Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

The impulse to believe the absurd when presented with the unknowable is called religion. Whether this is wise or unwise is the domain of doctrine. Once you understand someone's doctrine, you understand their rationale for believing the absurd. At that point, it may no longer seem absurd. You can get to both sides of this conondrum from here.

Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:07 am

Inside the Church of Scientology: An Exclusive Interview with L. Ron Hubbard, Jr.
by Penthouse
© 1983 Penthouse
June, 1983 Cover Story

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"Scientology and all the other cults are one-dimensional, and we live in a three-dimensional world. Cults are as dangerous as drugs. They commit the highest crime: the rape of the soul." L. Ron Hubbard Jr.

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For more than twenty years L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., has been a man on the run. He has changed residences, occupations, and even his name in 1972 to Ron DeWolf to escape what he alleges to be the retribution and wrath of his father and his father's organization-- the Church of Scientology. His father, L. Ron Hubbard. Sr., founder and leader of Scientology, has been a figure of controversy and mystery, as has been his organization, for more than a generation. Its detractors have called it the "granddaddy" and the worst of all the religious cults that have sprung up over the last generation. Its advocates-- and there are thousands--swear that the church is the avenue for human perfection and happiness. Millions of words have been written for and against Scientology. Just what is the truth?

L. Ron Hubbard, Sr., and the very few who have worked at the highest echelons of the organization have never spoken publicly about the workings and finances of the Church of Scientology. Firsthand allegations about coercion, black-mail, and just how billions of dollars the organization is said to possess have been accrued and spent is lacking: that is, until very recently. In an extraordinary petition brought November 10, 1982, in Superior Court in Riverside, Calif., by L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., to prove that his father is dead and that his heirs should receive the tens of millions of dollars being dissipated from his estate, some of the mystery about Scientology has begun to unravel. Some of the details are shocking.

L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., is a survivor. His appearance on earth, May 7, 1934, was the result of failed abortion rituals by his father, and Ron, after only six and a half months in the womb and at 2.2 pounds entered the world. His mother, Margeret ("Polly") Grubb, was to have one more child, Catherine May, before her husband ditched her in 1946 to enter into a bigamous marnage with Sarah Northrup. A half sister, Alexis Valerie, survived that union. Soon after that, the founder of Scientology married Mary Sue Whipp, the current Mrs. L. Ron Hubbard, Sr., who at this writing is serving four years in federal prison for stealing government documents. There were four childrens: Diana and Quentin, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1976; Arthur, who has been missing for several years; and Suzette.

Ron Jr. says that he remembers much of his childhood. He claims to recall, at six years, a vivid scene of his father performing an abortion ritual on his mother with a coat hanger. He remembers that when he was ten years old, his father, in an attempt to get his son in tune with his black-magic worship, laced the young hubbard's bubble gum with phenobarbital. Drugs were an important part of Ron Jr.'s growing up, as his father believed that they were the best way to get closer to Satan --the Antichrist of black magic.

Ron Jr. also recalls a hard-drinking, drug-abusing father who would mistreat his mother and other women, but who, when, under the influence, would delight in telling his son all of his exploits. Finally, Ron Jr. remembers his father as a "broke science-fiction writer" who espoused that the road to riches and glory lay in selling religion to the masses.

Nineteen fifty was a watershed year for the sixteen-year-old Ron Jr., when his father's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published. While in the 1980s self-help books hold little novelty, Dianetics was a pioneer of that genre. Happiness in 1950 could be a reality, if only one practiced the strange amalgam of science fiction and psychoanalysis offered in the senior Hubbard's best-seller. It was an unexpected success for Hubbard, then living in New Jersey, when the mailman would deliver daily sacks of letters from the unhappy and desperate who had read the book and wanted L. Ron Hubbard to take them to the promised land. It was a dream come true --a science-fiction writer who not only created a world of fantasy but packaged it and sold it as reality.

In 1950 L. Ron Hubbard opened a Dianetics clinic, where the hopeful and newly converted could come, for a fee, and their ills --from loneliness to cancer --would be cured. Danetics was the new Scientific Revolution. and L. Ron Hubbard was its prophet.

Scientology is essentially a self-help therapy. It is based on one premise that by recalling negative experiences or "engrams", a person can free himself from repressed feelings that cripple his life. This liberation process is assisted by a counselor called an "auditor" who charges up to hundreds of dollars a session. The auditor's basic aid is the "E-meter", a skin galvanometer that is said to help him ascertain the problems of his client.

Soon the New Jersey authorities and the American Medical Association challenged the veracity of the new faith. L. Ron Hubbard met the challenge by fleeing the state (not the last time this was to happen). A frequent memory of Ron Jr. is his father's packing up shoe boxes with thousands of dollars to move on to greener and safer pastures.

Coming into manhood in the early fifties, Ron Jr. learned the virtues of flimflam and keeping one step ahead of the law and creditors. But he admits that he accepted his father's teachings and example as correct. By the time his father started the modern Church of Scientology in Arizona and New Jersey in 1953, young Hubbard was not only a disciple but a willing organizer in the new movement. He was to be so throughout the 1950s.

While Ron Jr. may never have questioned his father and the mushrooming cult of Scientology, a growing uneasiness began to take hold of him. In 1953 he married Henrietta, whom he never allowed to join the church. They were to have six children --Deborah, Leif, Esther, Eric, Harry and Alex, age twelve, who suffers from Down's Syndrome-- plus six grandchildren, none or whom were ever members of Scientology. The importance of family life, especially in contrast to his own up-bringing, caused Ron Jr. to question his life as a member of Scientology, albeit privately. Other factors also caused Ron Jr. to think about breaking away from the cult that was dominating his life. His father's autocratic and arbitrary control of Scientology often led to violence, and the young Hubbard began to be disturbed by his own participation. Certain questionable transactions involving drug dealing and the transfer of large sums of money abroad by his father was another troubling factor. But, he says, the breaking point came over his father's involvement with the Russians. Finally, in 1959, when his father was in Australia, Ron, his wife, and two children fled the Church of Scientology.

According to Ron Jr., life was to become a nightmarish existence. No matter, where the family went in the United States, it would not take long for a member of the organization to find them. Because he knew too much about Scientology and its founder, Ron says, attempts were made to ensure his silence. For many years L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. kept a low profile.

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Keeping silent did not end Ron's terror of what his father and followers might do to him and his family. In 1976 his half brother Quentin died under mysterious circumstances that Ron is certain was murder. Quentin, a son of Scientology's leader, was a drug abuser and an embarrassment to his father. Whether all these questions were signs ot paranoia finally became less important to Ron than discovering, once and for all, the truth about his father. In 1980 Ron became convinced that his father was dead, and that his death was being kept a secret by the Church of Scientology, lest knowledge of his death cause chaos in the organization. He filed his petition and an open war was declared. Should he win the suit by proving that his father is either dead or incompetent, Ron and other family members will receive the millions of dollars believed to be part of L. Ron Hubbard's estate.

For some thirty years, stories, rumors, and innuendo about the Church of Scientology have been whispered, and sometimes reported, internationally. Obviously, the final judgment of L. Ron Hubbard. Jr., and his allegations remains to be made. But because of his high-level involvement for such a long time with this controversial organization, he himself has become a newsworthy figure. To find out what this man at the center of an international firestorm is like. Penthouse sent contributing editor Allan Sonnenschein to Carson City, Nev, where he met Hubbard in the small three-bedroom apartment in which he lives (he manages the apartment complex). "DeWolf." Sonnenschein told us, "is a stocky and ruddy-complexioned man, with thinning red hair. Despite his almost continuous involvement with lawyers of both sides of his case, DeWolf was very relaxed during the several hours. I spent with him. He seemed convinced that his desire to tell his story after all these years was of vital importance ... and he spoke with a firmness and intensity befitting a person who claims to be risking his life by speaking out."

Because of the seriousness of Mr. DeWolf's charges and because his father has affected the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people, Penthouse will be launching an independent investigation of these charges. The results will be published in a forthcoming issue.

Penthouse: Before you filed your lawsuit and began speaking openly about Scientology, there was very little news of it in the media. Why do you think there has been so little investigation of Scientology?

Hubbard: it's very simple. Scientology has always had a "fair-game doctrine"--a policy of doing absolutely anything to stop an investigation or publication of a critical article in a magazine or newspaper. They have run some incredible operations on the several people who have tried to write books about Scientology. It was almost like a terror campaign. First they'd try throwing every possible lawsuit at the reporter or newspaper. We had a team of attorneys to do just that. The goal was to destroy the enemy. So the solution was always to attack, full-bore, with every possible resource, from every angle, instantaneously it can certainly be overwhelming. A guy would get slapped with twenty-seven lawsuits, and our lawyers would start depositioning absolutely anybody who ever knew the man, digging up dirt while at the same time putting together an operation that would get him into further trouble. I know of one case, concerning Paulette Cooper, who wrote a book called The Scandal of Scientology, in which they spent almost $500.000 trying to destroy her.

Penthouse: So you think the press was intimidated?

Hubbard: Oh, absolutely. All the way through, since the fifties. I found this very sad. It seemed very much like Germany in the thirties. The freedom of the press seemed buried. They got scared. They thought. "Well, who wants to go through ten years of lawsuits, just because we printed the name L. Ron Hubbard?" I'm delighted to see that Penthouse has the balls to print this interview.

Penthouse: Why do you think it's so risky?

Hubbard: My father drilled into all of us: Don't go to court thinking to win a lawsuit. You go to court to harass, to delay, to exhaust the enemy financially, physically, mentally. You file every motion you can think of and you just lock them up in court. The courts, for my father, were never used to seek justice or redress, put to destroy the people he thought were enemies, to prevent negative stories from appearing. He just wanted complete control of the press --and got it.

Penthouse: What exactly is Scientology?

Hubbard: Scientology is a power-and-money-and-intelligence-gathering game. To use common, everyday English, Scientology says that you and I and everybody else willed ourselves into being hundreds of trillions of years ago --just by deciding to be. We willed ourselves into being ourselves. Through wild space games, interaction, fights, and wars in the grand science-fiction tradition, we created this universe --all the matter, energy, space, and time of this universe. And so through these trillions of years, we have become the effect of our own cause and we now find ourselves trapped in bodies. So the idea of Scientology "auditing" or "counseling" or "processing" is to free yourself from your body and to return you to the original godlike state or, in Scientology jargon, an operating Thetan -- O.T. We are all fallen gods, according to Scientology, and the goal is to be returned to that state.

Penthouse: And what is the Church of Scientology?

Hubbard: It's one of my father's many organizations. It was formed in 1953, basically to avoid the harassment of my father by the medical profession and the IRS. The idea of Scientology didn't really exist before that point as a religion, but my father hit upon turning it into a church after he started feeling pressured.

Penthouse: Didn't your father have any interest in helping people?

Hubbard: No.

Penthouse: Never?

Hubbard: My father started out as a broke science-fiction writer. He was always broke in the late 1940s. He told me and a lot of other people that the way to make a million was to start a religion. Then he wrote the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health while he was in Bayhead, New Jersey. When we later visited Bayhead, in about 1953, we were walking around and reminiscing --he told me that he had written the book in one month.

Penthouse: There was no church when he wrote the book?

Hubbard: Oh, no, no. You see, his goal was basically to write the book, take the money and run. But in 1950, this was the first major book of do-it-yourself psychotherapy, and it became a runaway best-seller. He kept getting, literally, mail trucks full of mail. And so he and some other people, including J. W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction , started the Dianetics Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And the post office kept backing up and just dumping mail sacks into the building. The foundation had a staff that just ran through the envelopes and threw away anything that didn't have any money in it.

Penthouse: People sent money?

Hubbard: Yeah, they wanted training and further Dianetic auditing, Dianetic processing. It was just an incredible avalanche.

Penthouse: Did he write the book off the top of his head? Did he do any real research?

Hubbard: No research at all. When he has answered that question over the years, his answer has changed according to which biography he was writing. Sometimes he used to write a new biography every week. He usually said that he had put thirty years of research into the book. But no, he did not. What he did, really, was take bits and pieces from other people and put them together in a blender and stir them all up --and out came Dianetics! All the examples in the book --some 200 "real-life experiences" --were just the result of his obsessions with abortions and unconscious states... In fact, the vast majority of those incidents were invented off the top of his head. The rest stem from his own secret life, which was deeply involved in the occult and black-magic. That involvement goes back to when he was sixteen, living in Washington. D.C. He got hold of the book by Alistair Crowley called The Book of Law. He was very interested in several things that were the creation of what some people call the Moon Child. It was basically an attempt to create an immaculate conception --except by Satan rather than by God. Another important idea was the creation of what they call embryo implants --of getting a satanic or demonic spirit to inhabit the body of a fetus. This would come about as a result of black-magic rituals, which included the use of hypnosis, drugs, and other dangerous and destructive practices. One of the important things was to destroy the evidence if you failed at this immaculate conception. That's how my father became obsessed with abortions. I have a memory of this that goes back to when I was six years old. It is certainly a problem for my father and for Scientology that I remember this. It was around 1939, 1940, that I watched my father doing something to my mother. She was lying on the bed and he was sitting on her, facing her feet. He had a coat hanger in his hand. There was blood all over the place. I remember my father shouting at me. "Go back to bed!" A little while later a doctor came and took her off to the hospital. She didn't talk about it for quite a number of years. Neither did my father.

Penthouse: He was trying to perform an abortion?

Hubbard: According to him and my mother, he tried to do it with me. I was born at six and a half months and weighed two pounds, two ounces. I mean, I wasn't born: this is what came out as a result of their attempt to abort me. It happened during a night of partying -- he got involved in trying to do a black-magic number. Also, I've got to complete this by saying that he thought of himself as the Beast 666 incarnate.

Penthouse: The devil?

Hubbard: Yes. The Antichrist. Alastair Crowley thought of himself as such. And when Crowley died in 1947, my father then decided that he should wear the cloak of the beast and become the most powerful being in the universe.

Penthouse: You were sixteen years old at that time. What did you believe in?

Hubbard: I believed in Satanism. There was no other religion in the house! Scientology and black magic. What a lot of people don't realize is that Scientology is black magic that is just spread out over a long time period. To perform black magic generally takes a few hours or, at most, a few weeks. But in Scientology it's stretched out over a lifetime, and so you don't see it. Black magic is the inner core of Scientology --and it is probably the only part of Scientology that really works. Also, you've got to realize that my father did not worship Satan. He thought he was Satan. He was one with Satan. He had a direct pipeline of communication and power with him. My father wouldn't have worshiped anything. I mean, when you think you're the most powerful being in the universe, you have no respect for anything, let alone worship.

Penthouse: Let's get back to how you saw Scientology working on an individual basis. What if someone wrote to your father asking if he could cure their cancer?

Hubbard: He'd say, Oh, yes, he could handle that.

Penthouse: And what would be the charge for curing cancer?

Hubbard: Back in those days it was anywhere from $10 to $25 an hour. Now, it's up to $300 or more an hour.

Penthouse: What exactly did that pay for?

Hubbard: To be audited. In the old days, the patient would lie on a couch and the auditor would sit in a chair and counsel. The words auditing, counseling, and processing are really the same in Scientology.

Penthouse: What would be discussed?

Hubbard: They would say that the cancer and its cure are just incidental to the main problem of one's "spiritual development." And according to Dianetics and Scientology, the explanation for cancer is basically that you have a sex problem?

Penthouse: A sex problem?

Hubbard: Right.

Penthouse: How did he figure that?

Hubbard: Quite simply, according to my father. Cancer is basically cells that are dividing out of control, and so, according to my father, the problem is a sexual thing. Therefore the cancer is rooted in a sexual problem. If you have cancer, you are really screwed up on sex. So what would happen in this auditing --I don't know what it's like now, but it's probably just the same as in the old days --is that they would address a guy's entire sex life. There was certainly an incredible preoccupation. In Dianetics and Scientology, about sex was a great means of control. You have complete control of someone if you have every detail of his sex life and fantasy life on record.

Penthouse: What if someone who went thought the training just wanted to drop out?

Hubbard: There was no way. There were thousands of people, back in the fifties who would come in and receive various levels of training, such as a Hubbard Certified Auditor's Certificate or a Bachelor of Scientology or a Doctorate of Scientology, and if they didn't toe the mark as my father wanted them to, then we would cancel their certificates. And then he would notify the Scientologists in the area where the man lived not to have anything to do with him, to disconnect from him. And if information was available about him, we would spread that information around to his wife, his family, his children, where he worked, everywhere. It was straight blackmail. It was "Stay in the fold or else." Then, later on, they developed what they called an ethics review board. If you didn't toe the mark, you'd be put on trial in front of a kangaroo court and then be sentenced to maybe scrub floors. I heard that you had to walk around with a dirty rag tied around your arm like a badge. You could be made to do anything. You would be locked in a chain locker or handcuffed to a bed. This is in later years. We were simpler in the fifties, more direct. I just went out and beat them up.

(For my father, the courts were used to destroy people he thought were enemies ... I'm delighted to see that Penthouse has the balls to print this interview.)

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Penthouse: Physical beatings?

Hubbard: Yeah. We'd strong-arm them. I did it myself. And you had to realize that I weighed around 240 pounds in those days. When I taught Scientology, no students ever blew my courses! I would go out and physically retrieve my students. You know, the Scientologists are now trying to make me out to be the worst person since Attila the Hun. They forget that when I was director of training for the organization, I trained literally thousands of people. I created a lot of the Scientology processes and procedures throughout the fifties. I really helped create and run the organization. I was very deeply involved, very directly, for seven years, during its formulation and building. So I find their attempts to discredit me amusing. I used to have a thing about saying that nobody ever ran out of my courses. If you think est is tough, you ought to have taken courses under me in the fifties!

Penthouse: What would happen if someone went to your class, decided it was bullshit, and never came back?

Hubbard: If you signed up for a course and you came to my class, I'd keep you there or go physically retrieve you if you left.

Penthouse: You'd already gotten the money, so why did you bother?

Hubbard: Because I thought I was all-knowing, all-powerful --totally arrogant and egotistical --for one thing. I was quite insufferable.

Penthouse: Your father knew this was going on?

Hubbard: Well, sure. Nobody did a thing in Scientology without his direct knowledge or consent or without his orders.

Penthouse: Did it ever go beyond these physical beatings?

Hubbard: I remember locking one girl up in a shack out in the desert for at least a couple of weeks.

Penthouse: Why were things like this never publicized?

Hubbard: Because the same reign of terror that occurred under Robespierre and Hitler occurred back then in the fifties, as it occurs now. You must realize that there is very little actual courage in this world. It's pretty easy to bend people around. It doesn't take much to shut people up, it really doesn't. In the fifties all I had to do was call a guy up on the telephone and say, "Well, I think your wife would like to know about your mistress." The response would be a shocked "Oh, my God!" I'd say, "Well, nobody really wants to divulge that kind of information. I think it would be absolutely terrible if your wife found out, so I'm going to make absolutely sure that she doesn't find out. Now, if you just drop in here for a little more auditing ... Now you know in your heart that the critical things you've been saying about Scientology are just vindictive. They're not really true in your heart. You know that, don't you?" And the guy says. "Yeah, sure, I sure do know that!" And then, if Scientologists couldn't blackmail you, they'd create some dirt on you through their "special operations." There were quite a few of those operations. This one, for example, happened recently. I wasn't involved in it, but Scientologists tried to get an assistant attorney general of the state of California embroiled in a fake operation where a Scientologist pretended to be a nun and pretended to get pregnant by him and filed papers against him. Then in another scheme they tried to set up the mayor of Clearwater, Florida, for a fake hit-and-run accident. I could give you operation after operation that they set up like this.

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Penthouse: This has been going on since the fifties?

Hubbard: Sure. It was pretty tame back then compared to very sophisticated operations like they have now. When we hid assets, for example --I remember being in Philadelphia when the FBI anc the U.S. Marshall's Office were after my father on a contempt-of-court charge. There I was running across town with my father with our complete mailing list and a suitcase full of money! Heading for the hills!

Penthouse: Where did the money end up?

Hubbard: A lot of it went abroad. But my father always kept a great deal of it around his bedroom so that he could flee at a moment's notice. In shoe boxes. He distrusted banks.

Penthouse: What kind of money are we talking about?

Hubbard: Back then? Hundreds of thousands at least. The last time I saw my father, in 1959, he mentioned that he had at least $20 million salted away.

Penthouse: Did he invest the money?

Hubbard: No. He wanted to stay really liquid. Very fluid, so he could cut and run at any time.

Penthouse: Where did all this money come from? How much did it cost to be audited, in Scientology parlance?

Hubbard: It cost as much as a person had. He had to stay in the organization, getting audited higher and higher, until he paid us as much as he had. People would sell their house, their car, convert their stocks and securities into cash, and turn it all over to Scientology.

Penthouse: What did you promise them for this price?

Hubbard: We promised them the moon and then demonstrated a way to get there. They would sell their soul for that. We were telling someone that they could have the power of a god -- that's what we were telling them.

Penthouse: What kind of people were tempted by this promise?

