched book at all. It is that alone by statement and claim. This can be verified in various ways. Check up on the actual referencing supplied in the back of the book. Many are from interviews, which accounts for subjective and in essence unverified information. You also find very many entries that are in fact not referenced at all! Just do your own research on this. Today various can easily and quickly get confirmed via a simple Internet search, which was not possible at such time that the book was published back in mid-1987. The times-they're-a-changing', yes indeed. --Olberon (talk) 19:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The last time that this played out, a compromise was arrived at where links to an identical copy of BFM at a site like Marburg or similar were substituted for xenu.net. As long as it's the same online version and it matches my hard cover copy, I don't care that much which site it goes to. AndroidCat (talk) 06:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bare-faced Messiah/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mark Arsten (talk · contribs) 16:30, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

• Looks interesting, this should be fun to review. Comments to follow in the next couple days. I'm a fairly slow reviewer, so this could take a while, sorry for any delay. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:30, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

• Alright, I've read through it and it looks great. Very interesting and well written. Only a few comments/copyedits needed, nothing major:
• Did you want to use the serial comma? The usage is inconsistent.

• Can you give me an example? Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• I checked again, and it was only being used once. You might want to check that sentence though, not sure if it reads well without the comma.

• "The Church strenuously denied this accusation and a private investigator involved in the campaign denied that the Church was his client.[2][3] The Church" A little repetition here, is there a good way to avoid starting consecutive sentences with "The Church..."

• I've reworded this, see what you think. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• I've made some copyedits, feel free to revert if you disagree.
• You repeat "United States" and "United Kingdom" a few times in the article, might want to abbreviate some later mentions as US and UK. Also, make sure it's standardized to "U.S." or "US".

• Done. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• Complete sentences in image captions should end in a period.

• Done, hopefully. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• There's a little repetition in the second paragraph of "Background and synopsis", particularly "such as" and "covers".

• I've made some changes which should fix this. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• I'd suggest "Reaction from Hubbard's followers" rather than "Reaction from followers of Hubbard", not a big deal though.

• Done. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• "His family was approached by private detectives" Whose family is this?

• Clarified this. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• I think the MOS frowns on wikilinks inside of quotations, so I'd advise against it, although some people do it.

• Not sure about this to be honest, I'll look into it. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah, a lot of people leave them in, even at FAC.

• "adopting a strategy that has been described as" Might want to note who described it this way.

• Done. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• "Much of the dispute centred on the plaintiffs' argument that the actions of former Scientology archivist Gerry Armstrong in providing Miller with unpublished materials (whether directly or indirectly) was a breach of his duty of confidence to the Church" Is "was" correct here or should "were" be used?

• "Were"; I've changed it. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• "It also claimed that copyright had been violated through the unauthorised excerpting of unpublished materials and books written by Hubbard, and that it would interfere with New Era's own plans to publish an "authorised" biography based on the same unpublished materials." There's some repetition of "unpublished materials" here.

• Fixed. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• There's not much about the suits in South Africa and Australia, not a big deal for GA, but if you're going for FA someone might bring it up.

• That's for the simple reason that I have no info about either. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• Not a big deal then.

• Might want to briefly note who Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. is, ditto for Martin Gardner.

• Done. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• "The Church of Scientology, predictably, was" Not sure if you need "predictably" here.

• I took this out. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• "Writing in Kingdom of the Cults" Might want to note what this is, a book? a journal?

• I added an explanatory gloss. Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• "bizarre career." Check for logical punctuation here.

• Not sure what you mean, can you clarify? Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• I mean I think it should be "Bizarre career"., with the period after the quote mark.

• "Michael Harrison of the Toronto Financial Post criticised" I'd have put "Michael Harrison of the Financial Post of Toronto criticised" That might just be a preference issue on my part. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• To be honest, I think it works better the way it currently is... Prioryman (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• Sure, that's fine, just a preference issue on my part I guess. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I wrote an early version of this article, which was quite good. No, let me not pretend to be modest. It was astoundingly good. My opinion of the current version is that it is too prolix. It's okay, though. Thanks for the hard work, everybody. --TS 02:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• LOL, thanks for weighing in. I hope the recent changes didn't damage the article too much--prolixity is rampant around here :) Alright, excellent work. Interesting, well-written article here, glad I signed up for the review. Article passes GA. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:14, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• Well, I can't deny that Tony's version contains all the key facts; mine is just fluffier. ;-) Thanks very much for your time and assistance, Mark. Prioryman (talk) 06:09, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Complaints by User:Drg55

User:Drg55 has started a discussion on my Talk page about this book. I don't think that's the proper place for this discussion, so I am copy-and-pasting that user's points here, and also copying part of my reply.

