Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:43 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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‘Bridge to Total Freedom’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It’s Everything You Know’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

‘Suppressive Persons’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Despite all they have been through together, Ms. and Mr. Collbran are getting a divorce. The reason, they agree sadly, is that they no longer see eye to eye on Scientology.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:50 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Begin quote.

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

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

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

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

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

End quote.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:51 am

Ex-Scientology Lawsuits Reveal Elite Sea Org Group
by Associated Press
March 27, 2010

Lawsuits by Ex-members of Scientology's Elite Sea Org Group Allege Labor Violations

(AP) SAN JACINTO, Calif. (AP) - At the edge of arid foothills far outside Los Angeles, hundreds of Scientology followers live on a gated, 500-acre campus and work long hours for almost no pay reproducing the works of founder L. Ron Hubbard and creating the church's teaching and promotional materials.

The church says its 5,000 so-called Sea Organization members are religious devotees akin to monks who are exempt from wage requirements and overtime. But two lawsuits filed by two former Sea Org members, as they are known, allege the workers are little more than slave laborers, forced to work 100-hour weeks for pennies and threatened with manual labor if they cause trouble.

Marc Headley and his wife, Claire, are seeking back pay and overtime that could add up to $1 million each, according to their attorney, Barry Van Sickle.

Experts say the plaintiffs face an uphill battle; one similar lawsuit in state court has already been dismissed, although the plaintiff plans to appeal.

But the dispute has nonetheless focused unwelcome attention on the Sea Org, which operates as a nerve center for the church's most important business. While Sea Org members hold positions of authority within the international church, from the public relations team to the top leadership, lower-ranking members make up much of the work force.

The members are Scientology's most devoted followers: they sign a billion-year pledge, vow not to have children and live and work communally.

Scientology has been sued by disgruntled members before, but experts believe these suits are the first to use labor law to challenge the premise that the Sea Organization is akin to a fraternal religious order.

A victory for plaintiffs would "certainly go to the heart of Scientology's self-identification as a religion," said J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and author of a scholarly book on Scientology.

"If they were to win this suit and the people who are in the Sea Org decided they wanted money, that would lead to, if not the collapse, then a great deal of harm," he said. "They depend upon these people."

Marc Headley devoted half his life to churning out the works of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard on an assembly line before working on in-house films and designing the audiovisual displays seen in Scientology churches worldwide.

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Headley, who claims he escaped the gated facility in 2005, says he and others were threatened with forced labor and psychological abuse if they caused trouble.

"These folks are working for a year or two or three in a row on an hour or two of sleep a night. They're zombies," Van Sickle said. "If people had some money in their pockets or a good night's sleep, they probably wouldn't stick around."

The Church of Scientology vehemently denies the allegations and claims the plaintiffs are liars looking for money.

"When you sign up as a Sea Org member, you're signing up as a member of a religious order," Jessica Feshbach, a church spokeswoman and 16-year Sea Org member, said of the plaintiffs. "You're a volunteer. You sign a contract that says, 'I'm not going to be paid minimum wage and I know that.'"

Headley's federal lawsuit, which alleges labor violations at the Hemet facility, is set for trial in November in Los Angeles. His wife, Claire, makes similar allegations, but also claims she was coerced into having an abortion to comply with the Sea Org members' no-child policy, Van Sickle said.

Church officials say Sea Org members are not asked to have abortions, but must leave the order if they become pregnant.

The lawsuits are similar to unsuccessful claims filed by an ex-seminarian who left the Roman Catholic church and sued for minimum wage over menial labor, said Melton, the Scientology expert. A federal appeals court last week upheld a finding that minimum wage law did not apply.

Headley joined Sea Org at 16 after being raised by Scientologist parents. He moved to the gated campus near Hemet in 1989.

At first, he devoted himself to Hubbard's teachings, a blend of Eastern religion, alternative psychology and management theory.

Practitioners believe they can eliminate negative energy from past lives through study and "auditing" sessions that use electronic devices called "e-meters" to detect mental trauma. Adherents hope to attain a state called "clear" before becoming "Operating Thetans," or pure spirits.

The Sea Org traces its roots to 1967, when Hubbard, who was also a science fiction writer, took his most dedicated followers on sea voyages to explore early civilizations and spread his teachings. Its members - called ministers - live communally and often wear maritime-style uniforms with ranks.

Headley, 36, says he began to question the religion while working for an average of 39 cents an hour to mass produce cassettes that he says cost the church $1 to make but sold for $75. He also helped make CDs and DVDs and the expensive e-meters used in auditing sessions before graduating to working on in-house film production, he says.

In 15 years, he said he earned $29,000, a total he surpassed in his first year of business on his own.

Church leaders, who have labeled Headley a heretic, dispute his story and say he was an incompetent troublemaker.

Sea Org members happily receive room and board, medical and dental care, a $50 weekly personal allowance, three weeks of annual vacation and free auditing and religious instruction for their lifetime devotion, church officials said.

Each day includes two hours of Scientology study and short meal breaks.

At Golden Era Productions, about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles, a guard keeps watch at the compound's main gate.

Inside, some 400 Sea Org members live in hotel-like dorms modeled on Scottish highland architecture and eat in a log cabin-style cafeteria that features super-sized bottles of multivitamins on each table. The grounds include a golf course, a large lake and a network of paths.

The facility is calm - until the topic of Headley comes up. During an AP reporter's visit, which was videotaped and photographed by the church, spokesman Tommy Davis repeatedly admonished the reporter for inquiring about Headley and other detractors, whom he called "terrorists" for associating with Anonymous, a group that has targeted Scientology with protests and has hacked into the church's Web site.

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"We're kind of sick of people who think that they can do this with us, people who used to work here, who can leave, who are lying - and we know they're lying," said Davis. "It's a pretty nice place to live and work, and we feel that way."

Headley, who has written a book about his experiences, said during a phone interview that he endured 24-hour surveillance, roll call three times a day and censored mail. Sleeping quarters were watched at night, floodlights illuminated the campuses and escape routes were blocked during security drills. The church denies that, saying Sea Org members are free to come and go as they please.

Headley said he decided to leave in 2005 after church officials accused him of reselling old film equipment. They said they were going to begin investigating his actions and place him in a rehabilitation camp.

Davis said Headley embezzled more than $13,000, but they never filed suit against him or sought criminal charges.

Headley says he was given permission to sell old equipment on the Internet, and that he never stole anything. He claims he fled on a motorbike with $200, two days' worth of clothes and a cell phone. Security gave chase, but when Headley crashed his bike in a ditch a passer-by called 911 and sheriff's deputies arrived, he said. He thinks the officers scared off his pursuers and prevented his recapture.

Headley's wife got out of Golden Era two weeks later by fleeing a "minder" who had been sent with her to an off-campus doctor's appointment, Headley said. She found her husband through an old e-mail address he never shared with the church.

"There's no shortage of the things Scientology will do to silence their critics," said Headley, who now lives with his wife and two kids in Burbank, where he runs his own audiovisual installation business.

