AMERICAN actor Larry Anderson, probably best known as the guy who starred in the Knight Rider pilot before David Hasselhoff took over the role, is also an accomplished magician.
His most impressive trick? Making $150,000 dollars disappear  … into the coffers of the Church of Scientology.
Larry Anderson
So what did Anderson get for his $150,000? According to this report:
- A Communications Course, $30: In 1976, Anderson visited the Church of Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Hollywood and signed up for a communications course, which was his gateway drug to Scientology.
- “Auditing” and course work, $100,000: Scientology, of course, revolves around sessions of “auditing” wherein students’ emotions are measured with a fake device known as an “E-meter”. Anderson put $100,000 on account at the Celebrity Centre, of which he spent about a third.
- A Church of Scientology Flag Service Organisation Account, $36,947: Scientology’s spiritual headquarters is located in Clearwater, FL, and all adherents must receive training there if they hope to advance to “OT VI and OT VII” levels. Anderson says he never spent any of this money, because he never got his juju in the right shape to reach those levels, or whatever.
- A course on board a cruise Ship, $11,400: Turns out that the only place to receive the highest level of Scientology training is on a conveniently expensive cruise ship. And Anderson put up the money – which he never used – in the expectation that he would reach the “OT VIII” level of Scientological glory.
- An 18-volume set of L Ron Hubbard’s teachings, $3,000: It was the constant re-releasing of these books (due to “stenographer errors”) which appeared to push Anderson over the edge: (“These books were published 20 years before LRH died. How is it we’re just discovering that stenographers made mistakes?”) On the upside, they probably look great on the bookshelf next to your 31-volume Time-Life “Classics of the Old West” Series.
Some cash flowed the other way when, in 1996, Anderson was paid $35,000 for his narrating role in an unintentionally funny Scientology movie, Orientation (watch a clip here if you want a good giggle). At the end of the 40-minute recruitment film – which portrays church founder L Ron Hubbard as a “superhero” fully accomplished in 29 professions including sea captain – Anderson says:
If you leave this room after seeing this film and walk out and never mention Scientology again, you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid. But you can do it. You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice. But, if you don’t walk out that way, if you continue with Scientology, we will be very happy with you. And you will be very happy with you.
Well, right now, Anderson is not at all happy with Scientology – and he wants his dosh back.
Anderson, who joined the Hubbardites in 1976, jumped the Scientology ship about a year ago and has been trying ever since to get a refund.
But the “church” is playing hardball over the $120,000 still remaining in Anderson’s various Scientology accounts. Here’s what a couple of Scientology representatives told him, according to excerpts of the recorded conversation Anderson provided to the St Petersburg Times and which are now all over YouTube:
Look, here’s the thing, Larry: You want your money back. We’re willing to give you your money back – to a degree. But we also don’t have to give you the money back, and you seem to have forgotten that. So we’re just trying to work through some of these issues so we can help you get what you want and get what we want and everybody’s fucking happy – excuse my language – everybody’s happy, everybody’s fine and you can go your separate way and do your thing. But the bottom line is, we don’t have to give your money back.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 25th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
I love how he made a correlation between not believing bullshit and ‘blowing your brains out’ or ‘jumping off a bridge’.
January 25th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Make sure to grab a bowl of popcorn and clear your calendar before delving in to the original St Petersburg Times reporting on this. Don’t miss all the audio and video. It’s pretty clear that this will makes shake up existing Scienologists. Not to sound too dramatic, but I would recommend that if there is a Scientologist in your circle of acquaintances, now is the time to reach out to them. They are being pushed to the point of emotional and financial desperation.
The lines Anderson delivers in the film are haunting. I can’t help but think of Nancy Cartwright’s ex, Steve Brackett, who did indeed dive off a bridge last May. And William Rex Fowler, Scientology “Reverend,” who tried to blow his brains out after murdering his business partner in Colorado last month.
References:
http://forums.whyweprotest.net.....ide-47025/
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14248447
http://tampabay.com/news/scien.....067720.ece
January 25th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
I don’t know what is more disgusting, Scientology or Islam!
January 25th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
$100.000 on an ‘e-meter’ session account? If anybody has Anderson’s contact details, I have some magic beans to sell him.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:49 am
I can’t say I really care about this guy, he probably could afford wasting his money on hocus-pocus. It’s really sad when people who are really hard up get sucked into this cult, hoping for a brighter future. For Mr. Anderson it’s a lesson learned, I hope.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
H. Davids. Same here. How many did he encourage to throw their money at these cynical scum? Now he wants his money back.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
As I have commented before, here and elsewhere, how obviously a scam does one of these religious scams have to be for them not to have an endless supply of willing suckers? $3,000 for eighteen books, Larry you do know how much books cost right? If I started a religion called:
“The we will milk you of every penny you have and give you nothing useful in return and as a bonus completely screw up your life, Church”
I’d be willing to bet there would still be people stupid enough to sign up.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
“You can blow your brains off or dive off a bridge…” was pretty chilling, because people are more susceptible to suggestions than most people realize. Not that people would hear this and immediately go jump off a bridge…but it puts a false dichotomy in their mind (back in the subconscious where you don’t pay attention to stuf) that they can either join Scientology or die…
January 27th, 2010 at 1:19 am
I guess I find myself confused. Persons like Tom Cruise and Isaac Hayes, driven, talented persons, become ensnared in an obvious religious cult.
