Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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Part 1 of 2

A Conversation with David Miscavige
by Ted Koppel
ABC News Nightline
February 14, 1992

1st ACTOR: [TV commercial] You've heard about Dianetics, the number-one self-help best-seller by L. Ron Hubbard.

TED KOPPEL: [voice-over] You've seen the commercials-

2nd ACTOR: [TV commercial] Are you using your mind to the fullest?

KOPPEL: [voice-over] -touting the benefits of the Church of Scientology.

2nd ACTOR: [TV commercial] Clear away your negative feelings and unblock your true potential.

3rd ACTOR: [TV commercial] Dianetics? It's amazing.

KOPPEL: [voice-over] Stars such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise say that Scientology has changed their lives, but critics charge fraud, that the Church of Scientology is nothing but a scam to take millions from unsuspecting believers. Tonight, we'll take you inside the Church of Scientology, as we bring you the first-ever interview with David Miscavige, the head of the church.

ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News Nightline. Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel.

KOPPEL: Some of you may recall that last May Time magazine did a cover story on the Church of Scientology. To say that the leaders of that church did not like the story would be a case of wretched understatement. As you will hear in a moment from my colleague, Forrest Sawyer, the Scientologists launched a multi-million-dollar campaign to counter the impact of that Time story. It was during that general period and in that context that we got in touch with the man who now runs the church, David Miscavige, to discuss his appearance on Nightline. The process has taken nine months. Mr. Miscavige tells us that he has never done an interview before. And I think it's also fair to say that he and the men and women who run the Scientology organization are somewhat leery of the media. The Church of Scientology, for reasons that we will also be presenting, does not generally get a very favorable press. David Miscavige is described in one article as "...ruthless, with a volatile temper," in another as being "...so paranoid that he keeps plastic wrap over his glass of water." I was pleasantly surprised, then, when Mr. Miscavige first came to my office a few months back. He came alone, without any staff, and we had an amiable, if intense, conversation. I believe he even accepted a cup of coffee without plastic wrap. We'll let you make up your own mind about David Miscavige. We do have some things to tell you, however, about the Church of Scientology. Here is the first of two reports from Nightline correspondent Forrest Sawyer.

FORREST SAWYER, ABC News: [voice-over] After decades of seeing church officials arrested, after hundreds of lawsuits with critics and defectors, the Scientology business is now booming. Led by a 31-year-old high-school dropout who seized control of the church 10 years ago and charted an aggressive campaign to make Scientology a household word.

DAVID MISCAVIGE: [October, 1990] Tonight's event is being televised around the world, to every continent on the globe.

1st ACTOR: [TV Commercial] Let's take a look inside the human mind.

2nd ACTOR: [TV Commercial] Are you using your mind to the fullest?

SAWYER: [voice-over] The church's rapid growth is built on selling one single message: "Scientology has uncovered the secret of human potential." The Scientologists have built their own TV and film studio.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: You can't be back in the dark ages of mass communication and be heard in this world today.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Radio broadcasts are prepared, audiotapes reproduced by the thousands on high-speed copiers, original music created, all of this to encourage more people to join the movement, and join they do. The church says it now has centers in over 70 countries, with more on the way. [on camera] Church leaders say this place, 520 acres south of Los Angeles, a place they call "Gold," is a sign of their rapid expansion. It is here where top church officials are planning the future. [voice-over] "Gold" is run by people who believe so strongly they've signed billion-year contracts with the church, a kind of priesthood, dressed in uniforms, working over 13 hours a day, earning just $30 a week. The church says these men and women are only the most dedicated of eight million members worldwide. Church of Scientology president Heber Jentzsch. [interviewing] How do you get to call them members?

HEBER JENTZSCH, President, Church of Scientology: Because they joined and they came in and they studied Scientology.

SAWYER: They took one course, maybe.

Mr. JENTZSCH: Well, that's how valuable the course is. Eight million people, yes, over a period of the last- since 1954.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Critics say the actual figure is closer to 100,000, but unquestionably, thousands of people, including well-known celebrities, do swear by what they call "a technology of the mind."

CHICK COREA, Jazz Pianist: And this really directly affects my relationship with people, with individuals around me, with my loved ones, and also with audiences.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Psychological techniques they say help them feel better and act more effectively. And there's a promise of something more.

KEN ROSE, Defector: From the very beginning, there was an air of mystery, there was an air of somewhere up this path there was something extremely potent and very sort of seductive and attractive.

SAWYER: [voice-over] The introduction begins when you walk into a Scientology center. Problems in your life? Take a personality test. "Evaluators" are ready to tell you what's wrong. [on camera] In fact, the counselors are operating from a script that tells them exactly what to say. For instance, "You are capable and overt as a person, but probably not to the degree that you should be or would like to be." And the script always ends the same:

1st SCIENTOLOGY "EVALUATOR": That you are capable and overt, meaning open, as a person-

2nd SCIENTOLOGY "EVALUATOR": Just not to the degree that you feel that you could be or should be, and this is where Dianetics can help you.

SAWYER: [voice-over] The script tells the evaluators to sell hard: "The more resistive" - meaning resistant - "or argumentative he is, the more the points should be slammed home." And it works. Students often spend thousands of dollars to take more and more courses and counseling called "auditing." They find problem areas by using an "E-meter," which Scientologists claim can read thoughts, or by modeling with play-dough. The goal is to become what they call "clear," free of the influence of negative past experiences. For all the praise of Scientology from church members, there are equally vocal critics. This past spring, Time magazine published a cover story on the church, calling it "the cult of greed and power." Reporter Richard Behar.

RICHARD BEHAR, "Time" Magazine: People feel good, they talk about their problems, just like somebody going into therapy might feel good talking about their problems. But this all seems to have an ulterior motive, and to lead into this extremely high-priced one-on-one counseling and "auditing."

SAWYER: [voice-over] Dentist John Finucane liked the sales pitch he heard, and ended up spending over $42,000 on services.

Dr. JOHN FINUCANE, Defector: They've tried to milk every penny they can out of any asset that I have, whether it's a credit card, whether it's my home, whether it's from a friend, whether it's from family. If I can get a hold of money anywhere, they would like to have that money.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Two years ago, Finucane responded to a newsletter from Sterling Management, a church-related consultant to health professionals. He says they helped his practice, but also led him into Scientology, and kept pushing for even more money. Finucane says they charged $8,500 to his credit cards without permission. When they began phoning for more, he turned on his tape recorder.[audio tape]

Dr. FINUCANE: So basically I don't even have enough money for that, just to even get to the point where I can do my auditing.

SCIENTOLOGIST: Well, you have quite a bit, though, John. I mean, you know, I don't think buying more is your problem. Your problem is your wife.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Because Finucane's wife opposed the church, they declared him a "PTS," potential trouble source.

Dr. FINUCANE: They said, well, you either need to shape things up or "disconnect," as they say, which- they won't ever say divorce, they just say "disconnect."

SAWYER: [voice-over] Ken Rose says he had to choose between the church and his children. He says he was told to sign a paper agreeing to waive his parental rights, or see his sons thrown out of Scientology school.

Mr. ROSE: On what is probably the darkest day of my life, I spent several hours with them and their mother, with them, at one point, literally on their knees sobbing for me to sign this paper so that they could keep going to school.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Defectors claim the church tears families apart every day. Roxanne Friend brought her brother into the church. She says he ended up helping to kidnap her.

ROXANNE FRIEND, Defector: They put me in a little apartment. They had a guard at the front door and a guard at the back door, and I was not allowed to leave. There was no telephone and no means of communication with the outside world.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Friend claims she was held to convince her not to see a non-Scientologist doctor when she felt sick.

Ms. FRIEND: And be told, "Yeah, you are ill, but then, no, we just need to audit you. Give us, you know, $6,000, $12,000, and we'll audit you and you'll be flying again." That's a direct quote. "We'll get you flying again."

SAWYER: [voice-over] Today, Roxanne has incurable cancer, which she says could have been treated if diagnosed earlier. She spent over $80,000 on Scientology, and has almost nothing left, and no medical insurance. She blames the church.

Ms. FRIEND: You're going to have a sense of anxiety or desperation to do whatever it takes to sign your life away, your money and your mortgage and your child.

SAWYER: Church officials deny these charges made by what they call "a handful of disgruntled people," many of whom they say are pursuing lawsuits in order to squeeze the church for money. The defectors' response? There are hundreds of others who are simply afraid to speak out. Why they may be afraid and what the church really believes in our next report, a few minutes from now.

KOPPEL: In fact, when we come back, we'll be bringing you part two of Forrest Sawyer's report and the first-ever interview with the head of the Church of Scientology, David Miscavige.

[Commercial break]

KOPPEL: What exactly does the Church of Scientology believe, and what can happen to those who criticize those beliefs? Once again, here's Nightline correspondent Forrest Sawyer.

L. RON HUBBARD, Author "Dianetics": [1966] I've slept with bandits in Mongolia and I've hunted with pygmies in the Philippines. As a matter of fact, I have studied 21 different primitive races, including the white race.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Scientology's founder was a man with an imagination. L. Ron Hubbard wrote pulp science fiction for a penny a word and, critics claim, manufactured his own life history as well. He called himself an explorer and a war hero, the man who discovered the keys to the universe and used them to heal his own war injuries. Critics say Hubbard's claims were so fanciful that one California Superior Court judge declared Hubbard to be "...virtually a pathological liar."

Mr. JENTZSCH: These are a bunch of people who never caused anything in their lives to begin with, and who I would say are jealous of a man who brought a technology of religion to this world the like of which has never been seen before, and it works.

SAWYER: [voice-over] In 1950, Hubbard turned away from pulp novels with a new book that would change everything. It was, Hubbard said, the "true science of the mind," and it sold millions. When psychiatrists challenged his claims that Dianetics could heal illnesses and increase intelligence, Scientologists fought back.

Mr. JENTZSCH: Psychiatry is Russian and Nazi. Remember, it's an import. It's like bringing the bonic-the bubonic plague into America, as far as I'm concerned. They are not American, and we are. And they can go back to where they came from.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Hubbard said psychiatry was part of a vast conspiracy to destroy his newly formed church and control mankind. Recent Scientology films still attack psychiatrists as potential killers.

ACTOR: [Scientology film] And with each little swing, a manageable and composed individual, one, two, three.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Hubbard also announced he had gone beyond psychiatry, by literally traveling in space to Venus and Mars, and to a distant radiation belt.

Mr. HUBBARD: I was up in the Van Allen Belt. This is factual. And I don't know why they're scared of the Van Allen Belt, because it's simply hot. You'd be surprised how warm space is.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Hubbard said he had discovered secrets of the universe so powerful they could only be heard by Scientologists who had spent hundreds of hours studying his programs. Anyone else would be struck dead by the knowledge. He told stories of how, 75 million years ago, an evil tyrant collected beings on other planets to be stored in volcanoes on earth.

Mr. HUBBARD: Boxed them up in boxes, threw them into space planes. DC-8 airplane is the exact copy of the space plane of that day. No difference, except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it, and the space plane didn't.

SAWYER: [voice-over] As this film depicts, the spirits' bodies were destroyed by hydrogen bombs, and today their troubled spirits are attached to human bodies by the thousands. Called "body thetans", they cause endless problems. Only Scientology knows how to shake them loose.

Ms. FRIEND: You talk to them, and when you find out who they are and what they are, what they're doing and what's making them stick around you, then they blow. And so you pay a lot of money- I mean, you have lots of body thetans, so this process takes lots of time.

SAWYER: Scientologists today consider these sacred writings, the story of how mankind's problems evolved millions of years ago on other planets, and so they need to be kept secret. Defectors claim there is another reason for secrecy.

Mr. ROSE: I really think that instead of handing out personality tests on the street, they handed out a story that said, you know, "What's really plaguing you is that you're encrusted with little spirits and these spirits are suffering from an incident that took place 75 million years ago, and if you come on into our church we'll cure you of this," I think that there would be a high rate of people saying, "No thanks."

SAWYER: [voice-over] L. Ron Hubbard died in 1985, leaving behind a church embroiled in controversy. The IRS has been in hot pursuit for years, defectors are suing for millions of dollars in damages, and critics are loudly claiming the church is running a huge con game. Once again, the church is fighting back.

Mr. BEHAR: I've done a lot of investigative stories in my career, and this thing- this thing takes the cake.

SAWYER: [voice- over] When Richard Behar published a critical story in Time magazine in May, the church mounted a $3-million campaign in USA Today, accusing the magazine of being manipulated by drug companies the church opposes. Behar claims they went even further.

Mr. BEHAR: I have evidence that they've gotten hold of my personal phone records. They've called up friends, neighbors, a former colleague. I've gotten a visit to my apartment building which I believe is connected to the story.

SAWYER: [voice-over] It is, critics claim, part of a policy called "fair game," in which enemies "May be tricked sued, or lied to, or destroyed." The church acknowledges some of its officials, including Hubbard's own wife, did harass people years ago, but they were convicted, and the practice has stopped. Defectors say it still goes on.

VICKI AZNARAN: They hire private detectives to harass people. They run covert operations. You name it, they have never quit doing it. It would like--they would have to quit being Scientology if they quit doing that.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Vicki Aznaran is a former high-ranking church official who lost a power struggle with David Miscavige over control of the church after Hubbard's death. She is presently suing the church and claims she heard Miscavige order attacks on troublemakers.

Ms. AZNARAN: He said that we will use public people--we'll send them out to the dissidents' homes, have them- their homes broken into, have them beaten, have things stolen from them, slash their tires, break their car windows, whatever. And this was carried out and was being carried out at the time I left.

SAWYER: [voice-over] Church officials vigorously deny all the charges, and call these critics nothing more than guppies trying to annoy a whale.

Mr. JENTZSCH: You look at this. We get hit, we expand, we get hit, we expand, we get hit, we expand, we get hit, we expand. I mean, I don't want to say the obvious. You hit us, we'll grow.

SAWYER: [voice- over] Scientology, they say, is growing by leaps and bounds, and for critics and church defectors, that is precisely the problem. This is Forrest Sawyer for Nightline.

KOPPEL: Joining us live tonight is David Miscavige, whose formal title is chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center, the organization which manages Dianetics and Scientology. Mr. Miscavige took over as the head of Scientology in 1987 following the death of the church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard. You've been sitting here very patiently for the first 15 minutes. It's your turn. We're going to take a short segment here to talk, and then we'll take a break, and then we've got the rest of the program to talk. Where would you like to pick up on what many in our audience, I suspect, have seen for the first time about the Church of Scientology?

DAVID MISCAVIGE, Church of Scientology: Yeah, well, I think--you know, I guess the first thing I would like to take up is the fact that the intro piece--there's no question that there's some controversy surrounding Scientology, but if you want to look at what the real controversy is, there's been stories like this one that we saw here for the past 40 years, and yet during that time period Scientology's continued to grow, in fact, it's 25 times larger today than it was in 1980. I would just like to take up a few of the falsehoods that are in there, because I think this explains a lot why you have the controversy. I don't know that Scientology lends itself so well to the press. In this instance, we did agree that we would have your correspondents come in, and in fact, he did have unlimited access to the church, but then you get a piece like this. For instance, something that isn't mentioned in there is that every single detractor on there is part of a religious hate group called Cult Awareness Network and their sister group called American Family Foundation. Now, I don't know if you've heard of these people, but it's the same as the KKK would be with the blacks. I think if you interviewed a neo-Nazi and asked them to talk about the Jews, you would get a similar result to what you have here. The thing I find disingenuous is that it's not commented upon, and yet, in fact, your correspondent Forrest and Deanna Lee were aware of this fact, and not only that, that is the source of where they- they received these people to talk to. They didn't find them randomly-

KOPPEL: Well, if I may just interrupt for a moment, you realize there's a little bit of a problem in getting people to talk critically about the Scientology because, quite frankly, they're scared.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, no, no, no, no.

KOPPEL: Well, I'm telling you-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, no, no, no. Let me tell you-

KOPPEL: -I'm telling you people are scared.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -let me explain something to you. The most disingenuous thing is that you have those people. Now, let's not give the American public the wrong impression, that these are people that randomly were pulled in from around the world and that they decided to talk against Scientology. Those people aren't scared and they've been loudly speaking in the press. You showed me a book you had before this show that has many detractors, same ones, so they're not really frightened. That's a good story-

KOPPEL: Actually, that wasn't a book, it was a collection of articles-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -let me finish.

KOPPEL: -that has been written about you and the church.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: But the same people were quoted.

KOPPEL: No. What I was saying is the reason, perhaps, that we only hear from those folks is that there are a lot of other people who might be considered detractors of the church, and they, who do not belong to any organization are, quite frankly, afraid to come out and speak publicly.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, I'm sorry, no, I'm sorry, that story doesn't hold water, because I'll tell you, from my perspective, the person getting harassed is myself and the church. Let me give you an example. We did make access possible for Forrest. That isn't to say that he took advantage of it, Ted. For instance, the subject of money comes up, it comes up routinely, and I'm sure we might bring it up later on in this show, but I in fact had the highest contributors of Scientology gathered up so that Forrest could interview them, to ask them why they gave money to the church and how much they had, and believe me, it's larger figures than these people are talking about. He told me he didn't have time. I said, "Please, I mean, they're here." He said, "No, I don't have time, I don't want to see 'em." I offered for him to go down to our church headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, where 2,000 parishioners are there at any given time from all over the world. In other words, he would get a cross-selection of people from Germany, England, California, Florida, Spain, Italy, you name it. Didn't want to go, didn't have time. So to represent also that this is what the church puts forth isn't so. Here's what I find wrong and here's what I find the common mistake the media makes. I can give you a hundred thousand Scientologists who will say unbelievably positive things about their church to every one you add on there, and I not only am upset about those people not being interviewed, they are, too. And the funny thing about it and why you find this not really being that one who speaks in the media is because not just myself, any Scientologist, will open up a paper, will watch this program, they're probably laughing right now, saying, "That isn't Scientology. " That's what makes media. Media is controversy, I understand that, and if you really looked at the big picture of what's happening in Scientology, it isn't really controversial, certainly to a Scientologist.

KOPPEL: Okay. We are going to have to take a break.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Very good.

KOPPEL: I hope you understand that there's a little bit of a paradox in your saying, you know, "We're not going to get a chance to listen to what Scientology is really about"; we have with us, after all, since you were courteous enough to join us-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, absolutely, I'm just trying- I'm just trying to correct this, that's all.