"Hopefully, we can end this and other people won't have to suffer like I did."

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:58 am

Part 1 of 2

General Report on Scientology
by Jon Atack

Table of Contents:

• Background and Expertise
• L. Ron Hubbard's Intent
• L. Ron Hubbard and the claims of Dianetics and Scientology
• The Religious Nature of Scientology
• Techniques of Persuasion and Selling Techniques
• The Hypnotic Nature of Scientology
• The Sea Organization
• "Ethics"
• The Rehabilitation Project Force
• Isolation Watches
• The Erosion of Critical Thinking
• Processing
• Retribution against litigants, critics, competitors and former members
• Scientology's Attitude Towards the Courts
• Counselling
• Exhibits List

My name is Jonathan Caven-Atack. I reside at Avalon, Cranston Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH19 3HQ. I was born on 5 June 1955.

Background and Expertise

1. I was a member of the Church of Scientology from December 1974 to October 1983. During that time I undertook the equivalent of 24 of the 27 available "levels" of Dianetic and Scientology "auditing" ("auditing" is supposedly a form of counselling). I also completed eight courses related to "auditor" or counsellor training as well as courses in recruitment and administration. As a part of my "indoctrination" (the word used by Hubbard for training), I read more than 20 of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's textbooks and listened to about 150 taped Hubbard lectures. I received "auditing" and "auditor" training at Scientology Missions or Churches in Birmingham, Manchester and at the British headquarters at Saint Hill, near East Grinstead.

2. In January 1983, the Church of Scientology published a list of 611 people who had been "declared Suppressive Persons" (JCA-1). Shortly thereafter, I was informed that one of my employees had been similarly "declared a Suppressive Person", and shown Scientology Policy Directive 28, "Suppressive Act — Dealing with a Declared Suppressive Person" (JCA-2). This order forbids Scientologists any contact with any person "declared Suppressive". This policy is known within Scientology as "disconnection". For six months, I wrote letters questioning the "Suppressive Person declare" issued on my employee. During that time I made enquiries of the Master at Arms, or Ethics Officer, at Saint Hill, of the Special Unit, of the International Justice Chief, of the Executive Director International and ultimately of L. Ron Hubbard. The responses I received were evasive.

3. In September 1983, I decided to conduct my own investigation of the Church of Scientology. I was unwilling to have my communication controlled and my freedom of association denied, and uneasy with the attitude of Scientology's new management, who described themselves as "tough" and "ruthless" (JCA-3), and unhappy at the high price charged for Dianetic and Scientology services ("auditing", for example, had risen from #6 per hour in 1978 to over #100 per hour) (JCA-4).

4. Since my resignation from the Church of Scientology, in October 1983, I have assembled a large collection of Scientology and Hubbard related materials, and interviewed well over a hundred former members, including a number of former Hubbard aides. I have also read thousands of pages of court rulings, government enquiry reports, affidavits and sworn testimony relating to Hubbard and Scientology. This research led to the publication, in 1990, of my book A Piece of Blue Sky, which is a history of Hubbard and his organizations. This book has been cited as a principal source of reference in academic papers by professor of sociology and history of religion Stephen Kent ("International Social Control by the Church of Scientology", presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, November 1991) (JCA-5) and by professor of neuropsychiatry Louis Jolyon West ("Psychiatry and Scientology", presented as the "Distinguished Psychiatrist" lecture, American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 6 May 1992) (JCA-6).

5. I have been retained in connection with the preparation of many court actions in which consideration of Scientology has arisen. In 1984, I assisted in assembling documents as evidence in a child custody case put before Mr Justice Latey ("Re: Wards B & G"). In 1987, I provided documents and affidavits in the successful defence of Russell Miller's biography of Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, heard before Mr Justice Vinelott, in the English High Court. I also prepared documents for the defence of Miller's book in the USA, Canada and Australia. I have been consulted by litigants in the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and the UK. In these cases, I have prepared documents, recommended relevant documents for discovery, and contacted or recommended witnesses.

6. I was the principal researcher for Russell Miller's Bare-Faced Messiah, and was also consulted by Bent Corydon for his L.Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman and by Stewart Lamont for his Religon Inc. I was the principal researcher for the chapter on Scientology in Jean Ritchie's Secret World of Cults. I was also the principal researcher for BBC Panorama and TVS programmes about Scientology (both broadcast in 1987). I have been consulted by television and radio producers, and by journalists throughout the world.

L. Ron Hubbard's Intent

7. Scientology was devised by L.Ron Hubbard as a means of gaining authoritarian control over those deceived into joining any of his many organizations. Hubbard cynically constructed a set of hypnotic techniques which masquerade as therapy and create progressive psychological dependency upon the organizations of Scientology. Hubbard also hid behind the pretence of religion.

8. I can give evidence regarding the techniques commonly employed by Scientology organizations to recruit followers, to create and maintain their loyalty and to sell them courses, supposed counselling, Scientology films, tapes, books and "Special Properties" (highly priced special editions of Hubbard works and Hubbard memorabilia). Although I have no qualification in psychology or psychiatry, I have had contact with several hundred former Scientologists in the last ten years, and feel able to estimate the effect of Scientology upon these former members.

L. Ron Hubbard and the claims of Dianetics and Scientology

9. Despite possession of a massive archive of Hubbard's private papers, including numerous handwritten and illustrated black magic rituals and accounts of Hubbard's extensive drug abuse (JCA-7), Scientology management still deceive Scientologists by perpetuating Hubbard's fictitious claims about his life. Scientology materials make many false claims, including the following: that Hubbard was a wounded and decorated war hero (JCA-8, JCA-9) he suffered from an ulcer (JCA-10, JCA-11) and never saw combat (JCA-12); that Hubbard was a "nuclear physicist" (JCA-13) — he failed a short course in "atomic and molecular" physics which was part of the degree course he failed to complete (JCA-14); that Hubbard had studied for five years as a teenager with holy men in India, China and Tibet (JCA-15, JCA-16, JCA-17) — he spent less than three weeks in China and did not visit India or Tibet (JCA-18, JCA-19, JCA-20). These are a few of the many deceptions created by Hubbard and perpetuated by the cynical managers of Scientology. Gerald Armstrong and Vaughn and Stacey Young were formerly in charge of Scientology's immense "Hubbard Archive" and can testify to this deliberate deception.

10. After a chequered career as the author of adventure stories, Hubbard released his first supposed therapy text, Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health, in 1950 (JCA-21). This book is still sold by the Church of Scientology, which claims sales in the millions.

11. Dianetics was in fact a reworking of techniques abandoned by Freud, where traumatic memories are supposedly re-experienced (JCA-22). In the book Dianetics, Hubbard asserted that memories of physical pain or unconsciousness ("engrams") are "the single and sole cause of aberration and psycho-somatic illness" (ibid, p.68). Such buried traumata supposedly cause people to react to situations without conscious reflection and constitute a "reactive mind".

12. Hubbard adopted Freud's notion that traumata form in "chains" and that it is necessary to find the earliest traumatic memory on such a chain to relieve its symptoms. In Dianetics, Hubbard asserted that the earliest such traumatic memories are birth and prenatal experiences.