Hubbard: A whole range of people. People who wanted to raise their IQ, to feel better, to solve their problems. You also got people who wished to lord it over other people in the use of power. Remember, it's a power game, a matter of climbing a pyramidal hierarchy to the top, and it's who you can step on to get more power that counts. It appeals a great deal to neurotics. And to people who are greedy. It appeals a great deal to Americans, I think, because they tend to believe in instant everything, from instant coffee to instant nirvana. By just saying a few magic words or by doing a few assignments, one can become a god. People believe this. You see, Scientology doesn't really address the soul; it addresses the ego. What happens in Scientology is that a person's ego gets pumped up by this science-fiction fantasy helium into universe-sized proportions. And this is very appealing. It is especially appealing to the intelligentsia of this country, who are made to feel that they are the most highly intelligent people, when in actual fact, from an emotional standpoint, they are completely stupid. Fine professors, doctors, scientists, people involved in the arts and sciences, would fall into Scientology like you wouldn't believe. It appealed to their intellectual level and buttressed their emotional weaknesses. You show me a professor and I revert back to the fifties: I just kick him in the head, eat him for breakfast.

Penthouse: Did it attract young people as much as cults today?

Hubbard: Yes. We attracted quite a few hippies but we tried to stay a way from them, because they didn't have any money.

Penthouse: A poor man can't be a Scientologist?

Hubbard: No, oh no.

Penthouse: What do you think of the great popularity of cults in this country?

Hubbard: I think they're very dangerous and destructive. I don't think that anyone should think for you. And that's exactly what cults do. All cults, including Scientology, say, "I am your mind, I am your brain. I've done all the work for you, I've laid the path open for you. All you have to do is turn your mind off and walk down the path I have created." Well, I have learned that there's great strength in diversity, that a clamorous discussion or debate is very healthy and should be encouraged. That's why I like our political setup in the United States: simply because you can fight and argue and jump up and down and shout and scream and have all kinds of viewpoints, regardless of how wrongheaded or ridiculous they might be. People here don't have to give up their right to perceive things the way they believe. Scientology and all the other cults are one-dimensional, and we live in a three-dimensional world. Cults are as dangerous as drugs. They commit the highest crime: the rape of the soul.

Penthouse: You mentioned that Scientology attracted a great many well-known or important people. Can you give us some examples?

Hubbard: Two of the people we were involved with in the late fifties in England were Errol Flynn and a man who was high up in the Labor Party at the time. My father and Errol Flynn were very similar. They were only interested in money, sex, booze, and drugs. At that time, in the late fifties, Flynn was pretty much of a burned-out hulk. But he was involved in smuggling deals with my father: gold from the Mediterranean, and some drugs --mostly cocaine. They were both just a little larger than life. I had to admire my father from one standpoint. As I've said, he was a down-and-out, broke science-fiction writer, and then he writes one book of science-fiction and convinces the world it's true. He sells it to millions of people and gets billions of dollars and everyone thinks he's some sort of deity. He was really bigger than life. Flynn was like that, too. You could say many negative things about the two of them, but they did as they pleased and lived as they pleased. It was always fun to sit there at dinner and listen to these two guys rap. Wild people. Errol Flynn was like my father also in that he would do anything for money. He would take anything to bed --boys, girls, Fifty-year-old women, ten-year-old boys, Flynn and my father had insatiable appetites. Tons of mistresses. They lived very high on the hog.

Penthouse: And what about this Labor Party official?

Hubbard: He was a double agent for the KGB and for the British intelligence agency. He was also a raging homosexual. He wanted my father to use his black-magic, soul-cracking, brainwashing techniques on young boys. He wanted these boys as his own sexual slaves. He wanted to use my father's techniques to crack people's heads open because he was very influential in and around the British government --plus he was selling information to the Russians. And so was my father.

Penthouse: Your father was selling information to the Soviets?

Hubbard: Yes. That's where my father got the money to buy St. Hill Manor in East Grinstead, Sussex, which is the English headquarters of Scientology today.

Penthouse: What information did your father have to sell the Soviet government?

Hubbard: He didn't do any spying himself. What he normally did was allow these strange little people to go into the offices and into his home at odd hours of the night. He told me that he was allowing the KGB to go through our files, and that he was charging £40,000 for it. This was the money he used for the purchase of St. Hill Manor.

Penthouse: Do you know any specific information that the KGB got from your father that might have been harmful to security?

Hubbard: The plans for an infrared heat-seeking missile in the early fifties. They obtained the information by extensive auditing of the guy who was one of the head engineers. There were great infiltrations clear to this day. There has always been an inordinate interest on the part of Scientology in military and government personnel. There's no way for me to prove it sitting here, but I believe that the KGB trained East German agents who came via Denmark to London to the United States who were, supposedly, Scientologists. They made very good Scientologists. They were very well trained.

Penthouse: Did your father do this just for money?

Hubbard: Yes. The more he made, the more he wanted. He became greedy. He was really just interested in the use of money and power, wherever it was or whosoever's it was. Morality and politics made no difference to him at all.

Penthouse: Did the Labor Party official get any of his young men via Scientology?

Hubbard: Yes. The British were ripe for Scientology. The British school system fosters lesbianism and homosexuality, because from the time you're born until you're in your twenties, all you see is the same sex. The schools are so segregated. And you'll notice in Scientology the focus on sex. Sex, sex, sex. The first thing we wanted to know about someone we were auditing was his sexual deviations. You know, in actual fact, very few people exclusively practice missionary-style sex. So all you've got to do is find a person's kinks, whatever they might be. Their dreams and their fantasies. And if you find that central core, their sexual drives and desires and fantasies, then you can fit a ring through their noses and take them anywhere. You promise to fulfill their fantasies or you threaten to expose them --very simple. And People do have outrageous sexual fantasies. Nothing wrong with that --I'm the last guy on earth who should make a value judgment about somebody's sexual practices. But once you find their sexual core, you've got them. And you find this by brainwashing, through auditing, through interrogation, investigations, following them, photographing them, tapping their phones, whatever.

Penthouse: You did all that?

Hubbard: Sure.

Penthouse: Were there any other high level British government people in Scientology?

Hubbard: There was a member of Winston Churchill's medical staff. We had him by the balls.

Penthouse: Did he give you any information about Churchill?

Hubbard: Yes, certainly. You see, these people didn't realize where their information was going. They always thought that in Scientology auditing they had the priest-confessor's confidentiality -- but it was never that way. People just assumed it, and still do. But everybody knew what was in everybody's files.

Penthouse: What was the first example you can remember of your father's espionage activity?

Hubbard: I remember one day in 1944 when he came home from the naval base where he was stationed in Oregon with a big, gray metal box under his arm. He put it in our little attached garage and put a tarp over it. That weekend a couple of funny little guys came over to the house. I remember it was summer and they were wearing heavy woolen overcoats -- dark brown overcoats. It stuck in my mind: what are they doing wearing overcoats when it's hotter than hell? I was only about ten at the time. Anyway, these big, sweating guys take the box and put in in their car and drive off. But before they'd come, I'd snuck a look in the box. It had this strange-looking object in it. I didn't know what the hell it was. Later on, in the fifties, I was walking through a war surplus store and I suddenly saw an object that was just like the one I'd seen in the box. It was the heart of the radar. During the war -- when those men took it from our garage -- it was super-secret, super-valuable, worth thousands of dollars. I remember that people were told to commit suicide if it ever got captured in order to blow it up.

Then, in 1955, I went to work in the Scientology office in London. I noticed a woman in the office doing strange things with strange people in the office, so I investigated her. I found out she was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. I got very angry at her and broke into her apartment, where I found dozens of little code pads. They looked like little milk pads with a whole mess of letters and numbers on them. I had people follow her to the Russian Embassy. I finally wrote a long report to my father about her. He was furious. He told me not to investigate anymore, not to write anymore, not to tell anyone what I had found out, to destroy all my evidence. I yelled at him, "The goddamn Russians are running around the office and doing God knows what." He yelled back. "I want 'em there!" He told me that she was placed there by the KGB with his knowledge and consent. This really bothered me. My grandfather, who was a lieutenant commander in the navy, had impressed me with his red-white-and-blue honor and integrity. He was an officer of the old school. 180 degrees different from my father, in fact, I credit him a great deal with my ability to get rid of Scientology and get my head straightened out, because his patriotism had gotten through to me and made me sour on what my father was doing in dealing with the Russians.

Penthouse: Was this why you became disenchanted with Scientology?

Hubbard: It was the beginning. I began to see that my father was a sick, sadistic, vicious man. I saw more and more parallels between his behavior and what I read about the way Hitler thought and acted. I was realizing that my father really wanted to destroy his enemies and take over the world. Whoever was perceived as his enemy had to be destroyed, including me. This [was the] "fair game" policy since the beginning. The organization couldn't exist without it. It keeps people very quiet.

Penthouse: Do you mean killed?

Hubbard: Well, he didn't really want people killed, because how could you really destroy them if you just killed them? What he wanted to do was to destroy their lives, their families, their reputations, their jobs, their money, everything. My father was the type of person who, when it came to destruction, wanted to keep you alive for as long as possible, to torture you, punish you. If he chose to destroy you, he would love to see you lying in the gutter, strung out on booze and drugs, rolling in your own vomit, with your wife and children gone forever: no job, no money. He'd enjoy walking by and kicking you and saying to other people, "Look what I did to this man!" He's the kind of man who would pull the wings off flies and watch them stumble around. You see, this fits in with his Scientology beliefs, also. He felt that if you just died, your spirit would go out and get another body to live in. By destroying an enemy that way, you'd be doing him a favor. You were letting him out from under the thumb of L. Ron. Hubbard, you see?

Penthouse: It's been said that many Scientologists have similar philosophies.

Hubbard: Yes. Many are sadistic, just like he was. Very Teutonic, very Gestapo.

Penthouse: Do you think they would stop at murder?

Hubbard: Many wouldn't. The one super-secret sentence that Scientology is built on is: "Do as thou wilt." That is the whole of the law. It also comes from the black magic, from Alistair Crowley. It means that you are a law unto yourself, that you are above the law, that you create your own law. You are above any other human considerations. Since you came into being by an act of will, you can do anything you will. If you decide to go out and kill somebody --bam! --that's it. An act of will. Not connected, to any emotions or feelings, not governed by any ethics or morality or law. They are very vicious people. Totally into attack. Most people think these people are so insane and wild and berserk and unpredictable. Not to me. Insane people are very predictable, because they're trapped on the same mental and spiritual merry-go-round and all they can do is go round and round. For years I've been able to Counter them --to stay alive --simply because I was one of them. I had a helluva good teacher.

Penthouse: Was your father violent in his behavior with his family?

Hubbard: Not to me. But he beat up a lot of women very badly. Blood, black eyes, busted teeth, the whole thing. He beat the holy hell out of women. His rages were incredible. I've read reports of the kinds of rages Hitler used to have, and they sound just like my father's. He was especially touchy about food. He would always have somebody else at the table sample everything on the table before he'd eat it. I've seen him pick up an entire dinner table and throw it against the wall if he didn't like the food or thought it was suspicious. He got very strange in the fifties. He had to have his clothes washed and washed and washed. He would take showers half a dozen times a day. I have often wondered if all of this might have been caused by the massive amounts of drugs and medication he took.

Penthouse: Did your father take a lot of drugs?

Hubbard: Yes. Since he was sixteen. You see, drugs are very important in the application of heavy black magic. The personal use of drugs expands one's conscious ability to break open the doors to the realm of the deep.

Penthouse: What kind of drugs did he generally use?

Hubbard: At various times, just about everything, because he was quite a hypochondriac. Cocaine, peyote, amphetamines, barbiturates. It would be shorter to list what he didn't take.

Penthouse: Did he encourage you to do drugs?

Hubbard: Well, he used them with me. He was a real night person. We used to sit around all night, sit around his office or home, get loaded up, and talk. He had a pretty liquid tongue. He loved to talk. And of course, in the fifties, he decided that I was the heir apparent, so he wanted to teach me everything he knew. He started me out by mixing phenobarbital into my bubble gum, when I was ten years old. This was to induce deeper trances in order to practice the black magic and to get an avenue to power.

Penthouse: How exactly would this work?

Hubbard: The explanation is sort of long and complicated. The basic rationale is that there are some powers in this universe that are pretty strong. As an example, Hitler was involved in the same black magic and the same occult practices that my father was. The identical ones. Which, as I have said, stem clear back to before Egyptian times. It's a very secret thing. Very powerful and very workable and very dangerous. Brainwashing is nothing compared to it. The proper term would be "soul cracking." It's like cracking open the soul, which then opens various doors to the power that exists, the satanic and demonic powers. Simply put, it's like a tunnel or an avenue or a doorway. Pulling that power into yourself through another person --and using women, especially -- is incredibly insidious. It makes Dr. Fu Manchu look like a kindergarten student. It is the ultimate vampirism, the ultimate mind-fuck, instead of going for blood, you're going for their soul. And you take drugs in order to reach that state where you can, quite literally, like a psychic hammer, break their soul, and pull the power through. He designed his Scientology Operating Thetan techniques to do the same thing. But, of course, it takes a couple of hundred hours of auditing and mega-thousands of dollars for the privilege of having your head turned into a glass Humpty Dumpty --shattered into a million pieces. It may sound like incredible gibberish, but it made my father a fortune.

Penthouse: When was the last time your father was seen in public?

Hubbard: Sometime in the sixties he granted an interview to British television. After that he didn't appear in public and just slowly became a recluse. One of the reasons he became a recluse was his own physical and mental condition was deteriorating so badly that he couldn't let the public or the Scientology membership know just what kind of shape he was in. He was a testament to the fact that Scientology didn't work.

Penthouse: Looking over the past twenty-odd years of your life, what would you have done differently?

Hubbard: That's a complex question, guess if I had it to do all over. I would do the same thing. With a father like mine. I don't think I could live it differently. It's been twenty-three years of hell, but sometimes you have to go through hell to get to heaven. It's been a very exciting life. I can say that. We come from a long line of rogues and scoundrels, going back 200 or 300 years, at least. And so I guess we're built for this kind of life. I've said that I am a preacher of adversity and controversy, and I thrive on it. Plus maybe by our example, people will quit trying for god-ship.

Penthouse: What if your father's alive? Would you be able to confront him?

Hubbard: Yes I would love to.

Penthouse: Do you have any fear of him?

Hubbard: No if he is sick, I would make sure he receives the best treatment I could find in the world for him. I consider him a victim of all this as much as I consider myself a victim of his own involvement with black magic, drugs and his own delusions. He became a victim of himself.

Penthouse: Many people would say that your father is guilty of a great many sins and crimes. Do you think he should be punished?

Hubbard: He hasn't escaped punishment. I think at this juncture, dead or alive, he fell into his own insanity, and that's quite sufficient punishment. That is the most terrible jail of all, to be trapped inside his own head. With him it must be like being locked inside an exploding fireworks factory with no way out.

Penthouse: Have you ever wished your father dead?

Hubbard: I don't believe so, no. Regardless of the things he's done to me -- we had a helluva good time!

Penthouse: Ripping the world off?

Hubbard: We did! I enjoyed my life then, and I enjoy it now. And really, as far as crimes go. I think my father has received the ultimate punishment, which is being locked and trapped in his own insanity. There's no way out for him.

Scientology Responds

In order to present both sides of the controversy involving the Church of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard Sr. to our readers, Penthouse Contributing Editor Allan Sonnenschein conducted a lengthy interview by telephone with the Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the church. Excerpts from that interview follow.

Jentzsch: Let me say this: The media have been hyped by a number of people who are criminal - extortionists - perverts - etc. - and they make all these claims, and then you're supposed to respond to them. The credibility of the individual is just out the bottom. And I don't find it instructive for us to just sit and respond to a bunch of allegations.

Penthouse: Is it true, as DeWolf claims, that Scientology is an extremely expensive and time-consuming process?

Jentzsch: It isn't expensive if one is looking at something that works. And Scientology is an extremely workable system. The churches that I know of - and I deal with religious leaders all across the country - some of them have a tithing system, and they pay it for their entire lifetime. That can be quite a bit of money, and it's also worthwhile. But let's move it out of the religious field and look at the psychiatrists, and they're running all this crazy stuff, you know? You've got psychiatrists who are essentially charging an arm and a leg for electric shock psychosurgery, drugging, all kinds of things which really are destructive to the individual. And they're funded by the state for those activities, into the billions. So Scientology comes along. First of all, it can be done from a person picking up a book like Dianetics as I said. And it costs them the price of the book. Or it can be done from the standpoint of the professional counselors and so forth. Mr. DeWolf hasn't been with the church for twenty-four years, so he's hardly an authority on where we are at the present time. But it's like you say - is it expensive or time consuming? Well, long before I joined the staff, I did Scientology extensively. I didn't find it time consuming. I found that I was able to do it and still carry on at a profession and do both.

Penthouse: Can a poor man go through Scientology counseling?

Jentzsch: Sure.

Penthouse: He can?

Jentzsch: Sure. I mean he can go on the staff, and for that he receives his counseling, and he can do the whole thing.

Penthouse: Is it true that the media have been intimidated by church members when they try to report on the organization?

Jentzsch: Ha! Well, I just say, look with your own eyes. If they're intimidated, boy, how do you explain Time magazine, 20/20 on ABC TV, Cable Network News national, ABC TV's World News, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, reporting all in one day on Scientology? I mean, how do you explain that? I mean, give me a break!

Penthouse: The allegation has been made that the Church of Scientology has hounded ex-members who have spoken out negatively about the church.

Jentzsch: Can you give me the names?

Penthouse: Gerald Armstrong is the first that comes to mind.

Jentzsch: Mr. Armstrong is my step-son-in-law. I know him quite well. He was a clerk, and he also drove a car. And that's all he ever did. When he left, he sort of tried to raise his status. If he thinks he's been hounded by Scientologists, I'll offer this: he says he's getting phone calls? We'll go to the police and put a tap on the phone. You know what a tap is, right? It just traces the phone call. So let's find out where the phone calls are coming from, because it isn't coming from our people. And I want to know. So to every guy who's screaming that, that's the thing I offer.

Penthouse: How do you respond to charges that L. Ron Hubbard, Sr. may no longer be alive?

Jentzsch: Mr. Hubbard wrote me a letter last week. He wrote the court that has the records under seal and is keeping them in safekeeping, per our request. Now, he wrote, and he carboned me, with a very well-documented, extensive kind of forensic background in this letter. What it is is one of the top forensic scientists in this country put together an ink that could have been formulated by the second of February, 1983. He put that ink in a pen, and sent it to Mr. Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard wrote a letter to the court, carboning me, and he also placed his fingerprints on that letter underneath the ink and to the side. And top forensic analysts have proven that, that is the ink that was formulated the second of February 1983. Number two: that is his writing. Number three: those are his fingerprints. End of theme. But this letter establishes, in terms of forensic science and in terms of court-acceptable records, that Hubbard Sr. is very much in control of this whole scene and his own monies, his own life, his own activities...

Penthouse: Is it possible to speak to Mr. Hubbard?

Jentzsch: I...I don't think that Penthouse magazine, given its past activities, would ever do a decent article on Mr. Hubbard. I think they would do everything they could to try to denigrate, to try to impugn the man, to try to destroy any credibility he has... I've read Penthouse and the hate they have for anyone who is opposed to psychiatry, anyone who is opposed to electric shock and psychosurgery, as we have been... I have only to characterize it; that's the only reason they're opposed to it --that Hubbard has instituted an incredible educational capability. They hate it. Absolutely hate anything... [Editor's note: Reverend Jentzsch is not as familiar with the editorial content of Penthouse as he thinks. Among the very many critical articles on psychiatry the magazine has published are " Psychiatric Holocaust" (January 1979), "Psychiatry Kills" (April 1981), and "Electroshock: The Horror Continues" (June 1982)] My current frame of mind is that the media will have to prove to us that they have some sort of modicum of ethics and integrity... At this current point, I have no reason to trust them. None at all. I find them rapacious. I find them to be not interested in anything... Six and a half million people who are living good lives, with a tremendous capability...but I don't find the media wanting to cover any of that...

Penthouse: We feel that Mr. Hubbard has a right to respond to the allegations made by Mr. Hubbard, Jr.

Jentzsch: What you're saying is that you give a man who's a criminal the same right as a man who is not.

Penthouse: We're just trying to determine the truth.

Jentzsch: I've got to tell you, I've heard the same thing from every major media that has talked to me. And every one of them had just not one modicum of integrity.

Penthouse: We would be willing to work out any problems you might have before we meet with Mr. Hubbard.

Jentzsch: Well, I don't know that you could meet him, because I have no idea where he is... I will tell you this: if I were ever asked by Mr Hubbard, I will make sure that all of the media who have currently interviewed him will never, ever, ever, get a personal interview. I mean, I can guarantee you that Time magazine will not... I can guarantee you ABC-TV will not: I can guarantee you that all the others will not. I will promise that, and I will campaign for it if he ever decides that he wants to do a major media event of any kind or an interview of any kind. I will make sure that every one of those gentlemen never, ever, ever, ever, ever, gets an interview with him.

END
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:09 am

Is John Travolta Cracking Up? It's Not Just Grief -- and Guilt -- Over His Dead Son That Are Tearing the Actor Apart
by Paul Scott
Mail Online
July 25, 2009

Dead of night, and on a deserted Florida landing strip, the silence of the oppressively hot early hours is broken by the low whirring of an electric golf cart, driving lazy circuits.

At the wheel is a bulky, lone figure, hunched forward over the controls as he tries to kill time during another long, sleepless night.

It is a sight that has become something of a regular occurrence in recent weeks, as Hollywood star John Travolta acts out his bizarre nocturnal ritual on the private runway that services his Jumbolair estate

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Haunted star: A rare sighting of the grief-stricken John Travolta in Miami

'We often see John driving himself around at night,' one of Travolta's neighbours told me this week.

'It's sad to see. You rarely catch sight of him during the day. We used to see him driving around on a buggy with his son. Now it's just John by himself. He's always been a night owl, but now even more so.'