KOPPEL: -I understand, and we're going to be spending the rest of this hour, in which I'll have a chance to talk to you and you can clear up some of the misconceptions we have.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Absolutely.

KOPPEL: Okay?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay.

KOPPEL: We'll continue our discussion in a moment.["Dianetics," a best-seller for a record 100 consecutive weeks (1986-1988).]

[Commercial break]

ANNOUNCER: We return now to A Conversation with David Miscavige. Once again, Ted Koppel.

KOPPEL: I'd like to begin, Mr. Miscavige, with, I guess, the kind of broad question that perhaps folks at home may be asking themselves right now, but let me be the guinea pig for a moment. See if you can explain to me why I would want to be a Scientologist.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Because you care about yourself and life itself. Scientology,the word means study of life, study of knowledge, and that's where it is, it takes up all areas of life itself, things that are integral and maxims that are related to life and very existence. Let me give you an example, it's better if I take that, because it is such a broad-ranging subject covering so many different areas, the subject of communication. This is something that major breakthroughs exist in Scientology, being able to communicate in the world around you. And I think everybody would agree that this is an important subject. Well, there's an actual formula for communication which can be understood. You can drill on this formula of communication, and learn to drill, but moreover, take the person who has trouble communicating, has- well, for some reason he can't, anxiety, whatever.

KOPPEL: I'll tell you what. Let's stick with me, okay? So far in life I haven't had a whole lot of trouble communicating. Now see if you can communicate to me what it is that you're going to be able to do for me that makes me a better communicator.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, I don't- in Scientology you don't do anything for somebody else. Scientology is something that requires somebody's active participation.

KOPPEL: Then, fine, I-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: It certainly- let me explain something-

KOPPEL: -I want to participate, I want to be active completely. We are looking theoretically-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: What in your life, Ted- what in your life do you not feel is right, that you would like help?

KOPPEL: I feel perfectly comfortable with my life. I like my job, I'm happy with my family, I love my wife, I'm healthy. I'm perfectly content, that's why I'm asking you what is it you can do for me?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well- well, number one, I would never try to talk you into that Scientology's for you. You see, that's the funny thing about this, as if I'm now going to give a sales pitch to you on Scientology. Believe me, Scientology's valuable enough that it doesn't require any sales pitch, but let's look at it this way, then, what Scientology does. If you look out across the world today, you could say that if you take a person who's healthy, doing well, like yourself, you'd say that that person is normal, not a crazy, not somebody who's psychotic, you look at a wall and they call it an elephant. Would you agree with me on that?

KOPPEL: So far I've got no problem.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay. And you can see people below that, and crazy people, criminals, that I think society in general will look at and say, "That breed of person hasn't something quite right because they're not up to this level of personality." You can understand that. Well, we in Scientology are not- you see, all past attempts have been to bring man up to somebody's standard of what's normal. What we are trying to do in Scientology is take somebody from this higher level and move them up to greater ability. You see, we're interested in the-

KOPPEL: What about those folks "down there"?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -well, yes, no, you wouldn't- we don't ignore them, but my point is this. Scientology is there to help the able become more able. The guy who's going around, he's working, he's trying to make it, these people generally have something in their life that they would like to improve and, in any event, if you can increase that person's ability, the one who's chipping in, the one who's able, and bring him up higher, this sphere of influence that he affects in the world around him can be much greater and he can get on and do better.

KOPPEL: Now, Mr. Miscavige, when you and I talked the first time, a few months ago, I said to you I was going to come after you on some of these issues. I am a cynic, by nature. I guess that's why I like being a reporter. What you have described to me there fits perfectly with the image that I have of Scientology, namely you're interested in folks who are producing. Another way of saying that is you're interested in folks who've got money and who can pay to work their way up the Scientology ladder?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, you see, that's where you miss the point, because in fact, you know, this subject of money comes up, but you've got the wrong issue there. The subject of money is, where's it going. You see, another part that isn't in that piece, the money in Scientology isn't going to me, it's not going to my colleagues. That's a fact. That's a fact. You can call up the IRS and find that fact out. They've audited our records and seen all of that, and none of that money is going anywhere. As a matter of fact, the officials in the church arepaid far less and live far more frugal existences than any other church leader. Our money goes to social causes that we accept. You take these people, we are the largest social reform group in the world, do far more than any other church. For the last two years we have been voted the community outreach group of the year in Los Angeles.

KOPPEL: By whom?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: By the local city council. The senate of California passed a resolution that's for our work with underprivileged children in California. We work on getting drug addicts off drugs. We support Narconon, which is a drug rehabilitation center using the drug rehabilitation technology of L. Ron Hubbard. There are 33 centers around the world. Over 100,000 people have been gotten off drugs. We sponsor educational programs. Several years ago in just- wait, in just one instance, we worked with-

KOPPEL: I don't want to minimize any of that-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -but wait-

KOPPEL: -but how does that make your group the- how did you put it, that you do more to help-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -social reforms, helping people.

KOPPEL: -social reform-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Sure.

KOPPEL: -than any other group in the world. More than the Catholic Church, more than-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, no, more accurately is per size, and when you put it in that rate, in other words, how big Scientology is compared to any others, the amount that we do on that subject, there's not even anybody comparable.

KOPPEL: Okay. We've got to take a break, we'll continue our discussion with David Miscavige in a moment.["Dianetics," sales worldwide 14.6 million, languages 22]

[Commercial break]

ANNOUNCER: A Conversation with David Miscavige now continues. Here again, Ted Koppel.

KOPPEL: During one of Forrest Sawyer's pieces a moment ago, we heard one of your colleagues talking about psychiatry, right?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Right.

KOPPEL: You guys are deaf on psychiatry. The criticism that was made was that this is foreign to the United States. He referred to its origin in Nazism and Communism. And that your religion, Scientology, is an "American" religion. Fair enough so far?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, American- of the mind. Yeah. That's right.

KOPPEL: What does that do for Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and all the other isms that also did not-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, I think-

KOPPEL: -originate in this country?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -well, no, that isn't really the point. The point there is this, that those people, the Fascists, the Communists, have used psychiatry to further their ends. That's just a fact. I mean, you want to look at the studies that brought about the Holocaust of the Jews, that the Nazis justified killing the Jews, they were done at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Leipzig, Germany, and that justified the killing of six million people. If you look at the report that even Forrest Sawyer did on mental institutions in Russia, several months ago he did this, you saw that that was a tool of the state. That's the point he's making there. But let me tell you what our real problem is. Number one, understand this. Psychiatry, psychology, that comes from the word psyche. Psyche means soul. These people have preempted the field of religion, not just Scientology, every other religion. They right now practice and preach the fact that man is an animal, and I guess that is where philosophically we're at odds with them. But to understand what this war is, this is not something that we started. In fact, 22 days after Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health came out, the attacks from the American Psychiatric Association started. This was the first popular book on the mind ever in existence, it was running up the best-seller list, it was popular with the people. I have the letter sent out by the man who was in the American Psychiatric Association asking for ad hominum reviews on the subject of Dianetics. These people absolutely felt that we were cutting across their vested interests, and the lengths with which they have gone to destroy Scientology and Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard is absolutely mind- boggling. They attempted to do so through the 1950s. First they tried to attack L. Ron Hubbard's credibility, then they recruited the American Medical Association and the Food and Drug Administration, and they then proceeded to infiltrate our organization.

KOPPEL: May I-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, no, let me finish-

KOPPEL: -may I stop you just for a moment, because, you know, when you talk about undermining L. Ron Hubbard's credibility, and again, I have no idea whether that video and the tape that we heard-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -yeah, but why don't touch on that-

KOPPEL: -that we heard was representative of L. Ron Hubbard, but when I hear about a man talking about having been taken out to the Van Allen space radiation belt of space ships that were essentially the same thing as the DC-8, I've got to tell you, I mean, if we're talking about this man's credibility, that certainly raises some questions in my mind about his credibility.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay. Well, let me ask you, have you read any books on Dianetics or Scientology?

KOPPEL: I've been reading little else over the last two days.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: You see, here-

KOPPEL: I must confess, I'm not a student of-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -but you haven't read Dianetics or any books on Scientology -

KOPPEL: You're absolutely right.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -okay, fine. Then that's why you would make a comment like that. I mean, let's not joke around here. That bit that Forrest did there pulled out of context items- and let's not forget something else, by the way. I told Forrest Sawyer, and I was open about this the whole time, I have been in communication with Nightline numerous times - I said, "Forrest, if something comes up, you want to bring me up an allegation, you confront me it before this so I can do away with this garbage and not have to do it on the program." "Dave, I promise you I'll do it." Numerous calls have been put in to him. I have never heard it from him, I never heard about these. To do that is take anything out of context. Ted, when I talk about-

KOPPEL: Can you-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -no, but let me just give you an analogy-

KOPPEL: -you know that there are going to be a lot of folks out there, and I'm sure there are a lot of Scientologists, and I don't want to offend anyone who truly believes this, but there are a lot of people out there who will look at that, you say it was taken out of context. Take a minute, if you would, and see if you can put it into context for us so that it does not sound ridiculous, because, quite frankly, the way it sounded there, it sounded ridiculous.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay. Well, let me tell you- let me ask you to do this, then, I want you to take the Catholic Church and take right now and explain to me, to make sense that the Virgin Mary was a virgin, scientifically impossible, unless we're talking about something- okay, I'll be like you, I'll be the cynic, if we're talking about artificial insemination, how could that be, if you're talking about going out to heaven - except we have a space shuttle going out there, we have the Apollo going out there, you do that. I'm not here-

KOPPEL: I will-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -wait-

KOPPEL: -I will-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -I'm not here to talk-

KOPPEL: -let me do it, and you're- you were a Catholic as a child, right?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah.

KOPPEL: So you know full well that those issues are questions of faith. Are you telling me that what we have heard L. Ron Hubbard say on this broadcast this evening, that they, to Scientologists, are issues of faith? If that's what you tell me, then that's fine.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, no. As a matter of fact-

KOPPEL: Then it doesn't have to be explained logically.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -[crosstalk] -talk about the Van Allen Belt or whatever is that that forms no part of current Scientology, none whatsoever.

KOPPEL: But what did he mean when he was talking about it?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, you know, quite frankly, this tape here, he's talking about the origins of the universe, and I think you're going to find that in any, any, any religion, and I think you can make the same mockery of it, I think it's offensive that you're doing it here, because I don't think you'd do it somewhere else.

KOPPEL: I'm not mocking it. I'm asking you a question, and you know, you turn it around and ask me about Catholicism, I say we're talking about areas of faith.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, it's not even a matter of faith, because Scientology is about you, yourself and what you do. You're bringing up something that isn't part of current Scientology, that isn't something that Scientologists study, that is part of some tape taken from, I have no idea, and asking me about it and asking me to put it in context. That I can't do.

KOPPEL: All right. So this has nothing to do with your faith today?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: If you read any books on Scien- no. Van Allen Belt? Absolutely not. Nothing.

KOPPEL: All right. Okay. We're going to continue our discussion in just a moment.

[Commercial break]

KOPPEL: And we're back once again with David Miscavige. I'm going to let you get to the point you want to get to, but I was astonished, during the break you told me you had never heard that tape before, the L. Ron Hubbard tape.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, I'd never heard that. No. I'm not- I mean, it may exist here, but I haven't heard it. I mean, I don't know if you understand, there are 6,000 lectures by Mr. Hubbard. There are over 20 million words of printed words in Scientology, and all of these have been made available in Scientology, so if it is there, we'll find it. I don't think anything's being hidden, either. I just personally haven't heard that tape, no.

KOPPEL: Okay. Now, you wanted to get back to the issue of the psychiatrists.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yes.

KOPPEL: And let me, if I may, by way of introduction to that, I did not interrupt you before, but you were talking about the use of psychiatry in Nazi Germany, the use of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yes.

KOPPEL: I would argue, and I think most psychiatrists in this country would argue, that what we're talking about here was the misuse of psychiatry in both those countries.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, okay. And if we're talking about the misuse, fine. In any event, I think any use that ends up killing people is a misuse, and I think that's a hell of a record to have. But let me get back to where I was, because it does tie in. You say the misuse, but I don't know if you're aware that there was a plan in 1955 in this country, Ted, to repeat what was done in Russia. There was going to be a Siberia, U.S.A. set up on a million acres in Alaska to send mental patients. They were going to lessen the commitment laws, you could basically get into an argument with somebody and be sent up there. This sounds very odd. Nobody's ever heard about it. That's in no small part thanks to the Church of Scientology. I must say, though, that when that bill was killed in Congress, the war was on with psychiatry where they declared war on us, and I want you to understand something-

KOPPEL: Let me just ask you to be specific on that. You are talking about a bill having been brought into Congress for the setting aside of a million acres in Alaska-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: You got it.

KOPPEL: -for people-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: To send a mental health center.

KOPPEL: -To send mental health patients. What was- who was the sponsor of that bill? What was the bill number? I mean, we'd- I'm sure we're going to [crosstalk]-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, I have a copy of it and if you want it I can give it to you. All of these documents-

KOPPEL: I would. Let me see it.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -all of these documents were made available to Forrest. If they're not on here, I don't know why, but I do have them and I will make it available to you.

KOPPEL: Okay. Now, was that bill ever voted on? Did it ever come out of committee?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It was a major, major, major flap for the psychiatrists when it got voted down, because then the slogan around the country began, "Siberia U.S.A.," and it was really the first time that psychiatry had been denigrated publicly, that they weren't the science that they had been promoting themselves to be. And they took it upon themselves then to start dealing with anybody who would oppose them. They definitely saw Dianetics and Scientology as opposing them, not only in terms of their brutal treatments, such as electric shock and prefrontal lobotomy, which are specific things that we're against, but also for the fact of the people that were going to Dianetics and Scientology and not there. They went to the Food and Drug Administration, they went to the American Medical Association, they arranged an informant to go into our headquarters here in Washington, D.C., and infiltratethe organization over the next five years. I have documents on this, too. They wanted tto get somebody in the church to recommend medical treatment, couldn't get them to do it, walk in and say, "I want to be cured medically." People wouldn't do it. They finally went so far as getting the head of the D.C. morals- the moral department of the D.C. police to send his daughter in as an informant, pregnant, to get an abortion, to ask the church to do it, a frame job. The church didn't go for it. They did then raid the church.

KOPPEL: When you say "they," you're talking about who now?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: I am talking- this is- the APA, AMA, Food and Drug Administration. These people were all coordinated doing these activities, and it went on for five years, Ted, and you have to understand, we only find this out recently. They then proceed to raid our church. Now, the following takes place. They killed one of our executive directors. They literally murdered- the Food and Drug Administration hired an informant to go into our organization in Seattle, Washington, his wife was there. He wasn't for Scientology, she was. They said, "Great, report on her and report on Scientology. " He proceeded to do so. Several weeks later, murdered the head of our organization. The Food and Drug Administration never told us that it was their informant. Instead- wait- instead, they got with the D.C.- I mean, with the Seattle police, and went undercover in the organization on the homicide investigation to rifle our files. At that same time - and here's where the media comes in - a man interviewed L. Ron Hubbard for The Saturday Evening Post. He came out with an unbelievably bad article in that magazine. Of course, Scientology said, "You're part of this Food and Drug Administration thing," and of course, he said, "Oh, excuse me, you just sound like the fringe," which is very easy to say. What do I find out 20 years later through the Freedom of Information Act? I find out that this man, a man named James Phelan, had been- well, The Saturday Evening Post had been written to by the Food and Drug Administration to get a discrediting article written on Mr. Hubbard and Scientology to help their case against us, that this man then went and interviewed Mr. Hubbard. He interviewed him for two days. Mr. Hubbard provided him with tapes and transcripts. The man came back here to the United States, Mr. Hubbard was in England, and provided those transcripts to the Food and Drug Administration for their case a full week before he ever wrote his article.

KOPPEL: We have got to take another break. We'll continue our discussion in a moment.

[Commercial break]

[admin]

Part 2 of 2

KOPPEL: Mr. Miscavige, I must admit, I'm curious. You have been the head of the Church of Scientology now for what, a little over 10 years?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Not really the head there, but certainly a senior Scientologist, yes, Ted.

KOPPEL: Okay. During all that time- you just told me again, earlier this evening, you have not done any interviews.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No.

KOPPEL: (A), tell me why, and (B), why now?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Why now? Okay. Why not. Let me tell you something, I once added up all the press that had been written about me before the first reporter called trying to speak to me, and from around the world, it stacked up to four and a half feet. By then it was myth and legend. And then only on one or two occasions can I think of that somebody has asked to speak to me, but never to interview me, it was always, "I want to ask you about some allegations." And to that degree, I'm not interested. I gave you the story about this reporter. Quite frankly, from my view, a lot of the people who have written stories on Scientology are doing it from a certain pitch, they already have their story somewhat made up, they've already made up their mind. It's a waste of my time, I have to be honest. Why now? It's live.

KOPPEL: Okay. It is live. As you know, initially, I mean, we wanted-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: And you asked.

KOPPEL: -that's- well, we certainly did. We asked, and we have been talking to each other now-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Sure, absolutely.

KOPPEL: -and negotiating now for about nine months.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: That really has never happened, Ted.

KOPPEL: Initially, we wanted you to come on because you folks were really upset about that cover story that Time magazine did.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yes.

KOPPEL: Now, a lot of people have been upset by stories in the press about them. Certainly a cover story has more impact than just any old story in a magazine, and Time is a big magazine, but one might argue that your response to it, your reaction to it, was huge. I think Forrest said you spent $3 million in USA Today alone, with some of those full-page ads, double-truck ads, that you ran. Didn't you also run some TV ads and radio ads on that?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, nothing on Time. And by the way, when you say the $3 million, that- there was an advertising campaign. You have to understand, the first three weeks of it were about the Time magazine and correcting the falsehoods on it.

KOPPEL: All right.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: That was a campaign that ran for 12 weeks. The rest of it was attempting to inform the public of what Scientology was.

KOPPEL: All right. Now, I told you, we've got to take a break in exactly one minute, so I may have to cut you short if you go longer on this-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay.

KOPPEL: -but why were you so- what was it about the Time magazine story that so upset you?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Because it wasn't reporting on anything, it was an attempt to cause something. Richard Behar is a hater.

KOPPEL: Behar.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Behar, he had done an article on Scientology three years earlier in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service, the man was on record on two occasions attempting to get Scientologists kidnapped. That is an illegal act. When you get somebody like that doing an article, you're not too interested.

KOPPEL: All right. Let's leave that hanging in the air, and I promise we'll come back to it-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay.