13. The book Dianetics describes a purported system of therapy which will supposedly release the individual from compulsions, neuroses, repressions, psychoses, arthritis, bursitis, asthma, allergies, sinusitis, coronary trouble, high blood pressure, the common cold, myopia, schizophrenia, manic depression, dipsomania (ibid, pp.51-52, also p.92), visual and hearing deficiencies (ibid, pp.10-11), dermatitis, migraine, ulcers (ibid, p.92), tuberculosis (ibid, p.93), morning sickness (ibid, p.156), conjunctivitis (ibid, p.126). Hubbard also wrote that his techniques would bring about an individual with "complete recall of everything which has ever happened to him or anything he has ever studied", who would be capable of performing a calculation which a "normal [person] would do in half an hour, in ten or fifteen seconds" (ibid p.171). In later works, Hubbard also asserted that he had found psychological cures for paralysis (JCA-23, p.9), blindness, cancer (JCA-24) and leukaemia (JCA-25, JCA-26), and that his techniques had even be used to raise the dead (JCA-27, p.170).

14. In Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard asserted that his techniques would work on anyone not suffering from brain damage (JCA-21, p.17), and that the outcome of therapy would be a "Clear". A Clear would be free from the disabilities, and possessed of the capabilities, listed in the foregoing paragraph. In 1971, in the Scientology publication "Advance!", the following claim was made: "A Clear has over 135 I.Q., a vibrant personality, glowing health, good memory, amazing vitality, self-control, happiness and more. The most valuable thing you can do for yourself, and for your family, friends and Mankind is attain the state of Clear. You can achieve Clear — not in years but within months through the most advanced technology of the human spirit — Scientology" (JCA-28). A 1988 issue of "The Auditor", a Scientology magazine, asserts that "A Scientology CLEAR has: Over 135 IQ, Creative imagination, Amazing vitality, Deep relaxation, Good memory, Strong will power, Radiant health, Magnetic personality" (JCA-29). Such claims are repeatedly made in literature produced by the Church of Scientology. For instance, a 1991 issue of Scientology's "Celebrity" magazine states: "Scientology auditing can help you - you can get - A higher IQ to handle your problems ... More energy to make more money - Better health ... More years to live." (JCA-30)

15. In 1952, Hubbard incorporated notions of the spirit (or "thetan") and reincarnation into his system. He asserted that we have all existed as spiritual beings for trillions of years (by the 1970s, he was talking of quadrillions). In the 1950s, Hubbard coined the phrase "Operating Thetan", meaning a spirit capable of "operating" separately from its human body ("exterior"). The goal of Scientologists is to be "exterior with full perception". Hubbard defined "Operating Thetan" as the "ability to be at cause knowingly and at will over thought, life, form, matter, energy, space and time, subjective and objective." (JCA-31). Currently, eight "Operating Thetan" levels are available to Scientologists, most of which consist of a form of exorcism, sold to Scientologists for over #300 per hour (JCA-32). Scientologists come to believe that they are possessed by thousands of spirits which can of course lead to mental illness.

16. Many of the fundamental ideas of Scientology can be found in the works of black magician Aleister Crowley. Hubbard recommended Crowley books to his followers and called Crowley "my very good friend" (JCA-33). As with all other magical systems, Scientology seeks to stregthen the will of the individual so that the physical world and other people can be controlled by intention alone. Scientologists believe that by undergoing Hubbard's "processes" they will ultimately be able to order events through "postulates" or wishes. Hubbard promised godlike powers to his followers.

The Religious Nature of Scientology

17. In a lecture given in 1952, Hubbard asserted: "In 1938 I codified certain axioms and phenomena into what I called SCIENTOLOGY" (JCA-23, p.8). Factually, Hubbard had briefly lost control of Dianetics, so restyled his ideas "Scientology" (He was probably unaware that the word was already in use, meaning "pseudoscientific ideas"). In April 1953, Hubbard wrote to the head of the Hubbard Association of Scientologists, Helen O'Brien, asking for her opinion on "the religion angle" (JCA-34). In December 1953, Hubbard registered the Church of Scientology, and a parent body called the Church of American Science, in Camden, New Jersey (JCA-35, JCA-36, JCA-37). In February 1954, Hubbard's associate, Burton Farber, incorporated the Church of Scientology of California (JCA-38). Within a few years all organizations affiliated to Hubbard had been restyled "Churches" of Scientology. These Churches tithed 20 percent of their income to Hubbard's Church of American Science (JCA-35). In March 1954, Hubbard announced that graduate auditors "can be given any one of three or all of the following certificates: DOCTOR OF SCIENTOLOGY, FREUDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYST, DOCTOR OF DIVINITY." (JCA-35).

18. Numerous claims have been made by Hubbard and his organizations for the religious nature of Scientology. In 1954, Hubbard said: "a Scientologist has a better right to call himself a priest, a minister, a missionary, a doctor of divinity, a faith healer or a preacher than any other man who bears the insignia of religion in the Western world" (JCA-38). In a Bulletin of 18 April 1967, Hubbard asserted that "Scientology is a religion by its basic tenets, practice, historical background and by the definition of the word "religion" itself ... Scientology is ... a Religious practice in that the Church of Scientology conducts basic services such as Sermons at Church meetings, Christenings [sic — Scientology makes no claim to be a Christian Church], Weddings and Funerals." (JCA-39). In a Bulletin of 4 May 1972, Hubbard asserted "Dianetics is a science which applies to man, a living organism; and Scientology is a religion." (JCA-40). In the textbook What is Scientology?, first published in 1978, Scientology is defined as "an applied religious philosophy" (JCA-17, p.3). Most Scientology textbooks contain a disclaimer such as the following "This book is part of the works of L. Ron Hubbard, who developed Scientology applied religious philosophy and Dianetics spiritual healing technology." (JCA-41).

19. The Church of Scientology offers a "Minister's Course" to its members (JCA-42). After two weeks of training, Scientology ministers wear dog collars and the Scientology cross and conduct Sunday services, weddings, naming ceremonies and funerals (JCA-43). The Church of Scientology has in the past commissioned religious experts such as E.G. Parrinder (JCA-44) and Frank Flinn (JCA-45) to prepare reports or give testimony to the effect that Scientology is a bona fide religion. The booklet "The Corporations of Scientology" (JCA-46) claims that "In the Scientology religion, the scriptures are all the spoken and written words of L. Ron Hubbard". All Scientology organizations are licensed by the Religious Technology Center, a California based corporation, and sign an agreement accepting that the Dianetics and Scientology teachings are "scripture" (JCA-47). Hubbard's "scriptures" are incontrovertible: "It is hereafter firm Church policy that LRH [Hubbard] ISSUES ARE TO BE LEFT INTACT AS ISSUED [emphasis in original]. No one except LRH can revise his issues." (JCA-48). Since Hubbard's death in 1986, his work has been written in stone.