But then Travolta has much on his mind. Six months after the tragic death of his only son, Jett, during a family New Year holiday to the Bahamas, he is said by his closest friends to remain in a state of almost constant distress.

Work has been cancelled, the shutters pulled down, and until a rare appearance in public this week, the actor had been living the life of a virtual recluse.

His friend and fellow actor Denzel Washington, who appears with Travolta in the upcoming thriller The Taking Of Pelham 123 - which was shot before the tragedy - gave an indication of the depth of his co-star's despair: 'One minute he's OK, the next he's in tears. He's such a sweet, sweet person.'

Certainly, those around the Pulp Fiction star are privately concerned about his state of mind.

And Travolta cut a miserable figure when he was spotted for the first time in months on a flying visit to Miami this week.

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Heartbroken: John with his son Jett, who died in January

The 55-year-old actor, who was sporting an eccentric handlebar moustache and a shapeless, baggy shirt, looked bloated and puffy. He hid under a black baseball cap as he ate an unhealthy lunch of cheeseburger and chips alone outside a fast-food joint.

Few would blame the formerly lithe Saturday Night Fever and Grease star for over-indulging his long-time love of junk food as he struggles to come to terms with the death of his 16-year- old son, who died after suffering a seizure at his father's holiday villa.

But if rumours buzzing around Hollywood this week are to be believed, it's not just the death of his beloved son that has been torturing Travolta of late.

His distress, say sources close to him, has been compounded by the first cracks in his 34-year relationship with the Church of Scientology, the cult-like religion of which Travolta is a prominent and generous benefactor.

And there are dark mutterings that if he carries out private threats to leave, the organisation will go public with embarrassing details of his private life, including, it is claimed, allegations of past homosexual relationships.

Sources in the U.S. disclosed to me this week that his son's sudden death has 'deeply shaken' Travolta's faith in the strange sect, which makes wild claims about its ability to cure a variety of physical and mental disorders.

The star - who, thanks to his dedication and open cheque book, has risen to the top of the secretive organisation - is said to be angry that the religion was unable to help Jett, who was widely reported to have suffered from autism.

'There have been strong rumours coming out of Scientology that John Travolta is disappointed that the religion was not able to help his son more,' Rick Ross, an American author and lecturer on Scientology, told me this week. 'It's led him to question his faith.'

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Speculation: The actor's controversial kiss with Jeff Kathrein in 2006

Travolta is also said to be upset that senior members of the sect have instructed him to undergo intensive sessions with one of Scientology's 'ethics officers', trained to question the actor and other grieving family members to establish whether their 'negative influences' might have contributed to the tragedy.

But there is much more to this than just a questioning of a once rock-solid faith. 'I think it would be very difficult for John Travolta at this stage, given his history with the religion, to extricate himself from the Church of Scientology,' said Mr Ross, who has investigated the sect for almost 30 years.

'It would be a huge move on his part because Scientology keeps files on its celebrity members containing embarrassing personal information about them.

'And Scientology has proven in the past that it has a penchant for releasing that information to embarrass people who have left and who have said things it doesn't like.

'If celebrities leave, they tend to do it quietly and keep their mouths shut, because if they do speak out, they are opening themselves up to attack from Scientology.

'That's why I think Travolta will want to keep his problems with the Church private.'

Travolta's friends have been speculating among themselves for months that he now deeply regrets adhering so strictly to the cult's outlandish instructions over his son's medical treatment.

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Committed Scientologist: John at a book signing of Scientology founder Ron Hubbard's best seller Battlefield Earth in 2000

His sense of guilt is said to be compounded by his blind acceptance of the Church's claims that conditions such as autism do not exist, but are merely psychosomatic.

It recommends they are treated by detoxification programmes and vitamins, rather than conventional drugs.

Indeed, Travolta's wife, actress Kelly Preston, campaigns vociferously against psychiatric drugs and the family's lawyers have confirmed that Jett had been taken off the antiseizure-drug Depakote because, they say, it failed to work.

Instead, Preston 46, herself a committed Scientologist, is said to have enrolled her son on a Scientology-led Purification Rundown course.

This involved treating Jett with saunas, food supplements, Vitamin B and vegetable oils which, the sect claims, can dislodge toxins trapped in the body's fatty tissues.

Perhaps because Scientology does not recognise autism as a clinical condition, she and Travolta, who also have a nine-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu, instead claimed that Jett's condition, which rendered him virtually mute and caused up to four epileptic fits a week, was caused by the little-known Kawasaki Syndrome.

They claimed that the illness, which affects the heart and is not usually seen in children over the age of five, was caused by the carpet detergents that Travolta, who is obsessive about cleaning, insisted were used in his son's bedroom when he was a baby.

But now, it seems, the double Oscar nominee is doubting the wisdom of following Scientology's weird prescriptions.

Word of Travolta's loosening ties with Scientology is certainly a blow to the religion. He and fellow movie heart-throb Tom Cruise have been its two most significant Hollywood disciples.

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Happier times: John Travolta, his wife Kelly Preston and their children Jett and Ella in an undated family photo

Travolta is also known to have pumped millions of his own fortune into its new Superpower Centre, being built at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.

According to insiders, he has reached the rank of Operating Thetan VII, one rung below the most senior position in the Church, which adheres to the teachings of controversial 1950s science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

The author bizarrely claimed all humans are descended from Thetans, space aliens who were banished to earth 75 million years ago.

At great expense, Travolta turned another of Hubbard's novels, Battlefield Earth, into a disastrous 2000 film.

But to reach such an exalted level within Scientology, Travolta, insiders say, has had to submit himself to years of so-called 'auditing', during which disciples are connected to primitive lie-detectors and subjected to hours of questioning about their innermost secrets.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Hollywood's obsession with the secret sect, talk in the smarter salons of gossip-hungry Tinseltown is now all about what Travolta might have divulged during these sessions.

At the centre of this rather frenzied speculation has been his continued relationship with Jeff Kathrein, the fellow Scientologist whom Travolta was photographed kissing on the lips on the steps of a private plane three years ago.

Strangely, 29-year-old Kathrein, who is a wedding photographer from Florida, was described as Jett's nanny when it was revealed that he had discovered the boy's body on the floor of a bathroom in Travolta's £3million beach house in Grand Bahama last January.

It is not the first time that Travolta has been the subject of whispers about his sexuality.

In 2001, he was the subject of lurid claims that he had tried to pick up a business executive in a California health club.

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Screen star: The actor with Olivia Newton-John in the classic movie Grease

The allegations came three years after Travolta was named as a homosexual in U.S. Federal court papers, issued by a former member of the Scientology Church, who alleged the sect used the actor as an example of how gays could be 'cured' by the religion.

Earlier, the prestigious Time magazine also reported allegations made by Richard Aznaran, the former security head of Scientology, that the Church's leader, David Miscavige, had repeatedly joked about Travolta's 'promiscuous homosexual behaviour'.

Aznaran's claims came just months after the star was the subject of wild accusations in an American supermarket-tabloid that he had enjoyed a two-year affair with a gay porn star called Paul Barresi, who had a bit part in Travolta's 1985 flop, Perfect.

In the wake of Barresi's claims, Travolta - who at 37 was still a bachelor - announced his sudden engagement to Miss Preston, who was already a committed member of the sect and with whom he starred in the forgettable 1989 comedy The Experts. The couple married two years later.

The actor's only previous serious relationship was in the mid-1970s, with actress Diana Hyland.

She was 18 years his senior, but the couple moved in together after appearing in a U.S. television movie. Tragically, less than a year after they became an item, she died in his arms of breast cancer.

Despite the gossip, his marriage to Preston is one of the most enduring in Hollywood. Their three homes include a state-of-the-art £14 million Florida mansion, which was built to resemble an airport terminal and has parking for trained pilot Travolta's Boeing 707 airliner and two Gulfstream jets.

Despite this, Travolta has admitted that he and Preston have had to resort to years of marriage counselling to keep their relationship on track.

And while Preston has returned to work after the death of their son, Travolta has done much of his grieving in private.

In April, for example, he flew himself to Tahiti to spend time alone over Jett's 17th birthday.

To add to the tension, the couple are said to be dreading returning to the Bahamas at the end of September, for the trial of an ambulance driver called to treat Jett.

The man and his female accomplice are accused of trying to extort £12 million out of Travolta by threatening to go public with embarrassing private details surrounding the teenager's death.

Even so, sources told me this week that the couple are desperate to have another child. His friends can only hope that the prospect of a new life might finally lift Travolta out of his grief.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:14 pm

Letter from John Balusha, Secretary of Hubbard Association of Scientology to the Better Business Bureau of Phoenix, AZ
by John Galusha
June 12, 1954

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HUBBARD ASSOCIATION OF SCIENTOLOGISTS INTERNATIONAL

806 North Third Street

Phoenix, Arizona

June 12, 1954

Better Business Bureau
834 North Central Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona

Gentlemen:

For your interest, the Hubbard Association of Scientologists, an Arizona Corporation, has brought about certain changes in Scientology, and of which we would like to acquaint you.

Scientology is described as a science of knowingness. It is actually a modern approach, using mathematics and physics to the philosophic subject of epistemology. The goal of Scientology is to bring about greater capabilities in human beings such as increases in recognition, memory, and reaction time. Such a science would of course address various phenomena such as psychosomatic illness, aberration and behavior.

The subject of Scientology is largely the work of L. Ron Hubbard, author and scientist, who began his work in __ while a student of nuclear physics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Hubbard was also trained in psycho-analysis, studied personally with Freud and who instituted psycho-analyses in the U.S. Navy for use in flight surgery. Hubbard was also trained by Dr. William Alan White, then superintendent of St. Elizabeth's, the government asylum at Washington.

Hubbard's interest in the mind was from the standpoint of physical energy and, later, anthropology. A member of the Explorer's Club in good standing for eighteen years, Hubbard has led several expeditions and has widely studied, in Asia, Alaska, and Latin America barbaric cultures for what they might reveal concerning the motivations of humanities. In World War II he served with distinction as a naval officer and was selected as Naval Civil Affairs by reason of his knowledge of the Oriental psychology.

In 1947 Hubbard published a book for the Gerontology Society and the American Medical Association called "Scientology & New Science." Politely received, the data yet remained unstudied and so unused and Hubbard eventually followed this original publications with an article in the Explorer's Club professional journal. This article attracted the attention of some people, amongst them members of the Russian government. Hubbard saw a need to release his work in more detailed form, and received an offer from Hermitage House, Inc., one of the better publishers of psychiatric texts, he consented to write a formal book.

Here, if anywhere, Hubbard erred. Hermitage House insisted on a popularized version and a more popular name for the subject (Dianetics) and Hubbard, foreseeing no more than a few thousand copy sale, agreed. Hermitage House, altering the manuscript and writing a new introduction (a fact which became the subject of a suit) unwisely chose to publish an article about "Dianetics" by Hubbard in a pulp magazine. Hubbard, as in the case of almost any nuclear physicist, often wrote for amusement, science fiction. Hermitage House desired to capitalize on this fact to gain a sale amongst those who were familiar with Hubbard's name.

The book, called "Dianetics: Modern Science of Mental Health" startled the publishing world, and Hubbard, by climbing high into the best-seller listing of the New York Times and staying there for months. Such instant popularity found Hubbard prepared for the floods of mail and pleas for help.

Hubbard, interested only in research, financially independent, without such royalties, was glad to listen to a proposal from one C. Parker Morgan and his publisher to let them form a Foundation to service this demand. Seven trustees, of which Hubbard was only one, formed on June 1, 1950 the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Hubbard gave them the book and its royalties and returned to his own pursuits.

This organization, however, pressed heavily upon him for lectures and disturbed his own routine. Yet this corporation insisted on growing, forming other corporations in Illinois, California and Hawaii, each with a duplicate directorate.

In November, 1950 Hubbard became convinced that the corporation was not sound and that it would not attain to its professed goal of helping people. He attempted to withdraw his name from it and was variously inveighed against. He had only one vote in seven. Forced to leave it in possession and continued use of his name, he retired in December to Palm Springs, California where he set up a modest research laboratory. Although he did not seek them, many people began to come to him in Palm Springs. This seriously impaired the business of the Foundation such ___ in Los Angeles for Hubbard charged nothing.

A.E. van Vogt, the principal mover in the Los Angeles Foundation and others were intensely provoked at Hubbard's withdrawal. Hubbard's wife, from whom he had been separated, also became incensed at him. For public appearance she had been a Foundation director. With the obvious coming failure of the Foundations and with it a failure of the income she drew from she threatened Hubbard with a public scandal if he did not support the Foundations.

Hubbard, busy writing a new book, refused to lend any credence to these threats or those of the Elizabeth board and went to Cuba where he completed a 125,000 word book in the next many weeks. As their young child had always been under his, not her mother's care, the child accompanied him.

True to her threats and those of the Foundation trustees a great deal of scandal was stirred up. A receivership was __ in Los Angeles by this woman and the trustees to seize control the Foundations and many statements were made to the press.

Hubbard made no statements of any kind during all this period and when he became aware that they had been made, ordered his separated wife to him, had her sign a confession to perjury (copy enclosed) and applied for and received a divorce from her without alimony to her.

Meanwhile the Elizabeth Foundation over which Hubbard had never had power beyond his personality, sold itself to one Don G. Purcell, an oilman in Kansas.

Purcell moved the Foundation to Wichita, Kansas and Hubbard, having completed his book, went to Kansas to settle various affairs.

Considering that Purcell wished only to make money from Dianetics, Hubbard sought to reform the attitude of the Foundation. To accomplish this he supported himself in Kansas by writing and lecturing and finally, after a few months, unable to bring about a good public presence on the part of the Foundation and Purcell, he resigned from all connections in early 1952 and refused Purcell and others any further permission to use his name or work.

Purcell's answer was to file for bankruptcy within one month conceiving that the Foundations could not continue without Hubbard's support. Purcell bought the Foundations from bankruptcy as his personal property shortly after and continued them in business, but, unable to use Hubbard's name or additional work, the organization The Dianetic Foundation of Kansas came to exist only as a shell, quite inactive today.

After resigning in early 1952, Hubbard came to Phoenix to visit his parents, liked the city and with his wife Mary Sue whom he married early in 1952, settled here. He opened a quiet office which became that fall (1952) the Hubbard Association of Scientologists. He had reverted "Dianetics" back to its original name, Scientology.

This organization was founded by some five hundred people in varoius parts of the world who had long been interested in Hubbard's work. Publishing a few books locally and issuing twice a month, the Journal of Scientology, the HAS has continued a quiet carrer [sic] in Arizona. It has opened up branch offices in Camden, New Jersey and London, England. ___iation exists to publish material related to behavior and to _______________ in Scientology.

The HAS is the first organization in the field of "Dianetics" and Scientology to be controlled by Hubbard. It pays its bills promptly as any Phoenix business firm with which it deals can attest. Although any organization dealing with behaviour can attract hangers-on, there has been no consequences of this in the HAS. Hubbard's policy of quiet, orderly business and investigation is clearly manifested in the general good repute of the HAS in Phoenix.

In so far as possible the HAS has sought to associate itself with steady and reliable people. It does permit its name and the name Scientology to be used by autonomous organizations. Such, called associates or groups, exist in many __. They use HAS materials and pay a membership fee but otherwise have no connection. When they err financially or seem to __ HAS repute, their membership is cancelled. This has happened recently in Los Angeles. The HAS has no other control over such persons.

The addresses of the HAS are 806 North Third Street, Phoenix, Arizona, 507 Market Street, Camden, New Jersey, 15__ Holland Park Avenue, London, England. The Camden and London offices are run by committees.

The HAS, under the management of Hubbard, has a __ year record of good repute and responsibility. It is aware, as is Hubbard, that the 1950 blatant use of Hubbard's name in early Foundations has often reflected against HAS progress. It is aware of the mountains of publicity generated by the sudden and strange popularity of a book. The HAS is also aware that it is the first organization controlled by Hubbard and it enjoys good public reputation as well as good credit. It is content to pay its way, has no great ambition to riches and builds solidly as it goes.

The HAS recently rented quarters at 401-A East Roosevelt and 616 North Third Street. The latter address was also occupied by a psychologist, Dr. Gordon Beckstead, who was in no way connected with the HAS.

Awakening recently to the fact that many of its interested people were ministers, the HAS has assisted them to form churches such as the Church of American Science and the Church of Scientology. Also, when friends of Hubbard in __ pointed out to him that the home organization of psycho-analysis, the Freudian Institute of Vienna, was now in the Russian zone of Austria and desired removal, Hubbard helped finance the organization of the "Freudian Foundation of America" to be offered to those in Vienna should they desire to avail themselves to it. In the latter an din the churches the HAS has no further control or interest.

As Scientology is proving it can do much for disabled veterans and others such as they, the HAS may soon make Scientology available to the disabled as a public service.

The HAS business gross is about $10,000 a month. It has no profits or dividends. It pays Hubbard's expenses in writing and investigation. It finances the processing, with Scientology of indigent and disabled people.

There is no broadly stated medical opinion of Scientology, mainly because it does not in any way intend or pretend to encroach upon medicine. Its field in the study of Knowledge itself and its benefits are more closely allied to philosophy and religion than to medicine or psychology. If one ___ in the process of knowing more about himself or Mankind the benefit derived from knowledge gained, not treatment received.

Aside from offering public services, the firm two-year policy of the HAS will continue to be followed. To neither defend nor attack on the public stage, but to keep _____________house, financially and ethically sound.

Sincerely,
Board of Directors
Hubbard Association of Scientology

by John Galusha, Secretary
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:18 pm

Man Overboard: To Leave Scientology, Don Jason Had to Jump Off a Ship
by Thomas C. Tobin
Times Staff Writer
November 3, 2009

Image
Don Jason says he was locked in his cabin and later was denied repeated requests to leave the Freewinds. “For probably three or four days I refused to work, sat in my room saying over and over again: ‘I want to leave. I want to leave. I want to leave.’ That didn’t get me anywhere.” From scraps around the ship, he fashioned a device like this one to escape down a mooring line.

Parishioners from around the world flocked to Scientology's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, bringing the church about $1.5 million a week.

A division of some 350 people tended to their needs, providing counseling services considered to be the finest in all of Scientology. For seven years, Chief Officer Don Jason was their boss, the second in command of the "Flag Service Organization."

In a group photo in a 1996 issue of Source, the official magazine of "Flag," Jason stands front and center. Only Capt. Debbie Cook's dress uniform had more ribbons.

That August, a senior officer from a higher division surprised Jason with a reprimand he found absurd. It inflamed the doubts that had nagged him for years about making a career in the church. He'd had enough.

He took off without permission, hid out for six weeks but returned to Clearwater, compelled by feelings of guilt and a desire to leave the church on good terms.

He agreed to a program of counseling and manual labor aboard the Freewinds, the church's cruise ship in the Caribbean. He scraped oily sludge off a collection tank under the ship's engines. For a time, his cabin was locked from the outside, and a security camera was trained on his bunk.

He repeatedly asked to leave; the answer was no. Twice, he tried to walk down the gangway. Twice, church guards blocked him.

The church's account of how Jason left the Freewinds says only: "On 21 November 1996, Jason changed his mind and left, ending up in Milwaukee.''

Jason tells it differently.

That afternoon, right after lunch, he disappeared over the bow.

'WE COME BACK'

Scientologists believe that people are spiritual beings — thetans — who live for eternity and are reborn into new bodies when they die. They are encouraged to think in terms of their "whole track," the endless succession of lifetimes they will lead.

Members of the dedicated work force, known as the Sea Org, sign billion-year contracts to serve Scientology. Their motto: "We come back."

Jason grew up in Milwaukee, a rowdy 20-year-old with a history of drug use when his older sister got him to take a Scientology communication course. He liked it so much he traveled to Clearwater for the next course and never left.

He worked on construction projects and his gung-ho manner got him promoted to the administrative ranks.

"I liked what I was doing. We were helping people. I was really into the cause."

By his early 30s, Jason started looking ahead, not to his eternity but to middle-age. What if he hit 50 and decided to leave Scientology? Who would hire him? Could he survive?

"It was a seed that got planted and it just never went away. And as the years went on it just kind of festered."

Early in his career, in the 1980s, Jason's weekly take-home pay was about $30; sometimes he says he was paid a fraction, or nothing. He worked seven days, typically 9 a.m. until past 11 p.m. For long stretches, the staff in Clearwater were fed only beans and rice.

Mat Pesch, who once headed the crew's treasury department, says he saw food budgets in the 1980s that allotted less than a dollar per person, per meal. He said Sea Org members sometimes picked through ashtrays for cigarette butts or stole necessities from the canteen.

Jason says he was one of them. In the early 1980s, before his pay situation improved, he lifted soap, shampoo and food.

"That's humiliating to me. As a man, I look at that and I feel shame regarding that still today. … But that's on me. I should have left and didn't."

DECISION TIME

In the spring of 1996, a prominent church member traveled to Clearwater for Scientology counseling called "auditing,'' returned home to Los Angeles and six months later caused a flap. Someone in the church hierarchy traced the problem to Jason's staff.

An auditor in Clearwater had missed the underlying personal flaw that caused the parishioner to create the controversy. The church hung the blame on Jason.

Near 11 p.m., the end of another marathon day, church executive Angie Trent broke the news in Jason's office in downtown Clearwater. He would have to complete an "ethics" program requiring that he confess his crimes and vow to make it up.

"My first reaction was to basically say, 'Are you kidding me?' I've got 350 people that work under me and this is my personal screw-up that I'm now in trouble over? I was listening to it and it was just like a light bulb. … I said, You know what? Now is the time. It wasn't preplanned. It was just like that."

