Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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

Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:33 am

Scientology: L. Ron Hubbard's Incorrigible Brainchild
Journalism/Miscellaneous


Table of Contents:

A Biography of L. Ron Hubbard, by Michael Linn Shannon
A Conversation with David Miscavige, by Ted Koppel, 2/14/92
A Cure for All Ills, by Milton R. Sapirstein, 8/5/50
Boston Lawyer, Scientology Locked in Battle Since 1979, by Ben Bradlee, Jr., 6/1/83
Chased By Their Church: When You Try to Leave Scientology, They Try to Bring You Back, by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, 10/31/09
Collectivism, by Wikipedia
Concern at Governing Magazine Over Its Sale to Scientologists, by Tim Arango, 11/22/09
Dave Emory Audio: David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam Cult, Charles Manson and Roman Polanski
Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse, by Laurie Goodstein, 3/6/10
Demystifying Scientology's Fundamental Reality -- The BT's, by Bob Minton, 8/3/01
Ex-Scientology Lawsuits Reveal Elite Sea Org Group, by Associated Press, 3/27/10
General Report on Scientology, by Jon Atack, 4/9/95
How Scientology Got to Bob Minton, by Thomas C. Tobin and Joe Childs, 11/2/09
Hubbard and the Occult, by Jon Atack
Hubbard Uses Black Magic, by George-Wayne Shelor, 5/16/84
Inside Scientology, by Janet Reitman, 2/23/06
Inside the Church of Scientology: An Exclusive Interview with L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., by Penthouse, 6/83
Is John Travolta Cracking Up? It's Not Just Grief -- And Guilt -- Over His Dead Son That Are Tearing The Actor Apart, by Paul Scott, 7/25/09
Letter From John Galusha, Secretary of Hubbard Association of Scientologists, to the Better Business Bureau of Phoenix, Arizona, 6/12/54
Man Overboard: To Leave Scientology, Don Jason Had to Jump Off a Ship, by Thomas C. Tobin, 11/3/09
Don Jason's route out of Scientology, by Times Staff
Missing in Happy Valley? produced by Peter Reichelt and Ina Brockmann, 2/25/99
Missionary Man, by James Verini, 6/27/05
Olof Palme Assassination, by Wikipedia
Operation Snow White, by Wikipedia
Oscar-Winner Paul Haggis Publicly Resigns From Church of Scientology Over Gay Rights, by Foster Kamer, 10/25/09
Operating Thetan Materials, by Karin Spaink
OT III Rewritten for Beginners, by Jonathan Caven-Atack
Political Action Committee -- A Briefing: How Scientologists Can Take Responsibility for and Be At Cause Over the Fourth Dynamic, by John Coale, 1/15/86
Sarah Palin Adviser's Secret Scientology Plot to Take Over Washington, by Gawker, 3/26/09
Scientologists Convicted of Fraud in France, 10/27/09
Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult, by Eugene H. Methvin, 5/80
Scientology -- Is This a Religion, by Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D., 7/1/97
Scientology: The Sickness Spreads, by Eugene H. Methvin, 9/81
Scientology: The Truth Rundown, by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, 6/21/09
Death in slow motion: Part 2 of 3 in a special report on the Church of Scientology, by Thomas C. Tobin and Joe Childs
Scientology: Ecclesiastical justice, Part 3 of 3 in a special report on the Church of Scientology, by Thomas C. Tobin and Joe Childs
Scientology's Crushing Defeat, by Tony Ortega, 6/27/08
Scientology's War Against Judges, by James B. Stewart, Jr., 12/80
Some Notes on Black Dianetics -- The Darker Side of the Picture, by L. Ron Hubbard, 9/17/51
Danger: Black Dianetics!, by L. Ron Hubbard
Statutory Declaration, Deed of Release, Agreement -- Damian Arntzen to Church of Scientology
Ted Patrick, by Wikipedia
The Admissions of L. Ron Hubbard
The Awful Truth About Scientology, by Another Hired Stranger, 10/73
The Bridge to Total Freedom, by Scientology.org
The Council for National Policy, by Barbara Aho
The Death of Susan Meister, by Scientology-kills.org
The Good Ship Scientology, by The Observer, 8/68
The Life and Death of a Scientologist, by Richard Leiby, 12/6/98
The Process Church of the Final Judgment, by Wikipedia
David Berkowitz, by Wikipedia
The Scientology Story, by Joel Sappell and Robert W. Welkos, 6/90
The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, by L. Ron Hubbard
The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, by Richard Behar, 5/6/91
This Man Made $500 Million Disappear, and These People Would Like to Know Where it Went, by Kim Masters
Mimi Rogers, by Wikipedia
Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, by Andrew Morton
Tom Cruise and Scientology ... While Big Names Like Tom Cruise and John Travolta Prescribe to Scientology, It's Just One of the Modalities of Transformation Available ... And Certainly Not the Most Rapid!, by James Arthur Ray, 7/8/05
Tom's Scientology Secrets Exposed!, by Greg Sinclair, 4/25/94
Scientology Leader Can't Handle the Heat On Xenu, Storms Out on Martin Bashir, 10/25/09
Tommy Davis: Scientology's New Angry, Unstable Pitchman, by John Cook
The BBC man, the Scientologist - and the YouTube rant: Panorama reporter's outburst at Hollywood star's son is captured on video, by David Smith
What Happened in Vegas, by Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, 11/1/09
Wog, by Wikipedia
Xenophobia, by Wikipedia
Xenophon, by Wikipedia
Yes, There Was a Book Called "Excalibur," by L. Ron Hubbard, by Arthur J. Burks, 12/61
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:42 am