Beyond that, I wonder how a republican moderate like John McCain can say one day that Jerry Falwell and his followers are “the voice of intollerance” one day, but as soon as he’s running for president, appears on his show dressed like the pope and addressing the congregation. How can he one day address a national news camera that “we must support Roe v. Wade, otherwise women will be seeking illegal abortions in the streets” , but as soon as he’s a republican candidate, he says ” this will be a pro-life administration”.
I conclude, that in general, that humans are brainless douchebags and while our eventual self destruction is nearly assured, while freethinkers might well be able to save us, the bullshit between atheists, agnostics and humanists have to be put aside, or the numbers will not exist to result in the desired outcome.
NeoWolfe
January 27th, 2010 at 3:32 am
@NeoWolfe
” the bullshit between atheists, agnostics and humanists have to be put aside, or the numbers will not exist to result in the desired outcome.”
Care to elaborate?
on topic: did you know that once one joins the church of $cientology and is trained as an auditor they can buy a franchise to sell their dianetic services? Pyramid marketing or what? If I ever found myself devoid of even an ounce of humanity, that might seem like a good way to make a buck – I can be quite persuasive & I would have the added benefit of pseudopsychological questionnaires & a rudimentary lie-detector, so as best to assess the gullibility of my victims; thereby being able to fleece them for the maximum amount possible.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:09 am
@rog
They have a page on Facebook (!) that reads:
“Narconon International HOW TO OPEN A NARCONON CENTER? FIND OUT THE TOOL HERE
Opening a Narconon Drug Rehab Center
narconon . org
Training manual for how to open a successful Narconon drug rehab center.”
Why this is even legal is just beyond my comprehension. Their Purification Rundown is not only useless, it is potentially lethal. Narconon is run by untrained practitioners who are openly hostile to the mental health field. And they pay licensing fees to the Church of Scientology International. As of 2003 the stated cost was $15K.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:06 am
@rog
“Care to elaborate?”
Yes I do. Atheists believe that there is no god. Agnostics believe that there is insufficient evidence to support such a claim. Humanists believe that regardless of how you believe, that any god you care to believe in does not interfere in the affairs of men. The humanists really have the key, something we can all believe in. That no god interferes in the affairs of men, that the outcome of our destiny is in our own hands. That is a banner we can all fly. Without spending any time arguing how I stand in that spectrum, I will say that I do believe that an atheist, an agnostic, or a secular humanist can be a freethinker and should be welcome in an intellectual forum of opinion. If you disagree, I am ready with arguments including the opinions of Richard Dawkins. Bring it on.
NeoWolfe
January 28th, 2010 at 3:12 am
@NeoWolfe
you might enjoy http://www.humanism.org.uk/hum.....us-beliefs
I think you are off the mark on your definition of humanism
What I was interested in is: what is the nature of the ‘bullshit’ as you see it?
January 28th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
“Atheists believe that there is no god.” INACCURATE. Whether a particular atheist has such a belief is irrelevant. What makes one an atheist is the ABSENCE of a belief in any god. Given the quantity and quality of the falsifying evidence no further away than the nearest university library, a person who identifies himself as an agnostic is as uneducated as one who says he does not know whether the universe is 13 billion or 6 thousand years old. Agnosticism was defensible two centuries ago, before documentary analysis reached the point where it could be stated as a fact that THE GOD OF RELIGION was as oxymoronic as a giant midget or a healthy leper.
The only all-inclusive word that EVERYONE who does not have a religious belief could accept is “nontheist”. It needs no further definition, and has not (yet) been distorted into something it does not mean by the godphuqt.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
@ Harwood,
I have heard this argument before, and you can go groping for the subtle diffence between believing there is no god, and not believing there is a god, but I find it boring. What is more relevent is that you seem to think that agnostics are confused as to whether or not religion has merit. Well, some may be. But, by definition, a gnostic is someone who thinks he “knows”, somewhat like a atheist who assumes facts not yet in evidence. An agnostic is the opposit, a person who admits there are things he does not know, such as, how an entire universe exploded into being out of nothing, neither time nor space, and accidentally possessed the attribute of spontaneous life where conditions allowed. Since the most brilliant astrophysicists admit they have no clue how this happened, isn’t leaving the question open the scientific thing to do? It’s a perfectly valid scientific procedure to formulate theories, but until the proof is on the books, it’s only conjecture. Assumption of facts before they are proven is what religions do, not freethinkers.
And as for humanism, wiki says:
“Humanism is a moral philosophy that places humans as primary, in range of importance. It is a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality. Although the word has many senses, its current philosophical meaning comes into focus when contrasted to the supernatural or to appeals to higher authority”
I cant speak for you, but I think there could be freethinkers among them.
NeoWolfe