20. The ambiguity of Scientology's religious claims is evident in a document which discusses the establishment of a Scientology organization in Japan: "Even the point of whether we go religious or non-religious has to be covered as it will determine whether the books mention the Church [of Scientology] or not and whether they have Church symbols, etc." (JCA-49)

21. Scientology has been granted religious tax-exemption in Australia and the USA. However, in Regina v. Segerdal, in July 1970, the then Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning ruled that Scientology is not a religion (JCA-50).

Techniques of Persuasion and Selling Techniques

22. Scientology is a proselytizing faith and all Scientologists are termed "Field Staff Members" and expected to effect conversions. The methods of conversion are spelled out in the Hubbard memoranda reissued in the "Field Staff Member Kit" (JCA-51), in the "Registrar Drills" (JCA-52) and in "FSM Breakthrough - New FSM TRs - Controlling a Conversation" (JCA-53). I was extensively trained in recruiting at the Birmingham Mission of the Church of Scientology, in 1975. The Field Staff Member is instructed to discover through questioning what is "ruining" a person's life (termed "the ruin" by Hubbard) and to exploit any "fear of worsening". Having brought the individual face to face with their weakness, the Scientology Field Staff Member "brings to understanding" — the understanding that Scientology can solve whatever problem is disclosed.

23. In a tape-recorded lecture Hubbard said the following: "all the social machinery people have actually breaks down before direct intention. But the thing that causes difficulty in moving people along this line of methodology, has a great deal to do with the invasion of privacy. I won't call it privacy because that dignifies it. You have to be willing to invade privacy, very definitely ... If you have a hard time invading people's privacy, you'll have a hard time 8-Cing [controlling — "8-C", literally "infinite control"] them into a chair in an HAS Co-audit unit [Hubbard Apprentice Scientologist], first PE [Personal Efficiency Course], and so forth. Because you think they have rights. Nah [sic]! They don't have any rights! What do you mean? What do they have — what has rights? That machinery? Those dramatizations? Those computing circuits? You mean those things have rights? Hah! Pish-pash [sic] ... If you invade this guy's privacy that just walked in, believe me, he walks straight in." (JCA-54).

24. Hubbard asserted that every individual has a particular emotional level or "tone" (JCA-55, JCA-56), and during recruiting it is necessary to approximate the emotional condition of the would be recruit (Scientologists do elaborate role-playing of emotional states, including the "Mood Training Routines"), so creating rapport. Using emotional manipulation, the individual is reduced to a depressed condition where he or she will realize a desperate "need of change" in his or her life (JCA-57).

25. Hubbard called non-Scientologists "wogs" (JCA-58) or "raw meat" (JCA-59) and said that non-members are "dead" in the "head" (JCA-60) — in a hypnotic daze and therefore easily controllable. Non-Scientologists are held to be in the grip of their "Reactive minds" and so incapable of logical decision. Consequently, Field Staff Members are urged not to discuss the ideas of Scientology, but to play upon the emotional weaknesses of the potential recruit (JCA-51, JCA-61).

26. The most used method of recruitment in Scientology is the Oxford Capacity Analysis Personality Test or "OCA" (JCA-62). This derives from Scientology's "American Personality Analysis" of the early 1950s, which in turn was constructed from existing tests devised by psychologists. The OCA has no connection with Oxford, let alone Oxford University. The original test has long been outdated and was rewritten by individuals with no background in psychology or personality testing. Further, it is made clear in internal literature that far from being a "free" test, its function is solely to recruit people into Scientology (JCA-63).

27. Hubbard openly employed "hard-selling" techniques (JCA-51, under "hard sell", JCA-64). Sales staff undertake frequent (often daily) "hard-sell drilling". Scientology organizations use a printed manual called the "Hard Sell Reference Pack". I frequently experienced the use of such techniques. For instance, on my first visit to the British headquarters, at Saint Hill, in August 1975, I was taken to a staff recruiter at 11 p.m. and remained with her until about 1 a.m. My refusal to join Scientology's paramilitary "Sea Organization", which entails a "billion year" commitment (Scientologists believe in reincarnation), was met with progressively more stern entreaties. I was shown a Hubbard memorandum, which I was assured was entirely secret, which asserted that the third world war was imminent and that the Church of Scientology would be the only organization capable of surviving this holocaust and governing the world beyond it. According to this memorandum, this was the real purpose of the Sea Organization, despite Hubbard's published assertion that Scientology is "non-political". As a last stab, the recruiter told me that anyone who refuses to join the Sea Organization is insane.

28. On one occasion, between June and August 1982, I spent thirteen hours being given a sales interview by Scientologist Peter Buttery at my apartment in East Grinstead. In the same year, I was visited by the same Scientology salesman who had brought Scientologist money-lender Lee Lawrence with him. They attempted to persuade me to borrow #7,000. The assertion was made that after "upper level" Scientology counselling it would be easy for me to recoup the money and pay back the loan and the 30 percent per annum interest. Lawrence's loan applications had to be approved by Scientology (JCA-65).

29. Scientology sales staff, or "registrars", rapidly form a picture of an individual's assets and borrowing capacity. I have dealt with many individuals whose financial security was undermined by their involvement with Scientology.

30. Scientologists are told that if they fail to undertake certain courses they will be "at risk" (JCA-66). Ominous warnings are often given to those who declare an intention to leave the Churches of Scientology (JCA-67).

31. Sophisticated sales techniques are aquired by Scientology registrars on the "Registrar Salesmanship Course" (JCA-68), and through the application of material in the "Hard Sell Reference Pack" (JCA-64). Scientology registrars spend long hours "drilling" these techniques and learning how to overcome resistance (JCA-52). Such drilling continues throughout the registrar's career, especially after a failure to sell.

32. Hubbard made many extravagant and unfounded claims for Scientology and these are often used by registrars. For instance, in Flag Mission Order 375 Hubbard said: "Advanced Courses [in Scientology] are the most valuable service on the planet. Life insurance, houses, cars, stocks, bonds, college savings, all are transitory and impermanent ... There is nothing to compare with Advanced Courses. They are infinitely valuable and transcend time itself." (JCA-69). In a magazine article, Hubbard said: "For thousands of years men have sought the state of complete spiritual freedom from the endless cycle of birth and death and have sought personal immortality containing full awareness, memory and ability as a spirit independent of the flesh ... In Scientology this state has been attained. It has been achieved not on a temporary basis, subject to relapse, but on a stable plane of full awareness and ability, unqualified by accident or deterioration." (JCA-70).

33. The Scientology attitude towards new recruits is unequivocal. In a 1959 Bulletin, which is still circulated, Hubbard said "NEVER let anyone simply walk out. Convince him he's loony if he doesn't gain on it [an auditing procedure] because that's the truth" (JCA-71). In a Policy Letter which is still a part of most Scientology courses, Hubbard said: "When somebody enrols, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universe — never permit an 'open-minded' approach ... If they enrolled, they're aboard, and if they're aboard, they're here on the same terms as the rest of us — win or die in the attempt. Never let them be half-minded about being Scientologists ... When Mrs. Pattycake comes to us to be taught, turn that wandering doubt in her eye into a fixed, dedicated glare ... The proper instruction attitude is '... We'd rather have you dead than incapable.'" (JCA-72). In "Critics of Scientology", Hubbard asserted "it is totally hopeless and fatal not to be a Scientologist." (JCA-73).