A Biography of L. Ron Hubbard
by Michael Linn Shannon

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
1. Birth information and family
2. Childhood years
3. Teenage world traveler
4. Academic record
5. Expeditions
6. Military record
7. Miscellaneous
8. Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

This article may be copied and distributed by anyone who wishes to do so. Comments are welcomed, and should be addressed to P.O. Box 1526, Portland, Oregon, 97207. Please include a stamped envelope if an answer is wanted.

My first experience with the Church of Scientology was in July of 1975. It was on a very warm evening in downtown Portland, Oregon, and I was waiting for a bus. A tall youngish man came up to me and asked if I would like to go to a free lecture on how to communicate better. I didn't have anything in particular to do and decided to go -- I was curious what kind of trip this guy was gonna lay on me but I figured (wrongly) that the place would probably be air conditioned. So I followed him to this large almost empty room on the second floor of a nearby building and was treated to a half hour or so monologue on the importance of affinity, reality, and communication, which made sense to me, and after a short sales pitch, signed up for the "communications course".

The following day there were certain events that transpired which caused me to change my mind about taking this course, and after a brief but rather heated discussion, the guy who had taken my money gave back my money.

I still had the book that I had bought, Hubbard's "Dianetics", and for some unknown reason, I read it. When I had finished it, I decided that I wanted to know more about the church of Scientology, particularly the guy who wrote that book. I started buying books. Lot's of books. There was a second hand bookstore a few blocks away, and they were cheaper, and I discovered they had books by other writers that were about Scientology. I happened across a copy of the hard to find "Scandal of Scientology" by Paulette Cooper. Now I was fascinated, and started collecting everything I could get my eager hands on -- magazine articles, newspaper clippings, government files, anything.

Four years and four thousand dollars later, I had a mountain of material which included some files that no one else had bothered to get -- copies of the log books of the Navy ships that Hubbard had served on, and his father's Navy service file. Soon after reading these thousands of pages, I realized that I had a lot of information on Hubbard that had never been included in any of the books that were written about him or his 'church'.

The result of all that research is this article, the first of a series. While there are several ways this information can be presented, it seems to me that the most expedient way would be to simply make a list of all the things that Hubbard has been credited with, and follow each with what the documents that I have say about each one. (what the documents say, not what I say). By doing it in this manner the facts are presented without being watered down with forty pages of dialogue. Here then, is an itemized biography of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard.

In many of the dozens of books published by the Church of Scientology (COS) over the years, there is included, as in many books, some information about the author. In the case of the COS books, this ranges from a couple of lines on the inside of the dust jacket, to the elaborate 16 page spread in "What is Scientology" in which the life of their founder is depicted in reproductions of a series of oil paintings, with accompanying text.

All of these, when put together, tell of a man who descended from royalty, grew up in the wilds of Montana, became the youngest Eagle Scout in America, traveled throughout the world as a teenager, graduated from college with a degree in civil engineering, earned his masters license to command ocean going vessels, was the leader of a number of expeditions to various areas of the world, was a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, was highly decorated, and a real life hero in the U.S. Navy in WWII, wrote and had published fifteen million words, and spent years and years researching the composition and destiny of man

And did all this before his 35th birthday.

L Ron Hubbard was well known in the forties for his stories in magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Astounding Science Fiction, and when his first article on the new mental science was published (in ASF) it was well received. So a few months later he wrote "Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, and suddenly he was famous.

Everyone was interested in the book that could teach them all the things that his book was reputed to do, and it became a best seller.

There were several government agencies who were interested too.

The newspapers picked up on it. Magazine articles appeared, and a couple of books were written, but for some reason none of those publications had much to say about the "trip to heaven man" who made it all happen.

Thirty years later the COS has been "exposed" to tens of millions of people in thousands of newspaper articles, Readers Digest, with it's 18 millions of readers, and CBS's "Sixty Minutes." reported some of the details of a recent incident the COS was involved in to some 20 million people.

All over America, law suits have been filed by or against the COS, with many millions of dollars at stake -- and everyone has heard of Scientology.

Yet very little is known about the rich reclusive Ronald Hubbard.

