Cintra Wilson is struggling. If you are enjoying this Substack, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Five bucks. Am I worth one oat milk cappuccino a month? Fuck yes. My parents both came from Colorado. There were five members of my mother’s household — my Grandfather and Grandmother, both devout Christian Scientists who didn’t believe in medicine; my mother, the eldest, who since the age of four was permanently welded onto a piano, her sister E., the singer of the family, and their baby brother R., who became my kid uncle.
May I present you with the Substack 2024 Award simply for navigating a family tree description like an acrobat. That and being funny. And the crossbow, too. A small deduction for renaming anything X.
You are worth a heck of a lot more than an oat milk cappuccino a month. Please keep going, as I need these posts for medicinal purposes. Having said that, there is one article of yours that I still can't look at without laughing so hard that my chest wheezes in a most alarming fashion and my eyes water. That can't be good.
Right - back to today's slice of (no doubt) joy. 😃
Jules, I’ve been seeing in my inbox how much you’ve been reading my collection of weirdness and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me. I am so glad to have you around.
I am a twin…I have a twin brother. To give you a perspective we are likely the age of your parents.
Anyhew…my brother has always been attracted to these ‘cult like’ figures in the ‘personal growth’ area, people like Werner Erhard. My brother did the EST training then Lifespring, the ‘repackaged’ EST training that Erhard did later. Then of course in the 2000’s he found Scientology. He tried to get me “to go down to The Org and talk to so and so” about the problems I was having at the time with my live in relationship. I said “no thank you”! He eventually stop going “down to The Org” after having spent thousands of dollars with them, and attaining basically nothing in terms of an enlightened or even evolved consciousness! He finally realized that all ‘The Org’ cared about was his money and that he continue to “pay for more courses”.
I have never been drawn to any group that is run by some ‘charismatic’ leader, whose crazy ideas, requires that it’s member think and speak a certain way to “attain enlightenment”, as well as pay a lot of money to do so!
If you haven’t read it, there is a very good book about Scientology, that came out a few years ago… “Going Clear Scientology, Hollywood, and The Prison of Belief” by Lawrence Wright. It’s a well researched and written book, which gives a good account of how Scientology started, it’s inner structure, L Ron Hubbard’s crazy ass thinking, and how many people have been sucked into its lair!
PS: I found you in a link that came out from The Woodruff Astrology Substack, that I recently subscribed to.
I like your writing style and the way your brain works! 😉🧐
I lived in Sausalito in the late 70’s and worked in SF.
I remember the bar Zacks and that boutique Ruby Begonia! I went to college in Santa Cruz in the early 70’s…so I was immersed in The Hippie Culture and all its ‘movements’!
I grew up in a small farming community in the far SE corner of CA. My dad was a cowboy who raised pasture cattle and my mom was an interior designer! I left my town a week after high school graduation, and never looked back! No CA in the 70’s made a big ‘imprint’ on my psyche and being! 💗🙏🏼
So good and -- in addition to very funny and insightful -- compassionate about these lost souls. One of the best Devo endorsements I've ever heard is your fledgling Scientologist aunt's instantly grokking that “Duty Now For the Future” is the work of the antichrist and/or "suppressive personalities." (Also: *love* this wacky, alt-70s memoir thread developing in recent posts.)
Oh, by the way, was watching The Incredible Mr Limpet on tv the other day, where Don Knotts wants to become a fish, and there’s a book he’s reading titled “Theory of Reverse Evolution.” Give us back our tails!
Oh, man, I hate L. Ron Hubbard. I saw Robert Williams’ takedown in Coochy Cootie comics where the ‘giggymeter’ was something you had to insert rectally. Once again, a cult breaks up a family, thank God that never happens anymore.
Great stuff. I had a wild encounter with some Scientologists at their headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, in the early 80’s, after I did the personality questionnaire in the street.
I was stoned and argumentative (and arrogant), they were charming until they turned and had me trapped in a room yelling at me. It got real spooky for a bit. A few years later I read Bare Faced Messiah, a bio of Hubbard I highly recommend and laughed my head off.
PS They were (still are?) involved in drug rehabilitation’ under the cleverly named Narcoanon label. Is that still going in the US?
They're not disgusting. She was an idiot. If she was smarter, she'd have complained about the lyrics to "Pink Pussycat" but she was so literal minded, she presumably thought it was about an actual cat.