34. In a lecture, still sold as part of a Scientology course, Hubbard said "But what kind of a government and what kind of a weapon is really serious? Not a weapon that destroys mud. A weapon that destroys minds, that's serious. Out of the body of knowledge which lies before you [i.e., Scientology] a sufficient technology is [sic — exists?] to take over, seize and handle any government on the face of the Earth ... You can control men like you would control robots with those techniques ... Contained in the knowable, workable portions before your eyes there are methods of controlling human beings and thetans [spirits] which have never before been dreamed of in this universe. Control mechanisms of such awesome and solid proportions that if the remedies were not so much easier to apply, one would be appalled at the dangerousness to beingness [sic] that exists in Scientology ... This universe has long been looking for new ways to make slaves. Well, we've got some new ways to make slaves here." (JCA-74). In private papers revealed to a California court in 1984, Hubbard said "Men are my slaves" (JCA-75).

The Hypnotic Nature of Scientology

35. An analysis of Hubbard's early publications on Dianetics makes it clear that he had practised hypnosis since his teens. He claimed vast experience as a hypnotist. Dianetics was a fusion of Freudian technique and "light trance" hypnosis. Hubbard also made it clear that aspects of his original Dianetic technique are hypnotic. Although these practices were briefly suspended in the 1950s, they have been back in full use for more than a decade in all of Scientology's many organizations. For example, in a 1950 lecture, Hubbard withdrew the system of counting people into a state of "reverie" prior to a Dianetic session, "Sometimes people go into a hypnotic trance by accident with this count system" (JCA-76). In his 1951 book Science of Survival Hubbard said "When an auditor finds his pre-clear unusually suggestive [sic], he should be very careful what he says to the pre-clear. He may notice that a pre-clear after he closes his eyes will begin to flutter his eyelids. This is a symptom of the very lightest level of hypnotic trance." (JCA-77) However, in the current "Book One" Dianetic procedure, the auditor is to "Count slowly and soothingly from 1 to 7" until "the preclear's eyes close and you notice his eyelids flicker" (JCA-78).

36. Hubbard said that Dianetics can be used to "play on another individual like a good organist plays on a Wurlitzer ... Knowing by observation, the push buttons of another person — or, as in Political Dianetics, a society — the organist can play whatever piece he likes at will." (JCA-79)

37. Recipients of Dianetic "processing" will tend to invent "memories" (for example, believing that they are reliving birth and conception or "past lives" in extra-terrestrial societies), so causing False Memory Syndrome. The techniques of Scientology exploit this collapse of distinction between memory and imagination to induce euphoria and dependency. In "Training Routine Zero", a fundamental practice of Scientology, individuals are expected to spend "some hours" sitting immobile and staring at another similarly immobile scientologist (JCA-80). This leads to a hypnotic state in which the Scientologist hallucinates and experiences spatial distortion. In the Scientology "process" "Opening Procedure by Duplication", the Scientology "auditor" commands the recipient to walk between two tables, picking up the book on one and the bottle on the other and guessing their weight and temperature. This procedure is received in two hour sessions, and as many as 18 sessions can be administered over a few days. The procedure leads to spatial dissociation, which the Scientologist is told indicates that he has left his human body although all of his perceptions are still channelled through it (JCA-81).

The Sea Organization

38. The Sea Organization, or Sea Org, was created by Hubbard in August 1967. According to promotional literature, "The Sea Org is the only guarantee of the survival of Scientology technology on this planet. Without the survival of Scientology technology, there is no hope for the survival of Man." (JCA-82).

39. Speaking of Sea Org members, Hubbard said "the whole value of a being is to his group and not to himself at all..." (JCA-83).

40. Hubbard asserted that the Sea Org is "fabian", and redefined that word to mean "using stratagem and delay to wear out an opponent" (JCA-84). Hubbard wanted the Sea Org to be seen as "a determined but elusive and sometimes frightening group". He also asserted that the Sea Org has "tough discipline", and that "Only those members who are not used heavily aboard [ship] or on mission seem to go slack." (JCA-85).

41. The Sea Org is a paramilitary organization, in which members wear pseudo-naval uniform and hold pseudo-naval ranks (JCA-86). Members also wear the equivalent of campaign ribbons (JCA-87). Scientology teaches reincarnation, and Sea Org members sign a contract for a billion years (JCA-88). Elsewhere this is styled "a pledge of eternal service". This text adds: "New Sea Org members undergo rigorous basic training ... Sea Org members, having devoted their lives to their religion, work long hours for little pay and live a communal existence" (JCA-89). The recruit gives away certain rights by signing the Sea Org contract: "I ... fully and without reservation, subscribe to the discipline, mores and conditions of this group and pledge to abide by them" (JCA-88). The Sea Org member is also expected to abide by the "Code of a Sea Org Member": "1. I promise to uphold, forward and carry out Command Intention ... 5. I promise to uphold the fact that duty is the Sea Org Member's true motivation, which is the highest motivation there is ... 11. I promise to accept and fulfill to the utmost of my ability the responsibilities entrusted to me whatever they may be and wherever they may carry me in the line of duty ... 17. I promise through my actions to increase the power of the Sea Org and decrease the power of any enemy." (JCA-90).

"Ethics"

42. In the mid-1960s, Hubbard began to experiment on his followers with "ethics penalties" — the use of humiliating and degrading practices to enforce unthinking compliance with his orders. In the "Policy Letter", "Awards and Penalties", Hubbard outlined "penalties" that staff members must suffer, prefacing his comments with this statement "Does not apply to Sea Org which has its own, much worse." Under "Non-existence", Hubbard wrote: "Must wear old clothes. May not bathe. Women must not wear make-up or have hair-do's. Men may not shave. No lunch hour is given and such persons are expected not to leave the premises." (JCA-91). In the "Penalties for Lower Conditions", Hubbard ordered that staff in a certain "ethics condition" should be subjected to "day and night confinement to org premises." (JCA-92). This was reiterated in a subsequent "Policy Letter" (JCA-93). Speaking of his "ethics penalties", Hubbard asserted "one ex-Naval person, reading them realized suddenly, 'you could kill a man with the penalties of non-existence, by work and no sleep.'" (JCA-94).

43. In 1968, Hubbard introduced the practice of "overboarding". A photograph of this practice was published in Scientology's magazine "The Auditor", issue 41, with the caption: "Students are thrown overboard for gross out tech and bequeathed to the deep!" (JCA-95). Overboarding was used as a punishment for failure to comply exactly with Hubbard's orders. At about the same time, the tank punishment — where individuals were put into the bilge tanks and kept awake for 84 hours — and the chainlocker punishment — where individuals were put in the dark, cramped, waterlogged, rat-infested and filthy chainlocker. Witnesses have said that even children were put in the chainlocker at Hubbard's order.