PART ONE: BIRTH INFORMATION AND FAMILY

ITEM: That LRH was born in Tilden Nebraska on 13 March, 1911. (1) (2)

• LRH was born Lafayette Ronald Hubbard on 13 March 1911, in Tilden, Neb. (3)

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An undated article from the Tilden 'Citizen' (4) states that LRH was born at Dr. Campbell's hospital, on Oak Street.

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LRH's Certificate of birth lists an S.A. Campbell as attendant at birth. (3)

• Doris Chase Doane, an astrologer, states that LRH gave her this date and place as well as the time of 2:01 A.M. C.S.T., during an interview in Los Angeles. (5)

ITEM: That LRH is a descendant of one Count de Loupe who entered England with the Norman invasion of the tenth century A.D. (1)

• LRH's maternal grandmother's name was Ida Corinne DeWolfe, who was born in Hampshire, Illinois on 6 August 1863, and died in Hamilton, Montana on the 25th of March, 1944. Her father was John A. DeWolfe, and her mother was Louesa Doty both from Pennsylvania. (6)

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ITEM: That on his father's side, he is descended from the English Hubbards who came to America in the 18th century. (1)

• LRH's father was Harry Ross Hubbard. (3)
o Harry Ross Hubbard was born Henry August Wilson on 31 August 1886 at Fayette, Iowa, but at an early age his mother died, and he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. James W. Hubbard, of Fayette County, and his name was changed to Harry Ross Hubbard. In his Navy service record is an affidavit from his blood brother, J.R. Wilson, and other documents, which were accepted as true by the Navy Department. (7)

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PART TWO: CHILDHOOD YEARS

ITEM: That LRH's maternal grandfather was a cattleman who owned a ranch in Montana (l) and that this ranch was "one quarter of Montana."(8)

• LRH's maternal grandfather was Lafayette O. Waterbury, (9) ...

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who was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 25 July 1864, and died in Helena, Montana on 18 August 1931. His father was Abram Waterbury, and his mother was Margaret Mettler, of New York. (10) (4)

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L.O. Waterbury owned, in 1927, the Capital City Coal Co. six miles S.E. of Helena, and lived at 735 Fifth Ave, in Helena, from 1917 to 1925. In 1925 he was in the automobile accessories business. (11)
• L.O. Waterbury's wife was Ida Corinne who also lived at this address. (11) (4)
• The office of the Secretary of State of Montana lists the Capital City Coal Co., but has no record of L.O. Waterbury having owned land in Montana. (12)

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• The office of the Clerk and Recorder of Lewis and Clark County (Helena) has no record of any land owned by L.O. Waterbury. (13)

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• The Montana Historical Society has an index of people who filed deeds, of homesteaders, and plat maps of Montana, but has no record of L.O. Waterbury. (14)

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• The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, in Billings has no record of a L.O. Waterbury. (15)

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ITEM: That LRH grew up on his grandfather's cattle ranch in Montana. (l) (16)

• In addition to LRH's grandparents -- L.O. and Ida -- his parents lived at the same address from 1918 to 1922. (17)
• L.O.'s brother, Ray Waterbury, and sisters Hope, Toilie, and Louise, lived at the Fifth Ave address in the same period. (17)
• LRH's father lists in his navy insurance beneficiary form, 31 Mar. 1927, dependents LRH and Ledora May at 736 Fifth Ave, Helena. (18)
• The Navy Department record of discharge for Harry Ross lists, on 18 Dec. 1918, LRH at 736 Fifth Ave.(19)
• Harry Ross' record of allotment of part of his pay to his dependents, lists LRH at 736 Fifth Ave., on 10 Oct. 1917. (22)
• Harry Ross' Officer compensation slip, dated 2 Nov 1918, lists LRH at the same address, 736 Fifth Ave. (23)
• The Helena Public School District has a registration card on LRH, dated 2 Jan 1917, when he started kindergarten at Central School, in Helena. The address listed is 736 Fifth Ave. (20)

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• LRH was enrolled at Helena High School on 6 Sept. 1927. His registration card shows his address as 736 Fifth Ave. (21)

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[Note: rest of 21 is 21a]

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• LRH describes an incident where he methodically sought out and beat up five O'Connel brothers and a Leon Brown, who used to pick on him on his way to school, when he was six years old. (24) Helena School District records show that there were five brothers named O'Connel, and an Ernest Brown, who were attending Central School at the time LRH was there. (25)
• Harry Ross worked for an Smith Coal and Cattle Co. in 1914-15-16. (26)

ITEM: That LRH was the youngest Eagle Scout in America (1)

• The Boy Scouts of America neither keep or place any value in such records. (27)
• There were two "Ronald Hubbards" who were Eagle Scouts at the approximate time LRH claims this distinction. One was in Trumbull County, Ohio, and the other was in Washington D.C. There are no records of parents' names or addresses that go back that far. (28)

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ITEM: That LRH was a blood brother of the BlackFEET (sic) Indian Tribe while he lived on the ranch in Montana. (1) (16)

• The Blackfeet Indian Agency has no record of LRH as a blood brother. (29)