KOPPEL: -I think both you and Mr. Behar deserve more on that subject. I'll be back in a moment.

[Commercial break]

ANNOUNCER: A Conversation with David Miscavige now continues. Here again, Ted Koppel.

KOPPEL: As you can see, our hour is up, but (A), the opportunity to talk to Mr. Miscavige is such a rare one, and (B), we really do have some issues that have been left hanging, that we're going to go a few minutes over our allotted time. You made the charge a moment ago that Mr. Behar at Time magazine, the reporter who wrote the cover story for Time, that he had, what, conspired with someone to try to get someone from Scientology kidnapped?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, no, he was- he had written an original article and some people had called him up and he was telling them to kidnap Scientologists out.

KOPPEL: He was telling them to kidnap Scientologists.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yes, and get them forcibly deprogrammed which, according to Ted Patrick, who was the father of deprogramming-

KOPPEL: All right.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -it always includes kidnapping, usually assault and battery and certainly with the intent to commit a felony.

KOPPEL: All right. Now, kidnapping, as you well know, is a federal crime in this country.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, let me tell you something, there is one person who he used in that article that was- to be asked of him to infiltrate at our church in New Jersey. He didn't quote this in his article. I didn't find out until actually about a month ago, and the person has just been arrested. As a matter of fact, four people from this same group I mentioned at the beginning of this show have just been put under arrest last week for forcible kidnapping of persons from another faith. You have to understand something, Ted. These people that he aligns with, this Cult Awareness Network, which every one of these people are a part of -

KOPPEL: Although I told you during a break that my producer told me in earpiece right after it, I was going to leave it alone, that all of those people maintain they are not in that cult awareness group

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, no, they don't, because I'll tell you right now, I spoke to- well, that's just not the case. But in any event-

KOPPEL: Can we stay on Mr. Behar for a moment?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -absolutely.

KOPPEL: Because you have made what is really a very serious charge, and that he was involved-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, he admits to it.

KOPPEL: -that he was involved in kid- I'm sure he doesn't admit to being-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, he admits to wanting to get a Scientologist kidnapped.

KOPPEL: -to being involved in kidnapping. That would be a very serious admission, as you well know.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: He absolutely admits to wanting to get a Scientologist kidnapped, that's in your Washington Post.

KOPPEL: So why didn't you bring charges against him?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: He didn't succeed. He didn't succeed. Our point is this- Ted, Ted, you're missing the point.

KOPPEL: As I said to you before, there is such a thing as attempted rape, attempted murder, attempted kidnapping. It's also a crime.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah, but they didn't make it. They didn't make it. I mean, the point is this.

KOPPEL: That doesn't matter. It's still a crime.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay. The person would have to bring charges. I think you're really missing the issue, Ted, because my point is this. That man represents himself as an objective reporter. Here he is on record a full three years before he wrote this article, stating that he felt Scientologists should be kidnapped to change their religion. Second of all, let's look at this article, and let's not fool ourselves. It wasn't an objective piece, it was done at the behest of Eli Lilly. They were upset because of the damage we had caused to their killer drug Prozac. They set up that article, they used their advertising dollar to force it to run, and that's the facts.

KOPPEL: All right. Now, if that is the fact, you're a careful man, I'm sure that you have evidence of that.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, here's what I do have of that. I do have a man here in Washington, D.C. named Duffy Wall, another one named Walter Moore, these are lobbyists for Eli Lilly. We have Burson Morstellar, the PR firm for Eli Lilly. The reason I'm saying this, you have to understand, this isn't my charge, I'm telling you what they say. After that article came out, they were around town here saying, "We caused that article on Scientology on behalf of Eli Lilly to help them out."

KOPPEL: You have affidavits to that?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Let me tell you what else I have.

KOPPEL: You have affidavits?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: From them? Of course not. You think they'd admit it?

KOPPEL: Well, I mean, you're-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: But they're the ones who said it.

KOPPEL: -you're saying they said it, I'm trying-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Let me tell you what I do have.

KOPPEL: -go ahead.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: I go one step further. I then later found out - and you didn't know this - that Eli Lilly ordered a reprint of 750,000 copies of Time magazine before it came out, reported in The Washington Post. But most importantly, here's what I do have. I put in a call to the people, the advertising firms, who set this up. I called up JWT, J. Walter Thompson, in New York. I spoke to the CEO. He said he would look into it and get back to me. He never did. I called up a man over in England who owns all these advertising and PR conglomerates for Eli Lilly, a man named Martin Sorrell. Ted, I asked him 10 times on the phone to deny that he had set this up on their behalf. He wouldn't do it.

KOPPEL: All right-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: We put in a call to Eli Lilly. Their response was, "We can neither confirm nor deny." This is a pretty heavy allegation I'm making. I'm only making it because what I heard from their people, and they won't deny it, so for you to challenge me on it, you have to understand, they're not challenging me on it, and furthermore, our story that came out in USA Today covers this entire matter. They haven't called me once to correct any fact in it.

KOPPEL: When you say your story, you mean your advertisement.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, there was actually an insert in there that laid out the entire way that that came about.

KOPPEL: Let us get back, during the few minutes we have left in this broadcast, to discussing Scientology a little, and I made a suggestion at the beginning of this program, or near the beginning of the program that, in order to progress within your church, it costs money. Right? If I'm poor, how far can I progress?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Pretty far.

KOPPEL: How far?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, I'll tell you this, by the time you started getting anywhere near the top, I guarantee you, you wouldn't be poor anymore, because generally people in Scientology do better if they honestly make it.

KOPPEL: But let us assume there are some folks out there who are just poor. They don't have any money-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: You know, I don't-

KOPPEL: -they don't have any friends or relatives who have money. Is this the right religion for them?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, absolutely. This is the right religion for anybody. In Scientology, you're dealing with yourself, you see- here, we have this in common with all religions of earth. All religions of earth try to help man to be better, and to cause him spiritual improvement. Now, most- in the Judeo-Christian society, they say if you have faith and you live your life that you'll achieve spiritual salvation in the afterlife. We believe in spiritual salvation, but in the here and now. And that's what we deal with.

KOPPEL: I think both Judaism and Christianity, or the proponents of those two religions, would argue with you that they certainly set forth quite a number of rules and recommendations and-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, in the now, no, I'm not disputing that. I'm not- I am not-

KOPPEL: -and precepts for this world also.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -I am not trying to badmouth any other religion, and Ted, I would never do that. All I'm saying is that they have their way. What's different in Scientology is how we approach it. There are higher levels of awareness as a spiritual being, and that's what we're dealing with in Scientology. Now, for me to talk to you about this and for you to have a reality on it, I don't think I'm going to get that and I'll tell you why. You don't have a reality on it. You see, Scientology is a very personal thing. You ask why somebody would do it. I'm not making the claims for the church, Ted. Millions of Scientologists around the world are making that claim. You ask them, they are happier, they do feel they're more able, they do do better in life, they know it has helped them. They say it. You can't take that away, and just like I wouldn't take that away from any other religion, when somebody then comes about and says that Scientology doesn't do that, are they telling me I don't have my own feelings?

KOPPEL: No, I'm just asking you, and it strikes me as a reasonable question, but if you can't answer it, you can't answer it. But there must be a way of explaining, without going into any of the innermost secrets of the Church of Scientology - and I understand, your church has some secrets - there has to be a way of explaining what it is you do that's different.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: What is it that we do? That's not very difficult at all. We approach it on a one-on-one basis. There is absolutely a technology of Scientology. There's a philosophy which covers the subject of life. I started talking about communication earlier on. Well, of course, it covers interpersonal relationships, a million subjects. I don't have enough time all night to go into them. But separately, there is a technology that's applied to you as an individual, actual one-on-one counseling where you- you look- well, number one, you have to understand the first premise. You are a spiritual being. You look, you find out more about yourself, who you are, where you are, where you have been. A man who can look back and do that is a very courageous individual. A lot of that includes looking back on your own past and areas where you went astray. That's similar to other religions.

KOPPEL: It's also similar to psychiatry.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Listen, I'm not similar to psychiatry at all. I brought one piece of paper here because I knew this was going to come up. This is psychology, which covers the subject of religion. It's called "Religiosity and Pre-Oedipal Fixation"-

KOPPEL: Let me stop you one second. I just want to tell any members of our audience who may just have joined us and not have been with us, my guest is David Miscavige. You are now the head of the Church of Scientology.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yes.

KOPPEL: Right. Okay. Please.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: This is what they say about religion. They say abstract- religious-

KOPPEL: Who is this again?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: This is out of the Journal of Genetic Psychology, this is March 1985, and I want you to understand why I don't like being compared to these people, because I'm in a completely separate realm. "Religious belief and observance derive from pre-Oedipal oral and anal drives, according to psychoanalytic theory, specifically belief in deity and such concepts as the afterlife are consonant with oral needs for nurturance from an omnipotent benefactor, coupled with the denial of death. Observance of ritual and particularly church attendance is a function of the anal need for regular activity and the anal compulsive need for regularity and repetitiveness." This is an offense to any religion. I am not like these people. We deal with the spirit, they say man's a body, we separate right there. We're interested in bringing persons to a higher plane, they deal with the neurotics. They want to bring them up and tell him how to solve his problems; in Scientology, Ted, we want to bring the individual up to a higher level ability so that he's more intelligent, he has better reaction time, he's more able and intelligent so that he can handle his life better. Now you've handled something.

KOPPEL: Explain to me - and again, going back to the pieces that we saw before and, by necessity, even though we ended up doing 15 minutes on these pieces, you end up compressing things.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Sure.

KOPPEL: And I don't want to lead people astray. Talk to me for a moment about the E-meters. Those are those handles that you see people holding in the pictures, and they are dealing now with an auditor, an auditor is the person who- this is the one-to- one-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, here's what happens.

KOPPEL: -yeah.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: It could be me and you sitting across from each other, maybe [crosstalk].

KOPPEL: Okay, let's say I'm holding the E- meter. What are you doing and what is that E-meter doing? What is it capable of doing?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay, what it is capable of doing is registering what's bothering you. It is a guide, it doesn't tell you anything, it doesn't yell out. Well, it's a meter there, and it sends a little electrical flow through your body. You're holding something there, very tiny, you cannot feel it. It shows a reaction. What does that reaction mean? That reaction just says there's a reaction. You thought something about it, or something that has some form of mental energy.

KOPPEL: A reaction to what, your saying words, and it's almost like free association, or- I mean, what am I reacting to?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Listen, stop comparing it to psychotherapy, because it isn't.

KOPPEL: No, no, I'm just asking. What am I-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: It is so- and by the way- okay, there are a million things you could do, but you take up an individual subject of a person's life. I'll bring up the subject of communication; if that isn't you, fine. People do have problems with this subject. Very specific questions are asked, the person answers them. He looks, answers the question, answers it, to handle areas of upset that are upsetting him. He knows when they are no longer upsetting him. He finds out finally for himself why they're upsetting him, and they no longer do. That is what's happening.

KOPPEL: What I'm still a little bit lost on is, presumably you and I could do that-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, absolutely.

KOPPEL: -right now, right?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, you'd have to want to participate.

KOPPEL: Fine, and- but why do we need that piece of equipment?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, because it's far more accurate. I mean, originally in Dianetics and Scientology, there was no meter, and you would look at a person-

KOPPEL: Okay. So what is the E-meter-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -and you'd look at a person, I will tell you-

KOPPEL: -because I'm looking at a needle sweeping across an arc, right?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -okay, you would look at the person and hear something similar. I can see your face flush, or I can see you cry, or I can see you smile. You can observe people, right? Well, not many people have an ability to do that, and plus, that is pretty crude. What this does is, when there's an area of upset, it registers. That's all it does. When the area of upset no longer exists, it doesn't register. That's all it does. It is strictly a guide.

KOPPEL: And what is the auditor- what is the auditor doing?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: The communication is taking place between you and I. You see, we're in there together. I'm asking something about you. You are interested in finding out something about yourself. I'm there to help you find that. But I'll tell you, here's where else we differ from psychotherapy, psychology. Those people would tell you, "This is your problem." That's a pretty arrogant position to take, for that person to tell you what's going on, considering every individual on this planet is different. Scientology, we show you a way to find out for yourself. And do you know who knows when you've found out? You do. And if this still doesn't make sense to you, that's because you haven't done it. I can't be more clear. First principle in Scientology, by the way, Ted, you should understand is, in studying the subject or practicing it, never, ever, ever believe it just because we say it's so. Only once you have experienced it yourself and you find this concept to be true should you then consider it to be true.

KOPPEL: Could you, just on the most basic level - I mean, you say originally it was done without the E-meter anyway - could you, on the most basic level, do it with me right now?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, absolutely not, because we're not in an environment here that is conducive to all the elements of auditing.

KOPPEL: Why- I mean, I'm perfectly comfortable here.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, here's why, because you're the interviewer here on the program.

KOPPEL: All right.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: And you're the one who's in charge here on the program, and you're interested in doing a program. That instantly throws out the first three rudiments to doing this, it's not something-

KOPPEL: Okay. Fair enough.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -as a matter of fact-

KOPPEL: No, I buy that. That's fair enough. One of the other- if you're not going to use the E-meter, though, Forrest also showed some of the people working with what, plasticine clay?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, there's a sort of misconception that comes out. That's part of the study technology of Scientology.

KOPPEL: Explain it.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: There's a study technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard. He isolated the three barriers to study. You see, there's a technology that helps you study any subject. One of those is not having the mass in front of you. I'll give you an example.

KOPPEL: Not having the what?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: The mass of an object that you're studying in front of you. A good example, here we are in the studio and we have cameras all over the place. Imagine you were going to school when you were 15 and you're studying up on cameras and you've never seen one, okay? You wouldn't really quite understand it too well. It'd be better if you had the camera there that you could do it with. Taking something more crude than that, where we're not talking about electronics, any given area of study, the ability to demonstrate in clay a concept in the paragraph allows you to gain a greater understanding of that subject. This is something that he asked me about in the intro. There was a piece on it. But generally what people do is, they'll be studying materials and then they will see if they really understand it by demonstrating it in this clay, and if they can make a three- dimensional figure of it, it often serves to clarify that concept and also show whether they understand it or not. And it's part of a study program, it's not a process of Scientology, we're not looking to make people better with this. It's strictly a way of studying.

KOPPEL: Why is it necessary, in order to progress, I mean, some of the sums that are charged, and I literally don't have them- it's not something I've tucked away in my memory, but we're talking about, in some instances, to move from one level to the next level, $7,000, $10,000, $15,000, huge sums. Why?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah, well, okay, number one, we certainly do have a different donation system than other churches, although not all other churches.

KOPPEL: Donation?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah, absolutely.

KOPPEL: You call it a donation.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, absolutely, because there's people there who are donating to the church, period.

KOPPEL: I understand, but are there people there who are making that progress- I mean, what, again, to get back to the person who doesn't have any money, what does he or she do?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: He trains in the subject of Scientology, and then audits somebody else, and he can be audited by that person, and that's free. You see, people like to pull out the sexy part, I'd like to point out, Ted. The people that are complaining about it in your intro, the one girl there that was complaining about it, a girl named Vicki Aznaran, which, by the way, this is a girl who was kicked out for trying to bring criminals into the church, something she didn't mention.

KOPPEL: I think what- I mean, you say a "girl," I think we're talking about a grown woman, right?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: A grown woman, excuse me.

KOPPEL: Yeah. I mean, and-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: A lady, Vicki Aznaran.

KOPPEL: -and you and she were at one point-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: I know.

KOPPEL: -at one point rivals for the leadership of the-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I have no idea where Forrest got that from. Absolutely not. She violated the mores and codes of the group. She was removed for it. I was a trustee of that corporation. She knows it. The words she said to me is, "I have no future in Scientology. " She wanted to bring bad boys into Scientology, her words. Now-

KOPPEL: What you have just done is one of two things, and I'm not in a position to judge which it is. Either you have made an accurate charge against someone or, what a number of your critics and a number of the pieces that have been written about the Church of Scientology suggest is that when you have a critic before you, you destroy those people.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah? Well, let me tell you, that's easy to say-

KOPPEL: You smear them.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -that's easy for the person to say, but she's the one on that program smearing me, and let me tell you something else, this subject did come out before, Forrest did have it, I showed her deposition testimony, she admitted in there that that is what she was trying to do. She admitted that's why she was pulled out. The fact that Forrest didn't put that in there is extremely disingenuous. I'm not making any new charge against her, and let's not also forget the fact that she is trying get $70 million out of the church, and I think that explains 70 million reasons why she would make up something like that. I'm trying to get nothing from her.

KOPPEL: Has she sued the church?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Absolutely.

KOPPEL: For $70 million.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: For $70 million.

KOPPEL: Where does that case stand right now?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: The case'll drag on for years, it's just been dragging on and on.

KOPPEL: Then it's still in the court system.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Absolutely. Absolutely. But on the subject here, I mean, they bring that out. Ted, it's simple for people to say that, except I'm not out there leveling charges out of the blue against people. In fact, you've got to look at it this way. You've seen the amount of attacks leveled against my church. I haven't even bothered to come out to defend myself until this point, and I'm not even here to defend myself. But if somebody makes a move like that and they say something, and they have an ulterior motive, I think it should be explained. It's that simple. You had another example on there, a Roxanne Friend. This is a horrifying story. This girl was ill. I feel for her.

KOPPEL: Another woman.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Another woman on there, excuse me, excuse me. I don't mean to say that in a demeaning way, I'm sorry. She has a horrifying story of having an illness of cancer, and the word in there is that we didn't send her to a church.

KOPPEL: To a doctor.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: To a doctor, excuse me. In fact, she's been to a doctor 220 times while she was in Scientology. In fact, when we sent her out of the church we asked her to please go to a medical doctor and see if something was wrong.

KOPPEL: The charge, as I recall it, Mr. Miscavige, is that with many of these people, not just with-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: No, no, let me finish this one. Let me finish this one because it's important.

KOPPEL: -not just with Ms. Friend, I'll let you get back to it in just a second, the charge is that you inevitably - I don't mean you personally, I mean the church - send people who complain of some illness to a doctor, but a doctor who is also a Scientologist.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: I don't know where you got it, it's invented, I never heard it in my life.

KOPPEL: So it's - so if someone- well-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: First time I heard it.

KOPPEL: -it's not the first time, because you've read the L.A. Times series, and it was in the L.A. Times series.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Oh, if it was in the L.A. Times series, I didn't read that. Believe me, I don't read a report on Scientology from the L.A. Times to find out what it is, so I did not read that in detail.