His personal life was troubled, as well. His marriage was a mess and he was having an affair with a fellow church executive.

"For a variety of reasons I just got spooked.''

There were two ways to leave the Sea Org: "route out'' (follow protocol, including confessionals and interrogations called "security checks" that could drag on for months). Or "blow" (bolt without permission).

Jason's decision: Run.

AWAY FROM CLEARWATER

After the next-day's morning muster, he didn't go to his office at Cleveland Street and S Fort Harrison Avenue. He went to his bank and withdrew $6,000, part of a small inheritance from his father three years before. He stopped by his room to stuff clothes in a trash bag and pointed his 1991 Jeep Wrangler east.

"I didn't even know where I was going. I was just driving and it was the opposite direction of Clearwater."

He crossed Florida on Interstate 4, the radio off, thinking through the step he had just taken. He figured he had a three- to four-hour head start before they would realize he was gone.

He kept checking his rearview mirror. If they caught up with him, he worried they would take him back. He had seen it happen to others.

Jason left the highway at Daytona Beach and worked his way north on smaller roads, stopping for the night in Fernandina Beach, near the Florida/Georgia border.

He parked a block from a motel, paid cash and allowed himself five hours' sleep. He thought it best to keep moving.

CHOOSE SOMEPLACE RANDOM

In Clearwater, the Sea Org crew launched its "blow drill," a rehearsed operation to catch and return runaways.

Pesch says church security set up a command center. They pulled 15 to 20 staff from their regular duties. Some worked the phones, calling hotels and airlines. Pesch and another staffer drove to bars and other hangouts along Clearwater Beach.

From Fernandina Beach, Jason drove north through Savannah and tried to think of how to elude his chasers. They would start in Milwaukee, his home town.

"I had to go somewhere I had no reason to be … like throw a dart at a map."

He drove to Atlanta and rented a room in a house so his address wouldn't show up so easily in public records. A temp agency found him a job at Equifax, the credit reporting company.

Freedom felt good, but he didn't know a soul in Atlanta. After 13 years of life inside Scientology, life on the outside puzzled him.

"What do people talk about now when they're sitting at a bar and grill having a hamburger? What do they do? … I'm also thinking I've got to start over here."

More important, his sister was still a Scientologist. Leaving without permission meant Jason would be declared an "SP," a suppressive person. The church would push his sister and Scientology friends not to speak with him.

For that reason, Jason considered himself lucky not to have more relatives in the church.

"There are some people that are born into Scientology. Their mother, their father, their brothers, their sisters, their relatives, all their friends — everything is there. You get declared (an SP), it's all gone. Everything that's important to you is gone."

He also felt guilty about the way he left. He missed his colleagues.

"I felt to some degree that I had betrayed people that I had worked for years with that were my friends. … I would have preferred to leave right, in people's good graces."

Six weeks after he fled, he decided to turn himself in. He didn't want to return to the Sea Org; he wanted to make amends, route out properly and leave.

HELD ABOARD SHIP

In October 1996, Jason drove to Clearwater and saw the security chief, who immediately called Marty Rathbun, a top lieutenant to Scientology leader David Miscavige.

"I always liked Marty," Jason said. "He was a straight-shooter.''

They met for two hours at a restaurant on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard. Rathbun convinced Jason to return to the Sea Org instead of routing out.

Rathbun said he reported back to Miscavige, and the leader wanted Jason sent to the Freewinds.

The church describes the cruise ship as "a safe, aesthetic, distraction-free environment" where Scientologists receive high-level auditing "far from the crossroads of the workaday world."

Rathbun says Miscavige wanted Jason on the ship to control him.

"The idea was you do it while you neutralize him as a threat because you can't blow from the ship," Rathbun said. "You lodge your passport with the port captain, it's put in a safe and you're a virtual prisoner at that point."

Rathbun sold the idea to Jason as an opportunity to get away and get "cleaned up," get his head back to a Scientology frame of mind. It would mean auditing, some training and physical labor.

Jason was wary, but he went for it. Before he flew to the Bahamas to meet the ship, he opened a new bank account in Clearwater and got some temporary checks.

When he boarded, he surrendered his passport but secretly kept the checks and his driver's license, even slept with them at night.

He says his cabin was locked from the outside. A security camera was trained on his bed. To go to the bathroom, he waved at the camera and security guards opened the door remotely. Another camera in the hallway tracked him to the bathroom door.

It struck Jason that when he waved at the cabin camera, the guards immediately opened the door. Were they watching every second?

He asked the Freewinds staff to contact Rathbun, who called back the next day. This was not what he signed up for, Jason told him. "I'm not a prisoner here."

Rathbun says he told the Freewinds staff to remove the lock but not the cameras. They were aboard a ship, he reminded them. Jason had nowhere to run.

Said Jason: "I'm on a ship that goes God knows where. I'm out of the country. I've got no passport. It's a little scary. You have no identity. … That feeling of nothing's under your control is a little eerie."

For two weeks, Jason cleaned sludge from the tanks under the engines and used diesel fuel to rinse the oil off his body. Then the church made things rougher. He said he was assigned to the Rehabilitation Project Force, a church work program.

Jason knew what that meant: more hard labor, daily confessionals and humiliations like running to every assignment and never speaking unless spoken to.

During his early years in Clearwater he had seen those on the RPF living on the third floor of the Fort Harrison Hotel parking garage. Sheets cordoned off their living area. Their clothes and linens were filthy. They ate beans, rice and oatmeal.

It always bothered him, and Jason resolved that he never would submit to the program. When the order came that he do the RPF aboard the Freewinds, he said he wanted off the ship.

No, the guards said. Do the program.

"So you're holding me against my will?"

Jason tried to walk off the ship with parishioners going on a shore excursion. The Freewinds guards stepped in his way. He tried a second time, but they blocked him again.

For three days he protested by refusing to work, but that only got him more restrictions. He needed a new approach.

THE ROLLING PIN

Jason decided to act like a good soldier, the picture of compliance. Behaving got him better work assignments and more freedom to move about the ship.

He ruled out jumping overboard. The 40-foot drop was too dangerous, and the dock walls too high, with no ladders.

The thick, 30-foot cables that moor the ship to the dock seemed his best chance. He thought through the variables.

He would have to move quickly down the cable; the guards would hurry to the dock to head him off. Timing was important. Too many people on the dock and he would create a scene. Then again, he wanted at least a few witnesses.

When the ship docked each day, he watched the cables go taut and slack with the tide. A drooping cable would leave him short of the dock. He would have to time his descent so when he reached bottom, the cable would be taut. He would have to get around the metal plate that kept rats from climbing to the ship.

He scavenged for materials to build a device that would help him quickly get down the cable.

He fashioned something like a rolling pin. Starting with a wooden dowel the thickness of a clothing rod, he sawed off a 16-inch piece. Around it he fit a 7-inch length of PVC pipe. To keep the PVC from moving side to side, he sunk drywall screws into the dowel on either end of the PVC.

For two weeks he observed and thought things through. He would have to hold his body high in case he needed to bring up his legs and slow his descent. He ate lunch on the bow every day so that when the time came, the guards wouldn't think twice about him being there.

Three months before, Jason had a title, an office and authority over hundreds of staff in Clearwater. Now his church was treating him like a prisoner.

"I'm thinking, You know what? Once I pull a stunt like this, I'll never get off this ship on my own terms. So I'm committed. Once I start this, I have to be prepared to take it all the way.

"I'm going to do whatever I have to to get off that ship, which includes fist-fighting people, yelling my head off, whatever it takes. I'm not going back on that ship. Period.''

NOV. 21, 1996

He had been on the ship six weeks when he made his move. Jason can't remember if they docked in Freeport or Nassau, just that the town had a decent-sized airport.

What he does remember was hiding his rolling pin device down his shorts, working his morning shift on a maintenance project and heading to his usual spot for lunch.

The cable came taut.

He crawled over the bow and twisted himself as he had rehearsed in his mind, legs and one arm around the cable to steady himself while he pulled the rolling pin from his shorts. He positioned it over the cable and zip-lined down.

The ride was "pretty damned fast" but under control, and he could see two or three guards running for the dock as he descended. He scrambled around the rat guard, pulled himself to the dock and ran for the road, with a lead of about 30 feet on the guards.

They caught up as he got to a cab. One yelled in his face and held the door so he couldn't get in. Another told the cabbie not to give him a ride because he wasn't allowed to leave the ship.

Jason muscled his way into the front seat, closed the door on a guard's hand and screamed at the driver: "I'm being held against my will! Take me to a g-- d--- airport!''

NEXT STOP, ATLANTA

Jason got out at the airport in shorts and a dirty work shirt. He had his driver's license, the temporary checks, no passport, no luggage and $20.

He bought a ticket from a wary airline clerk and talked his way past a custom's agent. "The whole thing was red-flag city, and I just had to will myself to just try to mentally convey to these people to do it. Just do it."

He called his mother in Milwaukee: "How about having your son over for Thanksgiving? Would that be okay?"

He told her he had a layover in Atlanta and would fly on to Milwaukee. If he didn't walk off the plane, something was wrong.

Jason was waiting at the gate in the Bahamas when Ludwig Alpers, an executive in the church's intelligence branch, showed up with a ticket for the seat next to his. Alpers said the church was considering a call to the U.S. Embassy asserting that the Freewinds had the authority to keep him in the Bahamas.

Jason says Alpers backed off after he threatened to tell the world how he was held against his will. Alpers flew with him to Atlanta.

In Clearwater, Rathbun had gotten the astonishing news that Jason had escaped. It couldn't be, he thought. No one got off the Freewinds without permission. And the church had Jason's passport. He couldn't get out of the Bahamas; it just didn't happen.

Rathbun hustled to Tampa International Airport and caught the first flight to Atlanta. "I think I beat him by a couple of minutes," he said. "I remember running from my gate to his and him coming off."

He let Jason get settled in a smoking lounge before he approached. He told Jason he understood. If you want out, fine. Just come back to Clearwater, so you won't be declared an SP and disconnected from your sister.

Not again, Jason said.

Rathbun kept talking until the Milwaukee flight was announced and Jason headed for the gate with Rathbun trailing behind.

Rathbun said he called Miscavige, and the leader told him to put Jason on the phone. Rathbun held up his cell phone: "Dave wants to talk to you!"

Jason was about to board and called back, "I've got nothing to say.''

The church says Miscavige participated in no such phone call. "Mr. Miscavige never asked to speak to Jason,'' the church states, adding that Rathbun did not mention a call to Miscavige in the report he filed at the time.

On the plane waiting for takeoff, Jason thumbed through a magazine. He looked up and there was Rathbun, coming down the aisle. He had bought a ticket.

"He was shocked," Rathbun says. "He thought he was done with this, that he'd bucked the last hurdle."

CONFESSION IN MILWAUKEE

Temperatures were in the 20s in Milwaukee. Jason's mother and younger sister took him to buy something warmer than shorts.

That night Rathbun came by Jason's mother's home and got Jason to agree to come to his hotel room the next day. He presented Jason a confession to sign.

A few weeks later, in January 1997, Rathbun returned to Milwaukee to have Jason sign a "declaration.'' This time, Rathbun brought a videocamera.

The document talked about Jason using drugs as a teen and said he had not taken advantage of training opportunities in Scientology. It said he had followed the stock market during work hours and lost thousands of dollars of his wife's money in bad investments. He did not measure up to Sea Org standards.

Jason describes it as "one part truth, four parts embellishment and five parts total BS."

He studied the document and told Rathbun, "Come on, man. This is not true."

Rathbun now admits: "We went overboard.'' He let Jason strike some wording, including a passage that said Jason never held an executive position with the church.

Rathbun turned on the videocamera and Jason signed, knowing it would be used against him if he ever spoke out.

The church produced the 12-year-old affidavit after Jason told his story to the Times. The document says he was under no duress when he signed it.

Jason says he was. Having just been held aboard the Freewinds for six weeks, he wanted his church to stop coming after him.

"What was in it for me? To be left alone, not followed, not contacted or pursued. That is what I wanted and would have signed almost anything to get it."

Today he lives in Chicago and works as operations manager for a company that sells roofing products and heating and air conditioning materials. A single dad, his son is 10.

His older sister is no longer a practicing Scientologist.

Jason says his treatment aboard the Freewinds doesn't define his view of Scientology. He has seen the church help people and says it definitely helped him. He joined as a rudderless 20-year-old. In Scientology, he got his act together.

He wishes things were more clear-cut, that he could say the church was all bad. He could write it off and never think about it again.

"Twelve years later, it still sits there,'' he said.

"There's going to be a time where I'll look up one day and I'll go, 'You know what? I realized I haven't thought about Scientology for three years.' And that's going to be a good day for me."
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:20 pm

Don Jason's route out of Scientology
by Times Staff
November 3, 2009

Image

1 August 1996: Working at Scientology's Flag Service Organization in Clearwater, Don Jason is told that the church is going to discipline him for something he felt was unfair. He leaves the next day without permission and drives on I-4 to Daytona Beach. He takes back roads north to Fernandina Beach and spends the night at a motel.

2 The next day: He continues north through Savannah. He assumes the church will look for him in his native Milwaukee, so he randomly chooses to settle in Atlanta.

3 After six weeks: He gets second thoughts about how he left. He returns to Clearwater to follow the church's approved "routing out'' process.

4 October 1996: Jason flies to the Bahamas to board Scientology's cruise ship, the Freewinds, where he becomes a virtual prisoner.

5 Six weeks later: Jason escapes over the bow of the Freewinds and makes it to the airport. He buys a ticket to Milwaukee, with a layover in Atlanta. A Scientology official buys the seat next to Jason on the leg to Atlanta. The layover: Marty Rathbun, a top Scientology executive, intercepts Jason at the Atlanta airport. Rathbun tries to persuade him to return to Clearwater and follow proper procedure to leave the church. Jason refuses, and Rathbun flies with him to Milwaukee.

6 In Milwaukee: Jason's mother and a sister pick him up at the airport. The next day, he comes to Rathbun's hotel and signs confessions to his "crimes."

7 Twelve years later: Jason works in Chicago as an operations manager for a building supply company.

Thomas C. Tobin is a Times staff writer who has covered the Church of Scientology off and on since 1996. He can be reached at tobin@sptimes.com.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:23 pm

Missing in Happy Valley?
produced by Peter Reichelt and Ina Brockmann
A documentary about Scientology's Rehabilitation Project Force (the RPF) from producers Peter Reichelt and Ina Brockmann.
German Documentary
February 25, 1999
Dubbed into English by Ina Brockmann and Peter Reichelt

Transcript

Off-camera commentator: In May 1995, 51-year-old Wiebke H. was suddenly relieved of her post. The investigative authorities in the USA believe she was placed in a Scientology reform camp. The Scientology organization asserts that the missing woman is dedicating herself to spiritual advancement.

Jochen Koerner, brother of Wiebke H.: I called up the Scientologists and said, "where is my sister? I read here in the newspaper.....". I know enough people there, and so I called them up. At first they gave me a little bit of the run-around, then I told them, "out with it, give me the number, otherwise I'll raise a scene here". That is what I did and I called them back, and Wiebke called me back two days later. And after she heard that there was a missing person's complaint out on her, she went to the consulate in Los Angeles and that killed the matter, didn't it? The police never came back here because ... she is not missing. According to the way we gauge things under certain circumstances, she is only at a certain place, as I am told, since I would probably not go there.

Jochen Koerner, brother of Wiebke H.: So when Wiebke doesn't want to do something, then nobody in the world can get her to do it. So she would have left this camp, too. And she would also have been in the position - here in Hamburg, as well as in L.A. - to find a way out. For example, what she said a little while ago, that if she didn't have anything to wear and that if the things she needed for survival were not there, then she wouldn't be going along with them. She would have become very, very furious if something happened which she didn't want. That's the way she's been her whole life; that's also why she was so successful with the Scientologists, because she wants or wanted exactly that.

Off-camera commentator: For ten years, Wiebke H. was the most successful Scientology manager worldwide. Scientology sees itself as the truest religion on earth. Its presumably positive goal is to use its ideology to create a better world. Income in the millions flowed year after year from her organization in Hamburg to the Scientology headquarters in California. When her sales took a turn for the worse, she was removed from her post as president.

Jochen Koerner, brother of Wiebke H.: She had - that was quite funny - a male secretary. She was certainly not a highbrow, but she said since she was a woman, she wanted a male secretary. I still think that's funny. He was a nice guy. In principle, Wiebke had the whole organization, that means she was the one who asked, "What's happening here? What's happening with the courses? How are acquisitions made? How is the inner organization?". Yes, they said that she had lied. I don't believe that. I simply do not believe that.

Off-camera commentator: Change of Location. December 5, 1998. Clearwater, Florida. The Mecca of Scientology. In past years, nine Scientologists have died here under mysterious circumstances, among them 36 year old Lisa McPherson. Charges have been brought against Scientology in her gruesome death. On the third anniversary of her death, relatives of the victim and former Scientologists gathered. We have scheduled a meeting with the former members. Among them they have years of experience in the Scientology reform camps such as where Wiebke H. is said to have spent some time. One of them is Gerry Armstrong. He was a coordinator in the Scientology intelligence service and a confidante of Hubbard, the organization's founder. But even he fell from grace. He spent two and a half years in the camp.

Gerry Armstrong: I was the first prisoner in Clearwater, the very first. The people there are real prisoners. Scientology says that the people are there voluntarily. Absolutely not. I was so confused that for the first 36 hours in camp I could not eat anything. I thought my entire life had been taken from me. I knew Hubbard and I knew what assignment to the RPF meant.

Off-camera commentator: He received this in writing, as shown by this document. Hubbard had charged him with three offenses: disobeying an order, neglect of duty and poor work performance. Scientology has its own penal system, with prosecutors, judges and reform camps. Of course, Scientology does not call them "reform camps"; they call it the "Rehabilitation Project," RPF for short. These camps in the USA and Europe are run exclusively for people who don't fit into the elitist Sea Org. Hubbard determined the personal restrictions and punishments for them by 1974. The camp laborers are re-educated and made tractable by hard labor, compulsory hypnosis and brainwashing. All according to the slogan, "The RPF is what we make it. The RPF is where we make it."

Scientology sells the RPF to its thousands of Sea Org members as their last chance to stay in the elite unit. By order, the camp inmates have no freedom, they are housed separately and may speak with nobody.

Jesse Prince, former second ranking man in the Scientology management team. Even he was put away in the notorious Happy Valley reform camp for refusal to obey orders. That is also where Wiebke H. was presumed to be.

Jesse Prince: It was horrible in Happy Valley. I literally slept on the ground in a chicken coop, rattlesnakes, scorpions and spiders all around, terrible.

Off-camera commentator: That is Stacy Brooks. She was a member of management of the Scientology secret service and "I was a puppet for over 15 years," she said.

Stacy Brooks: You know you really, honestly believe, when you are a Scientologist, that it is the only route to happiness. And when you leave, you have no hope of every being happy. You believe in this idea when you are in there, and I don't know how you can accomplish that belief. All I can do is describe it. Vaughn agreed to go back to the RPF because he truly believed that it was essential to life for him to remain a Scientologist. And this is the only way that they permit you to stay a Scientologist. For this reason people put themselves through the most humiliating, abusive and horrible experiences that you can imagine, for this deceptive and delusional idea.

Off-camera commentator: The reform camp is there, but you don't see it: a splendidly renovated hotel in Clearwater - here is Fort Harrison - with every sort of comfort for its guests. In Los Angeles, a former hospital, done over completely in blue. Near there or under there in garages or in basements are the reformatories for the misfits. Outside of the big city, on the edge of the desert, two hours drive from Los Angeles is Happy Valley, the camp for the elite.

Gerry Armstrong: The RPF has the goal of guaranteeing the power of Scientology over all members of the Sea Org. The reason is to further its control and domination over its people. Right from the beginning, as soon as you enter the door of Scientology, they try to gain more and more control over your life. And the reform camp is the most extreme form of control because you are completely dominated by the organization and by the RPF regulations. They are incredibly restrictive. You had no newspapers, no magazines, no radio, really no contact. You may not speak with anyone unless you are spoken to. You ate whatever was left after everybody else was fed. You always have to work or run, even on breaks.

Clearwater in August 1998. We succeeded for the first time in filming a group of RPF laborers. They were renovating the Scientology Fort Harrison Hotel. Even old women are exploited for this work where it is 110 degrees in the shade. Their daily wage: $1.50.

Change of Location. At the center in Copenhagen. Another hotel. This time it's the Scientology Nordland Hotel, again with an integrated reform camp. Who would be surprised that they don't want us here? We have made an appointment with the Danish woman, Susanne Schernekau. Almost two years of her life was spent here behind this facade. The organization's buildings are all over Copenhagen. All are being renovated in order to bring Scientology's customers in at a fast pace. There is much work that needs to be done. As was the case with Wiebke H., Susanne was also accused of financial manipulation.

Susanne Schernekau: My offense, according to Scientology, was financial fraud, or swindling, and that I had behaved very badly, for example, in Munich I had gone with a normal person to eat. Because I was married, that was not OK.

Off-camera commentator: By November 13, 1989, she had gone too far. She was assigned to the RPF in Copenhagen, as this document shows. Ethics? Morals in Scientology? An offense is severely punished. Scientology's ethics are synonymous with total obedience, suppression and forced re-education. That is where people end up who make mistakes. Forced laborers are produced according to need, sometime more, sometimes less.