The Rehabilitation Project Force

44. In 1973, Hubbard introduced the "Rehabilitation Project Force" ("RPF") (JCA-96). Disobedient Sea Org members have been assigned to the RPF from that time. The RPF replaced the "Rehabilitation Unit" (JCA-96) of which Hubbard said "The unit is worked hard during the day on a rigorous schedule...". This unit had replaced the "Mud Box Brigade" — "persons appointed to clean mud boxes, fuel lines, water lines, bilges, etc." (JCA-97). Few of the internal memoranda which apply to the RPF are publicly available. All are relevant to litigation, as they show the true character of Scientology and the inhuman pressures brought to bear upon Sea Org members. The designations for RPF material are "Executive Directive 965 Flag 'RPF Reinstated'" and all additions and "Flag Order 3434" and all additions (there are at least 56 memoranda in this series, numbered FO 3434-1 to FO 3434-56).

45. The RPF is virtually a labour and thought reform camp. Members are forbidden communication with any but their "bosun" (the head of the RPF); they have to comply immediately with any order; they sleep even shorter hours than other staff; they eat even poorer food than other staff (often rice, beans and porridge for weeks. For some time in Florida, "RPFers" were fed left-over food) (JCA-98); they sleep in "pig's berthing", i.e. without beds (JCA-99, JCA-100); they do hard labour and menial tasks, including toilet and sewer cleaning; they are rarely permitted time off; they receive one quarter of the already derisory pay of other staff (JCA-101); and they have to write down detailed "confessions", which may be published by the organization (JCA-102, JCA-103). Finally, an RPF sentence is open-ended and may last for as much as four years. Failure to comply leads to posting to the "RPFers RPF", which according to witnesses has consisted of false imprisonment. False imprisonment or "isolation" is a part of the "technology" of Scientology (JCA-104, JCA-105). There are hundreds of former members who suffered the RPF.

Isolation Watches

46. While aboard ship during the early 1970s, Hubbard introduced "isolation watches" where an individual is forcibly confined after a "psychotic break" (a mental breakdown, usually caused by Scientology's hypnotic procedures). Such people can be held for weeks under 24-hour guard (JCA-104, JCA-105). The procedure is referred to as "babywatching" or "babysitting" in Scientology. In 1994, The Independent newspaper in Britain published an account of "babywatching" (JCA-106). HCO Ethics Order 2543 of 28 September 1993, concerning Heidi Degro, makes it clear that the practice is still in use (JCA-105). Indeed, the practice forms a part of Scientology's incontrovertible "scripture" (JCA-104).

The Erosion of Critical Thinking

47. I have spent over ten years interviewing and counselling former Scientologists, and have come to the firm conclusion that Dianetics and Scientology tend to erode independent decision making and critical thinking. Hubbard claimed that his techniques were the only valid approach to mental and spiritual well-being. He derided all psychotherapeutic practices (JCA-107). Hubbard asserted with regard to psychology and psychiatry that "the instigators, patrons and supporters of these two subjects classify fully and demonstrably as criminals." (JCA-108). Although Scientology claims to be "open to people of all religions" (JCA-109), Hubbard asserted that heaven has been deserted for at least 43 trillion years (JCA-110), and that Christ is simply a fabrication (JCA-111).

48. The techniques of Dianetics and Scientology induce uncritical euphoria and heighten suggestibility. Scientologists are forbidden criticism of Hubbard, his organizations, his techniques, and of other Scientologists except in written reports to those organizations (JCA-112, JCA-113). Such "ethics reports" are encouraged. To even attempt to discuss the processing techniques is termed "verbal tech[nology]" and forbidden (JCA-114). Offenders are subjected to a "Committee of Evidence", a Scientology tribunal, for the commission of a "Suppressive Act" or "High Crime". Such "High Crimes" are considered the equivalent of murder (JCA-115).

49. During the first stages of involvement, a new recruit is often flattered as an exceptional individual (JCA-52) and encouraged by false claims of physical cure (e.g., JCA-21, JCA-23 to JCA-30) and psychic abilities (e.g., JCA-69, JCA-70) made in Hubbard's works and by euphoric Scientologists.

50. Scientologists are bombarded with promotional literature, magazines such as Impact, Source, Advance!, The Auditor, Communication, Certainty, Freedom, Freewinds, Good News, Inroads, Celebrity, International Scientology News and Keeping Scientology Working News. These all point to the supposedly positive and beneficial effects of Dianetics and Scientology, but avoid any mention of court decisions, medical reports, government enquiries or media pieces critical of these practices.

51. In its publications, Scientology incites hatred for anyone critical of its ideas and techniques. For example, in "Ron's Journal 34", which has frequently been reprinted, Hubbard said:

"Time and again since 1950, the vested interests which pretend to run the world (for their own appetites and profit) have mounted full-scale attacks. With a running dog press and slavish government agencies the forces of evil have launched their lies and sought, by whatever means, to check and destroy Scientology. What is being decided in this arena is whether mankind has a chance to go free or be smashed and tortured as an abject subject of the power elite ... a review of these battles over the past thirty-two years moves one to contemptuous laughter. The enemy, perched in their trees or swinging by their tails, have been about as effective as one of their psychologist's monkeys peeling a policeman's club thinking it is a banana and then throwing it only to hit the chief ape in the face ... The AMA, pouring lies into the press through gnashing teeth persevered for years — and then went bankrupt. The psychiatrist, riding high in 1959, hoping to place one of his ilk in a blackmail position behind every head of state, hoping to consign any citizen at his whim to a psychiatric Siberia, trying to preserve his right to kill and maim as a profession above the law, is today a butt of comic strips. And what of the FDA that, for fifteen years snarled and snapped at the E-Meter? One hardly hears of them today. And what of the mighty Interpol, that tool of the CIA? It was found to be a nest of war criminals hiding out from the law itself ... You do not hear much about this from the running dog press because, of course, they were the tool of the enemy in the first place. They lose because they traffic in lies ... They are mad monkeys ... just remember a maxim: if the papers say it, it isn't true." (JCA-116).

52. Scientologists are discouraged from reading anything hostile to Scientology ("entheta") (JCA-117), and ordered not to communicate in any way with anyone critical of its teachings (JCA-2). This is quite obviously a form of mental imprisonment or psychological slavery.

53. Scientology advertising is based upon the principles of motivational research, and seeks to recruit people by bypassing their reasoning. This policy was clearly stated by Hubbard (JCA-54). In 1988, the Church of Scientology hired leading Public Relations firm Hill and Knowlton to make its advertising more effective (JCA-118).

Processing

54. Hubbard termed the hypnotic counselling procedures of Dianetics and Scientology "auditing" or "processing". Scientologists undertake some 27 "levels" consisting of hundreds of different processing procedures. Scientology practitioners are rarely, if ever, trained in psychology or psychotherapy.