KOPPEL: No, but you've got to understand what your critics are saying-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: This is not so.

KOPPEL: -about you, right?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: It's just not so. Not so at all. Just absolutely not so.

KOPPEL: Any Scientologist who wants to go to an outside doctor, no problem?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Anybody he wants. It's just an outrageous charge, I have no idea where it came from.

KOPPEL: Okay. The- what do you call the folks who are up at the higher level of your church, the ones in the uniforms? What is that-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Staff members, Sea-Org members of the church.

KOPPEL: Sea-Org? What does that stand for?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Sea Organization. Originally-

KOPPEL: S-E-A.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yes, from the sea.

KOPPEL: Sea.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. From the ocean.

KOPPEL: What does that mean?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, originally this group of people were based on ships at sea, and that's where the term Sea Organization came from.

KOPPEL: That was at a time when all kinds of folks were going after L. Ron Hubbard and he moved his operation out to sea?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Not because all kinds of folks were going after L. Ron Hubbard.

KOPPEL: Well, I mean, the IRS was going after him, weren't they, at that time?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, let me tell you, I mean, you know, I went through these earlier, you want to talk about them, it had nothing- there was no cause-and-effect relationship to L. Ron Hubbard being at sea and these people going after him and therefore he was leaving. But you want to bring out all sorts of faults. Ted, let's be accurate here. There have been attacks leveled against Scientology. They uniformly get reported by the media. The net result doesn't. Let me just go through them. I mentioned the Food and Drug Administration. They tried this case for six years, they lost. It was headline press when it came out. They lost the case, full religious recognition of the church. They passed their information to Australia. There was a full inquiry down there. In 1982, the court ruled in our favor and issued an apology stating that this was an embarrassing chapter in the history of that country. You talk about the attacks here. The real story is this, Ted. A new organization, there are new ideas in Scientology. These get attacked. It's not the first time in the history of the world that this has happened. This has happened to many other groups. This happened to Christianity. Bring it up forward to another religion, Mormonism, it happened to them. It happened to us. The attacks on us, though, I will say, in the last 40 years, are unprecedented and unrelenting, not even rivaled by any other group during that time period, and yet the Church of Scientology has survived throughout that entire time period, and grown and continue to grown- to grow. That is the real story of Scientology and the only way that can occur is if you have something beneficial to offer people, and Scientology does. You can talk about all of this, I can debate with you about that, you can go speak to a Scientologist which we made available to Nightline and ask them what it has done for them, and they do applaud it. The people who are detractors, anybody has critics. That's fine, and I don't- and I have to tell you, I don't mind somebody criticizing a valid fact in Scientology, Ted. I'll be the first one to deal with it. People within the church, there's various complaints here and there, little ones, I always investigate them.

KOPPEL: Can you understand-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: But wait, but what upsets me-

KOPPEL: -can you understand what- go ahead.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -is when one of these critics brings this up and your reporter doesn't mention the fact that they are suing, or the fact that they were removed- and I've shown deposition testimony. You see, it's out of the realm of what I'm saying, the fact that another man wanted to kidnap Scientologists, and I showed the documents to your reporter, and he doesn't put them in. My complaint isn't that the people said them. My complaint is that the reporter didn't give the motive, and he should have. He had it available to him and did not show it, it makes it seem like these people are objective. You want to go around and check out the controversy it's created in the media because, Ted, like I said at the beginning of the show, there are 100,000 Scientologists for every one detractor, and when you just show those people, well, they've picked up the lines, they're coordinated, they find all little buttons to press and they all say the same ones, and they're frightened. They're on the show. I spoke to Roxanne Friend over Christmas. I feel sorry for her, but you know what she said to me, Ted? She asked me at the end of our conversation, "Dave, please tell me, is it ever possible for me to come back to Scientology? " That's the real story, and that isn't on there.

KOPPEL: For every minute that we've spent in the report at the beginning, we have spent roughly five minutes now with you and me talking. I mean, you are, after all- we've gone almost an hour and a half [crosstalk]-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Very well, and I appreciate it. That's right.

KOPPEL: -aren't you capable of responding? I mean, you keep saying, "Why don't you go talk to the Scientologists?" You're the head Scientologist. I'm-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, you have to understand this, if you want to understand what benefits people in Scientology, I can give you my own personal thing, but what I am not going to do here is tell you- I am not going to make claims for other people. What I'm telling you is the best evidence is the successes of Scientology. Do you want to hear about mine?

KOPPEL: Sure.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: I came to Scientology, I was a young man, I had an acute case of asthma, I had been to doctor after doctor, nothing could cure it. My father heard of Dianetics and Scientology, took me to an individual. I was with him for an hour, I used exactly what anybody can read in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. That asthma disappeared for three years. I say three years because I'm not going to tell you it went away forever. After that, it came up again and I dealt with it, and I don't have it now. I do five miles a day. I just don't have that. Is that the greatest thing it's done for me? No, but at that point I certainly knew- I certainly knew it was something beneficial. I knew it. It's a personal story. What it has done for me since then is just fabulous, but that is my own personal story. That is what the story is of Scientology. The successes are endless, Ted. You see, we talk about these- and that's why I was concerned about such an intro piece. The story- 100,000 people off drugs, that's help, that's good, I can give you these statistics.

KOPPEL: You were talking before about Narconon, right? Narconon operated in Oklahoma, correct? The state of Oklahoma said illegitimate group, tossed you out.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, there you go, now we're going to bring up a new allegation. The state of Oklahoma-

KOPPEL: Well, isn't it true?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -no, they didn't, they didn't toss it out. It's still there and that's in the court system. In fact, what happened, Ted, is that various doctors came in to testify. The leading drug rehabilitation experts in the country came in to testify-

KOPPEL: Well, who was-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -let me finish.

KOPPEL: -who was opposing it? Who was trying to get it out?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: The psychiatrists. The mental health board. The leading doctors across the country, Forrest Tannen, another gentleman whose name doesn't come to mind right now, testified in behalf. All the testimony on the efficacy of Narconon program was all in favor of it. Studies have been done, governmental studies in Spain, in Sweden, found Narconon to be the most effective drug rehabilitation program in those countries. One man came in, a psychiatrist, he made statements about the program, that man was also on record as stating - and it's a man named Dr. Gellian West - out at UCLA, he stated that living a drug-free existence is an antiquated position in today's society. The judge in that case ruled that having that man talk about our drug rehabilitation program is similar to asking Saddam Hussein to report on the treatment of the Kuwaitis in Kuwait.

KOPPEL: So why is it still in the court system?

Mr. MISCAVIGE: The mental health ward is the one who ruled on it, and we couldn't understand the findings because all the testimony was positive. Both health inspections they passed, and then at the last minute these mental health people denied it-

KOPPEL: Just-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: hang on, I gave you the story, though. You want to know?

KOPPEL: -sure.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Just like the FDA, just like that, we get a level playing field, Ted, it always comes out. You're bringing up Narconon now, but you know-

KOPPEL: No, you brought it up, that's why I raised it.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -well, I didn't bring up the Oklahoma matter.

KOPPEL: That's correct.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: And you brought that up.

KOPPEL: That is correct.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: You want- you know, if you- I could have been on here two years ago and you would have brought something up, and it's over now. There have been these cases, but in the end, we come out on top, and I'm telling you, Ted, there are a group of people on this planet who find us to be a threat to their existence, and they will do everything in their power to stop us. And that is the mental health field. I didn't pick a war with them. You can ask them if they feel this way, and they will tell you that.

KOPPEL: One last quick area I want to go into. Explain to me what a "clear" is.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay. Well, the first book, Dianetics, talks about the mind. And the subject of the mind, well, you have a mind, and I did this with you before, but anybody can see what their mind is. Their mind is composed of pictures. Close your eyes, look at a cat, and you'll see a cat. And those pictures you're seeing are your mind. There's your- there are parts of this mind. If you use your analytical mind, which you do your thinking with, which is very analytical, a perfect computer is a good analogy. And there is a reactive mind, and this is the mind that kicks in during any moments of trauma, stress, unconsciousness. It is recording a series of pictures of these incidents. Unknown to the individual, at a later time, these incidents that are traumatic can come back and affect the person, affect his rationality, affect his happiness. This is where you find the cause of a person acting the way he doesn't want to.

KOPPEL: Where-

Mr. MISCAVIGE: A clear is-

KOPPEL: -yeah.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -a clear is eradicating that reactive mind, so the person no longer has matters like that not affecting him.

KOPPEL: Clears don't get colds.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Well, I don't know that clears don't get colds, but-

KOPPEL: L. Ron Hubbard said clears don't get colds.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: -back in 1951, L. Ron Hubbard, I believe, said in that book that- postulating that a clear wouldn't get a cold, so again, you're taking a line out of context.

KOPPEL: So clears do get colds.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: I guess one could.

KOPPEL: Okay. In the few seconds that we've got left - we've got about 45 seconds left - we've heard a lot from you and I understand there's a lot more to be said, but why is all of this a religion? And you're speaking now to a great many people out there who have a different concept of religion.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Yeah, well, unfortunately, we've talked about a lot of allegations, and it's tough to describe a subject when you're dealing- when you get hit with a litany of accusations at the beginning you're trying to deal with them. Why Scientology is a religion? Religion is about the spirit, and Scientology deals with the spirit. We are in the tradition of the much older religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, helping the person as a spiritual being improve himself. That is what religion is about. That is why this is a religion. It doesn't fall into any other field.

KOPPEL: And on that note, David Miscavige, let me thank you. I appreciate very much your joining us.

Mr. MISCAVIGE: Okay. Thank you.

KOPPEL: Sunday, on This Week with David Brinkley, the New Hampshire primary, with Democratic presidential contenders Bill Clinton and Tom Harkin, and President Bush's campaign chairman, Robert Teeter. That's our report for tonight. I'm Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.

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A Cure For All Ills
by Milton R. Sapirstein
The Nation
August 5, 1950 - p.130

DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH. By L. Ron Hubbard. Hermitage House. $4.

ORDINARILY, a new book which offers a generalized cure for all the ills of mankind - guaranteed, within twenty hours - would not be reviewed in these columns. This new book on "Dianetics," by L. Ron Hubbard, however, is in a class by itself. In the first place, the author seems honestly to believe what he has written. His own powerful conviction, in turn, seems to have convinced many others - apparently intelligent people who would be inclined to toss aside a book of this type.

Hubbard offers his readers the guaranty of a method which never fails to cure all emotional - neurotic and psychotic - disorders as well as a variety of physical illnesses, from the common cold to cancer. He describes his dianetic method as follows:

The creation of dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch….The hidden source of all psychosomatic ills and human aberration has been discovered, and skills have been developed for their invariable cure.

He then goes on to describe how the method has never failed in the 270 cases which he has treated. What is even better, however, is that he offers the reader the opportunity to perform the same feats of therapy on the various members of his family and friends, who in turn can do likewise for him. No outside help of any kind, professional or otherwise, is necessary for the reader of this book.

No case histories are offered to substantiate his claims, nor is there documentation of any kind to indicate that any previous thinker, medical or otherwise, ever made a significant contribution to the subject of human behavior. The system is fool-proof, and any inadequate results are due to the improper understanding of the method.

It is difficult to describe the method without introducing the author's own special vocabulary, which would take too much space. The dianetic method seems to be based on the use of an auditor who helps the harried individual to relive certain traumatic experiences, especially those related to his intra-uterine life. These traumatic episodes are called "engrams," and the clearing of them allows the individual to find liberation. No special training is necessary on the part of the therapist, and there seems to be a constant verbal repetition of certain experiences until they lose their disruptive force. The whole method is based on an obvious analogy in which the human mind is compared to the electronic calculating machine, with a theoretical use of many of the concepts of cybernetics. Norbert Wiener, however, is not quoted.

The actual method combines the techniques of free association, emotional catharsis, abreaction, and hypnosis - which the author vigorously denies. But it is doubtful whether these are the crucial factors in his therapeutic results; for I grant that many of his patients have improved under treatment. If so, how do we explain the effectiveness of such therapy? First, he offers faith and conviction in the goodness of man, and an absolute guaranty for the resolution of man's problems and illnesses. This he accomplishes without any religious connotation and within a "scientific" framework. It no longer becomes necessary to turn to God, a political leader, a physician, or a loved one to find a resolution of insecurities or dependencies.

Secondly, he offers a therapeutic relationship with another human being who will listen to the problems of the harried patient. This is always a profoundly effective therapeutic experience, whether performed in a psychiatrist's office or not. I am sure that many of the devotees of dianetics have never previously experienced the tremendous lift which comes when one shares painful experiences with a sympathetic and helpful listener. I am sure that in practical application many a husband - or wife, child, or parent - may make emotional contact for the first time with his "loved one" under the artificial circumstances of dianetic therapy; and get help regardless of the nature or validity of the verbalizations.

A third source of reassurance and comfort through dianetic therapy is its continuous repetitive emphasis on SURVIVAL. This word is used constantly in capitals as the basic "dynamic" of healthy adaptation and as the goal of all human behavior. For a world frightened by atomic-bomb destruction, with limited faith in the after world, no more hypnotic slogan could have been used to entrance people and to allay their fears.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, one is willing to overlook the fact that Hubbard presents no conception of human relationships, that he has no psychodynamic point of view. One can also forgive him for encouraging neurotic people to avoid all professional sources of help, and even for deluding people into expecting salvation through guaranteed solutions for their problems. After all, there have been many other "faiths," movements, or special therapies which have failed to fulfill these criteria and have still helped people where the experts have failed.

The real and, to me, inexcusable danger in dianetics lies in its conception of the amoral, detached, 100 per cent efficient mechanical man - superbly free-floating, unemotional, and unrelated to anything. This is the authoritarian dream, a population of zombies, free to be manipulated by the great brains of the founder, the leader of the inner manipulative clique. Fortunately for us this is an unattainable dream, on the rocks of which every great authoritarian leader has sooner or later met his fate. We have learned by this time that a human being cannot exist without effective human relationships, which must fulfill some of his healthy emotional dependencies; and that mechanical, detached self-sufficiency does not exist except in a psychotic state. Healthy dependencies cannot exist without some type of reciprocal give-and-take, or democratic liaison - otherwise, hostilities sooner or later disrupt the inequitable arrangement. In these basic psychodynamic truths lies our own salvation.

MILTON R. SAPIRSTEIN

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Boston Lawyer, Scientology Locked in Battle Since 1979
by Ben Bradlee, Jr.
The Boston Globe
June 1, 1983

Boston attorney Michael J. Flynn concedes that the Church of Scientology has become an obsession with him, and, for its part, the church at times has treated Flynn like a demon.

The two sides have fought in and out of court for four years - since Flynn and three associates at his small waterfront law firm began spending nearly all their time representing Scientology defectors in civil lawsuits against the church.

The torrent of vituperation between the parties has tended to blur the legal claims made in 22 suits Flynn has filed around the country since 1979. In the suits, all still pending, Flynn generally asserts that the church has engaged in fraud, misrepresentation, breach of contract and infliction of emotional distress, and that it should repay to the 32 defectors he represents the money they donated to the church, plus damages. The church categorically denies the charges.

Flynn's most notable Scientology case is the one brought in California last year on behalf of Ronald DeWolf, the estranged son of church founder L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard has not been seen publicly for seven years. DeWolf contends his father is either dead or missing, though the judge in the case said recently he believes that Hubbard is alive. DeWolf also alleges that his father's personal assets, estimated at $500 million, are being plundered by church leaders, and he is asking to be appointed trustee of his father's estate.

Each side has accused the other of using ugly, underhanded tactics. The church, calling Flynn a "shyster" and an "extortionist," contends he is "the ringmaster of a national media and litigation campaign against Scientology."

Flynn, meanwhile, likens the church to a group of "Nazis." He charges it has carried out numerous dirty tricks and acts of harassment against him. Affidavits in support of his contention are on file in US District Court in Boston in connection with pending litigation involving four defectors.

To support its claims against Flynn, the church often cites what it calls "the Michael Flynn extortion letter." In the midst of settlement negotiations with the church in 1981, Flynn offered in writing to drop all the litigation filed up to that time and return to Scientology officials thousands of pages of FBI-seized church documents if the church would pay the defectors he then represented "not less" than $1.6 million. If the church did not accept in 14 days, Flynn added, he would proceed with plans to file an additional 8 to 10 suits on behalf of defectors in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Although at one point the church told Flynn in a letter that it accepted his offer "in principle," negotiations on details broke down.

Foremost among Flynn's complaints is the rifling of the trash inside his office compound on Union Wharf for 18 months from 1979 - 1981 by Scientologists to gain information about him and his clients. The church, which contends the trash was "publicly available," has used documents it found as the basis for nine lawsuits and nine bar complaints against Flynn.

Affidavits by four church defectors - Carol Garrity, Ford Schwartz, Jane Peterson and Warren Friske - allege that church members have conducted numerous acts of harassment against Flynn for the ultimate purpose of undermining him and his cases. Included in the affidavits were assertions that, in addition to rifling his trash, church members had:

Contacted some of Flynn's non-church clients and told them that he had cheated them out of money.

Telephoned the Internal Revenue Service with false financial information about him, hoping to spur a tax probe.

Monitored Flynn's activities closely by watching and photographing visitors to his office and by calling his bank regularly to determine how much money he had deposited in his account, the number of which had been found in his trash.

Tried repeatedly to plant operatives in his office.

The church refused to be interviewed by The Globe concerning these allegations, saying through its Boston lawyer, Harvey A. Silverglate, that the matter was under investigation.

According to the affidavit from Friske, who said he was heavily involved in anti-Flynn activity until he left the church last year, the church's Boston mission coordinated its campaign against Flynn with national church headquarters in Los Angeles. He said the Boston organization "conducted almost daily operations against him for a period of almost 2 1/2 years, since he first became involved in litigation . . . ."

"In connection with some of these operations," Friske said, "hundreds of telephone calls were made to many people . . . some of which were of an investigatory nature, and many of which were to discredit and harass him [Flynn]."

In a sworn deposition taken by Flynn last December, Kevin Tighe said he was the Boston church member who took most of the trash from Flynn's office dumpster. In the deposition, Tighe said almost daily reports on Flynn's activities would be prepared after culling through his trash. The reports would then be sent to the church's national headquarters.

In April 1982, US District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. ordered the church to return all the papers and documents taken from Flynn's trash. The next month, Silverglate filed a notice with the court stating the church had complied and returned to Flynn about 20,000 pages of documents and pieces of paper.