Susanne Schernekau: For instance, in Copenhagen there was a building which was a total wreck. And we cleaned it from top to bottom, cleaned all the pigeons off the window ledges, rats and mice and so forth. We began to paint, carpet, renovate, everything. We were always the last to eat. Only breakfast was really OK. Other than that the food was very bad; the beds were very bad. We slept twelve people to a room.

Off-camera commentator: The solidarity of the group is emphasized, especially in the elite Sea Organization, Sea Org for short. Created by Hubbard, it is the heartbeat of Scientology. His private army. They want world domination and that needs an army, and into this one come only the best. Immortality, power, consensus and invincibility. Rattling sabers and then the fall, unexpected and final.

Susanne Schernekau: You live with the conviction that you already have everything under control. And when that does not happen, you realize that you do not have everything under control. And somehow the whole idea that you were part of an elite group plunges headlong into the ground. You begin the RPF with a black arm band. Then, if your ethics go well, you get a white arm band. The difference is: with the black arm band and as a married person in the Sea Org, you may not see your husband. You may not speak to him if he does not speak with you. With the white arm band you may spend three hours per week together with your second dynamic, that means your family, your husband and possibly children. You may still not speak with your husband unless he speaks to you. Then you get more. That means that you can earn a gold arm band. With a gold arm band, you may spend one night a week with your family.

Off-camera commentator: You can picture the structure of the RPF as Susanne drew it up in the camp and learned by heart. Chief of the group - but a co-prisoner at the same time - is the BOSUN. Under him is the EST_O, responsible for the assignment of work, and the MAA, who is responsible for keeping the rules of the camp. Under that is the TECH, responsible for the material and the equipment. QUAL supervises the performance of the work. The rank and file form the individual sections A, B and C. Work groups have up to ten people. These are assigned to the actual renovation work - as is they cas here in Clearwater. The control over each other is omnipresent and thorough. None can escape it.

Susanne Schernekau: You keep all the others under observation and know that all the others are watching you and each other. That is normal. Anybody can get out of line. Those are the people who least want to know themselves. That means that other people bring it to your attention with a knowledge report, that you have made a mistake. That means you have to look at that mistake face on and handle it somehow, in some way. And then show the group that you have made up for it.

Off-camera commentator: Those are the Knowledge Reports with which one shows his true loyalty. Everybody watches everybody else, everybody betrays everybody else and puts this down on paper. Here Susanne turns in another work group to their superiors. The smallest necessity in the RPF camp must be asked for in writing. Susannne requested, "I have only one work suit and no cap. Without a complete uniform I am breaking the regulations, and I have to wash my clothes urgently." Request denied. Instructions: "Wash your work clothes at night and hang them in the boiler room so that they will be dry in the morning."

The European headquarters of Scientology in Copenhagen. Thousands of adherents stream year after year into this building in order to get closer to immortality by taking courses. We wanted to check out Susanne's statements. Together with her we met there with the press spokeswoman of Scientology in Europe. She said she was ready to give information about the rehabilitation camp system. For her it was a unique chance to "ethically" get back into shape.

Mrs. Getanes, CoS: Well, there is a program that is allowed for a person who made some serious wrongs in the course of work for our church. I would like to explain to you how it works. It is certainly somewhat different from what Mrs. Schernekau has told you. Normally, when a person makes a mistake at work, he would be kicked out of there. However, we offer these persons a program for reconciliation, the Rehabilitation Project Force. There one learns exactly what one has done wrong. It is gotten across to a person that these mistakes are not to be made again. That lasts five hours per day, every day. The rest of the time one has to work hard on renovation projects, there where one is needed. Nor we do not hate the people who leave Scientology. My personal feelings do not count with them. They are simply only bothersome. Bothersome, because they simply will not tell the truth of what Scientology really is. They are annoyed about something or another. But that really does not disturb us. Because we'll always be here. No matter what these critics say. Thousands of people are always starting with us and want to find out what Scientology is. In spite of this, life goes on for us.

Off-camera commentator: Their lives go on. Not only tomorrow and the next day. The goal is billions of years. The Sea Org members sign a work contract accordingly:

"THEREFORE, I CONTRACT MYSELF TO THE SEA ORGANIZATION FOR THE NEXT BILLION YEARS."

And that's for $130 a month, as former members tell us. An elite organization for eternity, the only question is whose?

Mrs. Getanes, CoS: I am a Sea Org member and I wear my uniform. It makes me proud to be a member here. Consider that everything I have begun to do here is good and rewarding.

Off-camera commentator: They are surely unbeatable when it comes to one thing in particular: delusions of grandeur and fondness for theatrical drama and fine-tuned propaganda. In the center of the power rush is their current leader, David Miscavige. Since 1986, he has been the successor of L. Ron Hubbard.

David Miscavige: (DM): On October 1, 1993 at 6:37 p.m. we received a letter from the highest tax office of the USA. Since this time none of the Scientology organizations need pay any more taxes. The war is over.

Jesse Prince: He is actually quite a short person himself. He is paranoid. He is afraid that someone is going to hurt him, so, he has to hurt them first.

David Miscavige: (DM): Welcome to church!

Off-camera commentator: A hundred miles east of Los Angeles, two hours drive away. Below us is Gilman Hot Springs, the secret world headquarters of Scientology. This is where David Miscavige pulls the strings of his power. The site resembles a vacation resort. Grand houses, the golf course right next to them. Everything including the California sun. There is room for over a thousand people here, his private army. Only a few Scientologists know of this spot and its meaning. One of them, Jesse Prince, the former representative of David Miscavige, tells us what the picturesque setting conceals.

Peter Reichelt (PR): Is this the world headquarters?

Jesse Prince: Yes.

Peter Reichelt (PR): And David Miscavige lives there?

Jesse Prince: Yes, he lives there, yes.

Peter Reichelt (PR): How would you describe his life style?

Jesse Prince: Very elaborate, very lavish, that I have seen. The houses there all appear very, very beautiful. The countryside, everything is beautiful. Luxurious is the proper description for that. The main reason for that is that they don't have any expenses for their work force. All they have is material costs, because they have their slave camp, their slaves. Those have to work day and night. And even when the slaves are doing well in their work, there is one day, Saturday, on which every staff member in Hot Springs, no matter what position he has, works the entire day on the renovation of buildings the same as the slaves have to do. And it is exactly because of this, when you have no wage expenses, but only costs of material, that you can accomplish quite a bit.

Off-camera commentator: Pure luxury, made possible by the RPF. Zero labor costs and $350 million in donations for a private music studio, wardroom and fitness center. All for the comfort of David Miscavige.

Jesse Prince: You know if he decides that something has to look a certain way, then that's what has to happen, and if he orders that something must be accomplished in a certain style, then it happens that way, because he is the boss.

Off-camera commentator: The magnificent villa behind the wrought iron fence, a life style which includes a swimming pool, guest house, tennis courts and private movie theater. Luxury in a high security area.

Jesse Prince: The security there is quite phenomenal. Motion detectors are mounted on all fences. Even if you just run along side the fence, the alarm goes off. At nights automatic flood lights go on. There are night vision cameras, night vision scopes, and on a small hill is a watchtower, code named "Eagle," with someone who watches the countryside day and night. I know these things because I set up the security there. Talking about reaping what you sow! There is no possibility of escaping from there. From a distance you see a nice looking fence, but when you look at it up close you see the razor sharp metal spikes which will slice your hands if you touch them so that you'll bleed like crazy if you try to climb over it.

Jesse Prince: The headquarters of the Church of Scientology International is here in Gilman. All the income of the organization goes to David Miscavige at Gilman Hot Springs. The organization in Clearwater is micro-managed from here. Everything in Los Angeles is micro-managed by the facility in Gilman. All the organizations in Europe are micro-managed from here. Everybody worldwide. Any area that produces a sufficient amount of income is micro-managed from the Gilman Hot Springs location.

David Miscavige: (DM): Good Night!

Jesse Prince: I was put in the RPF. It was in Happy Valley, just down the road from Gilman it is a 20 minute ride by car. You have to go through the Soboda Indian reservation and then you're there. David Miscavige assigned me ,personally, because I wouldn't go along with his plan to get rid of Pat and Annie Broeker [the couple whom Hubbard had chosen to succeed him]. I refused to carry out his order. I refused to have anything to do with it, so he told me, "OK, then you'll go right to the RPF." They woke me up at 5 o'clock in the morning. They love this element of surprise. They brought me to a room; huddled there on the floor, crying and shaking violently was Vickie Aznaran, who, up to that time, had been David Miscavige's boss. The guards had tossed her in here and yelled at her, she was terribly afraid. Miscavige screamed at me, "It's over. You had your chance. You made the wrong decision. You're going to the RPF!" Then he ordered me, "Call me 'sir'." I will never forget that. I just looked at him and he yelled, "Say it, say it, say it!" And I got up and I said, "fuck you!" And I walked out of the room at which point several men tried to keep me there. But I have karate training and I knocked them down. I ran to my room to get my weapon, a semi-automatic. I still had it from Hubbard. Everybody there had weapons, semi-automatic, full automatic and .45 revolvers. I ran back to Miscavige and yelled at him, "What are you going to do now?"

Jesse Prince: Now David totally changed his character, he said, "Jesse, you know, we've been through so much. Please put the weapon away. Let's talk." He did not take the weapon away from me. I put it willingly on the table. He said to me, "Please accept your assignment to the camp. You are in a high position in the church, your behavior towards me has made an impression on everyone. So that Scientology does not fall apart and its authority is not destroyed, you have to go to the camp. And if you accept it, I will come and personally get you out and put you back in your old position." I didn't believe that, but, at the time, I was convinced that it would be very bad if the entire organization fell apart because of me, so I conceded.

Off-camera commentator: Happy Valley, rehabilitation center for recuperation of inner peace, lies hidden among the mountains, only 20 minutes away from the center of power. Officially the area is called Castille Canyon School. Over a hundred people live here, including Wiebke H., who is said to have been in the camp since 1995.

Jesse Prince: Just like in a prison. Get up, wash, get dressed, all in ten minutes. Then you stand outside and shiver all over. In the early morning it is ice cold, everybody in a row. They count off like in jail, to make sure nobody has taken off. They tell you what your work is for that day. 20 minutes to eat and then off to the bus for work at headquarters.

Off-camera commentator: In the near vicinity of the company's private golf course and the football field in Gilman Hot Sprints is another attraction in the Scientology program: a circular spot. In the middle is a palm tree. That's not meant for harmless games, that spot is for running. Today clockwise and tomorrow counter-clockwise around. The newest edition is said to be a water sprinkling system for overheated souls.

Jesse Prince: He put a big may pole up at his headquarters and his people had to run around it all day long. Further punishment for that part of the elite who have suddenly become a problem for David Miscavige. You run from sunrise until night, until you go to bed, always in circles, day and night, for weeks on end.

Stacy Brooks: Twelve hours a day around the pole, until you realize that you have done something wrong and you can think straight again. That is when you again be a proper Scientologist.

Is that how it worked for Wiebke H.? Did she also spend days on this spot? Wiebke H., the successful manager - what became of her?

Off-camera commentator: Letters to her brother. She wrote the last one June 1998. Her brother showed them to us as a sign that she was still alive. She said things were going splendidly with her and she was having a lot of fun. The lines she wrote give the impression that everything is OK. Supposedly nothing is happening with his older sister which he needs to be concerned about. Yet - where is she exactly and is she doing well?

Jochen Koerner, brother of Wiebke H.: On the one side I know that she has done this voluntarily and on her own. On the other side, of course, it is clear to me that a model of thought is being manipulated. What is the extent of freedom? Where is the part where I can say with certainty that she wants things that way? I have to leave that up to her if I accept her as an equal. On the other hand, one asks if she is manipulated. What happened when she spent three years in this rehabilitation center? Are the trouble and the effort which she has taken upon herself worthwhile? What happens when a monk goes into a cloister and talks with nobody for three months? If one goes to a hermitage? What happens then? Must we permit that? Is it only unpleasant because she is my sister and it happened to us in the middle of Hamburg? It's difficult for me.

Off-camera commentator: Back to Clearwater, to the picket being held by the former Scientologists. This is Frank Oliver. He was an agent of the secret service of Scientology, OSA for short.

Frank Oliver: An agent of the Scientology secret service is still trying to photograph me. I used to be in the Scientology secret service myself.

Off-camera commentator: By 1996, the Munich state attorney had already found out that Scientology used undercover intelligence methods as defense against inner and external enemies, and that it would not stop at criminal actions.

Frank Oliver: The Office for Special Affairs, OSA, has two main missions: propaganda and investigations. Both departments work hand in hand. When enemies of the organization are to be silenced, such as authorities, critics, journalists or psychiatrists, the machinery of the OSA goes into motion. The collected information goes into the propaganda department, which then uses it to denounced alleged enemies in public and to make them absolutely untrustworthy. It's not for the general good of the populace. It's very self-serving.

Off-camera commentator: This document clearly shows what assignments are waiting for OSA agents: infiltration, bribery, buying information, burglary, blackmail.

Frank Oliver: The investigations person, you hardly ever see them. They're the ones in the shadows. They sift through the dirt, look for bodies in the basements of their enemies and critics. They try everything it takes to make things turn out good for Scientology in the end and to make things impossible for the enemy. That's how it works. They work with each other.

Off-camera commentator: Re: phone calls. OSA is also involved in monitoring telephones. We have a list of telephone numbers called from a public telephone booth in Miami. The assignment was to observe these in order to investigate the callers.

Frank Oliver: They had so many projects going on at the time that even during an extensive shadowing operation I had to work other cases. One day I got the original of a private telephone bill. I was supposed to find out all the people who had been called by the target person. I never found out how they managed to get this private telephone bill.

Off-camera commentator: Perhaps by burglary? A training document for Scientology agents which was confiscated by the FBI shows that the organization will not stop at burglary. Along with exact descriptions, how to break through door locks and even safes is covered, "Pull your prepared metal strip from the lower end of the door to the strike plate of the lock and the door pops open. If you have problems inserting it, use your foot to hold the door open a crack.

Frank Oliver: Their top guy is Mike Rinder. He is the director of OSA. He knows everything that goes on. The only one over him is David Miscavige. Everything goes directly to him.

Off-camera commentator: Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles. Work place of Mike Rinder and gathering point for OSA. This is where the information is evaluated and prepared for further action. That not only includes Germany, Scientology's declared arch-enemy, but the federal Ministry for Family, Youth and Health. The method of operation against the enemy and the goal of the OSA agents is that one "learns all his plans for the future and uses the material gathered either to bring him to court or to discredit him so that one no longer believes his statements."

Frank Oliver: OSA is Miscavige's most important department. Without it he would be lost and Scientology would have long since been forgotten.

Roadblocked in Happy Valley
German newsman: You are blocking us. You are arresting us. You are not allowed to block us, you know?

Scientologist: Nobody is blocking you. I am placing you under citizen's arrest right now.

Off-camera commentator: OSA in action. We wanted to go to Happy Valley to Wiebke H. However, our drive was stopped short by a roadblock. We were held up for over two hours on the open road, scolded, yelled at, threatened. There was no way out. What or whom were they concealing there? Many open questions.

Jesse Prince: You're asked to do things that are illegal. You're asked to do criminal deeds on your post, and it quickly becomes clear to you that you have been incriminated, but so has everybody else. It turns into part of your daily work. If you want to stay on your post, you have to take part of this criminal activity, whether you want to or not. Because everybody does it, everybody is guilty and everybody is quiet about it. Nobody talks about it. The leaders of Scientology do not practice Scientology as it is written in some of those bulletins [Hubbard scriptures].

Stacy Brooks: The entire Scientology management is totally corrupt. They think it is hilarious that Sea Org members below the management level and customers believe in this stuff.

Susanne Schernekau: I never wanted to be like the others. I always wanted to be different. Then I met people here who wanted the best of the world. They wanted to help other people.

Mrs. Getanes, CoS: Scientology is the right place for me and I know that we are in possession of the truth.

Off-camera commentator: They are not only in possession of the truth, they have the services of their own, mobile security troops. The Scientology sheriffs dress like police and follow you around step by step. As Hubbard said, "True is what is true for you." He also thought that they were the only people on earth who have the right to punish. According to whose rules? According to Hubbard's rules, which are still rigidly kept today, 13 years after his death. Even children cannot escape these regulations. They are made tractable with psychological methods in their education into Sea Org members. Over and over again they are subjected to the same security questions:

Has someone ordered you not to tell us something?
Do you have a secret?
Have you ever taken something which does not belong to you?
Have you ever hurt yourself to cause others anxiety?
Have you ever not eaten in order to cause others anxiety?
Have you ever refused to carry out an order which someone has given who was justified in giving it?
Have you ever done something which you have had to be ashamed of?
Have you ever done anything criminal?
Have you ever knocked down a smaller child?
Have you ever been ashamed of your parents?
Have you ever betrayed a secret which was entrusted to you?
Have you ever been a coward?
Have you spied on your friends?


Off-camera commentator: Correct answers mean happy faces. But the fun stops for these children with failure and disobedience. By 1976, on instructions from Hubbard, the first children's RPF was established in Los Angeles. No time off for play, but a children's reform camp with absolute obedience as its goal. One of the reasons for the camp for children was stated in this document, "Make it clear to the children that any form of vandalism, theft and any other crime committed by a child will be punished by the RPF under aggravated conditions."

Gerry Armstrong: Scientology pretends to answer to all questions, heal people, give them special abilities and make better humans out of them. In reality Scientology has only one purpose: to exercise absolute control over all people and they pocket their money.

Scientology street sign: "Are you really happy? Find out what Scientology is. Come to us."

Jochen Koerner, brother of Wiebke H.: When you look exactly at what is going on, you see a reactionary, authoritarian mechanism which restricts certain degrees of liberty. When it is understood that something is permissible then it may be done. However, I don't accept that they do that for everybody else. And to make this dependent upon citizenship - there it is explicitly in their index - whether one is a Scientologist and the right to re-educate people in their rehabilitation camps and such... We have had that before and that does not belong here.

Jochen Koerner, brother of Wiebke H.: The question I've asked many times over, because, of course, call up everybody and tell them all, "You're doing quite poorly now and you have to work hard there." I don't doubt that at all. When they do that voluntarily, then that is their business. If I now go in there and get involved, am I helping them? Am I hurting them? Or am I only helping myself?

Off-camera commentator: Four months later. Jochen Koerner flew to Los Angeles to see his sister Wiebke again after almost four years. They met at a small restaurant in Hollywood. Later they went for a walk along the beach. That evening she rode with the Scientology bus back to the world headquarters in Gilman Hot Springs. As of late, she is a producer there for Scientology recruitment films. She said she did not want to talk over her time in the reform camp with her brother. She does not want to go back to Germany any more.

Off-camera commentator: Madrid, February 5, 1999. The Spanish state attorney brought charges against 18 leading members of the Scientology organization. The charges include establishment of a criminal association, fraud, burglary, grievous bodily harm and mistreatment of a Spanish woman in the prison camp in Copenhagen. The trial begins June 1.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:24 pm

Missionary Man
by James Verini
June 28, 2005

Image
Tom Cruise speaks during the September 2004 opening of a new Scientology church in Madrid

In the course of just a few months, Tom Cruise has made an astounding public leap: He has transformed himself from one of the world's biggest movie stars into one of the oddest. It's not just his sudden romance with and engagement to actress Katie Holmes, which has not yet managed to shake the air of improbability. There is also the matter of Cruise's sudden outspokenness about, and even proselytizing for, the controversial Church of Scientology, to which he's belonged for roughly 20 years.

Regarding the romance -- who can explain love? It's a mystery, particularly in Hollywood, and we're unlikely to ever get the particulars about Cruise and Holmes. But the buzz in some Scientology circles is that Cruise may have reached one of the highest echelons of the Church of Scientology. While not a lot is known about this level, known cryptically as OT-VII, Scientology observers say that attaining it could explain Cruise's behavior in recent months.

And that behavior has been mesmerizing: from putting up Scientology tents on movie sets to blasting Brooke Shields for using antidepressants, to promoting the church's drug-treatment programs and, generally, to hectoring anyone who challenges him. On Friday's "Today" show, after gentle prodding from Matt Lauer, he scolded, "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do." Even his romance with Holmes has had a public Scientology veneer; Holmes has announced that she is taking Scientology courses and has added a new member to her entourage: a Scientology advisor who reportedly tells everyone she's Holmes' best friend.

According to experts and the church's own literature, OT-VII ("OT" stands for Operating Thetan, "thetan" being the Scientology term for soul) is the penultimate tier in the church's spiritual hierarchy -- the exact details of which are fiercely guarded and forbidden to be discussed even among top members. It is where a Scientologist learns how to become free of the mortal confines of the body and is let into the last of the mysteries of the cosmology developed by the church's longtime leader, science fiction novelist and "Dianetics" author L. Ron Hubbard. This cosmology also famously holds that humans bear the noxious traces of an annihilated alien civilization that was brought to Earth by an intergalactic warlord millions of years ago.

Lee Anne De Vette, Cruise's publicist and sister, refused requests to comment for this article. And when asked about Cruise, Ed Parkin, vice president of cultural affairs for the Church of Scientology, said only, "We do not discuss the personal religious experiences of our members with the press." Parkin also would not confirm or deny details of the OT teachings. Responding to questions about them, he wrote: "Scientology, which means 'knowing how to know,' is a religion based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986). Scientology addresses people as immortal spiritual beings. It gives them tools they can apply to their lives to improve conditions."

But one Scientologist who left the church in 2003 after 30 years -- and who had reached the OT-VII level and become a member of the church's governing Sea Org -- said it was his understanding that Cruise was very near completing, if he had not already completed, the OT-VII level. The former Scientologist would speak to Salon only on the condition of anonymity.