55. Most processing is done with the subject, or "preclear", connected to a psychogalvanometer, described by Hubbard as a "'lie detector' as used by police and in psychology laboratories" (JCA-119). The subject is connected to the galvanometer by two hand held soup cans, which function as electrodes. The galvanometer measures variations in a small electric current passed through the subject. Where an individual is unwilling to be interrogated on the E-meter, the following practice forms a part of the "scriptures" of Scientology: "When the subject placed on a meter will not talk but can be made to hold the cans (or can be held while the cans are strapped to the soles or placed under the armpit, I am sorry if that sounds brutal, it isn't [sic]), it is still possible to obtain full information from the subject." (JCA-120).

56. During the course of auditing the individual is frequently asked to disclose guilty secrets or "withholds". The auditor writes these confessions down. According to the Bulletin "Miscellaneous Reports": "When an Auditor finds an Ethics Situation [in session reports] he should mark it and circle it in red after the session. The pc [preclear - subject] is not necessarily turned in ... but the Auditor should make mention of it ... If it is a serious situation that affects others, then it is the Auditor's responsibility to report it." (JCA-121). A copy of the report is sent to a Scientology Ethics department.

57. Scientologists are periodically subjected to confessional interrogations, where printed lists, sometimes numbering hundreds of questions, are asked (JCA-122). Scientologists pay #200 per hour for these "confessionals" (JCA-32). Confessional lists are checked with the subject connected to the "E-meter" (JCA-103). Such interrogations are now generally styled "confessionals", "integrity processing" and "eligibility confessionals" but were originally styled "security checks" or "sec checks". In the early '60s LRH [Hubbard] developed the technology known as Sec Checking. As issued it was used for two purposes: as a general tool to clean up a pc's overts and withholds and as a security tool to detect out-ethics persons and security risks." (JCA-123). In "The Only Valid Security Check", details are requested concerning potential past misdeeds, including: shoplifting, theft, forgery, blackmail, smuggling, drunkenness, burglary, embezzlement, cannibalism, drug addiction, sexual practices and counterfeiting. There are also 21 questions relating to Hubbard, his wife and Scientology (JCA-122). A Scientology "Bulletin" says "The specific details of each misdeed must be gotten." (JCA-124).

58. In the "Hubbard Communications Manual of Justice", Hubbard said "Intelligence is mostly the collection of data on people ... It is basically a listening and filing action. It is done all the time about everything and everybody." (JCA-125). Hubbard also said "The main danger of Integrity Processing is not probing a person's past but failing to do so thoroughly. When you leave an Integrity Processing question 'live' and go on to the next one, you set up a nasty situation" (JCA-126); "Take up each reading question [i.e., each question which causes a reaction on the 'E-meter'], getting the what, when, where, all of every overt [transgression] ... Get specifics ... For security investigation purposes, get all the exact names, dates, addresses, phone numbers, and any other information that might be helpful..." (JCA-103).
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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Part 2 of 2

59. Scientologists can also be subjected to "HCO Confessionals", where they are told that the information they give will not remain confidential: "The second use of Integrity Processing is as an ethics or security measure ... [it] can be done as a straight security action." (JCA-123). The same sets of questions are used in both forms of confessional: "The term 'I am not auditing you' only occurs when a Confessional is done for justice reasons. Otherwise the procedure is the same (By 'justice reasons' is meant when a person is refusing to come clean [sic]...) ... A Confessional done for justice reasons is not auditing and the data uncovered is not withheld from the proper authorities." (JCA-103).

60. In Church of Scientology of California v. Armstrong, Mary Sue Hubbard, former "Controller" of Scientology, admitted that she had issued Guardian's Order 161269 which orders that "processing files" — the written records of confessionals — are to be reviewed so that discreditable material in them can be used against former members (JCA-127). This despite many representations that such confessional files are confidential. In July 1977, the FBI seized many examples of such "folder culls". Former senior Scientology executives testified in the Armstrong case that folder culling was a common practice in Scientology (Laurel Sullivan, Nancy Dincalci, Kima Douglas — all of whom had worked with Hubbard, and Edward Walters, a former Guardian's Office intelligence operative) (JCA-128, JCA-129, JCA-130, JCA-131).

61. Any criticism of Hubbard or Scientology is attributed to the critic's guilt and fear of being found out. Hubbard asserted: "Now, get this as a technical fact, not just a hopeful idea. Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes for which that person or group could be imprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts. Over and over we prove this." (JCA-73).

62. Should a Scientology student question any of the tenets of Scientology, he is required to look up definitions of words in the text: "The student says he does not understand something. The Supervisor has him look earlier in the text for a misunderstood word." (JCA-132); "Whenever a person has a confused idea of something or believes there is some conflict of ideas IT IS ALWAYS TRUE THAT A MISUNDERSTOOD WORD EXISTS AT THE BOTTOM OF THAT CONFUSION." (Emphasis in original, JCA-133).

No-one who disagrees with Hubbard can continue in Scientology. All practices have to be adhered to absolutely. To do otherwise is regarded as a violation of "standard technology". In this way, even factual errors in Hubbard's work remain unchanged. For example, the phrase "The 14th century psychiatrist" used in the "Policy Letter" "Sanity" (JCA-134). A "course supervisor" at the Birmingham Scientology organization spent almost 30 minutes trying to persuade me that this was not a typographical error for "19th".

63. Hubbard's "Policy letter" "Suppressive Acts...", (JCA-115), lists over 100 actions considered "High Crimes" or "Suppressive Acts" by Scientology. The list begins with "murder", making it clear how severely Scientology views the other listed actions. These include: "Public statements against Scientology"; "Testifying hostilely before state or public inquiries"; "Continued membership in a divergent group"; "Continued adherence to a person or group pronounced a suppressive person or group"; "Delivering up the person of a Scientologist without justifiable defense or lawful protest to the demands of civil or criminal law"; "Permitting students to talk to each other...during course hours"; "to publicly depart Scientology". For committing any of these "high crimes", a Scientologist can be expelled and "declared Suppressive" and his Scientologist friends forbidden further communication with him (JCA-2).

64. In training, Scientologists are subjected to an elaborate system of "checkouts" to ensure that they have exactly "duplicated" Hubbard's teachings. These include "high crime checkouts" (JCA-135). The purpose of such "checkouts" is to bring about absolute agreement with Hubbard. Should a student fail to agree with Hubbard, he will be sent first to the "Cramming" section of the organization and then, if that fails, to the "Ethics" section. No student is permitted to continue with a course beyond a disagreement, and students who disagree are separated from other students. Continued disagreement leads to expulsion from Scientology.

65. HCO Policy Letter "Policies on Physical Healing..." explains categories of people forbidden involvement with Scientology: "a. Persons intimately connected with persons... of known antagonism to .... Scientology"; "Persons who want to be processed to see if Scientology works' .. News reporters fall into this category."; "Persons who `have an open mind' " (JCA-136).

66. Scientologists are forbidden medical assistance without consent from Scientology (JCA-137). All psychotherapies and meditational practices are forbidden (JCA-138).