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• The Blackfeet Indians did "adopt" a number of non-Indians, and give them Blackfeet names, however, their records do not go back that far. (29)

PART THREE: TEENAGE WORLD TRAVELER

ITEM: That in 1925 LRH was in China, (16) and that because of his father's service in the Navy, and his grandfather's wealth, LRH was able to spend the next few years traveling in the Far East. (1) (16). LRH traveled up and down the coast of China, and ventured far into it's western hills, visited Tibet, India, and the Philippines, where he learned an entire language in one night, (30) and islands in the South Pacific where he relieved the natives' fears of a rumbling sound by exploring a haunted cave and showing them that the sound was just an underground river. (1) (16) (30)

• In 1925, LRH was 14. He could not have been listed on a parent or guardian's passport. (31)
• While Americans were not required to have a valid passport, from 1922 to 1941 many countries required that visitors did have one to enter those lands. (32)
• LRH was issued passport # Z-1889248 on 23 April 1974. The State Department will not say whether LRH was ever issued a passport previous to 1974. (33)
• Harry Ross Hubbard was never stationed outside the United States until 1927, when he was ordered to the Island of Guam as a supply officer. (34) (35)

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• LRH spent the full school year 1925-26 at Union High School in Bremerton, Washington. (36)
• In 1925 and 1926 Harry Ross was stationed at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard near Seattle, Washington. (39)
• At the start of the school year 1926-27, LRH was enrolled in Queen Anne High School, in Seattle. (36) (37) (38)

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• In April of 1927, Harry Ross was transferred to Guam. (34) (35)
• LRH dropped out of Queen Anne in April 1927. (37)
• LRH spent the second half of the school year 1926-27 en route to Guam, where he was tutored by his mother who was certified as a school teacher in Nebraska. (36)
• Transportation to Guam for LRH and his mother was arranged by Harry Ross. (40)
• LRH and his mother left San Francisco on 30 April 1927, aboard the steamship President Madison. for Guam via the Philippines. (41)

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• LRH returned to Montana for the school year 1927-2. (36)
• LRH attended Helena High School from 6 Sept, 1927 to 11 May 28, when he dropped out. (42)
• In the summer of 1928, LRH returned to Guam. and spent the full school year under intensive prepping by his mother in order to qualify for admittance to the Naval Academy, but failed math. (36)
• At the opening of the school year 1929-30, LRH was enrolled at Swavelys Prep School in Manassas, Virginia. He developed eyestrain and was found to be nearsighted, and so unqualified for the Naval Academy. (36)
• LRH was enrolled at the Woodward School for Boys in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 30, and graduated in June 1930. (13)

PART FOUR: ACADEMIC RECORD

ITEM: That LRH is a nuclear physicist. (45) (46) (47) (48)

• LRH took one class in atomic and molecular physics at G.W.U. He failed it. (43) (57)

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ALL ABOUT RADIATION
by L. Ron Hubbard
Published May 1957
In April 1957 L. Ron Hubbard addressed the London Congress on Nuclear Radiation and Health, and from these lectures came All About Radiation.
Atomic radiation is a subject which interests the minds of every thinking man and woman in the world.
In All About Radiation, we have the sane and sober views of a medical doctor on the physical facts and consequences of the actual atomic blast and the diseases resulting from it.
L. Ron Hubbard, who was one of the first nuclear physicists in the United States, has interpreted these facts and related them to human livingness, governments and the control of populaces.
These facts when presented at the Congress on Nuclear Radiation and Health at the Royal Empire Society Hall, London, in April 1957, so impressed Parliamentary figures that they requested immediate transcription of these lectures.
Here they are presented in book form. It will help to clear a great deal of the mystery which has surrounded this problem and will give people and their governments a basis upon which they can solve this situation.
This book clearly demonstrates the immediate effects which can be expected from varying doses of radiation; it demonstrates means of protection from atomic explosions; it shows the deleterious attributes of an atomic explosion in all its aspects, from flash and blast through to the more lasting effect of gamma radiation. In fact, as its title states, it is a book all about radiation.
It is a book that is written in everyday language as far as possible. It is far from its purpose to hide facts behind a mass of scholarly discourse. It intends to place the facts in full view in a form where they are easily understandable by every reader.
152 pages, hardcover with dust jacket. Available from your nearest Scientology Organization or Mission, or direct from the publishers: Scientology Publications Organization, Jernbanegade 6, 1608 Copenhagen V, Denmark; or Church of Scientology Publications Organization U.S. 2723 West Temple Street, Los Angeles, California 90026, U.S.A.