A current Scientologist who has reached the level OT-V, and who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that considering the amount of time Cruise has been in the church, an OT-VII status seems probable. And Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta who has published articles on Scientology and Hollywood, also said that Cruise's behavior strongly suggests OT-VII.

Cruise is acting as though he "feels he's more in control over his environment and can convince more people to look into the organization," Kent said. "In the high OT levels one supposedly gains the skills to master one's universe. One is removing countless entities that have been holding people back. Cruise feels that he has freed himself from thousands of errant thetans, and he seems to be in a kind of euphoria he hasn't experienced before."

J. Gordon Melton, the author of "The Church of Scientology" and director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., confirmed the details of the OT teachings. "It's basically a variation of the Gnostic myth about souls falling into matter and the encumbrances that come with that," Melton said. "In the OTs, you're finding out that you're a thetan, that you've come into bodies before. Part of what you're trying to learn is exteriorization -- how to get out of your body. You also learn that you carry a lot of encumbrances from past lives."

Melton, however, said that he did not believe public outspokenness about the church necessarily indicates a particular rank. The eight OT levels form the last and highest order in the intricate hierarchy Hubbard developed beginning in 1950, when his "Dianetics" was published. He named the hierarchy "the Bridge to Total Freedom." Scientologists can only enter OT once they've gone "Clear," meaning they have passed through the lower orders of the church and been shown that their personal inhibitions and flaws are the result of innumerable traumatic experiences built up over trillions of years of reincarnation.

A Scientologist becomes "Clear" by taking multiple courses and through copious "auditing," a process in which they are counseled and encouraged by a more advanced church member to relive past traumas, with the help of an E-Meter, a device that Scientologists claim monitors brain activity. Before they're allowed to continue on to OT, a rigorous screening process and background check are conducted, according to Melton and others. Reaching the highest OT levels usually takes from a decade to three decades, the current and former Scientologists say. Lower estimates for the total cost of this are around $30,000, but some people claim to have spent several hundred thousand dollars. The current Scientology member tells Salon he pays several thousand dollars a year for the services.

That's a small investment if you're Tom Cruise, who now demands $20 million per movie, or some of the other marquee names affiliated with the church, including actors John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, Kirstie Alley and Jason Lee, musicians Beck, Lisa Marie Presley and Chick Corea, and Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren. Celebrity Scientologists, like other Scientologists, do not publicly reveal their rank. But despite their vagueness on the subject, celebrities play a crucial role in the church's image and its marketing of itself. According to Kent, beginning in the 1960s L. Ron Hubbard issued explicit directives for the church to recruit celebrities.

"There was a whole series of policies that talked about celebrities as opinion-makers," Kent said. "He suggested to get celebrities on their way up or their way down. To get them on the way up meant, if they became famous, they might attribute their success to Scientology. On the way down meant if their careers get saved they could do the same."

Also, said S. Scott Bartchy, director of the Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA, "They're looking for high-profile people to say positive things about them, because they are so eager to be considered a legitimate religion, and because of all the problems they're having abroad." Germany, for example. And academics apparently have their own appeal: Bartchy said that high-ranking Scientologists had approached him and sent him materials in an attempt to "woo" him. (When asked about this, Parkin wrote Salon: "Professor Bartchy has told us that he gets many questions from students about Scientology and that he was happy to receive the information we have provided to help him answer them. I think you are mischaracterizing what, if anything, he may have told you to put your own spin on it. Professor Bartchy has always been very cordial with the people from the Church with whom he has spoken.")

Cruise, who is 42, has been a member of the church since around the time of Hubbard's death in 1986. (His first marriage, from 1987 to 1990, was to actress Mimi Rogers, also a Scientologist. His second marriage, from 1990 to 2001, was to Nicole Kidman, who is not a Scientologist.) Until recently, however, he almost never discussed his membership publicly.

That started to change a few years ago, when Cruise co-sponsored a Scientology detoxification center near ground zero in Manhattan. Last year, he had a Scientology tent set up on the set of "War of the Worlds." He began openly boosting Narconon, the church's drug rehabilitation program. And then last December, he was presented with the Freedom Medal of Honor by David Miscavige, chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, one of the church's elite committees and, according to Melton and others, Hubbard's hand-chosen successor.

This spring, Cruise kicked things into high gear. He Zorba-ed Oprah's couch, and then he worried about his "Endless Love" costar Brooke Shields' mental health, criticizing her publicized use of antidepressants to battle postpartum depression and implying they might have caused her career to decline (Scientologists strongly oppose the use of antidepressants and other behavior-modifying drugs). He plopped a Details reporter on the back of his futuristic new motorcycle and sped her to three different Scientology facilities, where he extolled the faith -- for six hours. In an interview he and Steven Spielberg gave to the German paper Der Spiegel in April, Cruise defended Scientology, saying: "I'm a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world."

Then he burst into full Tom Joad mode: "If someone wants to get off drugs, I can help them," he declared to the interviewer. "If someone wants to learn how to read, I can help them. If someone doesn't want to be a criminal anymore, I can give them tools that can better their life. You have no idea how many people want to know what Scientology is."

When he was asked by Entertainment Weekly this month why he'd suddenly become so vocal, he insisted: "What choice do I have?" Then he declared: "People are being electric-shocked. Kids are being drugged. People are dying." In the same interview he supported the Scientology claim that psychiatry is a "Nazi science" and advanced several erroneous myths, which the E.W. editors helpfully pointed out in brackets:

"Jung was an editor for the Nazi papers during World War II. [According to Aryeh Maidenbaum, the director of the New York Center for Jungian Studies, this is not true.] Look at the experimentation the Nazis did with electric shock and drugging. Look at the drug methadone. That was originally called Adolophine. It was named after Adolf Hitler. [According to the Dictionary of Drugs and Medications, among other sources, this is an urban legend.]"

Cruise may now feel free to counsel others with a rare degree of authority. But sadly, Holmes may not be able to benefit much: The church forbids its OTs, even celebrities like Cruise, to discuss what they're learning with lower members. Indeed, OTs are not allowed to discuss their secret knowledge even with each other.

Asked why he couldn't discuss the details of OT teachings with anyone, including his peers, the current Scientologist said: "It's confidential. And that's the way that Mr. Hubbard wanted it. They're not ready for it."

The church claims that it has as many as 10 million members worldwide, but critics have suggested the actual number is far less. Melton said that the number of OT-VIIs and OT-VIIIs is in the hundreds. After years of study and introspection, achieving OT is supposed to create the kind of euphoria Kent referred to.

"The OT levels improve a person's life," said the current OT-V Scientologist, who did not want to be named. "All I know is I went through it and it changed my life dramatically. There is so much 'case'" -- a Scientology term meaning, essentially, mental blockage -- "a person has. Reactivity, aberration, things that are not you. The Bridge gets rid of all that stuff. I have the ability to show love to anyone -- from presidents down to bums. I can show love for anyone because I admire that being."

OTs are also warned that any vacillation from the courses and auditing can be dangerous. "Beginning with OT-III, you're taught that if you don't follow the prescribed steps precisely, you could become very sick," said the former OT-VII member. He stressed that he was not a critic of the church but had left because of personal differences.

Adding to all that stress is a series of very heavy theological revelations that begin with OT-III. The central creation story, according to Melton, Bartchy, Kent and the former member, is this: About 75 million years ago, a nefarious intergalactic warlord called Xenu rounded up the inhabitants of numerous planets, killed them, and brought them to Earth, then set off a chain reaction of cataclysmic volcanoes (the volcano pictured on the "Dianetics" cover was Hubbard's favorite symbol for the notion of breakthrough and self-actualization), which dispersed their thetans into the atmosphere. These thetans now fester inside the bodies of all humans. They are to be located in specific body parts and summoned out.

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Scientology Official Symbols

"Part of the problem is how literally that is to be understood," Melton said. "There are those who take it quite literally and those who don't take it literally at all." Then there is the problem of the church's alleged treatment of OTs who have attempted to abandon the faith. Celebrity or not, an apostate Cruise might run into trouble.

"I doubt that Travolta or the other celebrities know what I know from people of how they're treated when they try to leave," Bartchy said. "What is probably told to the celebrities is that these are just very disgruntled people who aren't to be taken seriously."

Melton said only, "If you were a high-ranking member and simply said, 'I'm quitting, bye,' they look on you with a certain amount of animosity."

How does the church respond to such criticism? "I am aware that a small cadre of anti-religious extremists are trying to generate hostility against Scientology by disseminating lies about it," Parkin wrote in response to questions about the OT teachings and church policy. "This little group of insignificant people are the only ones in the world who are obsessed with extracting and altering out of context bits of esoteric data about Scientology and using it to create prejudice against Scientology through reporters such as yourself who buy into their agenda."

If all of this is not too much to bear for Holmes or others contemplating Scientology as a religious choice -- as it seems not to have been for Cruise -- the process, at his level anyway, may prove quite enjoyable. According to "What Is Scientology?" a book put out by Bridge Publications, the church's lucrative publishing arm, part or all of OT-VII and OT-VIII must be performed in the church's headquarters in Clearwater, Fla., or aboard the Freewinds, a ship that houses parts of the church's upper management. Happily, the weather makes up for the deprivations of sea life: The Freewinds is usually docked off the Caribbean island of Curaçao.

But should either of them decide to leave Scientology one day, Cruise and Holmes may also find themselves in a contractual bind. Scientologists are strongly encouraged to sign covenants of faith. And these aren't contracts for the uncommitted; according to Melton, Kent and the current Scientologist, the most fervent covenant -- which is common -- has a duration of 1 billion years.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:33 pm

Olof Palme Assassination
by Wikipedia

Image
The killing of Palme left Sweden in a state of shock. A couple of days after the assassination, the thousands of flowers left by passers-by at the site of the murder formed a huge pile.

The assassination of Olof Palme (Swedish: Palmemordet, the Palme murder), the Prime Minister of Sweden, took place on Friday, 28 February, 1986, in Stockholm, Sweden, at 23:21 hours Central European Time (22:21 UTC). Palme was fatally wounded by gunshots while walking home from a cinema with his wife Lisbet Palme on the central Stockholm street Sveavägen. The couple did not have bodyguards at the time.

The case is still unsolved and a number of theories as to who carried out the murder have been proposed. Christer Pettersson, a substance abuser who previously had been convicted of manslaughter, was convicted of the murder in 1988 after having been identified as the killer by Palme's wife. However, on appeal to Svea Court of Appeal he was acquitted. Pettersson died in 2004, legally declared not guilty of the Palme assassination.

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Prime Minister Olof Palme in the early 1970s.

Night of the Assassination

Despite Olof Palme's position as prime minister, he sought to live as ordinary a life as possible. He would often go out without any bodyguard protection, and the night of his murder was one such occasion. Walking home from the Grand Cinema with his wife Lisbet Palme on the central Stockholm street Sveavägen, close to midnight on February 28, 1986, the couple were attacked by a lone gunman. Palme was fatally shot in the back at close range at 23:21 CET. A second shot wounded Mrs Palme.

Police said that a taxi-driver used his mobile radio to raise the alarm. Two girls sitting in a car close to the scene of the shooting tried to help the prime minister. He was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival at 00:06 CET on March 1, 1986.

The attacker escaped eastwards on the Tunnelgatan and disappeared.

Deputy prime minister Ingvar Carlsson immediately assumed the duties of prime minister and as new leader of the Social Democratic Party.

Sequence of events

Cinema decision


Palme's decision to visit the Grand Cinema was made at very short notice. Mrs Lisbet Palme had discussed seeing a film when she was at work during the afternoon, and called her son, Mårten Palme, at 5 pm to talk about the film at the Grand Cinema. Olof Palme did not hear about the plans until at home, at 6:30 pm, when he met with his wife. By which time, Palme had already declined any further personal body guard protection from the security service. He talked to his son about the plans on the phone, and they eventually decided to join Mårten and his spouse, who had already purchased tickets for themselves. This decision was made about 8 pm. The police later searched Palme's apartment, as well as Lisbet's and Mårten's work places, for wire-bugging devices or traces of such equipment, but did not find any.[1]

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Grand Cinema

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Crossing of Sveavägen–Tunnelgatan where Palme was shot.

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Tunnelgatan. The assassin's immediate escape route.

Grand Cinema

At 8.30 pm the Palme couple left their apartment, unescorted, heading for the Gamla stan subway station. Several people witnessed their short walk to the station and, according to the later police investigation, commented on the lack of body guards. The couple took the subway train to the Rådmansgatan station, from where they walked to the Grand Cinema. They met with their son and his spouse just outside the theatre around 9 pm. Olof Palme had not yet purchased tickets which were by then almost sold out. Recognizing the prime minister, the ticket clerk wanted him to have the best seats, and therefore sold Palme the theatre director's seats.[2]

The murder

After the screening, the Palme family stayed outside the theatre for a while but separated about 11.15 pm. Olof and Lisbet Palme headed south on the west side of Sveavägen street, towards the Rådmansgatan subway station. When they reached the Adolf Fredrik's Church, they crossed Sveavägen and continued on the street's east side. They stopped a moment to look at something in a shop window, continued past the Dekorima shop (now renamed Kreatima) and headed for the subway station entrance. At 11:21:30 pm, half the distance across the Tunnelgatan street and only a short distance from the station entrance, a man appeared from behind, shot Palme at point-blank range and fired a second shot at Mrs Palme. The perpetrator then jogged down Tunnelgatan street, up the steps to Malmskillnadsgatan and continued down David Bagares gata [street], where he was last seen.[3]

Time line

Thanks to time stamps on records for radio and tele communication, many events have been determined with a very high precision.[4]

• 11.21:30 pm — The Palme couple are shot.
• 11.22:20 pm — The 90000 SOS emergency line receives a phone call. An eye witness says there is 'murder on Sveavägen', and is immediately redirected to the police. However the phone call is not redirected properly and the caller is not put through to the police.
• 11.23:40 pm — A Järfälla Taxi switchboard operator calls directly to the police dispatch center on behalf of one of its drivers on the scene. He can, however, not give any more details than that someone has been shot at the corner Sveavägen/Tunnelgatan.
• 11:24 pm (ca) — The first police patrol arrives at the scene. Stationed on Kungsgatan, a few hundred feet from the scene, the patrol is alerted by a second taxi driver who heard the emergency call via the taxi radio.
• 11.24:40 pm — The police dispatch center is contacted by the SOS alarm central concerning the shooting on Sveavägen. The dispatch center operator denies knowledge about any such events.
• 11.24 – 11.25.30 pm (ca) — A second police patrol, a patrol wagon, arrives at the crime scene. The patrol was stationed at Malmskillnadsgatan at the time of murder, not far from the perpetrator's escape route. They are ordered by the commanding officer at the scene, Superintendent Söderström, to immediately take up the hunt for the perpetrator.
• 11.25 pm (ca) — A patrolling ambulance is stopped at the scene and gives immediate assistance to the victims.
• 11.26:00 pm — The police dispatch center calls the SOS emergency center to assure them they are informed about the events on the Sveavägen/Tunnelgatan intersection.
• A third police patrol wagon arrives at the scene, the patrol was refueling at a gas station when they got called out to the scene.
• A second ambulance arrives at the scene to assist their colleagues from the first ambulance.
• 11.28:00 pm — The first ambulance leaves the scene, rushing for the Sabbatsberg hospital with prime minister Olof Palme and his wife. Mrs Palme, not being severely wounded, refuses to leave her husband.
• 11.30 pm — Superintendent Söderström, contacts the police dispatch center to inform them that it is the prime minister who has been shot.
• 11.31:40 pm — The SOS central is informed that the ambulance has arrived to the hospital.
• 00.06 am — Prime Minister Olof Palme is pronounced dead at the Sabbatsberg hospital.
• 00.45 am — Vice prime minister Ingvar Carlsson arrives at Rosenbad.
• 01.10 am — First radio broadcast about the murder.
• 04.00 am — First TV broadcast about the events.
• 05.15 am — The government holds a press conference.

Murder theories

Palme's assassination remains unsolved, with a number of alternative theories surrounding the murder.

"The 33-year old"

A Swedish extremist, Victor Gunnarsson (labeled in the media 33-åringen, "the 33-year old"), was soon arrested for the murder but quickly released, after a dispute between the police and prosecuting attorneys. Gunnarsson had connections to various extremist groups, among these the European Workers Party, the Swedish branch of the LaRouche Movement.[5] Pamphlets hostile to Palme from the party were found in his home outside Stockholm.

Gunnarsson later moved to the United States of America, where he was murdered. Acquaintances stated he had admitted murdering Palme.[6]

Victor Gunnarsson died somewhere between the 3 and 7 of January of 1994. Victor was the individual acquitted in the assassination in Sweden of Olav Palme, the high ranking Swedish politician. They are tracking Gunnarson's connection to Scientology. Detectives found a number of Scientology books at his place of residence. A reporter mentioned something about a $2 million offer to assassinate Palme being found or implied somewhere in his records.

-- THE FABLE -- HOLLYWOOD, SATANISM, SCIENTOLOGY & SUICIDE, by F.A.C.T.Net, Inc.


PKK

Hans Holmér, the Stockholm police commissioner, followed up an intelligence lead passed to him (supposedly by Bertil Wedin) and arrested a number of Kurds living in Sweden, after allegations that one of their organisations, the PKK, was responsible for the murder. The lead proved inconclusive however and ultimately led to Holmér's removal from the Palme murder investigation. Fifteen years later, in April 2001, a team of Swedish police officers went to interview Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan in a Turkish prison about Öcalan's allegations that a dissident Kurdish group, led by his ex-wife, murdered Palme.[7] The police team's visit proved futile.

In 2007, renewed allegations of PKK complicity in Palme's assassination surfaced during the Ergenekon investigation, which is ongoing as of October 2008.[8]

Christer Pettersson

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Mugshot of Christer Pettersson.

In December 1988, almost three years after Palme's death, Christer Pettersson, a brain-damaged petty criminal, drug user and alcoholic, who had previously been imprisoned for manslaughter, was arrested for the murder of Palme. Picked out by Mrs Palme at a lineup as the killer, Pettersson was tried and convicted of the murder, but was later acquitted on appeal to the High Court. Pettersson's appeal succeeded for three main reasons:

• The murder weapon had not been found;
• He had no clear motive for the killing;
• Doubts about the reliability of Mrs Palme's testimony.

Additional evidence against Pettersson surfaced in the late 1990s, mostly coming from various petty criminals who altered their stories but also from a confession made by Pettersson. The chief prosecutor, Agneta Blidberg, considered re-opening the case. But she acknowledged that a confession alone would not be sufficient, saying:

He must say something about the weapon because the appeals court set that condition in its ruling. That is the only technical evidence that could be cited as a reason to re-open the case.


While the legal case against Pettersson therefore remains closed, the police file on the investigation cannot be closed until both murder weapon and murderer are found. Christer Pettersson died on September 29, 2004, of cerebral hemorrhage after injuring his head.

Apartheid South Africa

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A 1986 poster by Cuban artist Rafael Enriquez, with Palme quote that apartheid must be eliminated.

On February 21, 1986 — a week before he was murdered — Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm, attended by hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathizers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo. In the address, Palme said, "Apartheid cannot be reformed, it has to be eliminated."

Ten years later, towards the end of September 1996, Colonel Eugene de Kock, a former South African police officer, gave evidence to the Supreme Court in Pretoria, alleging that Palme had been shot and killed in 1986 because he "strongly opposed the apartheid regime and Sweden made substantial contributions to the ANC".[9][10] De Kock went on to claim he knew the person responsible for Palme's murder. He alleged it was Craig Williamson, a former police colleague and a South African superspy. A few days later, Brigadier Johannes Coetzee, who used to be Williamson's boss, identified Anthony White, a former Rhodesian Selous Scout with links to the South African security services, as Palme's actual murderer. Then a third person, Swedish mercenary Bertil Wedin, living in Northern Cyprus since 1985, was named as the killer by Peter Caselton, a member of Coetzee's assassination squad known as Operation Longreach. The following month, in October 1996, Swedish police investigators visited South Africa, but were unable to uncover evidence to substantiate de Kock's claims.

A book that was published in 2007 suggested that a high-ranking Civil Cooperation Bureau operative, Athol Visser (or 'Ivan the Terrible'), was responsible for planning and carrying out Olof Palme's assassination.[11]

Bofors and Indian connection

In his 2005 book Blood on the Snow: The Killing of Olof Palme historian Jan Bondeson advanced a theory that Palme's murder was linked with arms trades to India. Bondeson's book meticulously recreated the assassination and its aftermath, and suggested that Palme had used his friendship with Rajiv Gandhi to secure a SEK 8.4 billion deal for the Swedish armaments company Bofors to supply the Indian Army with howitzers. However, Palme did not know that behind his back Bofors had used a shady company called AE Services — nominally based in Guildford, Surrey, England — to bribe Indian government officials to conclude the deal.

Bondeson alleged that on the morning he was assassinated, Palme had met with the Iraqi ambassador to Sweden, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf (the man who would later go on to become notorious as Saddam Hussein's Information Minister during the 2003 Iraq War). The two discussed Bofors, which al-Sahhaf knew well because of its arms sales during the Iran–Iraq War. Bondeson suggested that the ambassador told Palme about Bofors' activities, infuriating Palme. Bondeson theorised that Palme's murder might have been inadvertently triggered by his conversation with the ambassador, if either the Bofors arms dealers or the middlemen working through AE Services had a prearranged plan to silence the Prime Minister should he discover the truth and the deal with India become threatened. According to Bondeson, Swedish police suppressed vital MI6 intelligence about a Bofors/AE Services deal with India.