What the church did not turn over to Flynn were partial transcriptions of 60 or so of impressions from typewriter ribbons and cartridges that had been discarded into the dumpster by Flynn's office. Silverglate argued that some of the transcriptions contained notes made by church members, and that they were, therefore, "work product" protected from discovery by Flynn. Garrity is now in possession of the transcripts, pending a ruling on Flynn's request that he be given access to them.

Another former Scientologist who has filed an affidavit concerning activities against Flynn is Jane Peterson, a member of the church's Las Vegas mission from 1975 - 1980. In her affidavit, she said she observed operations being planned to infiltrate Flynn's law office and said the church's express goal was ". . . to get Michael Flynn disbarred."

Flynn says the church and its attorney have filed nine complaints with the state Board of Bar Overseers, which monitors the conduct of lawyers in the state. Reading from the various complaints, Flynn said they alleged a range of misconduct including: solicitation of clients, engaging in "religious bigotry," engaging in threats against the church and its members, and failing to list on his bar application that he once committed a traffic violation for not stopping at a stop sign.

One of the more serious complaints concerned Flynn's formation of a company called Flynn Associates Management Corp. (FAMCO). Silverglate alleged in an August 1981 bar complaint that Flynn began FAMCO to raise money through the sale of its stock to finance his Scientology litigation.

Flynn said in an interview that he chartered the company as a proposed computer venture with one of his brothers. When the venture did not materialize, Flynn said, another brother, then an investigator for his law firm, proposed reviving the firm so he could sell his investigative services on Scientology to the law firm. Flynn said he rejected the proposal in June 1981 because it would have given "the appearance of impropriety." He said no stock in FAMCO was ever issued or sold.

In referring the FAMCO complaint to the bar board, Silverglate and his partner, Nancy Gertner, wrote they had "just learned" that the church had been involved in trash-taking, and that it had gone on "without our authorization or prior knowledge."

Since the FAMCO proposal was one of the items uncovered in Flynn's trash, Silverglate and Gertner asked the board to rule if it was proper to use the documents as a basis for a bar complaint, or in litigation. Daniel Klubock, bar counsel for the board, said he advised Silverglate that as long as the documents were "legally obtained," they could be used.

Silverglate indicated his reading of the law was that it is legal to take trash left out in public for collection. But Flynn argues that it constitutes trespassing, larceny and invasion of privacy to take trash if the receptacle is on private property and is privately disposed of, as at Union Wharf.

Flynn said Silverglate had personally filed five of the nine complaints against him. Silverglate refused to discuss them, noting that the proceedings of the Bar Board are confidential. However, he said he would be interviewed about the complaints if Flynn gave him a written waiver to do so. Flynn declined, but did provide such a waiver so bar counsel Klubock could discuss the matter.

Klubock said the church allegations of misconduct against Flynn had been dismissed, while Silverglate's have been consolidated into one "grievance," pending a determination of whether it should be upgraded to a full-fledged complaint that would be reviewed by the Bar itself.

Flynn, a resident of Boxford, is a 38-year old graduate of Holy Cross and Suffolk Law School, and a former associate in the Boston law firm of Bingham, Dana & Gould. Married with three children, he is also a pilot who owns his own twin- engine plane.

Flynn began his Scientology litigation in mid-1979 after a church defector, LaVenda Van Schaick, then of Somerville, requested he file suit to recover the $12,800 she said she had donated to the church. Several months later, nine high church officials were convicted in connection with a scheme to infiltrate and break into several federal agencies in Washington that were investigating Scientology.

Fortuitously for Flynn, the Justice Department made public some 30,000 documents it had seized from the church, which formed the basis of the prosecution. Flynn said the documents, which in part detailed the church's plans and programs to attack its critics, confirmed for him his suspicions that he was a similar target of the Scientologists. Shortly after photocopying all of the documents, Flynn filed a $200 million class-action suit against the church on behalf of Van Schaick and other "victims" of the church. (The counts containing the class action claims were later dismissed by Garrity) .

Coming at a time when the church was receiving bad press because of the conviction of nine of its officials, Flynn's suit attracted the attention of many Scientology defectors.

In his fourth year of litigation against the church, Flynn has become the principal source of anti-Scientology information and documents in the country.

He has also served as a contact for law enforcement officials. He cooperated with authorities in Toronto, who in March of this year raided church headquarters in that city and seized a truckload of documents as part of an investigation of alleged consumer and tax fraud. Flynn is also cooperating with pending criminal investigations of the church in Florida and Arizona.

In the DeWolf case in California, the church notes Flynn is seeking to protect Hubbard's assets, while in other suits he is trying to seize them.

"You can't have it both ways," Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, said in a recent interview. "Flynn is a man who's given new definition to the word shyster . . . The man is unconscionable. We don't pay extortionists . . . We'll outlast him by far . . . You don't criticize a man's religion in this country and get away with it."

Responds Flynn: "They try to portray me as the ambulance-chasing, money-grubbing attorney. It's a bunch of garbage. My office is out more than $350,000 . . . I represent regular people pursuing a group that can only be compared to the Nazis. The scope of this thing is staggering. I used to be a normal guy, but litigating against this cult has made me very careful."

[admin]

Chased By Their Church: When You Try to Leave Scientology, They Try to Bring You Back
by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin
Times Staff Writers
October 31, 2009

For years, the Church of Scientology chased down and brought back staff members who tried to leave.
Ex-staffers describe being pursued by their church and detained, cut off from family and friends and subjected to months of interrogation, humiliation and manual labor.

One said he was locked in a room and guarded around the clock.

Some who did leave said the church spied on them for years.

Others said that, as a condition for leaving, the church cowed them into signing embellished affidavits that could be used to discredit them if they ever spoke out.

The St. Petersburg Times has interviewed former high-ranking Scientology officials who coordinated the intelligence gathering and supervised the retrieval of staff who left, or "blew."

They say the church, led by David Miscavige, wanted to contain the threat that those who left might reveal secrets of life inside Scientology.

Marty Rathbun, a former church official and confidant of Miscavige, said the leader especially targeted those he had edged aside during his rise to the top or anyone he feared might threaten his position or the church if left alone on the outside.

When the church founder L. Ron Hubbard was in charge, "there were no fences," Rathbun said. "If somebody blew, they blew. It wasn't until these purges started with Miscavige — where he was creating enemies and people … became a threat to him — that we went into this overdrive scenario."

Church spokesman Tommy Davis "categorically denied'' Miscavige knew about or was involved in the pursuit of runaways or spying on former members. He said Rathbun and other former staff are liars, taking their own misdeeds and blaming them on Miscavige and the religion they have forsaken. He said they are trying to undermine Miscavige's leadership even as he presides over unprecedented church growth.

Miscavige "redefines the term 'religious leader,' " Davis said, while some of the Times sources are on the "lunatic fringe'' of anti-Scientology. He said they are the real villains, who Miscavige dismissed for "suborning perjury, obstruction of justice and wasting millions of dollars of parishioner funds.''

He accused the Times of "naked bias" and engaging in tabloid journalism.

"You have a few petty allegations,'' Davis said.

"In fact, all you have is a few people who left a religion after committing destructive acts and are now complaining about what they did while in the church.''

The story of how the church commands and controls its staff is told by the pursuers and the pursued, by those who sent spies and those spied upon, by those who interrogated and those who rode the hot seat. In addition to Rathbun, they include:

• Mike Rinder, who for 25 years oversaw the church's Office of Special Affairs, which handled intelligence, legal and public affairs matters. Rinder and Rathbun said they had private investigators spy on perceived or potential enemies.
• They say they had an operative infiltrate a group of five former Scientology staffers that included the Gillham sisters, Terri and Janis, two of the original four "messengers" who delivered Hubbard's communications. They and other disaffected Scientologists said they were spied on for almost a decade.
• Gary Morehead, the security chief for seven years at the church's international base in the desert east of Los Angeles. He said he helped develop the procedure the church followed to chase and return those who ran, and he brought back at least 75 of them. "I lost count there for awhile.''
• Staffers signed a waiver when they came to work at the base that allowed their mail to be opened, Morehead said. His department opened all of it, including credit card statements and other information that was used to help track runaways.
• Don Jason, for seven years the second-ranking officer at Scientology's spiritual mecca in Clearwater, supervised a staff of 350. He said that after he ran, he turned himself in and ended up locked in his cabin on the church cruise ship, the Freewinds. He said he was held against his will.

And then there's the story of the cook, his wife and the movie stars.

WINTER IN THE ROCKIES


Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman. The press missed the Christmas Eve nuptials. Cruise's publicist was quoted in a brief item in USA Today published Dec. 27, 1990. "It was very private," Cruise's spokeswoman said, family and a few friends, the honeymoon postponed until Kidman finished filming Billy Bathgate. Cruise's best man was his friend, David Miscavige.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were to be married on Christmas Eve 1990. The setting: a large rented cabin outside Telluride, Colo., a resort town at the floor of a Rocky Mountain valley.

The couple starred together that summer in Days of Thunder. He was the megastar, she the up-and-coming Australian.

In the desert east of Los Angeles, a small contingent from the Church of Scientology's international base took Cruise's plane to Colorado.

Miscavige would be the actor's best man. Ray Mithoff, a long-time Scientologist who worked closely with Hubbard, would officiate. The church's pastry chef, Pinucio Tisi, would bake the cake. Its five-star chef, Sinar Parman, would prepare the feast.

Parman had been with Scientology's dedicated work force, the Sea Org, for 12 years. He started in 1978, fresh from an apprenticeship at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. He worked as Hubbard's personal chef for two years. (The founder was a meat-and-potatoes man who also enjoyed fish.)

Parman later cooked for celebrity parishioners who visited the church's base camp.

He made chicken noodle soup the way Kirstie Alley's grandmother did, and the actor sent him flowers. John Travolta gave him a carton of Camels for his birthday. Cruise brought him a jacket from the set of Days of Thunder and would hand him Cuban cigars.

For Telluride, Cruise insisted the minister, the baker and the chef bring their wives for the holiday.

Christmas in the Rockies with Tom Cruise? Parman's wife, Jackie Wolff, was beyond excited.

When they married four years earlier, Wolff worked as a personal assistant to Miscavige and his wife, Shelly. She ironed his shirts, prepared the couple's breakfast, lunch and snacks, and woke them each morning.

Now she worked in personnel, recruiting Sea Org members.

Before flying to the wedding, everybody drew names for a gift exchange. Wolff drew Cruise and got him a Hubbard novelette. It cost $50, a week's pay.

Cruise put up the Scientology contingent in a hotel in Telluride, but they spent much of their time at his rented estate. Parman cooked; Wolff hung decorations, tidied rooms and helped in the kitchen.

The Miscaviges let it be known not to give church-related gifts, a nod to the non-Scientologists at the wedding. Wolff went into town and picked a substitute gift, a black ski mask.

At sunset on Christmas Eve, Cruise and Kidman took their vows. The guests sipped Cristal champagne and Parman prepared a holiday spread that included saddle of lamb.

The next afternoon, Wolff and Parman saw police officers standing at the driveway to keep back the paparazzi. Cruise made sure the officers were fed.

The newlyweds took their guests skiing that day. Wolff will always remember seeing Cruise on the slopes, wearing his new black ski mask.

BACK TO WORK

The glow of Telluride faded as Parman and Wolff returned to life at the Scientology base.

Parman says the church reneged on a promise to pay him extra for cooking at the wedding. Parman had been counting on the money. His credit card balance jumped when he bought proper clothes for Telluride, and he charged his own meals. He worried how on a Sea Org salary he would pay down the new debt.

It wasn't the first time he felt he had done a good job, only to be somehow punished. "I was stewing in my own juices, so to speak."

His wife's job in personnel was no better. Supervisors interfered and gave conflicting orders. Many times Wolff worked into the night and slept under her desk.

Parman and Wolff each thought about leaving the church but couldn't tell the other. Such thoughts were taboo, and spouses were to file a "Knowledge Report'' if their partner violated the code. If a spouse didn't file a report and it came out during a confessional, he or she got in trouble, too.

Wolff sensed her husband was as frustrated as she.

"I kind of took a chance at bringing it up. And when he was agreeable I was like, 'Okay!' "

Hubbard recognized that the Sea Org wasn't for everyone. On Dec. 7, 1976, he issued a policy titled "Leaving and Leaves," on how departing staffers should be handled. It doesn't help to hold onto staff who don't want to be there, he said. But Hubbard also said everyone who leaves is to undergo a "security check,'' or "sec check,'' to protect the staff and to protect Scientology.

The church had been security conscious from its earliest days as Hubbard, and later Miscavige, battled over government investigations and lawsuits.

Church staffers used pay phones and elaborate mail drops to keep information from falling into the wrong hands. Sea Org members used fake first names. Rathbun's real first name isn't Marty, it's Mark. Morehead, the security chief, also was known as Jackson.

"Everything was done CIA fashion," Parman said. "That was the way of life in those days."

After Hubbard died in 1986, his policies became the church's guiding compass. But "Leaving and Leaves" presented a contradiction. If you let people leave when they wanted, as the policy dictated, it could compromise security. But if you held onto people until certain they posed no security risk, they might feel like they were being held against their will.

Under Miscavige, former Sea Org members say, the church put more emphasis on security. Getting out became more difficult.

If staffers like Parman and Wolff insisted on leaving, they were supposed to "route out" of the Sea Org, protocol that could take months. It included a daily regimen of manual labor and "sec checks'' — confessionals that surfaced a person's every thought and questioned his reasons for wanting to leave.

Or they could "blow.'' It was faster to secretly escape, but it triggered the church's "disconnection" practice. If the runaway didn't "route out'' properly, he would be labeled "suppressive" and lose his Scientology family and friends.

Parman and Wolff had a decision to make.

THE CHIEF OF SECURITY

Their living arrangement presented an extra obstacle. They shared a small, church-owned home with Gary Morehead and his wife. The base's security chief from 1990 to 1997, Morehead directed the team that would chase them.

Morehead said he worked with Rathbun to develop a "blow drill,'' a plan the church followed when someone left without permission, which he said happened maybe once a month.

The drill helped predict where runaways were headed, and find and return them before they spilled secrets to opposing attorneys or the media.

"I had the order and the pressure to find them," Morehead said, referring to people in charge of security above him. "And God forbid I did not find them."

Staff deployed to airports and bus stations. They called all hotels along likely escape routes. They called airlines and pretended to be the runaway checking a reservation. They phoned relatives.

The intensity of the chase mostly depended on what a runaway knew, said Rathbun, who was one of Miscavige's top lieutenants. Rathbun oversaw and participated in staff recovery missions.

"It all had to do with the hierarchy of how close you were to Miscavige, how much you knew about him and how damaging what you knew might be,'' Rathbun said.

He said the leader began each day asking if any problems had arisen overnight, and if anyone had left.

"I had to report it and take the brunt of it," Rathbun said.

Morehead, who reported to Rathbun, described runaways as "loose cannons of knowledge.'' You wanted them back, under control, before they did damage.

"I could command as many staff as I wanted,'' Rathbun said. "I could get 10 guys on the road at once. It was pretty amazing that we could always generally get to these guys before they'd get to their destination."

When they didn't, he said, they kept at it, "for weeks, if necessary."

Morehead remembered the night in 1990 that Sea Org member Julie Caetano jumped in an irrigation contractor's Ford pickup and sped off, with Morehead and two other vehicles in pursuit.

For three hours, at speeds up to 100 mph, Morehead said they chased the truck around Riverside and San Bernardino counties until the pickup got away across a rutted field. The next day the team tracked down Caetano, and she agreed to return.

The church did not respond to questions about this incident.

Mike Rinder, the church's former intelligence chief, said his department sometimes tracked runaways by getting into their credit card or bank accounts.

The account numbers came from Morehead, whose guards opened every piece of mail at the base, logging staff financial information as they went. Morehead said Sea Org members were told their personal correspondence was examined for security reasons. He said they were not told this included financial information.

"Except for the upper, upper executives, there wasn't a base staff member who I didn't have a bank account number on, a credit card number, social security number and date of birth, phone numbers, you name it, I had it all,'' Morehead said.

Church recovery efforts also drew on records from the runaways' Scientology counseling sessions, which often identified sore points in their lives the trackers could press to talk them into coming back, he said.

They also used "ethics files'' that included the staffer's transgressions and confessions, as well as the "life history" Sea Org members filled out when they came to the base that included every job held, every friend, every sexual encounter.

When a runaway was found, the recovery team sometimes used someone of influence in the person's life to get them to come back.

Those who were found were told they could be "disconnected" from family and friends.

They were told that the outside world, with its drugs, crime and insanity, was no place to be.

And the clincher: They were forsaking their eternity.

Scientology teaches that people are spiritual beings that transcend human lifetimes and inhabit an endless succession of bodies. Only the church can make a Scientologist aware of this passage and help him navigate it successfully.

That was part of the closing argument when a church recovery team located a target: Run and risk losing everything you worked for — your eternity.

"How do you control someone? You threaten what is most valuable to them," Rinder said. "And the threat is, that's going away. And that's the mental prison that people are put in.''

The church said Morehead and his team were acting "out of concern for the welfare of the blown staff member."

In "Blow Offs,'' a bulletin Hubbard issued Dec. 31, 1959, the founder said someone who wants to leave has done something to hurt the church, is withholding it and is upset about it. The only responsible thing to do is to help the person come clean.

Morehead said he believed that as he went to bring people back.

"Security in my mind-set was secondary," he said. "But as time went on you found out the (primary) effort was the security concern. We didn't give a s--- about the person."

STARTING A NEW LIFE

Parman and Wolff, in their mid-30s, wanted to reach for a new life right away, not wait until the church said they were ready to leave.

A month after the Cruise-Kidman wedding, they took a week to plan their "blow" and picked a Sunday morning, when staff got its weekly personal time. It would be hours before the day's first head count.

They knew the church would come after them because of the jobs they had held. Both had worked for Miscavige, and Parman had spent a lot of time with Hubbard and church celebrities.

They waited until Morehead and his wife fell asleep in their room, gathered a few belongings and drove off.

After about an hour, they pulled into a truck stop to eat and decompress. They stopped at Parman's parents' home in Los Angeles, borrowed $2,000 and took the coast route north.

In Lake Tahoe a day or two later, Parman won a few hundred dollars at craps and lost it back. Wolff shopped. She figured she would need new clothes to find a job in the non-Scientology world.