ITEM: That LRH received the degree B.S. in civil engineering. (7) (49) (50)

• LRH dropped out of G.W.U. at the end of the second year. (43)

ITEM: That LRH was trained by William Allen White at the U.S. Government Mental Asylum in Washington, D.C., St. Elizabeth's. (24)

• St Elizabeth's requires that their students be completing their internship as part of a college program. They have no record of LRH. (55)

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LRH's grades from George Washington University are as follows: (57)

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George Washington University
Washington, D.C.
Official Transcript of the Record of: LaFayette Ronald Hubbard
Address: 3038 P Street, N.W., Washington D.C.
Date of Admission: September, 1930. Dates of Attendance: 30-31, SS, 31, 31-32.
Graduated: XXXXX With degree of: XXXXX
Present status: Is entitled to a statement of honorable dismissal.
Entrance credits: Sources: Woodward Preparatory School, Washington, D.C.
Subject / Units / Source / Subject / Units / Source / Basis of Admission
English / 4 / -- / Commercial Geography / 1/2 / -- / As a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering Conditioned in Chemistry 1 unit. Condition removed by work in College.
Spanish / 2 / -- / Solid Geometry / 1/2 / -- / --
Algebra / 2 / -- / Plane Trigonometry / 1/2 / -- / --
Plane Geometry / 1 / -- / -- / -- / -- / --
History / 3 / -- / -- / -- / -- / --
Economics / 1/2 / -- / -- / -- / -- / --
Physics / 1 / -- / -- / -- / -- / --
Physical Geography 1/2 / -- / Total / 15-1/2 / -- / --

College Credits in The School of Engineering

Year / Catalogue Number / Descriptive Title / Semester Hours / First Semester / Second Semester

30-31 / English 1/2 / Rhetoric / 6 / C / B
-- / Chemistry 3/4 / General Chemistry (Course carries 10 sem. hrs., 2 sem. hrs. used to satisfy entrance condition) / 8 / D / D
-- / Mech. Eng. 3/4 / Mechanical Drawing; Descriptive Geometry / 6 / B / C
-- / Math. 12 / Plane Analytic Geometry / 3 / F / -
-- / Physical Education / -- / 2 / C / A
-- / German 1/2 / First Year German / 6 / E / F
-- / Math. 19 / Differential Calculus / 3 / - / F
-- / Civil Eng., 25/26 / Materials of Construction / 4 / - / -
31-32 / Physics 13 / Dynamics, Sound, and Light / 3 / E / -
-- / Math. 19 / Differential Calculus / 3 / D / -
-- / Math. 20 / Integral Calculus / 3 / - / D
-- / Math. 12 / Plane Analytic Geometry / 3 / D / -
-- / English 115/116 / The Short Story / 6 / B / B
-- / Physics 12 / Electricity and Magnetism / 3 / - / D
-- / Physics 14 / Modern Physical Phenomena; Molecular and Atomic Physics / 2 / - / F
Faculty action: Placed on probation for deficiency in scholarship September, 1931.
Transcript issued to Lt. Commander Gates, U.S. Navy Yard Washington, D.C. April 24, 1941.

Hubbard's grade average was 2.28, or a "D" average.

PART FIVE: EXPEDITIONS

ITEM: That LRH conducted the first complete mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico in the early thirties, (1) (2) (16)(50) (58), that this expedition was of international importance, (9) and was for the Explorer's club of New York (9).

• LRH did not become a member of the Explorer's Club until 1940. (59)
• The New York Zoological Society, and the National Geographic Society, are very aware of important expeditions. Neither organization has any record of LRH. (60) (61)

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• The Department of Natural Resources in San Juan, Puerto Rico has no record of LRH. There was a Bella Hubbard who did geological survey work in the Lares district of Puerto Rico in the twenties. (62)

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• The U.S. Geological Survey has no record of LRH. (63)

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• A professor of geology at the University of Puerto Rico in 1932-32, who prepared the "Geology of Puerto Rico" for that university, knows of Bella Hubbard, but had never heard of LRH. (64)
• In September of 1928 a hurricane destroyed much of the coffee crop there, and the American Red Cross sent a great many volunteers to help with the replanting and rebuilding, as well as medical aid. (67)
• LRH was sent there to help the Red Cross by his father. LRH left Hampton Roads, Virginia on 26 October 1932, aboard the military transport USS Kittery, for the island of Puerto Rico. (68)

ITEM: That LRH conducted the Caribbean Underwater Motion Picture Expedition of 1934. (1) (2) (16) (50) (58), which was internationally important (9) in which LRH was the first to use the bathysphere, or diving ball, (9) and which provided the University of Michigan, and the Navy Hydrographic office, with valuable underwater film. (1),(2) (9) (16) (50) (58).

• The University of Michigan has no record of this expedition, or of LRH. (69)
• The Explorer's Club of New York investigated this alleged expedition, which LRH listed on his application for membership, and could find no record. (71)
• LRH is quoted as saying that this expedition was really just a bunch of college kids on a conducted tour of Caribbean Islands, and that he quit the ship in Puerto Rico. (70)

ITEM: That LRH led the noted Alaskan Experimental Radio Expedition in 1939 (9) and 1940. (1) (9) (50) (58).

