June 10, 2013
In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus [ed-uh-puhs] complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrates upon a child’s desire to sexually possess the parent of the opposite sex. Sigmund Freud, who coined the term believed that the Oedipus complex is a desire for the parent in both males and females; Freud deprecated the term ‘Electra complex,’ which was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung in regards to the Oedipus complex manifested in young girls.
The Oedipus complex occurs in the third — phallic stage (ages 3–6) — of five psychosexual development stages: (i) the oral, (ii) the anal, (iii) the phallic, (iv) the latent, and (v) the genital — in which the source of libidinal pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant’s body.
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June 10, 2013
Chilling Effects is a collaborative archive created by Wendy Seltzer and founded along with several law school clinics and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a digital rights group) to protect lawful online activity from legal threats.
Its website, ‘Chilling Effects Clearinghouse,’ allows recipients of cease-and-desist notices to submit them to the site and receive information about their legal rights and responsibilities. The archive was founded in 2001 by Internet activists who were concerned that the unregulated private practice of sending cease-and-desist letters seemed to be increasing and was having an unstudied, but potentially significant, ‘chilling effect’ on speech.
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June 10, 2013
There are a number of disputes relating to the Church of Scientology’s efforts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet through the use of lawsuits and legal threats. In late 1994, the Church of Scientology began using various legal tactics to stop distribution of unpublished documents written by L. Ron Hubbard.
The Church of Scientology is often accused of barratry (litigation for the purpose of harassment or profit) through the filing of SLAPP suits (lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition). The official church response is that its litigious nature is solely to protect its copyrighted works and the unpublished status of certain documents.
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June 10, 2013
‘Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief’ is a 2013 non-fiction book about Scientology written by American journalist Lawrence Wright. The book contains interviews from current and former Scientologists, the history of founder L. Ron Hubbard and current leader David Miscavige, and analysis of the relationships of Tom Cruise and John Travolta to the organization.
In an interview with the ‘New York Times’ Wright said that ‘There are a lot of people out there who were very high up in the church and know a lot about it who have become outspoken…I’m very lucky to come along at a time when a lot of these people are ready to talk.’ Wright also disclosed that he has received ‘innumerable’ letters threatening legal action from lawyers representing the church and celebrities who belong to it.
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June 10, 2013
Recruiting Scientologist celebrities and getting them to endorse Scientology to the public at large has always been very important to the Church of Scientology. According to founder L. Ron Hubbard: ‘Celebrities are very Special people and have a very distinct line of dissemination. They have comm[unication] lines that others do not have and many medias [sic] to get their dissemination through.’
Scientology has had a written program governing celebrity recruitment since at least 1955, when Hubbard created ‘Project Celebrity,’ offering rewards to Scientologists who recruited targeted celebrities. Early interested parties included former silent-screen star Gloria Swanson and jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. A Scientology policy letter of 1976 states that ‘rehabilitation of celebrities who are just beyond or just approaching their prime’ enables the ‘rapid dissemination’ of Scientology.
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June 10, 2013
Celebrity Centres are Church of Scientology facilities that are open to the public but serve mostly artists and celebrities and other ‘professionals, leaders and promising new-comers in the fields of the arts, sports, management and government,’ as ‘those are the people who are sculpting the present into the future.’ The Celebrity Centre International was established in Hollywood, California, in 1969 by Yvonne Gillham, a Sea Org member who worked with L. Ron Hubbard. Since then, other centres have been established in New York, London, Paris and a number of other cities across the world.
The Church often quotes L. Ron Hubbard saying that, ‘A culture is only as great as its dreams and its dreams are dreamed by artists,’ citing this as the reason that Celebrity Centres were established — to create a good environment for ‘artists.’ Critics of Scientology point to Hubbard’s launch of ‘Project Celebrity’ in 1955 to recruit celebrities into the church, and that the centres were established as an extension of this initial purpose. The church denies the existence of policy to actively recruit high-ranking celebrities.
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June 10, 2013
Ice-nine is a fictional material appearing in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel ‘Cat’s Cradle.’ Ice-nine is supposedly a polymorph of water more stable than common ice; instead of melting at 0 °C (32 °F), it melts at 45.8 °C (114.4 °F). When ice-nine comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8 °C (thus effectively becoming supercooled), it acts as a seed crystal and causes the solidification of the entire body of water, which quickly crystallizes as more ice-nine.
In the story, it is developed by the Manhattan Project for use as a weapon, but abandoned when it becomes clear that any quantity of it would have the power to destroy all life on earth. As people are mostly water, ice-nine kills nearly instantly when ingested or brought into contact with soft tissues exposed to the bloodstream, such as the eyes. A global catastrophe involving freezing the world’s oceans with ice-nine is used as a plot device in Vonnegut’s novel.
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