NEW Scientology related novel: Sekten på Dimön (The Cult on Fog Island)

NEW Scientology related novel: Sekten på Dimön (The Cult on Fog Island).

Mike Rinder: Swedish Cult Fiction

http://www.mikerindersblog.org/swedish-cult-fiction/

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Mariette’s life in the church became a nightmare “I know of an anonymous call, people want to shut me up, they said that I can not continue to spread my ” lies””




While scientology is unravelling in the face of Hurricane Leah here in the US, a different storm is raining on scientology’s tiny parade in Sweden.

My old friend, Mariette Lindstein has written a book. And it is causing quite a stir.

Mariette worked at the Int Base for many years (in fact, I brought her and her husband to the Int base to man WDC posts). She was then five years in RTC under Miscavige, and yes, she was another prisoner of the Hole — even though according to its Founder David Miscavige, no such place has ever existed.

Mariette lives in Sweden now together with her husband Dan Koon, also a long time friend — former Snr CS International staff and star of the only “Tech Film” shot and directed by L. Ron Hubbard.

Here is a bit of the backstory.

Lawrence Wright is to blame. It was he who first convinced Mariette to speak out. While he was working on Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief, he interviewed Mariette, and the idea of writing a suspense novel in a cult setting was born. Mariette envisioned a book that would reach a broad audience and not only entertain but enlighten people about the dangers of cults.

In 2013 Mariette quit her job as a teacher to write and educate in another field: speaking out and enlightening others about cults. She has done interviews with many of the most widely read morning and evening newspapers and magazines in Sweden. She has also appeared on national television shows and was featured in a recent TV series about cults in Sweden, “The Only True Way.”

Mariette’s debut novel The Cult on Fog Island is inspired by her experiences in scientology. admin-ajax

Released in September 2015 it has been critically acclaimed by some of the most prominent book reviewers in the country, calling it “enthralling” and a “most suspenseful thriller.” Critic Jonas Danielsson on the national TV-program “Go’kväll” (Good Evening) said the book is: “A page turner, the most interesting novel this fall.”

The Cult on Fog Island has been at the top of bestseller list of Sweden’s largest Internet bookstore for over a month and is now in its third printing. Fog Island is first and foremost a suspense novel, but has the ulterior purpose of warning about the dangers of sects.

Unfortunately the book is still only available in Swedish, but rumor is that a translation into English is on the horizon.

This is the first in a trilogy about cults and cult mentality, explaining how one can get drawn in and how hard it is to get out. The second book (to be released in Swedish, Fall 2016) is about the repercussions of leaving and being harassed if one dares speak out. The final installment (to be released Fall 2017) is about growing up as a child in a cult.

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Mariette Lindstein's fiction trilogy

For those who don't know, int exec for many years before jumping ship, Mariette Lindstein, who has now returned to her native Sweden, is writing a fictional trilogy about a fictional cult. (Well, bits and pieces are very familiar but I bet the CoS don't want to sue over stuff like overboarding, "hey, that is our invention!")

It has been a huge success, as far as I can tell, and the first part is in it's forth hardback printing now. In a few months, the paperback will be out, and Mariette just stated that the publishing date for the second volume (which is completed) will be moved forward due to popular demand.

According to her website http://www.mlindstein.com/ the books will also be published in English eventually.

Flourish and prosper.

 

Re: Mariette Lindstein's fiction trilogy

Mariette and her husband were brought to the INT base by Mike Rinder to man WDC posts.

(Co$ claims that the WDC (Watchdog Committee) is the highest management organization within CSI.)

Lawrence Wright interviewed Mariette when writing his book: Going Clear and he was the one who first convinced her to speak out.

Rinder posted about Mariette and the book back in November:
http://www.mikerindersblog.org/swedish-cult-fiction/

 

Re: Mariette Lindstein's fiction trilogy

You can read the Forward to this book written by Hakan Jarva, a Psychologist, and former Scientologist (OT III).

Just use Google Translate.

It's very much worth reading!

http://www.mlindstein.com/laes-foerordet

 

Re: Mariette Lindstein's fiction trilogy

Hallandsposten has an article about the trilogy.

Mariette fortsätter att varna för sekter

http://www.hallandsposten.se/nöje-kultur/böcker/mariette-fortsätter-att-varna-för-sekter-1.3713614

Google translation:

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Mariette continues to warn of the sects

BOOKS Today, she can get the prize for his debut novel, and recently released sequel. Mariette Lindstein knows what she is talking about when she writes about sects, she has lived in for 25 years. Mariette is one of the guests at an evening for the book at Halmstad Theatre 10 November.

BY Kågström

12:11 - 20 August 2016 Hallandsposten

It is, to put it mildly, unstable August day on the West Coast in 2016. It was blowing hard and the foam dizzy when waves crash against the rocks, in Sandhamn outside Halmstad.

- This is where I frequent. There are many walks when you have dogs, says Mariette Lindstein as we walk along the beach with the Danish-Swedish farm dogs Thelma and Bianca.