"You go to the hotel room and it's like, 'Oh, a TV. We can watch TV now,' " she said. "It was just kind of like an adventure."

They phoned their parents and learned that the church had called, looking for them. Wolff's sisters also had been called, but no one betrayed their location.

They went to Carson City and moved into the home of Wolff's stepfather's cousin. The cousin owned a furniture store and gave them jobs. Wolff trained as a salesperson. Her husband, the chef, moved furniture and loaded trucks.

"It was cool," Parman said. "There was some kind of hope for a life there."

They thought they were safely "off the grid," Wolff said. "We figured they'd never find us at my stepfather's cousin's house."

ON THE HUNT

The church got private investigators to tail the couple's relatives, Morehead said.

"They would just sit there and sit there and sit there and follow the family members around. They had no idea they had church-assigned private investigators sitting on them, watching them."

The surveillance paid off after several days. The couple were spotted at their temporary home and at the furniture store.

Back at the base, Morehead and his team didn't wait. The longer runaways stayed gone, the chances of talking them back diminished. Families had a way of convincing them to come home, he said.

They booked seats on the next plane out of Ontario International Airport and had only 30 minutes to get there.

"That is the fastest I've ever been driven in a car my entire life," said Morehead, who had $3,000 in expense money set aside for security. "We just had to get there, just had to f------ get there — just that deeply ingrained compulsion."

It was on to Carson City.

FOUND

The knock came first thing in the morning. Parman peeked out the window.

"We looked at each other and we just went, 'Oh my God! Oh my God! What do we do now?'" Wolff said. "I was shaking. I was nervous. I was like … 'What do we say?'"

There was no thought to refusing to open the door or telling the group to go away. Parman and Wolff were so unnerved that they reacted with compliance. They invited the group into the family room.

The Scientology entourage included Morehead, two other base security officers and two private investigators.

The team delivered messages, called "reality factors," from supervisors at the base who had examined Parman and Wolff's counseling files. The team wanted the couple to come to their hotel, undergo security checks and consider routing out properly.

They said they had "auditors" waiting at a nearby hotel, one for each of them. They wanted to help them.

The couple said they would go. Parman was swayed by the argument that leaving might cost him his eternity.

"That is their main hook," he said. "It's your future for the next millennia … They push that."

For more than an hour the security team searched their boxes, bags and clothes. They said they were looking for pictures the couple might have taken at the Cruise-Kidman wedding. They found nothing.

RUNAWAYS WHO COME BACK

The Church of Scientology describes "auditing'' as a form of spiritual counseling.

The auditor running the session asks prescribed questions intended to locate painful mental images from the person's past that may be limiting his potential. The subject holds two metal cylinders attached by wires to an "e-meter," a device said to pick up electrical currents or "charge" associated with the troubling episodes.

There's also "sec checking,'' a type of auditing designed to find out if the person has done something to harm the group.

Runaway staffers like Parman and Wolff were referred to as "security particles'' and were segregated from others, to keep their inclination to leave from spreading.

At the California base, they often were assigned to the Old Gilman House, beyond a swamp. In Clearwater, it was at the Hacienda Gardens staff housing complex on N Saturn Avenue, sometimes in rundown units known as "pig's berthing.''

Many runaways were assigned to a work detail called the Rehabilitation Project Force. They were not to speak unless spoken to, isolated from family and often "sec checked'' for hours every day.

The church says the RPF is a voluntary program that affords a staffer an isolated environment that encourages self-assessment. By mixing physical labor with periods of religious study, security checks and counseling, wayward staffers can reform.

Bruce Hines said the RPF is about mind control. Now 58, Hines teaches physics at the University of Colorado at Denver. He is six years removed from three decades in Scientology.

He figures he audited staff and parishioners for 15,000 hours, with about one-third of the hours conducting "sec checks.''

"Sec checking'' a runaway was "an interrogation,'' Hines said. Wrongdoing uncovered during sec checks was recorded by the auditor and often posted on bulletin boards or announced at the daily muster.

"Whatever you've done gets broadcast. And the worse and the juicier, the better. That shows I'm doing my job as a security checker,'' Hines said.

"If the person has blown, they hopefully would go from a frame of mind of, 'I don't want to be here. Let me go. You people are holding me against my will' … to… 'I've harmed the organization. I need to make up for it. Please let me stay.' "

To get off the RPF, Hines said, the staffer must identify why he's destructive.

"You're not looking for the bad things you've done, but the evil in you that prompted you to do those things. It's predicated on the assumption you're there because of the evil in you. And you have to root out that evil.''

Church spokesman Davis said it's "offensive in the extreme'' to describe Scientology confessionals in such terms. "Giving an individual the opportunity to unburden himself of transgressions is as old as religion itself,'' he said.

Late in 1994, a VIP's auditing session was mishandled. Hines says Miscavige blamed him, and he spent six of his last eight years on the RPF, on the other side of the auditing table and on a labor crew that cleared land, painted old mobile homes and built sheds.

To get off the RPF, the "security particle'' had to demonstrate that his evil intentions were erased. He had to show a new willingness, a deeper sense of responsibility. Sea Org members called it a "self-generating resource.''

Hines called it: "Totally in step.''

DECISION TIME

At the hotel in Carson City, Parman and Wolff were audited and "sec checked'' day after day for more than a week.

During down time they watched TV or played cards. After more than a week, the recovery team told them it was time to decide. Come back to the base. Preserve your eternity, your family relationships. If you want to leave, fine, just "route out'' properly.

"Sinar and I talked about it and then agreed to go back to the base," Wolff said. "And as soon as we agreed, it's like we were on a plane within probably an hour or two."

To that point, the church had paid for airfare, four hotel rooms, food for nine people, around-the-clock shifts by private investigators and other expenses.

"Lots of money and effort was spent on those two," Morehead said. "Lots of money."

A SOFTENING PROCESS

Before the flight back to Southern California, Wolff called her mother to assure her she was still intent on leaving. But she was equally intent on doing it by church rules. She might want to be active in Scientology again some day and wanted to keep her good standing.

A friend got Wolff into the church 11 years earlier, at age 25. She still remembered the realization she had as a little girl in Southern California, standing in her driveway, staring at the rose bushes.

"I knew I'd lived before and I knew I would live again, but I didn't know how it worked. That's what kind of started me on this quest. What are we doing here on this planet?''

Her Scientology auditing surfaced a distinct memory of how she died in her previous lifetime: a woman jerked the wheel to avoid oncoming traffic, the car landed on a power generator and she was electrocuted. "It was me," Wolff said.

It resonated with Wolff when Morehead and his team said it would be a mistake to give up on her spiritual eternity.

Once they returned to the base, the couple spent their days around the Old Gilman House. They studied Scientology books and rehabilitated an old greenhouse.

If they broke a rule, if they shared frustrations, it eventually would come out in daily sec checks. In a world of constant confessing, no thought was safe inside their heads.

After six months, Wolff softened. "You kind of start feeling better about yourself and you start feeling remorse for what you did. It's like you've deserted your group, and how could you do that?"

Paul Kellerhaus, of base security, sat with her at a card table and pushed Wolff for a decision, she said. He suggested Parman wanted to stay in the church. Did she really want a divorce?

"Probably up until the 11th hour I wanted to leave," Wolff said. "I was determined. I was not going to change my mind. And then, I don't know, (I had) those feelings of 'Oh this could happen and it just could be bad if I leave.' ''

She cried. Then: "Okay. I'll stay."

She said Kellerhaus took her decision and used it to sway Parman. He decided he would stay, too.

THEIR FINAL LEAVES

In July 1991, they started new jobs at the base, Wolff a gardener and Parman an electrician. Ten months later, for a second time, they reached for a new life. They didn't even bother to cover their tracks.

They loaded the car in the wee hours and drove to Los Angeles, to Parman's parents' house.

He took his wife to Disneyland for her birthday, and he got a job as a valet at a boutique hotel in Hollywood. Wolff helped her in-laws paint and take care of other home improvement projects.

Soon a church "case supervisor" came to the house and said two auditors were standing by. The couple agreed to "route out'' but said this time they would not return to the base. The church arranged for them to come to its complex in Hollywood for more auditing, more security checks and some Scientology courses.

At night, they went home to Parman's parents house.

The routine lasted all day, every day, for about eight months, May 1992 to January 1993.

"I want to leave," Wolff recalled thinking. "I'm not going to change my mind."

Until she got a job she liked in the church treasury department. "I kind of ended up changing my mind."

At the church's urging, she talked Parman into staying.

He was back in good graces and back as a chef.

Wolff moved to a job doing research for videos shown at the church's frequent events. She got to attend some — showy affairs with upbeat speeches and word of Scientology's bright future. Parishioners cheered. It renewed her faith in the church.

At the same time, she and Parman were growing apart. They divorced in 1998.

Wolff ran a third time, in 1999. They found her at her sister's house, and she came back, again intending to "route out.''

At the base she was assigned to live in a trailer at the Old Gilman House, joining a woman who had been there a year. They cooked on a hot plate in what Wolff described as a converted garage. She lived there more than six months.

Wolff remembers the small group outside on the night of Dec. 31, 1999, ringing in the new millenium at midnight as they looked out over the swamp. "We were like, 'Woo hoo,' " she said.

Parman, meantime, worked as Miscavige's personal chef, often traveling with the leader, who was keen on staying trim.

"I would feed him something like five different meals (a day) and they all had to be precise in percent of calories, like so many calories of protein, so many calories of carbohydrates and so many calories of fat. And they all had to taste good."

In 2001, during the fallout from the unexplained death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson, Parman was with Miscavige for an extended stay in Clearwater.

It was there, during an auditing session, Parman decided the church's promise of spiritual freedom did not add up. A top officer from the Religious Technology Center, the arm of the church that knows Scientology inside and out, put him on an e-meter to find out how he felt about his Scientology counseling regimen.

Inside, Parman was furious, which the meter should have picked up. It didn't, and the officer determined that all was well.

Parman wondered: How could that be? The next day, between cooking lunch and dinner for Miscavige, Parman went to an auto dealer on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard. He paid $1,800 for a used Honda Civic and drove off. Several weeks later, at his parents' home in Los Angeles, he saw what he took to be a private investigator staking him out.

Soon after, church representatives approached him, urging him to come back. They said an auditor was standing by. Parman told them he wanted to be left alone.

In 2001, he signed papers that required he remain silent about his time with the church. He was officially out.

That year, his ex-wife went to work on the line that assembled and repaired e-meters, and soon became the supervisor. Wolff's staff shrunk by half, but she was expected to maintain the same production. She said she often worked from 8:30 a.m. to 2, 3 or 4 a.m.

In October 2003, she was called to the base mess hall, which had been set up for a group confessional. Wolff was made to stand at a microphone facing a few hundred staffers. Egged on by supervisors, the staff jeered and berated her for not meeting production targets.

For the fourth time in her 24-year Scientology career, Wolff asked to "route out.''

The church sent her to an isolated ranch called Happy Valley, where the sec checking process took almost four months.

"Had I had the guts, I would have just gotten up and gotten out of there," Wolff said. "But you're scared."

She confessed everything she could think of, but the e-meter kept indicating she was holding something back. "This was a nightmare for me."

Finally, someone said, "You're done."

Wolff signed a declaration, dated Jan. 12, 2004, in which she blamed herself for everything and the church for nothing. "I know that what I have done violated Church policy and caused harm,'' the declaration stated. "I do not blame anyone else but myself."

She collected $500 severance and drove to her sister's home in Orange County, Calif.

Wolff's mother, Detta Groff, says the family held its breath, afraid she would go back again. She said her daughter put up with a lot.

"But she was searching for something," Groff said. "It was just a relief to have her back."

When asked for comment on the couple's departure from Scientology, the church said Wolff and Parman kept returning to the Sea Org because they wanted to. The church said Wolff messed up on her job and was dismissed. Parman is inflating his own importance by talking about famous people he cooked for.

Parman and Wolff said they signed documents confessing their faults so the church would leave them alone. They said they would not have returned to the Sea Org each time if not for the church's repeated, unsolicited intervention.

"They make it seem like there was no pressure," Wolff said. "They just gloss over the reality of what was going on."

Parman pointed to the first time they left. He and Wolff were thrilled to be starting a different life, he said. They had found new jobs.

"To say we came back willingly ... Why did we go to another state? Why did we go to different places to disappear?"

Joe Childs is Managing editor/Tampa Bay. He has supervised the Times' coverage of Scientology since 1993. He can be reached at childs@sptimes.com.

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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Collectivism
by Wikipedia

Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals. Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group goals over individual goals.[1][2] The philosophical underpinnings of collectivism are for some related to holism or organicism -- the view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts/pieces. Specifically, a society as a whole can be seen as having more meaning or value than the separate individuals that make up that society. [3] Collectivism is widely seen as being opposed to individualism. Notably these views are sometimes combined in systems.

Politics

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract is considered an example of collectivist political philosophy, which maintains that human society is organized along the lines of an implicit contract between members of society, and that the terms of this contract (e.g. the powers of government, the rights and responsibilities of individual citizens, etc.) are rightfully decided by the "general will" -- that is, the will of the people. The people are represented by the government; essentially the government decides what is right for the people. This idea inspired the early socialist and communist philosophers such as Karl Marx. [4]

According to Moyra Grant, in political philosophy "collectivism" refers to any philosophy or system that sees any kind of group (such as a class, nation, race, society, state, etc) as more important than the individual. [5] According to Encyclopædia Britannica, "collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism. The least collectivist of these is social democracy, which seeks to reduce the inequities of unrestrained capitalism by government regulation, redistribution of income, and varying degrees of planning and public ownership. In socialist systems collectivist economics are carried to their furthest extreme, with a minimum of private ownership and a maximum of planned economy." [6]

However, political collectivism is not necessarily associated with support for states, governments, or other hierarchical institutions. There is also a variant of anarchism which calls itself collectivism. Collectivist anarchists, particularly Mikhail Bakunin, were among the earliest critics of authoritarian communism. They agree with communists that the means of production should be expropriated from private owners and converted to collective property, [7] but they advocate the ownership of this collective property by a loose group of decentralized communes rather than a government. Nevertheless, unlike anarcho-communists, they supported a wage system and markets in non-capital goods. Thus, Bakunin's "Collectivist Anarchism," not withstanding the title, is seen as a blend of individualism and collectivism. [8] Anarcho-communism is a more comprehensive form of non-state collectivism which advocates not only the collectivization of the means of production but of the products of labor as well. [9] According to anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin, "And as long as dwelling-houses, fields, and factories belong to isolated owners, men will have to pay them, in one way or another, for being allowed to work in the fields or factories, or for living in the houses. The owners will accept to be paid by the workers in gold, in paper-money, or in cheques exchangeable for all sorts of commodities. But how can we defend labour-notes, this new form of wagedom, when we admit that houses, fields, and factories will no longer be private property, and that they will belong to the commune or the nation?" [10]

Economics

Generally speaking, collectivism in the field of economics holds that some things should be owned by the group and used for the benefit of all rather than being owned by individuals. Central to this view is the concept of the commons, as opposed to private property. Some collectivists apply this principle only to the means of production, while others argue that all valued commodities, like environmental goods, should be regarded as public goods and placed under public ownership.

Collectivism in economics may or may not involve a state as a manager and steward of collective property. For instance, anarcho-communists, who argue for the immediate abolition of the state, wish to place all goods under communal access without a state or manager. They argue that since, according to them, the value of labor cannot truly be measured, individuals should be free to produce and consume to their own self-determined needs. In 1876, at the Florence Conference of the Italian Federation of the International, where the principles of anarcho-communism were first laid out, it was stated:

The Italian Federation considers the collective property of the products of labour as the necessary complement to the collectivist programme, the aid of all for the satisfaction of the needs of each being the only rule of production and consumption which corresponds to the principle of solidarity.

Anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin believed that a lack of collectivization of goods would be a dis-service to individuals [11].

Typology

Collectivism can be typified as "horizontal collectivism", wherein equality is emphasized and people engage in sharing and cooperation, or "vertical collectivism", wherein hierarchy is emphasized and people submit to authorities to the point of self-sacrifice. [12] Horizontal collectivism is based on the assumption that each individual is more or less equal, while vertical collectivism assumes that individuals are fundamentally different from each other. [13] Social anarchist Alexander Berkman, who was a horizontal collectivist, argued that equality does not imply a lack of unique individuality, but an equal amount of freedom and equal opportunity to develop one's own skills and talents,

“equality does not mean an equal amount but equal opportunity. . . Do not make the mistake of identifying equality in liberty with the forced equality of the convict camp. True anarchist equality implies freedom, not quantity. It does not mean that every one must eat, drink, or wear the same things, do the same work, or live in the same manner. Far from it: the very reverse, in fact. Individual needs and tastes differ, as appetites differ. It is equal opportunity to satisfy them that constitutes true equality. Far from levelling, such equality opens the door for the greatest possible variety of activity and development. For human character is diverse, and only the repression of this free diversity results in levelling, in uniformity and sameness. Free opportunity and acting out your individuality means development of natural dissimilarities and variations. . . . Life in freedom, in anarchy will do more than liberate man merely from his present political and economic bondage. That will be only the first step, the preliminary to a truly human existence. [14] ”

Indeed, horizontal collectivists argue that the idea of individuals sacrificing themselves for the "group" or "greater good" is nonsensical, arguing that groups are made up of individuals (including oneself) and are not a cohesive, monolithic entity separate from the self. But most social anarchists do not see themselves as collectivists or individualists, viewing both as illusory ideologies based on fiction [15].

Horizontal collectivists tend to favour democratic decision-making, while vertical collectivists believe in a strict chain of command. Horizontal collectivism stresses common goals, interdependence and sociability. Vertical collectivism stresses the integrity of the in-group (e.g. the family or the nation), expects individuals to sacrifice themselves for the in-group if necessary, and promotes competition between different in-groups. [13] Harry Triandis and Michele Gelfand argue that horizontal collectivist societies are those based on communal living, such as Israeli kibbutzim, while vertical collectivist societies are for example Stalinist and fascist countries or traditional communities with strong patriarchal leaders; vertical collectivism also correlates with Right-wing Authoritarianism. [13]

Collectivist societies

There are many examples of societies around the world which have characterized themselves or have been characterized by outsiders as "collectivist".

On the one hand, there are the socialist governments, which have often nationalized most economic sectors, agriculture in particular, with the exception of Cuba. If these states practice agricultural collectivism, they are often called Communist states. On the other hand, there are Israeli kibbutzim (voluntary communes where people live and farm together without private ownership), and communities such as the Freetown Christiania in Denmark (a small anarchist political experiment centered around an abandoned military installation in Copenhagen; Christiania has laws abolishing private property).