Hi Martin, I wonder if you can help me? We are I suppose on opposite sides, I'm a Scientologist since 1974 and worked in PR to boot. However I have read Bare Faced Messiah and want to make some improvements to the Wikipedia page. I believe that you liked this book. I think I have been given a very hard time, I made an edit concerning the reference: " Among the private papers quoted in the book are a letter written by Hubbard to the FBI denouncing his wife as a Soviet spy, another in which he tells his daughter he is not really her father and an internal letter in which he suggests that Scientology should pursue religious status for business reasons.[12" in Background and synopsis. This is a lousy synopsis and its the opinion of a lawyer in a losing case in the US reported in the Washington Post. If you check you can see my edits of 14 June and 18 June which were arbitrarily deleted by Prioryman and Andrewman327. With regard to the first my point was that was not what was in the book. And the second, I don't see that saying that sources include "embittered Scientologists" is any different to saying that sources include FoI and stolen personal documents. It is fact not opinion. I made a few edits to the page in response to demonstrate how I felt I was being treated and have been accused by Prioryman of "disruptive editing" "June 2013" on my talk page.Drg55 (talk) 07:42, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, from my point of view the book was quite interesting, but

1. He seemed to get all the interesting FoI material that I recall was so hard to get, looks like a set up and the Church claims Hubbard's military record was doctored to remove his intelligence roles. We had a witness Fletcher Prouty. Heres a reference on that http://scientologymyths.com/hubbardww2.htm

2. The fact that the media backed the book looks like black propaganda ref http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SAUborWbPw Scientology continues to be against the abuse of psychiatric drugs which is worth billions internationally.

3. It lacked critical evaluation of the material. By definition the testimonies are from disaffected people as no Scientologist in good standing would have cooperated. In one passage two conflicting versions of events are given by different people.

4. The book overlooks Hubbard's tremendous output of lectures and books, around 100,000 pages and more, which many people have found tremendously valuable. Instead it just gives the embittered person's manufactured resentments at a time he was making tremendous production (bit like a biography of Mozart with no music and just whining about unpaid tailor's bills. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GnXy0TPigw4C&pg=PA408&lpg=PA408&dq=mozart+unpaid+tailors+bills&source=bl&ots=1rrufveT-J&sig=n_wtyF_kkGEV--h7u-Docz3UUJY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nefCUcPaEMTQiAfbqIGwBA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mozart%20unpaid%20tailors%20bills&f=false

5. The stolen diaries etc have been edited to sensational reasons leaving out many positive things to be found in the Church's recently released 16 volume biography.

6. Miller throws in the odd invented insult. He mentions for instance that LRH said he was Cecil Rhodes in a former life, and then that Rhodes was homosexual. Checking this I found no evidence beyond Rhodes never married.

7. Miller is clearly biased and caricatures Hubbard viciously. He shows no understanding of our religion, and only seeks to make light of it. The material I am reading currently is from 1953 and I looked up what he was talking about, it was drawn from Neoplatonism. Other material from 1952 was based on 2000 year old gnostic beliefs. Scientology is very well grounded as a religion which is why most scholars of New Religions recognise us as acknowledged even by our enemies. And while the UK has not recognised us this is in part because of the Church of England, a state religion and using that to compare what is religious.

8. Much emphasis was made on money, yet when Hubbard left the ship on one occasion he ate fish fingers and watched TV all day. There's no real evidence in the book of abuse of funds. And at the end of the book it acknowledges that the majority of his money went to the Church. It may be with good reason from past experience that he didn't trust people to safeguard our reserves.Drg55 (talk) 11:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Why are you discussing this here? Please have this discussion in the Talk page of the article. For what it's worth, these points, and your or my subjective reactions to the book in general, are not suitable matter for the Wikipedia article about the book. If we write about what certain facts "look like" to you, or to me, then we're not writing an encyclopedia. That Hubbard's devoted followers wrote a 16 volume biography with many positive statements about him is not at all surprising, nor is it in any way a significant fact about the independently-written Bare-Faced Messiah. Many of your points seem to be non sequiturs. MartinPoulter(talk) 11:50, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Further points: if you are thinking in terms of "sides" then that's the wrong approach for Wikipedia, and suggests why you are having such friction with other editors. You and I both have limitless opportunities online to voice our own opinions about this topic: Wikipedia does not exist for that purpose. You are welcome to criticise the book on any of the many sites that allow you to freely publish your thoughts and reactions. If "being backed by the media" looks like "a set up" then pretty much all investigative journalism looks like a set up. That would mean that plenty of reliable sources can't be used, and yet you want your unsourced opinions about the book to affect the Wikipedia article about the book. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:00, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, I'm just clarifying where I see things, raising directions that might be realised, you can judge me by the fact that my edits were quite simple. I tried to put an actual quote from the book into the BFM article which was not what was said by the attorney on the losing side of the case in the USA and is quoted as though its truth. I also just added in a couple of words about the disaffected sources which was cut out although its a fair summary of the book when put with the FoI data and stolen diaries. I think I also clarified about the daughter - again the book gives data which is different to this bad reference. These are mild edits and I'm researching good sources at the same time for future edits. I would like to deal reasonably with people, I know that Martin Poulter has a website where he boast that he is source for many wikipedia articles on Scientology (including BFM) and gives talks against Scientology around the UK http://infobomb.org/ also you are in with the Skeptics, which is a definite bias. However you will find that I am not a doctrinaire Scientologist. You are perhaps similar to Saint Paul when he was persecuting Christians, maybe one day you'll fall off your donkey and become one of us, then we'll really have a problem on our hands. Jokes aside I did psychology and Freud, neo Freudianism at university, (one of my lecturers I later found out selected over 300 people for lobotomies) I've worked with top professors QC's and the like. In fact a former psychologist on the advisory board of CCHR later became head of our national psychological society. I'm glad you want to improve the Scientology articles, so do I.Drg55 (talk) 14:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)