• The Explorer's Club was not able to find any record of this. (71)

ITEM: In about 1939, LRH bought a small boat named "Magician," which he sailed to Alaska. (59) (99)

ITEM: LRH was in Alaska in 1940 to rewrite the navigational guide "Coast Pilot." (58)

• No civilians were sent to do field work for the Coast Pilot in 1940. (71)
• The Coast Pilot was rewritten in 1932 and 1943, but not in 1940. (71)
• The U.S. Coast and geodesic survey roster of 1940 does not list LRH. There was a Leonard Hubbard. (71)

ITEM: That LRH was issued license to master of motor vessels, and sailing vessels by the U.S. Department of Commerce. (1) (9) (16).

• These licenses are issued by the U.S. Coast Guard, a department of the Commerce Dept. (77) (78)
o The Coast Guard cannot locate any record of any license being issued to LRH. (79) (80)

PART SIX: MILITARY RECORD

ITEM: That LRH was a top sergeant in the Marine Corps. (80)

• LRH, serial # 227219, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in Washington D.C., four months before he entered George Washington University on 1 May, 1930. His enlistment period was for four years. The date of birth listed is 13 Mar. 1909, his occupation as photographer, and his home as Oakcrest, Virginia.
• LRH's service was with the Marine Corps reserve. He was not called to active duty, and did not spend any time on active duty, although his record shows that he was "trained" from 23 August 1931 to 10 September, 1931.
• On the 26th of June, less that two months after LRH enlisted, the record shows that he was promoted to First Sergeant (E-8) from private. This skips six ranks from private first class to Master Sergeant. The Marine Corps Headquarters is unable to determine how this happened.
• LRH was rated as "excellent" in military efficiency, sobriety, and obedience. On 22 October 1931, LRH received an honorable discharge with the condition that he not be re-enlisted.
• The physical description from his service record: 5'10-1/2", grey eyes, red hair, ruddy complexion, scar on back of right elbow, and birthmark inside right ankle. (75)

ITEM: That LRH was commissioned before WWII. (1) (16)

• LRH serial # 113392, was commissioned as an Ensign on 19 July 1941. (74)

ITEM: That LRH was ordered to the Philippine Islands at the outbreak of that war. (1)

• In 1941 the Philippine Islands were in the 16th Naval District. (83)
• LRH was never attached to the 16th Naval District. (74)
• At the beginning of WWII (Dec 1941), LRH was at the headquarters of the 3rd naval District, which was in New York. (74) (83)

ITEM: That LRH was the first returned casualty of the war in the Pacific. (1)

• LRH left the United States on 18 Dec. 1941 for Australia, and returned to the U.S. on 2 April 1942. (74)

ITEM: That after LRH was returned to the U.S., without a rest he was ordered to take command of a Navy ship known as a "corvette." (1)

• Hubbard's next duty station, after returning from Australia, was New York. (74)

ITEM: That LRH rose to command a squadron. (1) (82)

• LRH was in command of one U.S. Navy ship during his Navy career. This ship was the USS PC-815, a destroyer escort vessel with a crew of about 60. LRH took command of the PC-815 on the date of her commissioning, 21 April 1943. The PC-815 remained at the Albina Shipyards in Portland, Oregon, until the end of May, 1943, then steamed down the Willamette and Columbia Rivers to the Pacific, and south to San Diego where she underwent training exercises off the coast of California and Mexico. On June 28, 1943, LRH ordered his crew to fire the ships 3" gun, and .30 and .45 caliber small arms. At the time that the 3" gun was fired, the inhabited Coronado Islands, in Mexican neutral territorial waters, were in the line of fire.
• A board of investigation was convened aboard the PC-815 and heard testimony from sixteen officers and enlisted men of the crew, and a few days later a Lt. Thomas Strickland replaced LRH as commanding officer, who was assigned to temporary duty in the issuing office of the 11th Naval District HQ, in San Diego. This was the only command of LRH. (74) (84) (85)

ITEM: That LRH was extensively decorated. (11) (82)

• LRH received the following decorations:
o The American Defense Service Medal; The American Campaign Medall The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; and The WWII Victory Medal. (74)

ITEM: That LRH was crippled and blinded at the end of the war, and found himself at Oak Knoll Military Hospital, in Oakland, CA. (16)

• LRH was admitted to Oak Knoll on 5 Sept. 1945, and was discharged 4 Dec. 1945 (74)
• The Navy Department will not reveal the reason for this hospitalization. (87)
• The Los Angeles Times reported that a spokesman for the Navy Department stated that there is nothing in LRH's service record to indicate that he received medical treatment for any injuries sustained during his Navy service. (88)
• LRH remained on active duty from 4 Dec. 1945 till 17 Feb. 1946 (74)
• The Navy Department will not comment on where LRH was for this period of ten weeks, as it would be an unwarranted invasion of his privacy. (90)
• The day after LRH left Oak Knoll, he applied to the Veterans Administration for disability benefits for a duodenal ulcer. (89)
• On 17 Feb 1946 LRH was awarded a disability for a duodenal ulcer. (89) This was increased to 40% on 11 Dec 1947, to include arthritis, bursitis, and an eye inflammation-conjunctivitis. (89) LRH presently receives Veterans disability benefits of $182.00 per month. (92)