Many political movements such as fascism, all other forms of totalitarianism, and certain forms of nationalism and patriotism can be considered collectivist as well, as they emphasize the role of the nation or the state over individuals.

Democracy, with its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of the people, has been characterized by some as a form of (political) collectivism.

Criticism and support for collectivism

There are two main objections to collectivism, which come from the ideas of liberal individualism. One is that collectivism stifles individuality and diversity by insisting upon a common social identity, such as nationalism, racialism, feminism, or some other group focus. The other is that collectivism is linked to statism and the diminution of freedom when political authority is used to advance collectivist goals. [16]

Criticism of collectivism comes from individualists, such as classical liberals, libertarians, individualist anarchists, and Objectivists. Perhaps the most notable modern criticism of collectivism is the one put forward by Friedrich Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944 and translated into approximately 20 languages.

Ayn Rand, founder of Objectivism, was a particularly vocal opponent who believed the philosophy of collectivism led to totalitarianism. She argued that "collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group," and that "throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing the common good." She further claimed that "horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by altruists who justify themselves by the common good." [17] (The "altruists" Rand refers to are not those who practice simple benevolence or charity, but rather those who believe in August Comte's ethical doctrine of altruism which holds that there is "a moral and political obligation of the individual to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of a greater social good."). [18]

Anti-collectivists often argue that all authoritarian and totalitarian societies are collectivist in nature. George Orwell, an advocate of democratic socialism [19], believed that collectivism resulted in the empowerment of a minority of individuals and oppression:

It cannot be said too often -- at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough -- that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of. [20]

Marxists criticize this use of the term "collectivism," on the grounds that all societies are based on class interests and therefore all societies could be considered "collectivist." Even the liberal ideal of the free individual is seen from a Marxist perspective as a smokescreen for the collective interests of the capitalist class. Social anarchists argue that "individualism" is a front for the interests of the upper class. As anarchist Emma Goldman wrote:

'rugged individualism'... is only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by the [ruling] classes by means of legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of the servile spirit ... That corrupt and perverse 'individualism' is the straitjacket of individuality. ... [It] has inevitably resulted in the greatest modern slavery, the crassest class distinctions driving millions to the breadline. 'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking 'supermen.' ... Their 'rugged individualism' is simply one of the many pretenses the ruling class makes to mask unbridled business and political extortion. [21]

Ludwig von Mises wrote:

On the other hand the application of the basic ideas of collectivism cannot result in anything but social disintegration and the perpetuation of armed conflict. It is true that every variety of collectivism promises eternal peace starting with the day of its own decisive victory and the final overthrow and extermination of all other ideologies and their supporters. ... As soon as a faction has succeeded in winning the support of the majority of citizens and thereby attained control of the government machine, it is free to deny to the minority all those democratic rights by means of which it itself has previously carried on its own struggle for supremacy. [22]

Notes:

1. Chakrabarty, S (2009) The Influence of National Culture and Institutional Voids on Family Ownership of Large Firms: A Country Level Empirical Study Journal of International Management, 15(1)
2. Ratner, Carl; Lumei Hui (2003). "Theoretical and Methodological Problems in Cross–Cultural Psychology". Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 33 (1): 72. doi:10.1111/1468-5914.00206. http://www.humboldt1.com/~cr2/crosscult.htm.
3. Agassi, Joseph (1960). "Methodological Individualism". British Journal of Sociology 11 (3): 244–270. doi:10.2307/586749.
4. Hayek, Friedrich A. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. University Of Chicago Press, 1991, Chapter Four: The Revolt of Instinct and Reason
5. Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics. Nelson Thomas 2003. p. 21
6. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 Jan. 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024764>
7. Anarchism. Bottomore, T. B. The Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Blackwell Publishing, 1992. p. 22
8. Morris, Brian. Bakukunin: The Philosophy of Freedom. Black Rose Books Ltd., 1993. p. 115
9. At the Florence Conference of the Italian Federation of the International in 1876, held in a forest outside Florence due to police activity, they declared the principles of anarcho-communism, beginning with: "The Italian Federation considers the collective property of the products of labour as the necessary complement to the collectivist programme, the aid of all for the satisfaction of the needs of each being the only rule of production and consumption which corresponds to the principle of solidarity."[citation needed]
10. Kropotkin, Peter. Chapter 13 The Collectivist Wages System from The Conquest of Bread, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1906.
11. Shatz, Marshall. Introduction to Kropotkin: The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings, Cambridge University Press 1995, p. xvi "Anarchist communism called for the socialization not only of production but of the distribution of goods: the community would supply the subsistence requirements of each individual member free of charge, and the criterion, 'to each according to his labor' would be superseded by the criterion 'to each according to his needs.'"
12. Triandis, Harry C. (2001). "Individualism-Collectivism and Personality". Journal of Personality 69 (6): 909. doi:10.1111/1467-6494.696169.
13. a b c Triandis, Harry C.; Gelfand, Michele J. (1998). "Converging Measurement of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (1): 119. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.118.
14. Berkman, Alexander. The ABC of Anarchism, p. 25
15. A.2 What does anarchism stand for?
16. Heywood, Andrew. Key Concepts in Politics. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 122
17. Rand, Ayn. The Only Path to Tommorow, Readers Digest, January 1944, pp. 88-90
18. Smith, George H. Ayn Rand on Altruism, Egoism, and Rights
19. Orwell, George Why I Write
20. George Orwell, review of The Road to Serfdom (1944)
21. Red Emma Speaks, p. 112 and 443
22. The Fallacy of Collectivism, by Ludwig von Mises

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Concern at Governing Magazine Over Its Sale to Scientologists
by Tim Arango
November 22, 2009

Over the last several months, The St. Petersburg Times published a series of scathing articles on the Church of Scientology under the rubric “The Truth Rundown.” In 1980, the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for an investigation of the church’s inner workings.

Coverage of Scientology has long been an important story for The St. Petersburg Times, given that the church’s spiritual headquarters is located in nearby Clearwater, Fla.

So it came as a bit of a shock when, on Friday, the newspaper’s management announced that it would sell one of its sibling publications to a California media company whose top management are Scientologists. Governing magazine, which is based in Washington and for 23 years has covered the workings of local and state governments across the country, will be sold to e.Republic, whose founder and other top executives are Scientologists. The sale is expected to close after Thanksgiving.

The evening before the announcement, Governing’s staff gathered at the Willard InterContinental Washington hotel for its annual awards dinner, honoring its picks for the best government officials. On Friday, the staff learned of the magazine’s sale, which had long been in the works. And at a staff gathering, the question of Scientology was raised, given the paper’s aggressive coverage of the church.

“I’m aware that some of the top officials personally practice Scientology, but it never came up in the negotiations,” said Andrew Corty, a vice president of the Times Publishing Company, the holding company that runs the St. Petersburg paper and Governing. “It certainly was a question asked at our staff meeting.”

He added, “The reporting of the St. Petersburg Times has always been separate from our business functions.”

For years, e.Republic has been a respected publisher of Government Technology magazine, its flagship publication, which covers the intersection of those two subjects. E.Republic’s officials say that the personal religious affiliations of management have no bearing on the operations of the company.

The staff of Governing, nonetheless, is concerned. “There are certain tenets of the religion that affect management,” said Peter Harkness, who founded Governing in 1987 and who came out of retirement in August to serve as publisher during the sale process. “To my knowledge, they have not been proselytizing.”

Some of the anxiety among the staff stems from a 2001 article in the Sacramento News and Review, an independent weekly, about e.Republic. That article, which has been widely read by Governing’s reporters in the last few days, reported that e.Republic’s staff members are required to read a book on management called “Speaking From Experience,” written by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.

“There is concern,” Mr. Harkness said. “Unquestionably, there is concern.”

Mr. Harkness said that a recent allegation of religious bias at The Washington Times, which is owned by the Unification Church, has exacerbated anxiety among Governing’s staff. The opinion editor of The Washington Times recently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying he was coerced to attend an event hosted by the Unification Church, according to The Associated Press. The founder of The Washington Times is the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, also the founder of the church.

A message left at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Dennis McKenna, the founder of e.Republic, was staying the weekend to meet with Governing employees, was returned by Paul Harney, the company’s chief operating officer. (Mr. McKenna has been a Scientologist for more than 30 years, and in a New York Times article in 1979 was identified as a church spokesman.)

Mr. Harney, who is not a Scientologist, said that he had been with the company for 13 years, and that he had never read Mr. Hubbard’s book, nor, he said, read the article in the Sacramento newspaper. “I’m sure if a management book is requested and we’ve got it, we would hand it out,” he said.

He said, “We’re a business like everyone else, trying to meet a quarterly number.”

He said Scientology had been raised in meetings with Governing staff members over the weekend. “Some people have asked about it. If they’ve brought it up, we’ve addressed it on an individual basis.”

Scientology “doesn’t guide how the company is run,” he added.

Staff members of Governing were reluctant to speak on the record because they did not want to antagonize their new employers. One person who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “There have been some eyebrows raised based on the fact that the St. Pete Times has been doing these stories, while simultaneously they have been selling this to a company run by Scientologists.”

The newspaper’s series, which ran in three installments, in June, August and November, detailed what it described on its Web site as a “culture of intimidation and violence” under the church’s leader, David Miscavige. (The articles were based in part on interviews with church defectors, tales which the church has called “total lies.”)

The St. Petersburg Times, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit group focused on journalism education, has faced financial challenges lately, like most print publications. To raise cash to shore up the newspaper, the group’s flagship, it has been selling subsidiaries. This year, it sold Congressional Quarterly, which tracks legislative activity, to Roll Call.

A more pressing concern for workers was whether or not they would keep their jobs. Many did not.

Of the publication’s 27 employees, 12 were kept on, nine were let go immediately and six others were asked to stay on in transitional roles.

Mr. Corty, the St. Petersburg executive who led the sale, said he was in a no-win situation: if he didn’t sell to e.Republic, which offered the highest bid out of six contenders, he would have been accused of discrimination.

“I felt I would have been criticized either way,” he said.

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Dave Emory Audio: David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam Cult, Charles Manson and Roman Polanski
by Dave Emory

Table of Contents:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

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Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse
by Laurie Goodstein
New York Times
March 6, 2010

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.


A portrait of the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, in a church retreat center in Clearwater, Fla.

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

“Why did we work so hard for this organization,” Ms. Collbran said, “and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn’t understand.”


Christie King Collbran, who has left the Church of Scientology’s elite religious order, the Sea Org, at her home in Safety Harbor, Fla

They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades.

Fifty-six years after its founding by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986, the church is fighting off calls by former members for a Reformation. The defectors say Sea Org members were repeatedly beaten by the church’s chairman, David Miscavige, often during planning meetings; pressured to have abortions; forced to work without sleep on little pay; and held incommunicado if they wanted to leave. The church says the defectors are lying.

The defectors say that the average Scientology member, known in the church as a public, is largely unaware of the abusive environment experienced by staff members. The church works hard to cultivate public members — especially celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Nancy Cartwright (the voice of the cartoon scoundrel Bart Simpson) — whose money keeps it running.

But recently even some celebrities have begun to abandon the church, the most prominent of whom is the director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, who won Oscars for “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash.” Mr. Haggis had been a member for 35 years. His resignation letter, leaked to a defectors’ Web site, recounted his indignation as he came to believe that the defectors’ accusations must be true.

“These were not the claims made by ‘outsiders’ looking to dig up dirt against us,” Mr. Haggis wrote. “These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church.”

The church has responded to the bad publicity by denying the accusations and calling attention to a worldwide building campaign that showcases its wealth and industriousness. Last year, it built or renovated opulent Scientology churches, which it calls Ideal Orgs, in Rome; Malmo, Sweden; Dallas; Nashville; and Washington. And at its base here on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it continued buying hotels and office buildings (54 in all) and constructing a 380,000-square-foot mecca that looks like a convention center.

“This is a representation of our success,” said the church’s spokesman, Tommy Davis, showing off the building’s cavernous atrium, still to be clad in Italian marble, at the climax of a daylong tour of the church’s Clearwater empire. “This is a result of our expansion. It’s pinch-yourself material.”



As for the defectors, Mr. Davis called them “apostates” and said that contrary to their claims of having left the church in protest, they were expelled.

“And since they’re removed, the church is expanding like never before,” said Mr. Davis, a second-generation Scientologist whose mother is the actress Anne Archer. “And what we see here is evidence of the fact that we’re definitely better off without them.”



‘Bridge to Total Freedom’

Scientology is an esoteric religion in which the faith is revealed gradually to those who invest their time and money to master Mr. Hubbard’s teachings. Scientologists believe that human beings are impeded by negative memories from past lives, and that by applying Mr. Hubbard’s “technology,” they can reach a state known as clear.

They may spend hundreds of hours in one-on-one “auditing” sessions, holding the slim silver-colored handles of an e-meter while an auditor asks them questions and takes notes on what they say and on the e-meter’s readings.



By doing enough auditing, taking courses and studying Mr. Hubbard’s books and lectures — for which some Scientologists say they have paid as much as $1 million — Scientologists believe that they can proceed up the “bridge to total freedom” and live to their full abilities as Operating Thetans, pure spirits.



They do believe in God, or a Supreme Being that is associated with infinite potential.



The new Flag Building, in Clearwater, Fla., which has been under construction since 1999. The building, which is 380,000 square feet, has 33-foot ceilings and a chapel that will seat 250 people.

Ms. Collbran, who is 33, said she loved the church so much that she never thought she would leave. Her parents were dedicated church members in Los Angeles, and she attended full-time Scientology schools for several years. When she was 8 or 9, she took the basic communications course, which teaches techniques for persuasive public speaking and improving self-confidence and has served as a major recruiting tool.

By 10, Ms. Collbran had completed the Purification Rundown, a regimen that involves taking vitamins and sitting in a sauna (a fixture inside every Scientology church) for as much as five hours a day, for weeks at a time, to cleanse the body of toxins.

By 16, she was recruited into the Sea Org, so named because it once operated from ships, wearing a Navy-like uniform with epaulets on the shoulders for work. She fully believed in the mission: to “clear the planet” of negative influences by bringing Scientology to its inhabitants. Her mindset then, Ms. Collbran said, was: “This planet needs our help, and people are suffering. And we have the answers.”


YOUNG RECRUITS Christie King Collbran, left, and her husband, Chris, center, in Johannesburg in 2004.

Christie and Chris Collbran were married in a simple ceremony at the Scientology center in Manhattan. Although she and her parents were very close, she said they had spent so much to advance up the bridge that they could not afford to attend the wedding.

It was in Johannesburg, where the couple had gone to supervise the building of a new Scientology organization, that Mr. Collbran, who is 29, began to have doubts. He had spent months at church headquarters in Clearwater revising the design for the Johannesburg site to meet Mr. Miscavige’s demands.

Mr. Collbran said he saw an officer hit a subordinate, and soon found that the atmosphere of supervision through intimidation was affecting him. He acknowledges that he pushed a 17-year-old staff member against a wall and yelled at his wife, who was his deputy.

In Johannesburg, officials made the church look busy for publicity photographs by filling it with Sea Org members, the Collbrans said. To make their numbers look good for headquarters, South African parishioners took their maids and gardeners to church.

But the Ideal Orgs are supposed to be self-supporting, and the Johannesburg church was generating only enough to pay each of the Collbrans $17 a week, Mr. Collbran said.

“It was all built on lies,” Mr. Collbran said. “We’re working 16 hours a day trying to save the planet, and the church is shrinking.”

‘It’s Everything You Know’

The church is vague about its membership numbers. In 11 hours with a reporter over two days, Mr. Davis, the church’s spokesman, gave the numbers of Sea Org members (8,000), of Scientologists in the Tampa-Clearwater area (12,000) and of L. Ron Hubbard’s books printed in the last two and a half years (67 million). But asked about the church’s membership, Mr. Davis said, “I couldn’t tell you an exact figure, but it’s certainly, it’s most definitely in the millions in the U.S. and millions abroad.”

He said he did not know how to account for the findings in the American Religious Identification Survey that the number of Scientologists in the United States fell from 55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008.

Marty Rathbun, who was once Mr. Miscavige’s top lieutenant, is now one of the church’s top detractors. The churches used to be busy places where members socialized and invited curious visitors to give Scientology a try, he said, but now the church is installing touch-screen displays so it can introduce visitors to Scientology with little need for Scientologists on site.

“That’s the difference between the old Scientology and the new: the brave new Scientology is all these beautiful buildings and real estate and no people,” said Mr. Rathbun, who is among several former top executives quoted by The St. Petersburg Times in a series of articles last year about the church’s reported mistreatment of staff members.

When Mr. Collbran decided he wanted to leave the Sea Org, he was sent to Los Angeles, where potential defectors are assigned to do menial labor while they reconsider their decision. Ms. Collbran remained in Johannesburg, and for three months the church refused to allow them to contact each other, the Collbrans said.

Letters they wrote to each other were intercepted, they said. Finally, Ms. Collbran was permitted to go to Los Angeles, but husband and wife were kept separated for another three months, the Collbrans said, while they went through hours of special auditing sessions called “confessionals.” The auditors tried to talk them out of leaving, and the Collbrans wavered.

They could not just up and go. For one, they said, the church had taken their passports. But even more important, they knew that if they left the Sea Org without going through the church’s official exit process, they would be declared “suppressive persons” — antisocial enemies of Scientology. They would lose the possibility of living for eternity. Their parents, siblings and friends who are Scientologists would have to disconnect completely from them, or risk being declared suppressive themselves.

“You’re in fear,” Mr. Collbran said. “You’re so into it, it’s everything you know: your family, your eternity.”

Mike Rinder, who for more than 20 years was the church’s spokesman, said the disconnect policy originated as Mr. Hubbard’s prescription for how to deal with an abusive spouse or boss.

Now, “disconnection has become a way of controlling people,” said Mr. Rinder, who says his mother, sister, brother, daughter and son disconnected from him after he left the church. “It is very, very prevalent.”

Mr. Davis, the church’s current spokesman, said Scientologists are no different from Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Amish who practice shunning or excommunication.

“These are common religious tenets,” he said. “The very survival of a religion is contingent on its protecting itself.”

The Collbrans went back to work for the church in Los Angeles, but Ms. Collbran found the atmosphere so oppressive, the staff members so miserable, that she likened it to living under “martial law” and again resolved to leave.

