Scientology whistleblower Leah Remini has disclosed the strange relationship between the cult of Scientology and Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. In the latest episode of her television program Scientology and the Aftermath, the former member details how the so-called religious organization isn’t just about celebrity worship and tax exemptions, but rather a pervasive intrusion into the individual’s way of life and the surrounding communities.
In the manner of a virus, the organization seeks alliances with like-minded cults to drag into their ranks, which seemed a perfect partnership for Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam (NOI). During last year’s Saviours Day, it was Minister Farrakhan who delivered the speech declaring former science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, as a great man worthy of the praise of his 20,000-strong membership. Remini details how it was actually her who was tasked with recruiting NOI members into their ranks.
Farrakhan, a proud anti-Semite, has been caught on video numerous times declaring the Jewish people his “sworn enemies,” spreading neo-Nazi conspiracy theories accusing them of trying to create a “new world order” that “serves Satan,” condemning support for LGBT rights he claims “feminizes black men” into sinners and has even declared Adolf Hitler, the fascist dictator of Nazi-occupied Germany, as being a “very great man”. Among the list of offences is advising his caucus to seek refuge in a pervasive cult.
“I was approached by Scientology to bridge the gap between Scientology and the black community. And I wanted to do that. I had no idea what the Nation of Islam was,” Remini says. “I was a Scientologist and I wasn’t questioning what my church was asking me to do.” Ironically, the church hasn’t denied its relationship with Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam or its members, but according to The Daily Beast, the organisation sent a letter declaring the show as an opponent of “religious freedom” and compared the program to Nazism.
“These false Jews,” Farrakhan once preached to his audience, “promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength. It’s the wicked Jews, the false Jews, that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It’s the wicked Jews, false Jews, that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic! These satanic Jews run the media! Run the government! Run the world! And they are my enemy!”
Such a comparison, given the company they keep, is just potently ironic.
Remini is no false idol, keep in mind. One of their sources was Ishmael Bey, a former decades-long NOI member turned Scientologist, who was reportedly enthralled by Hubbard’s belief “there was no Christ,” and did not believe in the existence of Allah. “We started to see that buildings were being made, Bey said, “that the Nation of Islam were having secret meetings with Scientology that the public had no idea about. It started going in a different direction than the core tenets of what Islam actually represented.”
Through Bey’s admission, it appears the Nation of Islam began administering eerily similar “self-improvement courses” that, in the case of Scientology, had personal information exchanged that were later being used to blackmail members into staying with the church. “The breaking point for me was when it started going in that direction with the self-improvement study guides. It started feeling very cult-like to me,” Bey continued. “They now call him ‘The Honorable LRH,’ they now meet in the Scientology buildings, they now are being bestowed with the Scientology awards, and within the Nation of Islam, it’s now a celebrated thing that the first female went ‘clear’ recently, and in 2015 the first male went ‘clear’.”
Why the cross-faith intermingling, you may wonder? Well, Remini details how Scientology currently have a policy that, much like any recruitment website, members who are able to rally new support eventually receive upwards of 10% commission on whatever their rallied subject pays into the program, which eventually costs thousands given the profit nature of the cult. In a report from the New Republic, it’s expected that Farrakhan has received similar instalments from Scientology for preaching their predatory word.
“I know that this is the time that they’re making an all-out move to destroy Scientology,” Farrakhan told his audience. “But what I’d ask Mrs. ‘Renmie’, or whatever her name is, she’s going in hard. She’s hurt by something. I know a lot of Muslims that’s hurt. Hurt because they came in looking for something, but didn’t necessarily find what they were lookin’ for, and walked away. And when you walked away, where did you go, what did you do, how did you gain, what did you lose?”
“No one’s trying to take Scientology down for reasons that are unwarranted,” she said on the program, detailing her loss after constant harassment from the cult. “And once you were in Scientology for a good 35, 45 years, maybe then ask these kinds of questions. And you should ask these types of questions to the families who have been destroyed. When you go to sleep at night crying because you don’t have your daughter, or your son, or your mom, or your children have never met your grandparents because they believe in Scientology more than family, that’s when you can start questioning people and why and how they have been hurt. And also, Mr. Farrakhan,” she concluded, “the name is Leah Re-mi-ni. Remini.”