The Red Army Faction

The Red Army Faction (RAF) better known as the Baader-Meinhof Group of Germany claimed responsibility for the assassination of Palme via an anonymous phone call to a London news agency. They supposedly assassinated him because he was the Prime Minister of Sweden during the West German embassy siege in Stockholm in 1975 which ended in failure for the RAF. They claimed the assassination was carried out by the 'Holger Meins Commando.'

Roberto Thieme

The Swedish journalist Anders Leopold, in his 2008 book Det svenska trädet skall fällas, makes the case that the Chilean fascist Roberto Thieme killed Olof Palme. Thieme was head of the most militant wing of Patria y Libertad, a far-right political organization, financed by the U.S. CIA. According to Leopold, Palme was killed because he had freely given asylum to so many leftist Chileans following the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in 1973.[12]

New evidence?

According to a documentary programme broadcast on the Swedish television channel SVT in February 2006, associates of Pettersson claimed that he had confessed to them his role in the murder, but with the explanation that it was a case of mistaken identity. Apparently, Pettersson had intended to kill a drug dealer who customarily walked, in similar clothing, along the same street at night.

The programme also suggested there was greater police awareness than previously acknowledged because of surveillance of drug activity in the area. The police had several officers in apartments and cars along those few blocks of Sveavägen but, 45 minutes before the murder, the police monitoring ceased.

In the light of these latest revelations, Swedish police undertook to review Palme's case and Pettersson's role. However, the newspaper Dagens Nyheter of February 28, 2006 carried articles ridiculing the TV documentary, and alleging that the filmmaker had fabricated a number of statements while omitting other contradictory evidence.[13]

Mockfjärd Gun

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Memorial plaque at the place of the assassination, reading: "Here, Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme was murdered, on February 28, 1986."

Memorial plaque at the place of the assassination, reading: "Here, Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme was murdered, on February 28, 1986."Swedish police, acting on tip communicated to the Expressen newspaper, retrieved a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver from a lake in Dalarna, in autumn 2006. The gun was earlier used in a post office robbery in Mockfjärd, in 1983, confirmed by the gun's serial number. The Swedish police over the years have test fired hundreds of guns of this kind, seeing if the trace on the bullets would match those found on scene of Palme's murder. The gun was transferred to the National Laboratory of Forensic Science in Linköping for further analysis. However, the laboratory concluded in May 2007 that tests on the gun could not confirm that it was used in the Palme assassination, for it was too rusty.[14][15]

Other theories

John Ausonius, "the Laser Man", also known as John Stannerman, was initially one of the suspects but it turned out that Ausonius had a solid alibi, as he was imprisoned on the night Palme was shot.

Costs

• The cost of the investigation stands at SEK 350 million, EUR 38 million or US$45 million as of February 25, 2006.[16]
• The total number of pages accumulated during the investigation is around 700,000.[17]
• The reward for solving the murder is SEK 50 million.[17]

Film portrayals

In the 1998 Swedish fictional thriller film The Last Contract (Sista kontraktet), Palme's assassination was portrayed as having been planned by the CIA. A Special Branch detective, Roger Nyman (Mikael Persbrandt), is on the trail of the international hitman (Ray Lambert, played by Michael Kitchen) but finds his line of inquiry is blocked by senior police officers and the Swedish establishment. The reason suggested for the murder is the firm stance taken by Palme in rejecting deployment of nuclear weapons in Scandinavia. The assassin himself is then killed, to cover any trace back to the CIA.

The Last Contract has been favourably compared to two other thriller films featuring political assassinations: The Day of the Jackal and Oliver Stone's JFK.[18][19]

References

1. The investigation committee report (1999:88), p. 161. (PDF) (Swedish)
2. The investigation committee report (1999:88), p. 162. (PDF) (Swedish)
3. The investigation committee report (1999:88), p. 159 (PDF) (Swedish)
4. The investigation committee report (1999:88), p. 173 (PDF) (Swedish)
5. SOU 2002:87 Rikets säkerhet och den personliga integriteten, Swedish Government Official Report, p. 239
6. Lindqvist, Stefan (2006-02-25). "Palmemordet — konspirationsteorier". Hd.se. http://hd.se/inrikes/2006/02/25/palmemo ... nsteorier/. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
7. Ocalan questioned over Swedish murder, BBC News.
8. Dolmaci, Emine (2008-09-07). "Apo, Ergenekon'un Truva Ati" (in Turkish). Zaman Pazar (Feza Gazetecilik A.S.) 93. http://pazar.zaman.com.tr/?bl=5&hn=2690. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
9. http://www.kurdistan.org/Washington/southafrica.html
10. Daley, Suzanne (September 29, 1996). "Did Apartheid's Police Murder Sweden's Prime Minister?". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A960958260. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
11. Devil Incarnate: A Depraved Mercenary's Lifelong Swathe of Destruction by Wayne Thallon
12. New book: Chilean fascist leader killed Olaf Palme Politiken February 29, 2008 (in Danish)
13. "Filmen om mordet på Palme ett moraliskt haveri av SVT". Dn.se. http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp? ... nderType=2. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
14. Nordstrom, Louise (2006-11-21). "Swedish Police Recover Revolver Linked to Palme Murder Investigation". Associated Press. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/su ... 934046_ITM.
15. "Swedish Police Unable to Confirm Link Between Recovered Gun and Palme Murder Investigation". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. 2007-05-27. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/ ... Weapon.php.
16. Dagens Nyheter, March 12, 2006.
17. a b Swedish Police official site
18. Cleveland Film Society
19. Variety

Literature

Blood on the snow: The killing of Olof Palme, Jan Bondeson, Cornell University Press, 2005.
Inuti labyrinten (Within the labyrinth), Kari and Pertti Poutiainen, Grimur, 1994.
Olof Palme är skjuten! Writer Hans Holmer, ISBN 9146161538 ISBN 9789146161530 Publisher Wahlström & Widstrand 1988.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:43 pm

Operation Snow White
by Wikipedia

Operation Snow White was the Church of Scientology's name for a conspiracy during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members, in more than 30 countries;[1] the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history[2] with up to 5,000 covert agents.[3] This was also the operation that exposed 'Operation Freakout', because this was the case that brought the US government into investigation on the Church.[3]

Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices, most notably those of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Eleven highly-placed Church executives, including Mary Sue Hubbard (wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard and second-in-command of the organisation), pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. The case was United States vs. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., 493 F. Supp. 209 (D.D.C. 1979).[4][5][6][7]

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Grand Jury Charges, Introduction, "United States of America v. Mary Sue Hubbard", United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 1979

Background

As early as 1960, L. Ron Hubbard had proposed that Scientologists should infiltrate government departments by taking secretarial, bodyguard or other jobs.[8] In the early 1970s, the Church of Scientology was increasingly scrutinized by US federal agencies, having already been raided by the Food and Drug Administration in 1963. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed it owed millions of dollars in taxes and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sent agents into the organization.[8] The Church's response involved a publicity campaign, extensive litigation against the IRS and a program of infiltration of agency offices.[8]

The specific branch of Scientology responsible for Operation Snow White was the Guardian's Office. Created in 1966 by L. Ron Hubbard himself, the Guardian's Office's purpose was to protect the interests of Scientology.[9] At the time of Operation Snow White, the Guardian's Office had worldwide headquarters (Guardian’s Office WW) located at Saint Hill Manor in England. Headquarters in the United States (Guardian’s Office US) were in Los Angeles, California. A smaller office also existed in Washington, D.C. (Guardian’s Office DC) and other cities throughout the United States. Each of the Guardian Offices had five bureaus including the Information Bureau which oversaw the infiltration of the government. L. Ron Hubbard oversaw the Guardian's Office, though it was Mary Sue Hubbard, his wife, who held the title Commodore Staff Guardian.[10]

Several years later, in 1973, the Guardian's Office began a massive infiltration of governments around the world, though the primary target of the operation was the United States. Worried about Scientology’s long term reputation, the Guardian’s Office decided to infiltrate Interpol in order to obtain documents relating to Scientology, as well as those connecting L. Ron Hubbard to criminal activity. This duty was handed by Jane Kember to Hening Heldt and his staff.[11]

Around this time L. Ron Hubbard himself wrote Guardian Order 732, which called for the removal and correction of “erroneous” Scientology files. It is here that Operation Snow White has its origins. Though the order called for this to be achieved by legal means, this would quickly change. [12] Hubbard himself would later be named by federal prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator" for his part in the operation. Though extensive records of his involvement exist, many Scientologists claim his directives were misinterpreted by his followers. [13][14]

Operation Snow White would further be refined to Guardian Order 1361. Addressed from Jane Kember to Heldt, Duke Snider, and Richard Weigand, GO 1361 called for, amongst other things, an infiltration of the Los Angeles and London offices of the IRS, and the Department of Justice.[15]

While the order was specific to the IRS, the Guardian’s Office was soon recruiting their own field agents to infiltrate other governmental offices, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Coast Guard intelligence service,[16] and the National Institute of Mental Health, among others, as well as the American Medical Association.[17] The program called for rewards to be given for successful missions carried out by Scientologists. [18]

Other planned elements of the operation included petitioning governments and the United Nations to charge government critics of Scientology with genocide, on the theory that official criticism of the group constituted "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction". One of the sentencing memoranda in the case also noted that, contrary to what the defendants claimed, the programs planned by the Guardian's Office were not restricted to trying to remove "false reports" but included plans to plant false information—for instance, planting false records about "a cat with a pedigree name" into US security agency computers so that later "the creature holds a press conference and photographic story results." The purpose of this plan was "to hold up the American security to ridicule, as outlined in the GO by LRH."[19]

The start of 1974 saw a Michael Meisner appointed Assistant Guardian for Information in the District of Columbia (AG I DC). Meisner’s responsibilities now included the implementation of all Information Bureau orders, programs, and projects within the DC area. Meisner’s supervisor at this time was Duke Snider, the Assistant Guardian for DC, or AG DC. This was the highest position in Washington’s GO office.[20]

In July 1974 Meisner was ordered by Duke Snider to implement the previously written plan to obtain Interpol documents, which were then located in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Meisner had more to do than just this, though, as by August he was also taking directions from a Cindy Raymond, the GO's Collections Officer for the US, who ordered Meisner to assist her in finding a loyal Scientologist agent to gain employment at the IRS headquarters in Washington DC. This employee was to steal all documents dealing with Scientology, especially those involving current litigation by Scientology against the government. Meisner discussed this with Raymond for a period of a month before interviewing various Scientologists with no luck. A month after the order had been given, Raymond informed Meisner that she had selected Gerald Wolfe. [21]

Implementation

The GO's actual infiltration of the government likely began when Gerald Wolfe and Michael Meisner were able to gain employment at the IRS as clerk-typists. Under direction of the Guardian Office, Wolfe monitored files on tax-exempt organizations and, when requested, illegally made copies for Scientology.[16] Meisner supervised both Wolfe and the Information Bureau section in DC, and reported to the GO's Deputy Guardian for Information in the US.[22]

In November 1974, Operation Snow White took an unexpected turn for the GO when they received word that the IRS would be conducting a meeting on Scientology’s tax-exempt status. In response, the church sent a spy to bug the room.[23] On the morning of November 1, the day before the meeting, a GO agent, Hermann, broke into the conference room and plugged the device into an electrical outlet. This device, in turn, then transmitted a signal to an FM frequency, which was picked up and recorded by Scientologists sitting in a car in the parking lot of the Smithsonian, which faced the office. After the meeting Hermann removed the device, and the taped recording of the meeting was sent to LA.[24]

By December, Wolfe, Herman, and Meisner had sent a shipment of stolen documents 20 inches thick to Duke Snider. Snider, in turn, sent notification to Mo Budlong in LA. By the end of December, Wolfe was stealing documents from the IRS’s Chief Counsel’s office. Just days after Christmas, Wolfe broke into the office of Barbar ird, an attorney in the IRS’ Refund Litigation Service. Bird had been present at the November 1st meeting. Instead of stealing files, Wolfe took them to a copier and made photocopies using government paper. [25]

Later Wolfe met Meisner at a Lums Restaurant, where he reported on his most recent theft. Meisner took the documents and underlined selections that he believed his superiors would find interesting or relevant and wrote a summary of the important points. This was then routed through the Assistant Guardian for DC and on to the Deputy Guardian for the US, the Deputy Guardian for Information in the US, the Branch I Director of the Information Bureau, and the Collections Officer, all of which were in LA. A copy was also sent to Mary Sue Hubbard. This was typically standard procedure for Meisner.[25]

In early 1975 Operation Snow White expanded again as Sharon Thomas obtained employment in the U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence Agency and Nancy Douglass began work at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Douglass stole documents and made photocopies of others. These were transmitted to Hermann.[26]

By Spring, attention had been called back to the IRS case as Mary Sue Hubbard had instructed Kember and Heldt to “use any method at our disposal to win the battle and gain our non-profit (tax) status.[27]" Heldt wrote back telling that her request had been sent to the Information Bureau, who had been ordered to complete the collection of documents from the IRS and the Department of Justice’s tax files within three months.[28]

In April, Meisner procured a directory of the Department of Justice and located the offices that would have files pertaining to Scientology litigation. When he found what he wanted he sent in Wolfe, who broke into the offices of two attorneys on three successive Saturdays. Wolfe copied twelve files and met up with Meisner, as before, at Lums restaurant. These files were especially useful to Scientology, as it detailed the government’s strategy in various court cases.

In May, Willardson directed Meisner to implement “Project Horn,” which called for Meisner to “provide a cover for PR and legal for the way they obtained IRS docs.” The idea would be for the GO’s Public Relations Bureau to view the documents without worrying about being connected to the theft. Willardson’s idea called for Meisner to steal documents dealing with organizations other than Scientology. Willardson also called for the theft of IRS stationary, in order to forge letters from a (fictional) disgruntled IRS employee. The files on various organizations (including Scientology, of course) would then be sent out attached to the fake letter. The idea was that it would appear that an upset IRS agent had himself sent the files to numerous organizations. There would be nothing to tie it to Scientology. Wolfe stole both the stationary and, without permission, files on the Unification Church and Bob Jones University.[29]

During the Summer and Fall months of 1975 the GO launched an additional plan. In July, Meisner was told by Cindy Raymond that the Church of Scientology had initiated a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the IRS. Meisner was directed to add the office of Charles Zuravin to his list of offices to monitor. Zuravin was representing the government in the case. Meisner immediately passed this duty on to Wolfe, who broke into Zuravin‘s office multiple times between July and November. Wolfe revealed to his superiors that Zuravin was preparing an index of Scientology files relevant to the FOIA case. IRS offices from all over the country were sending files to Zuravin. This index file, required by the courts in all FOIA cases, is a total list of the documents requested, and reasons for their exemption from the public, if any.[30]

By October, Zuravin had finished the index, numbering each document in order to simplify location, and had provided a copy to Scientology attorneys. These attorneys, in turn, gave the index to Raymond, who passed it along to Meisner, who passed it to Wolfe. Wolfe then entered Zuravin’s office and then began copying the documents listed on the index. Zuravin had essentially done the GO’s job for them.[30]

On December 5 1975 Jane Kember issued Guardian Program Order 158, which intended to give L. Ron Hubbard early warning of impending legal action. The plan called for the infiltration of the government agencies that had either the power to issue, or the knowledge of, impending subpoenas.[31] Specific agencies include the US Attorney’s Office in DC and LA, the IRS Office of International Operations, the DEA, and the Coast Guard and Immigration and Naturalization. After reviewing the letter, Meisner concluded it would be etter idea to infiltrate the Department of Justice than the US Attorney’s Office.[32]

In January 1976 Hermann, the Southeast US Secretary for the Information Bureau, informed Meisner that Heldt and Weigand approved a plan to send Alverzo to Washington. Alverzo arrived on the 17th, and on the 18th he picked the locks on the doors belonging to the office of Lewis Hubbard (no relation to L. Ron Hubbard) and the file room housing Zuravin’s files. Wolfe stood guard at the end of the hallway while Alverzo worked on Hubbard’s door. A few doors down Meisner worked on Zuravin’s door. After an hour and a half with no success, Meisner was getting upset. In frustration, Meisner hit the top of Zuravin’s door, which popped right open. The three Scientologists entered the office and took the remaining Scientology related documents. They then traveled to another floor where they made photocopies. Wolfe continued to make copies while Alverzo and Meisner tried again to open Hubbard’s office. The trio then worked well into the night photocopying files from Hubbard’s office. When they left, sometime around 2 AM, they left with a foot tall stack of documents.[33] Less than a month later Richard Weigand wrote to Jane Kember, telling her that the IRS documents that had been ordered to be obtained in Guardian Order 1361, over two years earlier, had been obtained.[34]

Gerald Wolfe, along with Meisner, were later able to break into a room and make false IRS identification cards, which allowed them access to the federal courthouse in Washington. Wolfe and Meisner then used these cards to gain access to restricted areas and steal more documents.[16]

While Wolfe and Meisner continued their work at the IRS, Mary Sue Hubbard, along with other Guardian Office members, were coming up with further plans. Guardian Program Order 302, written by Cindy Raymond and approved by Hubbard, amongst others, directed the infiltration of all government agencies that had withheld files from Scientology’s various FOIA requests.[35]

On the night of April 14, Meisner and Wolfe were on the tenth floor of the IRS building housing the Office of International Operations. Trying to enter an office, the pair found it locked. A passing cleaning lady noted Meisner and Wolfe’s suspicious behavior, and notified a security guard. The guard confronted the pair and was presented with Wolfe’s genuine IRS card and Meisner’s fabricated one. Satisfied, the guard had the cleaning lady open the door. Inside, the pair grabbed a hefty load of files. Unable to find a photocopier, the pair then took the files to the main IRS building, where the pair again used their identification to gain access. After copying the files they returned them to Crate’s office. The entire process took some four hours. [36]

In May, Wolfe broke into the United States Courthouse and stole keys to the office of Assistant United States Attorney Nathan Dodell. Wolfe then took these keys to have them duplicated, and returned them unnoticed. Almost three weeks later Wolfe and Meisner broke into Dodell’s office, stealing documents and, as usual, forwarding them to Guardian headquarters in Los Angeles. [16] The GO’s interest in Nathan Dodell stemmed from a Scientology FOIA case. In April, Judge George L Hart asked Dodell whether the US had considered taking a deposition of L Ron Hubbard. Dodell responded that it was an “interesting thought.” Furthermore, he promised to discuss it with the Department of Justice. [37]

In May, Meisner and Wolfe entered the US Courthouse for the District of Columbia around four in the afternoon. They went to the third floor, which was the home of both the US Attorney‘s Office and the Bar Association Library. They planned to locate Nathan Dodell’s office, which was in the back of the Civil Division area, near an elevator. They then searched for the building’s photocopiers. After mapping out these locations, they left. Later, Wolfe and Meisner made a copy of Dodell's keys.[38]

On May 21, Meisner and Wolfe entered the Courthouse, signing in to do research in the library and were issued an elevator key. After riding the elevator to the floor of the library, the pair entered the library and removed several books from shelves and sat at a table. After a few minutes they exited through ackdoor and emerged in a hallway. In this hallway was Dodell’s office, which they entered using their keys. The duo stole a number of documents related to Scientology and walked through the hallway to the two copy machines they had previously located. The pair photocopied some six inches of documents before returning the originals to Dodell’s office. [38]

One week later Wolfe and Meisner again met outside the IRS building. The duo then walked to the US Courthouse, and signed in under fake names. They repeated their actions from the previous week, copying another foot of documents from the District of Columbia Police Department as well as the Food and Drug Administration. Returning to Dodell’s office through the library, they were stopped by the night librarian, who asked if they had signed in. While they had signed in at the front desk, they had failed to do the same at the front desk of the library. When they announced that they had not, Johnson, the night librarian, told the pair not to come back unless they had specific authorization from the day librarian. The pair promptly left. Three days later Johnson notified the US Attorney’s Office that two individuals had been seen using the photocopying machines of the Attorney’s Office. Johnson and the night guard were told to immediately contact the FBI if the individuals returned.[37]

Less than two weeks later Hermann phoned Meisner, and ordered him to return to Dodell’s office and steal his personal files. The goal was to formulate a plan that would result in Dodell being removed from his position as an Assistant US Attorney for the District of Columbia.[37]

Meisner and Wolfe entered the United States Courthouse on June 11 around 7 in the evening. They signed in as they did before, and headed to the library. Johnson, the night librarian, recognized the pair and immediately stopped them. Meisner was prepared for this, and showed the man a letter from the head librarian. Wolfe and Meisner continued to the back of the library where they exited into the hallway. Outside Dodell’s office the two saw that cleaning ladies were still at work.[37]

While Meisner and Wolfe waited for the cleaning crew to vacate the office, Johnson called the FBI, which sent two agents over immediately. The two agents confronted the Scientologists and demanded to see their identification. Wolfe used his real identification. Meisner presented his fake card, and told the agents that he had recently resigned from the IRS. Meisner told Hansen that the pair was in the library to do legal research, and that they had used the photocopiers to copy books and cases. Neither mentioned Scientology. After roughly twenty minutes of questioning, the FBI agents allowed them to leave. Meisner then phoned Hermann to inform him of the news and was told to immediately fly to LA. [37]

Aftermath and trial

Meisner and Wolfe were given cover stories by the Guardian's Office. [39] On the last day of June, Gerald Wolfe was arrested. Wolfe was charged with “the use and possession of a forged official pass of the United States."[40] The day after Wolfe’s arrest, Mary Sue Hubbard wrote a letter to Weigand ordering him to keep her abreast of the situation. Hubbard also conversed with Mo Budlong, and Richard Weigand about Wolfe’s arrest, cover story, and subsequent plan to destroy evidence linking Wolfe and Meisner to Scientology.[39]

At the end of July a judge decided that the case against Wolfe warranted an investigation by a Grand Jury. A week later the judge issued an arrest warrant for Meisner, who, at the time, was being hidden in LA. The FBI was able to connect him to Scientology.[41] By January 1977 it was becoming increasingly likely that Scientology would be unable to escape Operation Snow White without serious penalty. Though Meisner was still in hiding, he was growing increasingly anxious about the situation.[42] By April, Meisner wanted to surrender to the authorities. Meisner was quickly put under the control of several guards. [39]

On May 13, Gerald Wolfe entered a guilty plea.[43] Later in the month, Meisner escaped his captors, only to be convinced to rejoin the GO the following day.[44]

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From 1964 to 1995, the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C.. The building was raided by the FBI in July 1977.