So she intentionally conceived a child. She knew that the Sea Org did not allow its members to have children, and she had known women who were removed when they refused to have abortions. She waited until her pregnancy had almost reached the end of the first trimester to inform her superiors. It still took two months before the church let the Collbrans go, in 2006, and not before making them sign affidavits.

“All of the auditing that you do, there’s files kept on it,” Ms. Collbran said. “All of the personal things you ever said, all the secrets, the transgressions, are all kept in there. They went through that file, wrote this affidavit as if I wrote it — and I never wrote this affidavit, the church wrote it — and made me sign it.”



They were also handed what the church calls a “freeloader bill” for services rendered, of $90,000, which they later negotiated down to $10,000 for Ms. Collbran’s portion and paid. They now had a child and no money, but they thought they were still in good standing with their church.

Mr. Davis, the church spokesman, said the Collbrans’ exit was not unusual. The Sea Org is a religious order that requires enormous dedication, he said, and leaving any religious order can be a lengthy process. He said the church does require departing staff members to pay freeloader bills and to sign affidavits drawn up by church officials, but he contends that the affidavits never contain confidential information drawn from auditing sessions.

In Scientology auditing very detailed notes are made by the auditor of all that a pre-clear divulges. Even though Scientology promises that this information is never to be released or revealed, to anyone, should a pre-clear show any disposition to deviate or otherwise offend or attack Scientology, he soon realises the grave embarrassment of such records, and the great influence that Scientology has over him. On the occasions that a Scientologist has left the Organization or attempted to seek legal redress against it for its civil torts or criminal activities, that person's "P.C. files", are sent to the local Guardian's Office. The local Guardian's Office then telexes that confidential information of "minds" to its superior. The Guardian's Office then utilizes that information to "blackmail the attacker", to prevent that person from exposing Scientology.

-- September 14, 1981: Preliminary Report to the Clearwater City Commission Re: The Power of a Municipality to Regulate Organizations Claiming Tax Exempt or Non-Profit Status, by Michael J. Flynn

“We have never violated that trust,” Mr. Davis said. “We never have. We never will.” The church in Johannesburg is thriving now that the Collbrans have left, Mr. Davis said.

‘Suppressive Persons’

In 2008, organizers with the Internet-based group Anonymous began waves of protests outside Scientology churches in many countries. Anonymous said it was protesting the Church of Scientology’s attempts to censor Internet posts of material the church considered proprietary — including a video of Tom Cruise, an ardent Scientologist, that was created for a church event but was leaked and posted on YouTube.

“Since Anonymous has come forward,” said Marc Headley, who belonged to the Sea Org for 16 years, “more and more people who have been abused or assaulted are feeling more confident that they can speak out and not have any retaliation happen.”

Mr. Headley, who wrote a book about his experiences, is suing the church for back wages, saying that over 15 years his salary averaged out to 39 cents an hour. His wife, who said the church coerced her into having two abortions, has also filed a suit. The couple now have two small children.

The church acknowledges that Sea Org members are not allowed to have babies, but denies that it pressures people into having abortions. On the pay issue, it says that Sea Org members expect to sacrifice their material well-being to devote their lives to the church.

Scientology parishioners interviewed in Clearwater seemed unperturbed by the protests, headlines and lawsuits.

Joanie Sigal is a 36-year parishioner in Clearwater who promotes the church’s antidrug campaign to local officials. She said the defectors’ stories were like what you would hear “if I asked your ex-husband what he thought of you.”

“It’s so not news,” she said. “It’s a big yawn, actually.”

The Collbrans, despite their efforts to remain in good standing in the church, were declared suppressive persons last year. The church discovered that Mr. Collbran had traveled to Texas to talk with Mr. Rathbun, the defector who runs a Web site that has become an online community for what he calls “independent Scientologists.”

The church immediately sent emissaries to Ms. Collbran’s parents’ house in Los Angeles to inform them that their daughter was “suppressive,” Ms. Collbran said. They have refused to speak to her ever since. Recently, Ms. Collbran received an e-mail message from her mother calling her a “snake in the grass.”

Ms. Collbran says she still believes in Scientology — not in the church as it is now constituted, but in its teachings. She still gets auditing, from other Scientologists who have defected, like Mr. Rathbun.

Mr. Davis said there is no such thing: “One can’t be a Scientologist and not be part of the church.”

Mr. Collbran, for his part, wants nothing to do with his former church. “Eventually I realized I was part of a con,” he said, “and I have to leave it and get on with my life.”

Despite all they have been through together, Ms. and Mr. Collbran are getting a divorce. The reason, they agree sadly, is that they no longer see eye to eye on Scientology.

[admin]

Demystifying Scientology's Fundamental Reality -- The BT's
by Bob Minton
August 3, 2001

In Scientology, the information contained in its confidential "upper levels" is a closely guarded secret. Many people have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach these levels, only to discover that had they known beforehand what these upper levels contained, they would not have paid for them. Others claim that even if they had known, they would have continued in Scientology. In the interest of full disclosure, we feel that anyone considering getting into Scientology should know what they can expect for their money.

In the lower levels of Scientology, new Scientologists are taught to believe that the person or "pre-clear's" behavior and problems are caused by his "reactive mind." The reactive mind is the term used by Scientologists to describe a supposed force that causes a person to act irrationally or against his own best interest. Scientology seeks to convince a person that he needs to overcome his unknowing obedience to this reactive mind and clear himself of its influence. A person is promised that when he becomes "clear" of his reactive mind, he will be free from mental and physical problems. After reaching this much-touted "State of Clear," a Scientologist is then indoctrinated to believe that by paying for a further series of expensive "auditing" procedures, he will eventually attain a state known as "Operating Thetan," or "OT." In Scientology, one is taught that there is an entity, separate from the body, which is called a "thetan". One is promised that when the state of OT is attained, one will be able to fly around at will without one's body. One will be in complete control, in fact, over the entire physical universe of Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

The OT levels are very secret in Scientology. People spend many thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, to get onto these OT levels that are supposed to enable one to achieve such phenomenal abilities. No one has yet been able to exhibit any of these so-called super-human abilities, which on average cost USD 360,000, but many people are still trying. Some have been on these upper levels for as long as fifteen to twenty years.

The most important secret of the upper levels is found on OT 3, called the Wall of Fire in Scientology. It is on this level that one learns the "secrets of the universe." One learns Hubbard's so-called truth about why human beings are so limited in their abilities, and what can be done to correct this. Hubbard's "diagnosis" for the suffering and insanity on this planet is the OT 3 incident - the "Fourth Dynamic Engram" in Hubbardspeak. Many people characterize this as the core belief of Scientology but it is not -- it is in fact the entire CORE of Scientology.

Here is Hubbard's so-called factual and scientific truth that all Scientologist's must not only accept as reality but experience as reality:

75 million years ago, the galactic overlord for this sector of the galaxy was called Xenu. He was in charge of 76 planets, including Earth (at that time known as Teegeeack).

All of the planets Xenu controlled were over-populated by, on average, 178 billion people. Social problems dictated that Xenu rid his sector of the galaxy of this overpopulation problem, so he developed a plan.

Xenu sent out tax audit demands to all these trillions of people. As each one entered the audit centers for the income tax inspections, the people were seized, held down and injected with a mixture of alcohol and glycol, and frozen. Then, all 13.5 trillion of these frozen people were put into spaceships that looked exactly like DC8 airplanes, except that the spaceships had rocket engines instead of propellers.

Xenu's entire fleet of DC8-like spaceships then flew to planet Earth, where the frozen people were dumped in and around volcanoes in the Canary Islands and the Hawaiian Islands. When Xenu's Air Force had finished dumping the bodies into the volcanoes, hydrogen bombs were dropped into the volcanoes and the frozen space aliens were vaporized.

However, Xenu's plan involved setting up electronic traps in Teegeeack's atmosphere which were designed to trap the souls or spirits of the dead space aliens. When the 13.5 trillion spirits were being blown around on the nuclear winds, the electronic traps worked like a charm and captured all the souls in the electronic, sticky fly-paper like traps.

The spirits of the aliens were then taken to huge multiplex cinemas that Xenu had previously instructed his forces to build on Teegeeack. In these movie theaters the spirits had to spend many days watching special 3-D movies, the purpose of which was twofold: 1) to implant into these spirits a false reality, i.e. the reality that WOGS (Hubbard's derisory term for anyone not a Scientologists) know on Earth today; and, 2) to control these spirits for all eternity so that they could never cause trouble for Xenu in this sector of the Galaxy. During these films, many false pictures and stories were implanted into these spirits, which resulted in the spirits believing in all the things that control mankind on Earth today, including religion. The concept of religion, including God, Christ, Mohammed, Moses etc., were all an implanted false reality that to this very minute are used to control WOGS on Earth.

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema, they started to stick together in clusters of a few thousand and remained that way until mankind began to inhabit the Earth. Today on Earth all the spirits of these aliens have attached themselves to our bodies and are the root cause of the false reality that all but Scientology's "Homo Novis" or OT 8's on earth experience. It is the job of all Scientologists to remove this false reality from the world by auditing each and every space alien spirit and human on earth and the entire universe to CLEAR. For those who oppose Scientology and stand in their way like the Lisa McPherson Trust and all Scientology critics, Scientology promises to do away with them "quietly and without sorrow".

We have calculated that on average, each person on planet earth has 2,209 of these Body Thetans (BT's for short), Hubbard's term for the alien spirits, attached to you causing you to be constrained by Xenu's false reality. The average cost for Scientology to OT 8 is a mere USD 360,000, meaning that each BT only costs USD 163 to clear. Now that is a bargain if there ever was one.

Hubbard never said the overall cost to the planet would be cheap, but let's examine it. The planetary cost equation is as follows: 13.5 trillion spirits times USD 163 equals a mere USD 2,205,000,000,000,000. Just think about it -- USD 2.2 quadrillion -- WOW!, that's enough to keep Rear Admiral Miscavige, the current head of Scientology and Marty Rathbun, his number two, in casino chips for a long time.

To finish the "factual" account, the Loyal Officers of the Marcab Confederation finally discovered how evil Xenu was and overthrew him. He is now locked away in a mountain on one of the planets and kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery. Several of Xenu's relatives can often be found on the internet newsgroup called alt.religion.scientology (or ARS for short) battling Scientology daily.

Many Scientologists who have left from the highest levels of Scientology have told us that they have been in a room at Scientology's Sandcastle building in Clearwater, Florida for 5-7 hours per day for up to 15 years, holding two asparagus cans together, attached to a primitive lie detector, talking all day to these dead space aliens. And guess what? You'll never ever finish talking to dead space aliens until you leave Scientology.

As we said, you are learning about this story in the interest of full disclosure. If you become involved with Scientology we want you to do so with your eyes open and fully aware of the sort of material it contains. And, if you're in Scientology you should know how you will be spending the rest of your life.

The following comments were made by an ex-Scientology auditor and Case Supervisor named Caroline Letkeman, who was highly trained (Class IX) to administer the Scientology "technology" on the Upper Levels of Scientology's Bridge, including OT3:

Begin quote.

In order for scn (Scientology) to "work" at the upper levels, the person must accept the OT 3 incident as a literal and factual matter. If the person does not experience the fragmented condition as a "conscious and literal fact", or if he cannot accept Hubbard's interpretation of the psychological phenomena expected at this level, the person is labeled a "bypassed case" and is sent back to redo his lower levels. I.e., his psychological state must be such that he can see his psychological complexes as external autonomous entities, and he must be able to literally address these entities with the exact volcano story as given by Hubbard.

There is no getting around this point technically--either the incident is real and "processible" or the person has not validly made his lower grades. According to the technical materials of Scientology, there is no one on this earth who has escaped the incident or who is immune to its effects. That is why Hubbard labeled it as the "4th dynamic engram."

Therefore, there is no further Bridge progress possible unless and until the person can subjectively experience the required psychological condition and its associated Hubbardian interpretation.

The Scientologist at OT 3 is not addressed on the basis of his "beliefs" about Hubbard's materials. He is handled on the basis of Hubbard's "scientific" evaluation of his literal psychological condition. If the psychological condition of the person at OT 3 is not sufficiently fragmented and projected outward, he will not be able to accept the OT 3 incident as given by Hubbard as a valid interpretation of his condition.

That Scientology publicly protests criticism of their "religious beliefs" is itself dangerously misleading, in my opinion. Hubbard did not characterize the OT 3 incident as a "belief"--he taught it as a factual incident and as a scientifically researched psychological explanation for the state that OT 3's find themselves in at that level.

End quote.

If you need to know more about Scientology, start at the following web sites: http://www.lisatrust.net/ and http://www.xenu.net/ and Scientology's own web site, http://www.scientology.org/.

We do not object to anyone, Scientologists included, believing in alien cosmologies and practicing their truly held beliefs or even accepting the "reality" of those inter-galactic "events" as factual. We do have at least two problems, however, with Scientology's deception about its alien space opera--

First, Scientology lies when it says that it is compatible with all other religious beliefs. It cannot be and is not compatible with ANY religious belief since it clearly teaches that all religion is an implanted false reality. In fact, any other religious belief by a Scientologist is not even tolerated. Talk about your faith in Christ or about prayer in an auditing session and off to the Ethics Officer you will go for some PTS ("Potential Trouble Source") handling because you are indulging in "other practices". OT3, the level when a Scientologist learns about the alien cosmology and that religion is an implanted false reality, obviously ends any possibility of further illusion that Scientology can be compatible with ANY religious belief.

Second, Scientology keeps its alien cosmology a secret for financial reasons. A Scientologist is required to go through a gradual progression of expensive steps before they are allowed to learn about the alien cosmology. They are told if they learn about it prematurely, it will create a life threatening situation -- it will give them pneumonia and they might die. We know of no reports of anyone ever getting pneumonia, much less dying from exposure to Xenu and the alien story. Hiding the truth about this space opera serves several functions, including, a) recruitment -- few would join if they were told about the alien beliefs up front; b) money -- holding back the information buys time to collect more money from a recruit before the colorful information is revealed; c) control -- holding back the information allows Scientology to use the "tech" to indoctrinate and induce a person not to bolt when they do hear the alien story.

This entire cover-up of this alien cosmology in Scientology is all about deception, lies and money.

The Lisa McPherson Trust's mission is to expose the abusive and deceptive practices of Scientology and help those who have been victimized by it. Clearly, the deception and lies surrounding the alien cosmology is something we must stand up against. Let me make this clear: it is not the alien cosmology itself that we object to; it is the deception and lies surrounding it.

We are all well aware that Hubbard wrote all the policies used by Scientology management today which are at the heart of the entire war that Scientology has declared on its critics. Hubbard wrote the "Manual of Dissemination," for example, in which he instructed his followers that the purpose of a lawsuit is to harass, not to win. He also wrote the "Manual of Justice," in which he says that a reporter who dares to write anything critical about Scientology should be harassed and intimidated until he shudders into silence. He also wrote "Attacks on Scientology, Additional Policy Letter," in which he details how to destroy the reputation of anyone who is critical of Scientology. There are many, many others, including the vilest of Hubbard's policies, the "Fair Game" policy which has been in continuous use by Scientology since it was written in 1967. Current management is revising these Hubbard policies for the reprints of the OEC and Tech volumes for legal and PR reasons, because Miscavige and his lawyers don't want the public to know how rabidly insane and vindictive Hubbard really was. But these are Hubbard policies, without any doubt. Current management continues to apply the original versions of these directives, but do not delude yourself that it was anyone but L. Ron Hubbard who wrote them.

We have spent many hours with former Scientologists all over the world and have never hidden our feelings about Hubbard. To politely summarize those feelings, we think Hubbard was a sinister con man and believe that the vast majority of people who know anything about him share this view. While Miscavige may be seen as a monster, he is merely a proxy for carrying out the evil policies of L. Ron Hubbard. Miscavige is definitely not "misapplying" the evil parts of Hubbard's tech -- we believe he is using them just as Hubbard intended.

Further, we believe the creed of Scientology has many noble elements to it but think the creed is a fraud because Scientology and most Scientologists do not act in accordance with their creed. The creed is pure PR and Scientology and most Scientologists are hypocrites. A simple example of this hypocrisy is that their creed says that all men have an inalienable right to free speech, yet in practice that right is only supported by the organization when the speech is laudatory of Scientology. Otherwise you are publicly labeled a bigot and hatemonger and the fair game policies are applied against you.

One of the most difficult aspects of recovering from Scientology seems to be former members coming to terms with their irresponsibility while they were in Scientology. Over and over we have had ex-Scientologists say to us, "I didn't know about all these bad things going on in the organization," only to come back later and admit that they just didn't want to see it. Former Scientologists regret that they had bought into the management's lies so thoroughly that they couldn't see what was going on all around them. Many ex-Scientologists have told us that it was simply a lot easier not to have to take responsibility for these things. But everyone in the organization is responsible for what the organization is doing.

Remember that Scientology breeds irresponsibility and that Scientologists become addicted to that irresponsibility. What else could happen when throughout your experience in Scientology firstly it's "Engrams" and your reactive mind that are the root cause of your problems; then it's space aliens (BT's); then when you think you have eliminated all your BT's you discover you've got drugged BT's, then sleeping BT's, then unconscious BT's and finally you find that the entirety of the physical universe is a false reality that can be done away with by auditing even more BT's so that you are able to step out of the physical universe and be above matter, energy, space and time.

To better understand how Scientology works, go to the lisatrust.net website and read two articles by Stacy Brooks concerning auditing and how Scientology views the family. These articles can be found at the following, http://www.lisatrust.net/Tech.htm and http://www.lisatrust.net/Family.htm, respectively. Then, in combination with the previous articles, read the outstanding Cartesian Award winning essay by Erik Snead at http://www.lisatrust.net/literaticontes ... 0erik.html to get an insight into how this addiction to irresponsibility happens.

Scientology perpetrates fraud, abuse, deception and mind control on its adherents. These actions violate not only the law but also the human rights and civil rights of its members. Further, Scientology abhors criticism so much that it misuses the mantle of religion to promote and justify hatred and bigotry by its members, attorneys, private investigators and cult apologists towards critics.

We will defend the right of anyone to practice any truly held belief they choose. After all, the U.S. Constitution, the U.N.'s Declaration of Human Rights and other noteworthy national documents grant this basic freedom to everyone. However, nothing gives people or institutions the right to engage in behavior that violates other peoples' rights or the law, even if they do so in the name of religious motivation.