She and her American husband Dan Koon live in a winterized cottage nearby, where she sits and writes.

- But I do everywhere, even on the bus. The writing has a healing effect and I have so much to tell.

Mariette Lindstein is highly productive. She began her writing in 2013, is now complete with three novels and writes on a fourth.
Recently released sect which was revived, a sequel to his debut cult of Dimon (2015).

Both books (and a third to be released later) is about a fictional Swedish cult, but they are based on Mariette 25 years in the Church of Scientology. She joined in the late 1970s, and her experiences in the movement are worth a separate, large chapters that do not fit in this article.

But a brief look like this:

Mariette, who grew up in Halmstad, became interested in Scientology, and took courses in Malmö, where she also began working for the movement. In 1983, she was handpicked ( "I did not choose for yourself") to the international headquarters outside Los Angeles, where she gradually got to work with the supreme leader, David Miscavige. He became increasingly dictatorial and towards the end Mariette lived in a caravan, surrounded by electric fences. In the end, she played the mentally ill and was placed in an apartment without fences, and managed to escape.

She and Dan (who has also been a Scientologist) lived there for seven years in the US, while the re-adapted to society.

- We had been completely isolated and did not know how it happened outside the fences. How did a mobile?
In 2011 the couple moved to the Halland coast, and it was there that she began writing about cult life.

- I had not had a thought of it before, but I was asked by an American journalist. He said it was my duty, and I realized he was right. But instead of an autobiography, I wrote a novel, to reach out to more readers.

It was a wise choice. The cult of Dimon has sold over 20 000 copies - very good for a debutant - and Mariette has participated in all types of media. The book is one of five that can get the price for 2015 is best deckardebut, at the pågågende festival Crime Time Gotland. In the evening it is determined who wins.

- It is unlikely that, but it's great to be nominated, says Mariette.

The cult of Dimon's about Sofia Bauman who moves in with a new-agerörelse on a fictional island in Bohuslän. There, she realizes gradually the charismatic leader Franz Oswald is a pure dictator. He humiliates and punishes its members, and is with an underage girl. Sofia decides to accommodate and expose him.

Is not the image of the diabolic leader bit excessive? Can you be so evil and yet be worshiped?


- Yes, it was much worse in reality. Anyone who thinks that I exaggerate have never experienced pure evil. Check the despot Donald Trump supported by millions of Americans, Franz Oswald in the book is a wimp compared to real psychopaths and sociopaths who also has millions of followers.

The new book sect which was revived beginning with the trial of Mr Oswald, who is sentenced to prison. But from there, he spins a network to re-form the sect and take revenge on Sofia.

- I did research by going to Skogome Institution outside Gothenburg, where it sits many sex offenders.

We will not reveal too much about the new novel, but another question must be asked - about the reality: how can modern, enlightened people join a cult? There are how many scares whatsoever about how they work, there are books, movies ...

- Yes, but they often show a false picture. In several fictional films is a leader disgusting, old man, and the sect is based in a secluded, dirty house. But when I became a Scientologist operations comprised stylish - often young - people and we lived in nice apartments. I had left home and left a community, and here I found a new one.

Okay, but why did you react not at all strange, directly hostile, changes during your time with Scientologists in the United States? Your holidays was reduced, and you were forbidden to watch television and read newspapers.

- I responded every time but was persuaded - and persuaded myself - that everything was for our own good, says Mariette.
She has, like second renegade Scientologists harassed.

- As long as I did not go out in public, I got to be alone, but it started when the book came out and I was on TV. They said they would get quiet in my lies, the phone rang at night and they tried to hack into my computer. But I got out cheaply in comparison with friends in the United States.

Now it has calmed down for Mariette and last spring was postponed Scientology's interest to her husband Dan. He is also a writer and has spökskrivit several biographies, including Ron Miscavige Ruthless: Scientology, David Miscavige my son and me - which was released in May in the United States.

Ron Miscavige is defecting Scientologists and father of the movement's leaders, and the book has become a hot topic. It was number one on the New York Times bestseller list in the genre of religion in May, and will hopefully be translated into Swedish.

- Dan was threatened with a lawsuit while he wrote, but it is Ron Miscavige who has had the greatest problems with Scientologists in the United States, says Mariette.

Self she continues to criticize sects, in his books and visits to schools and other places.

- It is important to reach the young, says Mariette who have had the most difficult to write the third (as yet unpublished) book on Dimon.
It is about the sect's children.

- They were treated horribly bad of Scientologists. They did not read regular school subjects and got terrible punishment, says Mariette who have - very much - personal experiences.

She had with her son John in the movement.

- He fled shortly after me, but thus was not all rosy. John was bitter that I had given him the childhood, and I still feel a great debt. But gradually it has become better and today I have good contact with John who lives in the United States.
BY Kågström

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Mariette Lindstein’s Prize Winning Crime Novel Based on David Miscavige.

Mike Rinder has a post up on this.