In June, Wolfe, after being sentenced to probation and community service, testified before the Grand Jury. Instead of the truth, Wolfe told the latest incarnation of his cover story.[39] Several days later Meisner would again escape his captors, though this time he would contact the FBI. Meisner was eventually taken to Washington, where he agreed to plead guilty to a five-year conspiracy felony and cooperate with the Grand Jury.[45]

On July 4 the FBI raided Church of Scientology locations in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Washington, DC.[8] The Los Angeles raid involved 156 FBI agents: the most that had ever been used in a single raid. It lasted 21 hours and filled a sixteen ton truck with documents and other items.[8]

The raids not only turned up documentation of the group's illegal activities against the United States government,[46] but also illegal activities carried out against other perceived enemies of Scientology. These included "Operation Freakout", a conspiracy to frame author Paulette Cooper on false bomb-threat charges, and conspiracies to frame Gabe Cazares, mayor of Clearwater, Florida, on false hit-and-run charges.[47][48] The papers also revealed that Sir John Foster (author of the official UK Government inquiry into Scientology) and Lord Balniel (who had requested the report) were targets, along with the National Association for Mental Health (NAMH) and World Federation for Mental Health.[49]

Comparing the FBI to the Gestapo, the Church declared that all the files seized from the Church were taken illegally,[50] though the FBI produced a 40-plus page affidavit detailing 160 specific items they were looking for.[51]

By July 20, some 13 days after the raid, a Washington judge ruled that the documents should be returned, at least temporarily, to the Church, and that none of the documents could be shared with branches of the government, unless that specific branch was investigating Scientology. Scientology's lawyers had successfully argued that in order to prepare for an August 8 hearing on the legality of the raid, they must be able to see the documents.[52] By July 27 a judge in Washington had ruled the warrant authorizing the raid was too broad, and as such, violated the Church's 4th Amendment rights.[53] In August this ruling would be overturned, with Scientology promising to take the case to the Supreme Court,[54] which would, early in the next year, refuse to hear the case.[55]

In August 1978 11 high ranking members of Scientology were indicted on 28 charges. One of the indicted was Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of Scientology’s creator L. Ron Hubbard. The other ten were Gerald Wolfe, Cindy Raymond, Henning Heldt, Duke Snider, Gregory Willardson, Richard Weigand, Mitchell Herman, Sharon Thomas, Jane Kember, and Mo Budlong. Kendrick Moxon and L. Ron Hubbard were named unindicted co-conspirators.[56]

Over the course of the investigation the Church of Scientology would attempt to have a judge removed,[56] and would subpoena almost 150 federal agents in what appeared to be a large stalling scheme.[57] The Church would also offer several shifting explanations for their actions.[58][59] Ultimately, these tactics failed and the defendants agreed to a plea deal.

The Scientologists would be found guilty and their attorneys would be allowed to argue for the suppression of the government’s evidence. 7 of the 11 members of the Guardian’s Office pled guilty to just a single count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.One more pled guilty to a similar charge and a ninth pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The remaining two Scientologists were in England, awaiting extradition. [60]

On December 6, 1979, some five years after Operation Snow White began, it officially came to an end. Five of the Scientologists were sentenced to four years in jail, with four of the convicted being taken immediately. Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of L Ron Hubbard, was sentenced to five years. Each of the six faced a fine of 10,000 dollars.[61] The next day the four remaining Scientologists were sentenced. Three of the four faced a fine of $10,000 and five years in jail. The fourth was fined $1,000 and sent to jail for six months. Upon release she was given five years of probation and community service. All of the Scientologists immediately began to appeal.[62] Their appeal was rejected.[63]

In November 1980, the two remaining Scientologists, Jane Kember and Mo Budlong, were finally convicted on nine counts of aiding and abetting burglary in connection with break-ins at government offices,[64] and were sentenced to two to six years.[65]

Involved parties

Mary Sue Hubbard, Cindy Raymond, Gerald Bennett Wolfe, Henning Heldt, Duke Snider (not to be confused with Duke Snider, aseball player of the same name), Gregory Willardson, Richard Weigand, Mitchell Herman, Sharon Thomas, Jane Kember, and Mo Budlong, all high-ranking Scientologists, were convicted and sent to prison for five years.

Kendrick Moxon was listed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" for providing false handwriting samples to the FBI.[2] Moxon continued to act as an attorney for the Church of Scientology until at least 2000, representing the Church in the Lisa McPherson case.[66][67] L. Ron Hubbard was named by federal prosecutors as an "unindicted co-conspirator" and went into hiding for the rest of his life.[8][14]

After leaving prison Mary Sue Hubbard was no longer involved with the Church and passed away from breast cancer in 2002, unacknowledged by the Church.[68]

Effect of the scandal

The Church has been notably reluctant to discuss the operation's details; typical statements by members and operatives are often vague comments saying that the Guardian's Office (GO) had been "infiltrated" and "set up" to fail in its mission to protect the Church, that those involved were "purged" from the Church, without detailing what actually happened (although it has been suggested many of those involved and "purged" remained in important positions of power within the church).[69] Church spokespersons on the Internet and elsewhere have been known to claim that the operatives "had done nothing more serious than steal photocopier paper."[70]

Operation Snow White extended to Canada and resulted in legal proceedings against the Church.

References

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2. Ortega, Tony (1999-12-23). "Double Crossed". Phoenix New Times (New Times Media). http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1999-12- ... e-crossed/. Retrieved 2006-06-12.
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5. Mary Sue Hubbard et al. Sentencing Memorandum - corrected
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20. Stipulation of Evidence. Criminal No. 78-401. US v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al.http://www.lermanet.com/reference/stipu ... SvsMSH.txt page 1-7
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38. Stipulation of Evidence. Criminal No. 78-401. US v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al. http://www.lermanet.com/reference/stipu ... SvsMSH.txt Page 156-177
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44. Stipulation of Evidence. Criminal No. 78-401. US v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al. http://www.lermanet.com/reference/stipu ... SvsMSH.txt Page 246-247
45. Stipulation of Evidence. Criminal No. 78-401. US v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al. viewable http://www.lermanet.com/reference/stipu ... SvsMSH.txt Page 268-274
46. "Scientology: Parry and Thrust". Time Magazine. 1977-07-25. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 30,00.html. Retrieved 2008-12-07.
47. Charles L. Stafford; Bette Orsini (1980-01-09). "Scientology: An in-depth profile of a new force in Clearwater" (PDF, 905K). St. Petersburg Times. http://www.antisectes.net/sp-times-scie ... -price.pdf. Original (18M)
48. Beresford, David (1980-02-09). "Sect framed journalist over "bomb threats"". The Guardian.
49. Beresford, David (1980-02-07). "Snow White's dirty tricks". The Guardian.
50. “Stolen Documents Reported Found in FBI Raids on Scientologists; Infiltration of Agencies $750 Million Suit” New York Times. July 10th 1977.
51. “Scientology Search Troubles Judge.” Washington Post. July 23rd, 1977.
52. “Church of Scientology to Get Documents Back.” New York Times. July 21st 1977.
53. “FBI Raids on Church are Ruled Improper; Judge Calls Warrants Too Broad to Justify Seizure of Papers.” July 28th 1977.
54. “FBI is Upheld on Search Warrant for Church Offices.” New York Times. December 2nd, 1977.
55. “Court Refuses to Act in Church of Scientology Appeal; IRS Agents’ Liability Other Rulings Stand.” New York Times March 21st, 1978.
56. “Ex-Agent Alleges Fraud in FBI; Says Many Informers are Bogus.” New York Times January 6th, 1979.
57. “Scientology Case Shifted to Coast; 11 Officials Indicted.” New York Times June 30th, 1979.
58. “Church of Scientology Announces it is Investigating Government.” Washington Post. May 2nd, 1978.
59. “Germ Warfare Report.” The Washington Post. October 29th, 1979.
60. “Judge Backs Guilty Ple argain by Scientology Church Leaders; Assurances Asked.” New York Times October 9th 1979.
61. “5 Scientologists Get Jail Terms in Plot on Files; Leaders Fined $10,000 in Data Theft Conspiracy ’What is the Example?” New York Times December 7th, 1979.
62. “Four More Scientologists Sentenced.” The Washington Post. December 8th, 1979.
63. “Convictions of 9 Scientologists in Plotting Thefts Are Upheld.” The Washington Post. October 3rd, 1981.
64. “Two Scientologists Are Convicted Of Aiding in U.S. Office Break-ins.” The Washington Post. November 27th, 1980.
65. “2 Scientologists Sentenced to Prison.” The Washington Post. December 20th, 1980.
66. Tobin, Thomas C. (March 9, 2000). "Scientologists decry toll of criminal case". St. Petersburg Times. http://www.sptimes.com/News/030900/Tamp ... cry_.shtml. Retrieved 2009-02-17.
67. Morgan, Lucy (January 28. 1998). "Hardball: When Scientology goes to court, it likes to play rough -- very rough.". St. Petersburg Times. http://www.sptimes.com/News/32899/Tampa ... dball.html. Retrieved 2009-02-17.
68. SSN: 456-48-5525 http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
69. The President answers your questions: What is the Guardian’s Office and does it still exist?
70. Ortega, Tony (Sept. 9, 2001). "Sympathy for the Devil". New Times Los Angeles.

Further reading

Jon Atack (1990) A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed. Lyle Stuart/Carol Publishing Group ISBN 0-8184-0499-X pages 226-241. Online at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/ , retrieved 2008-03-19
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:01 pm

Oscar-Winner Paul Haggis Publicly Resigns From Church of Scientology Over Gay Rights
by Foster Kamer
10/25/09

Image

When it rains, it pours on the Church of Scientology. First, spokescreature Tommy Davis publicly flamed out on his prime time interview. Now, Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis' public resignation from Scientology has leaked. And it's incredibly damning to them.

The entire letter to—of all people—creepy Church spokescreature Tommy Davis is below, but here are the highlights: Haggis has been asking the church to resign their support of Proposition 8. He registered his distaste for the church's stances on homosexuality via phone calls and letters. Davis told Haggis that "heads would roll" over this about ten months ago. Davis apparently drew up a press release he showed to Haggis, which eventually got canned. Haggis views the church's actions as "cowardly," and thus, after thirty-five years of membership, is resigning.

Furthermore, Haggis saw Davis' interview on CNN, when Davis denied the existence of a "disconnection" policy in which the church orders members to cut non-members out of their lives, as they pose some kind of negative threat towards the work of the church in members' lives.

It's a policy that's been well documented in the press, but especially by the reporting done by the St. Petersburg Times, who've chronicled many members who were once forced to "disconnect" people from their lives. Then comes another bomb: Haggis' wife cut off contact with her parents when they defected from the church. And then another: Haggis cites the aforementioned reporting by the St. Petersburg Times, which including some of Scientology's most high-profile defectors in its history, as accurate and astonishing, considering the level of the defectors. "Say what you will about them now," writes Haggis, "[but] these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church's official spokesman for 20 years!" Scientology has claimed that their high-profile defectors hold personal grudges against them for demotions and other bureaucratic failings.

Haggis' final bomb, which is going to ring true to many, many Scientologists on every level, is about that same St. Petersburg Times report, in which the Church dredged up old documents and audits on their members to expose salacious, damning details about their personal lives to paint their defection as a cover for their personal indiscretions. Haggis found this, apparently, to be the first in a series of straws that broke a 35 year-old camel's back.

The bottom line is this: this is bad, bad news for the Church. Besides the fact that so many of the church's most high-profile members have long been subject to gossipy speculation of being gay—to name a few: Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Will Smith—the Church is now going to have to (A) take a stance on homosexuality, (B) come out against Haggis, one of the most revered, successful writer-directors of the last decade, or (C) stay quiet and look even sketchier than they already did after Tommy Davis blew up on national television earlier this weekend.

And it also doesn't help them that Church defector Marty Rathburn has apparently confirmed the letter's legitimacy as definitely coming from Haggis.

So: this ought to be interesting to watch play out, no?

Tommy,

As you know, for ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego. Their public sponsorship of Proposition 8, a hate-filled legislation that succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California – rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state – shames us.

I called and wrote and implored you, as the official spokesman of the church, to condemn their actions. I told you I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated.

In that first conversation, back at the end of October of last year, you told me you were horrified, that you would get to the bottom of it and “heads would roll.” You promised action. Ten months passed. No action was forthcoming. The best you offered was a weak and carefully worded press release, which praised the church’s human rights record and took no responsibility. Even that, you decided not to publish.

The church’s refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word. Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.

I joined the Church of Scientology thirty-five years ago. During my twenties and early thirties I studied and received a great deal of counseling. While I have not been an active member for many years, I found much of what I learned to be very helpful, and I still apply it in my daily life. I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally. I saw the organization – with all its warts, growing pains and problems – as an underdog. And I have always had a thing for underdogs.

But I reached a point several weeks ago where I no longer knew what to think. You had allowed our name to be allied with the worst elements of the Christian Right. In order to contain a potential “PR flap” you allowed our sponsorship of Proposition 8 to stand. Despite all the church’s words about promoting freedom and human rights, its name is now in the public record alongside those who promote bigotry and intolerance, homophobia and fear.

The fact that the Mormon Church drew all the fire, that no one noticed, doesn’t matter. I noticed. And I felt sick. I wondered how the church could, in good conscience, through the action of a few and then the inaction of its leadership, support a bill that strips a group of its civil rights.

This was my state of mind when I was online doing research and chanced upon an interview clip with you on CNN. The interview lasted maybe ten minutes – it was just you and the newscaster. And in it I saw you deny the church’s policy of disconnection. You said straight-out there was no such policy, that it did not exist.

I was shocked. We all know this policy exists. I didn’t have to search for verification – I didn’t have to look any further than my own home.

You might recall that my wife was ordered to disconnect from her parents because of something absolutely trivial they supposedly did twenty-five years ago when they resigned from the church. This is a lovely retired couple, never said a negative word about Scientology to me or anyone else I know – hardly raving maniacs or enemies of the church. In fact it was they who introduced my wife to Scientology.

Although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them. I refused to do so. I’ve never been good at following orders, especially when I find them morally reprehensible.

For a year and a half, despite her protestations, my wife did not speak to her parents and they had limited access to their grandchild. It was a terrible time.

That’s not ancient history, Tommy. It was a year ago.

And you could laugh at the question as if it was a joke? You could publicly state that it doesn’t exist?

"A 'potential trouble source' is anyone outside Scientology who is opposed to the Cult or anyone inside it who has been declared a suppressive person. A Scientologist who is connected with a potential trouble source -- spouse, fiancé, relative, friend or business associate -- is ordered to disconnect from that person and, if that is not done, the Scientologist will himself or herself be declared a suppressive person."

-- Mr. Justice Latey Judgment, Royal Courts of Justice


To see you lie so easily, I am afraid I had to ask myself: what else are you lying about?

And that is when I read the recent articles in the St. Petersburg Times. They left me dumbstruck and horrified.

These were not the claims made by “outsiders” looking to dig up dirt against us. These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church. Say what you will about them now, these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church’s official spokesman for 20 years!

Tommy, if only a fraction of these accusations are true, we are talking about serious, indefensible human and civil rights violations. It is still hard for me to believe. But given how many former top-level executives have said these things are true, it is hard to believe it is all lies.

And when I pictured you assuring me that it is all lies, that this is nothing but an unfounded and vicious attack by a group of disgruntled employees, I am afraid that I saw the same face that looked in the camera and denied the policy of disconnection. I heard the same voice that professed outrage at our support of Proposition 8, who promised to correct it, and did nothing.

I carefully read all of your rebuttals, I watched every video where you presented the church’s position, I listened to all your arguments – ever word. I wish I could tell you that they rang true. But they didn’t.

I was left feeling outraged, and frankly, more than a little stupid.

And though it may seem small by comparison, I was truly disturbed to see you provide private details from confessionals to the press in an attempt to embarrass and discredit the executives who spoke out. A priest would go to jail before revealing secrets from the confessional, no matter what the cost to himself or his church. That’s the kind of integrity I thought we had, but obviously the standard in this church is far lower – the public relations representative can reveal secrets to the press if the management feels justified. You even felt free to publish secrets from the confessional in Freedom Magazine – you just stopped short of labeling them as such, probably because you knew Scientologists would be horrified, knowing you so easily broke a sacred vow of trust with your parishioners.

How dare you use private information in order to label someone an “adulteress?” You took Amy Scobee’s most intimate admissions about her sexual life and passed them onto the press and then smeared them all over the pages your newsletter! I do not know the woman, but no matter what she said or did, this is the woman who joined the Sea Org at 16! She ran the entire celebrity center network, and was a loyal senior executive of the church for what, 20 years? You want to rebut her accusations, do it, and do it in the strongest terms possible – but that kind of character assassination is unconscionable.

"The practice of reviewing confidential auditing files and extracting private and intimate details of an individual's life is a common Scientology practice. The data gleaned from an unsuspecting individual's files are transmitted to California headquarters for extortion and blackmail. This practice occurs regularly."

-- Affidavit of Carole Garrity, City of Clearwater Commission Hearings Re: The Church of Scientology


So, I am now painfully aware that you might see this an attack and just as easily use things I have confessed over the years to smear my name. Well, luckily I have never held myself up to be anyone’s role model.

The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others. I have to believe that if they knew what I now know, they too would be horrified. But I know how easy it was for me to defend our organization and dismiss our critics, without ever truly looking at what was being said; I did it for thirty-five years. And so, after writing this letter, I am fully aware that some of my friends may choose to no longer associate with me, or in some cases work with me. I will always take their calls, as I always took yours. However, I have finally come to the conclusion that I can no longer be a part of this group. Frankly, I had to look no further than your refusal to denounce the church’s anti-gay stance, and the indefensible actions, and inactions, of those who condone this behavior within the organization. I am only ashamed that I waited this many months to act. I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.

Sincerely,

Paul Haggis

Ps. I’ve attached our email correspondence. At some point it became evident that you did not value my concerns about the church’s tacit support of an amendment that violated the civil rights of so many of our citizens. Perhaps if you had done a little more research on me, the church’s senior management wouldn’t have dismissed those concerns quite so cavalierly. While I am no great believer in resumes and awards, this is what you would have discovered:

* Founder, Artists For Peace and Justice,
- sponsoring schools, an orphanage and a children’s hospital in the slums of Haiti
* Co-Founder, BrandAid Foundation and BrandAid Project
- marketing the work of artisans from the poorest countries in the world,
* Board Member, Office of The Americas
- supporting peace and justice initiatives around the world
* Board Member, Center For The Advancement of Non-Violence
* Member and active supporter, Amnesty International
* Member, President’s Council, Defenders of Wildlife
* Member and fundraiser, Environment California and CalPirg
* Member and Award Recipient, American Civil Liberties Union
* Member and supporter, Death Penalty Focus
* Member and supporter, Equality For All
* Fundraiser, NPH (Our Little Brothers) – for the children of the slums of Haiti
* Member, Citizens Commission on Human Rights
* Patron with Honors, IAS
And formerly:
* Trustee, Religious Freedom Trust
* Board Member and fundraiser, Hollywood Education and Literacy Project
* Board Member and fundraiser, For The Arts, For Every Child
– supporting art and music in public schools
* Board Member and fundraiser, The Christic Institute
- supporting Human Rights in Central America
* Founding Board Member, Earth Communication Office
* Working Board Member, Environmental Media Association
* Fundraiser, El Rescate – Human Rights for El Salvador
* Fundraiser, PAVA – Aid and Human Rights in Guatemala

Awards for outspoken support of Civil and Human Rights:

* Valentine Davies Award – Writers Guild of America
“for bringing honor and dignity to writers everywhere”
*Bill of Rights Award – American Civil Liberties Union
*Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award – Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
*Peace & Justice Award – Office of the Americas, presented by Daniel Ellsberg
*Signis Award, Venezia, World Catholic Association
*ALMA Award – National Council of Latino Civil Rights
*Ethel Levitt Award for Humanitarian Service – Levitt & Quinn
*Prism Award – Entertainment Industries Council
*Humanitas Prize (2) – Humanitas
*Legacy Award, for Artistic and Humanitarian Achievement
*Environmental Media Award – EMA
*EMA Green Seal Award – EMA
*Image Award – NAACP
*Creative Integrity Award – Multicultural Motion Picture Association
*EDGE Awards (2) – Entertainment Industries Council
*Artistic Freedom Award – City of West Hollywood
*Catholics in Media Award – Catholics in Media Associates

And many dozens of fundraisers and salons at our home on behalf of Human and Civil Rights, the Environment, the Peace Movement, Education, Justice and Equality.
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