Scientology does "eat" people, figuratively of course, much like Evangelical Christians, Mormons, Christian Scientists and Muslims do, it's part of the ethos of being a religion - one must consume non-members. I'm not a member any longer but it had many benefits for me for a long time. If you're going to trash it and talk shit, at least do a little research rather than exhume 40 year-old tropes about Hubbard and the e-meter. It makes for a more dispassionate and objective story. I knew people like your aunt in the 70s - very common pathway into Scientology. Every religion is weird 9/10s of the time and wonderful for a moment. It's all in the perspective.
What a strange comment. You’re like the guy that always rearranges the pieces on the chess board and then complains that the game has changed. Why on earth would you even WANT to try to change Cintra’s content and writing stance. Why are you even subscribing??? In addition the sheer condescension in your comment is astounding. You’re outvoted bruh, Scientology is dangerous and perfect example of the possible derangements of human culture. Right up there with the Mob. And both of you kıll people.
Off the mark, Dr. Heintz - and I don't play chess nor require off the cuff psychoanalysis. Just a little tired of hearing people bash a subject based mostly on borrowed perspectives. The last 10 people I've read doing this had about 2 days combined experience - hardly experts. Beyond that, I don't really care.
First, your arrogance in telling an accomplished and popular writer what she should or should not write is astounding. You should be embarrassed. Again, unsub if you don’t like it.
Second, you just proved your ignorance by missing the fact that the chess reference was a MET-A-PHOR. Did you graduate high school English? I doubt it
Your response, which I was expecting, tells me you’re a stodgy literalist curmudgeon who has no business here in the first place. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear. (You).
Stop trying to control people you arrogant prick. THAT is precisely why Scientology is human wreckage posing as a religion. Even Hubbard abjured it in the end, but that didn’t stop cow-like, lemming-like (this are SIM-I-LES) belief in the the idiotic. Space Aliens? Really?
May I present you with the Substack 2024 Award simply for navigating a family tree description like an acrobat. That and being funny. And the crossbow, too. A small deduction for renaming anything X.
You know, my desire to change my middle name to X comes from Malcolm, obv, but you’re right, Musky may have tainted it.
You are worth a heck of a lot more than an oat milk cappuccino a month. Please keep going, as I need these posts for medicinal purposes. Having said that, there is one article of yours that I still can't look at without laughing so hard that my chest wheezes in a most alarming fashion and my eyes water. That can't be good.
Right - back to today's slice of (no doubt) joy. 😃
Jules, I’ve been seeing in my inbox how much you’ve been reading my collection of weirdness and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me. I am so glad to have you around.
I agree completely. The medicinal effects of Mmme Cintra’s essays are indeed profound!
I am a twin…I have a twin brother. To give you a perspective we are likely the age of your parents.
Anyhew…my brother has always been attracted to these ‘cult like’ figures in the ‘personal growth’ area, people like Werner Erhard. My brother did the EST training then Lifespring, the ‘repackaged’ EST training that Erhard did later. Then of course in the 2000’s he found Scientology. He tried to get me “to go down to The Org and talk to so and so” about the problems I was having at the time with my live in relationship. I said “no thank you”! He eventually stop going “down to The Org” after having spent thousands of dollars with them, and attaining basically nothing in terms of an enlightened or even evolved consciousness! He finally realized that all ‘The Org’ cared about was his money and that he continue to “pay for more courses”.
I have never been drawn to any group that is run by some ‘charismatic’ leader, whose crazy ideas, requires that it’s member think and speak a certain way to “attain enlightenment”, as well as pay a lot of money to do so!
If you haven’t read it, there is a very good book about Scientology, that came out a few years ago… “Going Clear Scientology, Hollywood, and The Prison of Belief” by Lawrence Wright. It’s a well researched and written book, which gives a good account of how Scientology started, it’s inner structure, L Ron Hubbard’s crazy ass thinking, and how many people have been sucked into its lair!
PS: I found you in a link that came out from The Woodruff Astrology Substack, that I recently subscribed to.
I like your writing style and the way your brain works! 😉🧐
Thank you so much for your story, Lupita! I grew up in the SF Bay Area and EVERYONE was into EST. We called them "est-holes." HAhaha.
Nice to see you!
I lived in Sausalito in the late 70’s and worked in SF.
I remember the bar Zacks and that boutique Ruby Begonia! I went to college in Santa Cruz in the early 70’s…so I was immersed in The Hippie Culture and all its ‘movements’!
I grew up in a small farming community in the far SE corner of CA. My dad was a cowboy who raised pasture cattle and my mom was an interior designer! I left my town a week after high school graduation, and never looked back! No CA in the 70’s made a big ‘imprint’ on my psyche and being! 💗🙏🏼
So good and -- in addition to very funny and insightful -- compassionate about these lost souls. One of the best Devo endorsements I've ever heard is your fledgling Scientologist aunt's instantly grokking that “Duty Now For the Future” is the work of the antichrist and/or "suppressive personalities." (Also: *love* this wacky, alt-70s memoir thread developing in recent posts.)