ITEM: That LRH, while aboard a ship in the South Pacific, had the real life adventures that the movie "Mr. Roberts" was based on. LRH told the story of his adventures to a number of people, and the movie was made without his knowledge. The Captain of that ship was Axton T. Jones. (1)

• During LRH's Navy career, he served on two ships. The first, the PC-815, never left the coast of California or Mexico while LRH was aboard. (74)
• The second ship was the USS Algol. (74)
• The USS Algol was commissioned in Portland, Oregon, on the 22nd of July 1944, and remained there until late August, and then steamed South to the San Francisco area where she underwent training maneuvers. LRH was navigation Officer and Training officer. (74)
• On 3 October, the Algol got underway to the South Pacific, where she won two battle stars for her part in the invasion of Okinawa. (91) (93)
• On Wednesday 27 Sept. -- six days before the Algol was underway, someone made an attempt to sabotage her by concealing a coke bottle full of gasoline with a cloth wick inserted among cargo that was to be hoisted aboard. This was discovered by LRH. The FBI and the Office of Naval Intelligence was called to the scene to investigate. (91)
• On Thursday 28 September LRH was relieved of duty and transferred to a training school at Princeton University, New Jersey. (74)

Image

• The captain of the USS Algol was Axton T. Jones. (91)

ITEM: That LRH's grandfather, Captain Lafayette Waterbury, and great grandfather Captain I. C. DeWolfe, helped to make American Naval history. (9)

• The Navy Department cannot locate any record of either one. (94) (95) (96)
• LRH's grandmother was named I. C. (Ida Corinne) DeWolfe.

ITEM: That LRH was a member of the Montana Army National Guard. (74) (81)

• The Montana National guard has no record of LRH and do not indicate that there are any missing records. (97) (98)

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PART SEVEN: MISCELLANEOUS

ITEM: That LRH wrote and had published fifteen million words before WWII. (1)

• A list of published works by LRH, under his own name and the various pen names he was known to use, was compiled from the National Union, the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, Contemporary Authors, the card catalogue of the British Museum, Living Authors, Twentieth Century Authors, a computer printout from the Library of Congress, and back issues of Argossy, Astounding Science Fiction, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Startling Science Fiction, and Amazing Stories, and other sources. (100)
• The approximate total words of the stories and books listed is less than one million. (100)
• The Library of Congress has no reference works listed that were not checked for publications by LRH. (101)

Image

• Hubbard's agent, Ackerman Associates in Hollywood, advised that they are not aware of any pen names used by Hubbard other than Rene Lafayette Thomas Esterbrook, Captain B.A. Northrop, Elron, Winchester Remington Colt, and Kurt von Rachen. (102) (103)

ITEM: That LRH wrote the screenplay for the Columbia Pictures serial "The Secret of Treasure Island." (1)

• The screenplay for that series was written by George Merick and Elmer Clifton based upon a story by George Rosener and LRH. (104)

Image

ITEM: That LRH was one of aviation's most distinguished pilots, who soloed his first time in a propeller driven aircraft. (81) (102).

• LRH has never had a license to fly powered aircraft, only gliders. (73)
• LRH was issued commercial glider pilot certificate #385 on 1 Sept. 1931. It expired on 15 Sept 1933, and was not renewed. The Federal Aviation Administration has no record of LRH having been issued any pilot license.

Image

In putting this article together, I have used every document that I have for each of these thirty items, and have not held back certain ones for the purpose of discrediting L. Ron Hubbard. (105) Neither have I selected which items I wanted to use, rather I have put this list together from the various biographies published in Scientology books, listing every significant event they include, with the exception of no. 30 which is from "The Pilot," July, 1934, as reported by George Malko in "Scientology: The NOW Religion."

Because I have included all this material, some items have more sources of documentation than others. For some items this is not conclusive; for others, it is.

What is interesting is that when this article is considered as something more that just the sum total of it's parts, (holistically) it presents a portrait, an image -- with the exception of Hubbard's birth and family information, the documents do not support one single item -- an image of a man who is not all he is said to be.
_______________