Mariette Lindstein’s Prize Winning Crime Novel Based on David Miscavige

http://www.mikerindersblog.org/mari...winning-crime-novel-based-on-david-miscavige/

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Some great news from our long term friend, Dan Koon about his wife (Mariette Lindstein)’s prize-winning, best-selling book.

For those unfamiliar with Mariette, I asked Dan to provide us with a short biographical sketch. I have known Mariette for many, many years, in fact it was me that brought her to “Int” to become Watchdog Committee Scientology in 1983.

Mariette grew up on Sweden’s southwest coast in Halmstad. She became involved in Scientology after graduating the Swedish equivalent of high school around 1978. Soon, she was working at the Malmö Org where she and a couple other Div 6 people put copies of DMSMH into the hands of commuters coming out of the busy train station and 10Xed the central files. Within a year or so she was the ED. She and her former husband Billy Lindstein were recruited into the SO around 1983 and both were soon at Int and part of WDC. In 1989 David Miscavige made Mariette the CO of the entire HGB (the Int Liaison Office or upper middle management located in the Hollywood Guaranty building in Los Angeles) but brought her back to the base in 1991 and made her the AVC Int Authorization In Charge (meaning she approved all iussues, evaluations, programs and anything else that required clearance before publication). For the next several years Miscavige was her direct senior and she worked closely with him. As with literally anyone forced into that orbit for long, she was squirted out like a watermelon seed between the thumb of DM’s sociopathy and the forefinger of his management “style,” and found herself twinned with Ray Mithoff on the RPF. After graduating she wound up on Marketing and worked with Jeff Hawkins and me to assemble the books and lectures marketing that became known as the Golden Age of Knowledge, or GAK, which is the redheaded stepchild of YECCH. After I blew in late 2003, Mariette became one of the charter inductees into The Hole. From there she devised a brilliant plan to be sent off the base down to the PAC RPF, and from there she escaped in 2004. She and I moved to Sweden in 2011 and instead of flipping burgers at McDonalds is now making her mark in the literary world.

This is Dan’s report on Mariette’s successful book:

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http://www.thebookseller.com/news/swedish-cult-fiction-triology-hq-434391

"HQ is to publish The Cult of Fog Island trilogy by Mariette Lindstein, a former Scientologist.​

The acqusition is HQ publishing director Kate Mills' first for the imprint, pre-empting world English rights in The Cult of Fog Island, The Cult Rises and Children of the Cult from Maria Enberg at the Enberg Agency Sweden.
Drawing on the author’s own experiences, the trilogy follows a young woman caught up in a mysterious cult on a Swedish island which is cut off by fog for six months of the year. The first book in the series has just won the Best Crime Debut at the Specsavers CrimeTime Awards in Sweden.
Lindstein said: "In my trilogy about Fog Island I have, besides the joy of writing a nervewracking thriller, tried to used my own experiences to make the cult problem universally applicable. It is not only about life within a cult but what happens afterwards and the consequences for future generations. Kate has really understood the series and its purpose. It is a privilege to work with her and I am thrilled to have Kate and the whole team at HQ HarperCollins as my UK publisher.""

 

Cross-posted to WWP:

https://whyweprotest.net/threads/ne...n-the-cult-on-fog-island.130582/#post-2596709

Tweeted, with retweets welcome:

https://twitter.com/IndieScieNews/status/799855904199823360

https://twitter.com/IndieScieNews/status/799856072030724096

 

The book has been translated into English. While it appears the book is not yet available in United States, it is available for pre-order in the United Kingdom. The paperback and Kindle versions will be available in the UK on 24 January 2019.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cult-Fog-Island-Trilogy-Book/dp/0008245347/








I found three recent pre-publication reviews of the English translation:

https://whatemmareadnext.co.uk/review-the-cult-on-fog-island-by-mariette-lindstein/

https://thesavvyreader.com/2018/06/05/50-book-pledge-featured-read-the-cult-on-fog-island/

https://girlybookclub.com/the-cult-on-fog-island-by-mariette-lindstein-review-by-jennifer-boksman/

/

 

The book is now available in Canada.


https://www.amazon.ca/Cult-Fog-Island-Trilogy-Book/dp/0008245347/

 

Here's a new article published a couple days ago:

Mariette Lindstein: My years of hell trapped in the grip of Scientologists

Mariette Lindstein, free after a quarter-century, uses her experiences to create a vivid crime novel, says JON COATES
By Jon Coates
PUBLISHED: 13:55, Sun, Jan 27, 2019 | UPDATED: 14:05, Sun, Jan 27, 2019

THE FIRST time she saw a high-ranking member of the Church of Scientology strike someone to the ground "all the brainwashing from years and years vanished in an instant" says former member Mariette Lindstein. "I thought 'I have to get out' but it took six years from that point to get away." Mariette, 60, escaped from the movement, which counts actors Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Elisabeth Moss among its followers, in 2004 after 27 years as a member. She has used her experiences at the desert compound HQ near Los Angeles as the basis for a gripping thriller, Fog Island, published in the UK last week.

FULL ARTICLE: https://www.express.co.uk/life-styl...cientology-mariette-lindstein-fog-island-book