Norris, you are a peach.
Slap your mammy
I have. It doesn’t help.
Oh, by the way, was watching The Incredible Mr Limpet on tv the other day, where Don Knotts wants to become a fish, and there’s a book he’s reading titled “Theory of Reverse Evolution.” Give us back our tails!
Oh, man, I hate L. Ron Hubbard. I saw Robert Williams’ takedown in Coochy Cootie comics where the ‘giggymeter’ was something you had to insert rectally. Once again, a cult breaks up a family, thank God that never happens anymore.
You notice Scientology is kind of on the DL these days? Didn’t David Miscavidge vanish after killing his wife or something?
Dysfunctional family tales do cheer me up 😉
At your service, Madame.
What a wild ride. Humans are amazing with their ability to create belief.
It stems from desire, I think. People will go to extraordinary lengths of self-delusion to believe things they want to believe.
Wow. And again, wow.
Great stuff. I had a wild encounter with some Scientologists at their headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, in the early 80’s, after I did the personality questionnaire in the street.
I was stoned and argumentative (and arrogant), they were charming until they turned and had me trapped in a room yelling at me. It got real spooky for a bit. A few years later I read Bare Faced Messiah, a bio of Hubbard I highly recommend and laughed my head off.
PS They were (still are?) involved in drug rehabilitation’ under the cleverly named Narcoanon label. Is that still going in the US?
I just looked up the lyrics to S.I.B. to see if they truly were disgusting. I'm so confused.
They're not disgusting. She was an idiot. If she was smarter, she'd have complained about the lyrics to "Pink Pussycat" but she was so literal minded, she presumably thought it was about an actual cat.
I thought it was about a pink pussycat. It’s not about a pink pussycat?
the scary thing is that i have viewed "Wilburforce" on youtube so i know you and this is entirely real 👹 and 💥❤️🩹
Scientology is a cult.
L Ron Hubbard and Jack Parsons were devotees of Aleister Crowley.
You can go all the way down the rabbit hole from there...
Scientology does "eat" people, figuratively of course, much like Evangelical Christians, Mormons, Christian Scientists and Muslims do, it's part of the ethos of being a religion - one must consume non-members. I'm not a member any longer but it had many benefits for me for a long time. If you're going to trash it and talk shit, at least do a little research rather than exhume 40 year-old tropes about Hubbard and the e-meter. It makes for a more dispassionate and objective story. I knew people like your aunt in the 70s - very common pathway into Scientology. Every religion is weird 9/10s of the time and wonderful for a moment. It's all in the perspective.
Thanks for mansplaining to me how to write my memoir.
Replied to him above. That patronizing and supercilious comment reeked worse than the legendary Limburger Cheese. (I’ve been to the town, it’s true.)
An inevitable byproduct of making my point and only my point.
What a strange comment. You’re like the guy that always rearranges the pieces on the chess board and then complains that the game has changed. Why on earth would you even WANT to try to change Cintra’s content and writing stance. Why are you even subscribing??? In addition the sheer condescension in your comment is astounding. You’re outvoted bruh, Scientology is dangerous and perfect example of the possible derangements of human culture. Right up there with the Mob. And both of you kıll people.
MY HERO
There was even more. And even more bilious.
Off the mark, Dr. Heintz - and I don't play chess nor require off the cuff psychoanalysis. Just a little tired of hearing people bash a subject based mostly on borrowed perspectives. The last 10 people I've read doing this had about 2 days combined experience - hardly experts. Beyond that, I don't really care.
First, your arrogance in telling an accomplished and popular writer what she should or should not write is astounding. You should be embarrassed. Again, unsub if you don’t like it.
Second, you just proved your ignorance by missing the fact that the chess reference was a MET-A-PHOR. Did you graduate high school English? I doubt it
Your response, which I was expecting, tells me you’re a stodgy literalist curmudgeon who has no business here in the first place. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear. (You).
Stop trying to control people you arrogant prick. THAT is precisely why Scientology is human wreckage posing as a religion. Even Hubbard abjured it in the end, but that didn’t stop cow-like, lemming-like (this are SIM-I-LES) belief in the the idiotic. Space Aliens? Really?
Just leave
I want to send you a carpet of yellow roses.
Why thank you. Consider it done
“I am becoming morally corrupt! And I like it!”
I shall sign the papers to give you one oat milk cappuccino a month. I would be thrilled to do so.