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. A brief biography of L. Ron Hubbard, published by the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International in 1965 for the Australian Congress, received from the Central Intelligence Agency under the Freedom of Information Act.
2. Mission Into Time, published by the Church of Scientology, copyright LRH.
3. Certified copy of the birth certificate of LRH from the Bureau of Vital Statistics State of Nebraska, Lincoln Neb. File # 126-165-11.
4 Article from the Tilden, Neb. "Citizen," date unknown, provided by the Tilden Public Library.
5. "Progressions in Action" by Doris Chase Doane, Professional Astrologers, Inc., 323 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102
6. Certified copy of the death certificate of Ida Corinne Waterbury nee DeWolfe from the Department of Health, Helena, Montana, file # RAV-2878.
7. Navy service record of LRH's father, Harry Ross Hubbard, available under the Freedom of Information Act from the Military records management center, 9700 Page Blvd., St. Louis, MO, 797 pages.
8. Article from a Helena, Montana newspaper, date unknown, as part of a promotional publication on LRH by the Church of Scientology.
9 Article in the Portland, Oregon "Journal," 22 April 1943
10. Certified copy of the death certificate of Lafayette O. Waterbury, from the Department of Health, Helena, Montana, file # HEL-2481.
11. Letter to this writer from Grace McBeth, professional researcher, Helena.
12 Letter from the Office of the Secretary of State of Montana, Helena, 59601.
13 Letter from the Office of the Clerk and Recorder, Lewis and Clark County Helena, Montana, 59601.
14 Letter from the Montana Historical Society, 225 N. Roberts St., Helena, 59601
15 Letter from the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management Office, P.O. Box 30157, Billings, Montana, 59107.
16. "What is Scientology," published by the Church of Scientology, copyright LRH.
17 Photocopies from the Helena City Directory provided by the Montana Historical Society in Helena.
18 Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, pages 131, 132.
19 Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, page 590.
20 Copy of registration card provided by the Helena School District.
21 Copy of registration card provided by Helena High School.
22. Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, pages 562, 563.
23) Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, page 348.
24. "The Volunteer Ministers Handbook," published by the Church of Scientology copyright LRH.
25 Copies of registration cards made available by the Helena School District.
26 Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, page 345.
27 Letter from the Boy Scouts of America regional headquarters, North Brunswick, New Jersey, 08902.
28 Second letter from the Boy Scouts of America.
29. Letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Blackfeet Indian Agency, Browning, Montana, 59417.
30. "A History of Man," published by the Church of Scientology, copyright LRH.
31. Telephone conversation with the Portland passport office.
32 Letter from the U.S. Department of State.
33 Letter from the U.S. Department of State.
34. Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, pages 1 to 797.
35. Abstract of the Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, released under the of Information act, available from the Navy Department. 3 pages.
36. Letter from Harry Ross Hubbard to the Dean of the YMCA's South Eastern Univ. included in LRH's file at George Washington University. This document was one of those stolen by members of the Church of Scientology, from the Internal Revenue Service offices in Washington, D.C., was presented as evidence in the United States District Court, district of Washington, D.C. in the U.S.A. v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al., and was released by the judge of that court.
37. Verified by telephone call to the Seattle School District Archives.
38. Letter from the Seattle School District.
39. Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, page A.
40 Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, pages 155, 156, 166, 167, 171, 172.
41 Navy service record of Harry Ross Hubbard, page 165.
42. Letter from Helena, Montana, High School.
43. Transcript of credits from Woodward Prep School, from LRH's file at George Washington University, released by the U.S. Court of Claims, case # 226-21.
44. Letter from the Metropolitan YMCA of Washington, D.C..
45. Statement from this writer, attached.
46. Testimony in civil case Julie Christofferson v Church of Scientology, in Multnomah County, Portland, Oregon, # A-7704-05184.
47. Letter from the Hubbard Association of Scientologists, Phoenix, AZ, to the Better Business Bureau of Phoenix, dated 12 June 1954, and signed by John Galusha secretary, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation file as released under the freedom of information act, available from the FBI in Washington D.C. 937 pages.
48. "All About Radiation," published by the Church of Scientology, copyright LRH.
49. "Who's Who in the West and Southwest," by the A.N. Marquis Co., Chicago.
50. Who Knows and What, Vol. 1, 1st edition, 1949, A.N. Marquis Co.
51. Letter from LRH to the FBI, dated 7 Sept. 1955 with L. Ron Hubbard DD PhD letterhead. Return address Silver Spring, Maryland.
52. Letter from LRH to the FBI dated 29 July, 1955, same letterhead as # 51, with return address also Silver Spring, Maryland.
53. Defendants' exhibit in Christofferson v. Church of Scientology.
54. I.R.S. document released by the U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C.
55 Letter from St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, D.C.
56. I.R.S. document released by the U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C.
57. Transcript of Hubbard's grades at George Washington University.
58. Same as ITEM: # 71
59. The Scandal of Scientology, by Paulette Cooper.
60. Letter from the New York Zoological Society.
61. Letter from National Geographic Society.
62. Letter from Rafael Pico, National Review in Puerto Rico.
63. Letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey in Reston Virginia, 22092
98. 2nd Letter from the Montana National Guard.
101. Letter from the Library of Congress.
104 Letter from Columbia Pictures, August 31, 1979 re "Secret of Treasure Island" and Hubbard
105. Letter from the Federal Aviation Agency.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:23 am

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:23 am

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:24 am

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:24 am

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:27 am

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

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:31 am

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:31 am

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:40 am

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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