67. Any Scientology "Clear" can be questioned to determine which of Hubbard's claimed criteria they have obtained — for example, freedom from the common cold, a near perfect memory and the ability to do a calculation in ten or fifteen seconds that would take a "normal" person 30 minutes. The claims for "Operating Thetan levels", which come after "Clear". are stranger yet. Scientology "Operating Thetans" should be asked about their ability to leave their bodies and remotely perceive events. Demonstrations should be sought. Having failed to meet Hubbard's criteria, the individual will still show absolute loyalty to Hubbard.

Retribution against litigants, critics, competitors and former members

68. The Hubbard "Policy Letter" "Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists" (JCA-115), shows how easy it is to commit "High Crimes" or "Suppressive Acts". These include "Public disavowal of Scientology", "Public statements against Scientology", "Bringing civil suit against any Scientology organization", "Demanding the return of any or all fees", "Continued adherence to a person or group pronounced a suppressive person or group", "publicly departing Scientology" and "Violation or neglect of any of the ten points of Keeping Scientology Working" (in particular "Knowing it [Scientology "technology"] is correct", "Applying the technology", "Hammering out of existence incorrect technology"). Strictly speaking, anyone who does not know that Scientology's "technology" is correct is deemed a "Suppressive Person".

69. It is made clear in Scientology's published policy that a person expelled from Scientology is "Fair Game" (JCA-139). A "Suppressive Person declare" is Scientology's equivalent of the Shia Muslim "fatwa".

70. In "Justice, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists, the Fair Game Law", Hubbard asserted "By FAIR GAME is meant, without rights for self, possessions or position, and no Scientologist may be brought before a Committee of Evidence or punished for any action taken against a Suppressive Person or Group during the period that person or group is 'fair game'." (JCA-140) In this Policy Letter, we learn that "Suppressive Acts include ... 1st degree murder, arson, disintegration of persons or belongings not guilty of suppressive acts". Scientologists are thereby given leave to destroy the person and property of a "Suppressive Person".

71. Elsewhere, Hubbard carefully explained the provisions of Fair Game: A Suppressive Person "May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." (JCA-141).

72. In 1968, Hubbard ordered that the words "Fair Game" "may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations." However, the practice of Fair Game was not cancelled "This ... does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP [Suppressive Person]." (JCA-142).

73. A training checksheet used as evidence in the conviction of eleven Scientology officials in the US (including Hubbard's wife and immediate deputy), shows that the 1 March 1965 "Policy Letter" (JCA-140) still formed part of a secret course for Scientology harassment operatives (members of "Branch One" of the "Guardian's Office" of Scientology) (JCA-143, p.18, second item).

74. When the nominal head of Scientology's "Guardian's Office", Jane Kember, and the head of Scientology Intelligence, Morris Budlong, were sentenced to imprisonment in the United States, in 1980, the sentencing memorandum included this statement: "Defendants, through one of their attorneys, have stated that the fair game policy continued in effect well after the indictment in this case and the conviction of the first nine co-defendants. Defendants claim that the policy was abrogated by the Church's Board of Directors in late July or early August, 1980." (JCA-144, footnote p.16).

75. The "Policy Letter" which allegedly cancelled "fair game" in 1980 (JCA-139), was itself cancelled by a Policy Letter of 8 September 1983 (JCA-145). As such, Fair Game is an incontrovertible "scripture" of the Churches of Scientology (JCA-46, JCA-47, JCA-48), even though the words "fair game" are no longer used to describe the practice (JCA-142).

76. Mr. Justice Latey ruled in the High Court in London, in July 1984, that "Deprival of property, injury by any means, trickery, suing, lying or destruction have been pursued throughout and to this day with the fullest possible vigour ... The 'Church' resorts to lies and deceit whenever it thinks it will profit it to do so." (JCA-146).

77. In Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California (the "mother church" of the Churches of Scientology at the time the suit was filed), the California Appeal Court ruled, in a decision upheld by the US Supreme Court: "Wollersheim was compelled to abandon his wife and his family through the policy of disconnect. When his mental illness reached such a level he actively planned his suicide, he was forbidden to seek professional help. Finally, when Wollersheim was able to leave the Church, it subjected him to financial ruin through its policy of 'fair game'." (JCA-147, pp.A-7, 15 & 16). At appeal, Scientology asserted that "fair game" was a "core practice of Scientology", and therefore protected as "religious expression". This position was also made on behalf of Scientology in the case against Gerald Armstrong, in 1984, by religious expert Dr. Frank Flinn (JCA-45).

78. In the same case (Church of Scientology of California v. Armstrong) (JCA-7), Judge Paul Breckenridge criticised the continued use of Fair Game, showing that the policy had remained in force beyond the supposed cancellation in 1980. Judge Breckenridge said: "In addition to violating and abusing its own members' civil rights, the [Scientology] organization over the years with its 'Fair Game' doctrine has harassed and abused those persons not in the Church whom it perceives as its enemies." Judge Breckenridge added, "After the within suit was filed ... Defendant Armstrong was the subject of harassment, including being followed and surveilled by individuals who admitted employment by Plaintiff; being assaulted by one of these individuals; being struck bodily by a car driven by one of these individuals; having two attempts made by said individuals apparently to involve Defendant Armstrong in a freeway automobile accident; having said individuals come onto Defendant Armstrong's property, spy in his windows, create disturbances, and upset his neighbors".

79. Fair Game has long been a policy of Scientology. In 1955 Hubbard wrote, speaking of practitioners of Scientology not licensed by him: "The law can be used very easily to harass ... if possible, of course, ruin him utterly" (JCA-27, p.157). Hubbard also wrote, "If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace." (JCA-148).

80. In 1965, Hubbard wrote in Scientology's "Auditor" magazine: "Principals of the Victorian government such as the 'Prime Minister', Anderson the 'Q.C.' and hostile members of the 'Victorian Parliament' are continued as suppressive persons and they and their families and connections may not be processed or trained and are fair game." (JCA-149).

81. Current Scientology "scriptures" attribute only negative qualities to "Suppressive Persons" (JCA-150). Between 1983 and 1992, the number of people ajudged "Suppressive Persons" by Scientology increased from 600 (JCA-1) to 2,400 (JCA-151). According to Scientology leader David Miscavige, the next section of Hubbard's supposed psychotherapy — Operating Thetan Course Section 9 — will not be released until "ethics is fully gotten in on the SPs [Suppressive Persons]" (JCA-152). This means that all critics of Scientology must be silenced. In light of the "scripture" of "Fair Game", the interpretation of this order to all Scientologists can only be alarming.

82. The lengths to which Scientologists will go to harass opponents are shown by a Hubbard lecture, still distributed within Scientology, where Hubbard boasted of the creation of his intelligence agency the "Guardian's Office", and its infiltration of newspapers, international banks and even the British government: "With all of this action being taken against us in the last 17 years ... it was vitally necessary that I isolate who it was on this planet who was attacking us ... The Organization, under the direction of Mary Sue [Hubbard], ... employed several professional intelligence agents who had long and successful professional backgrounds and they looked into this matter for us and the results of their activities — although still in progress — have told us all we needed to know with regard to any enemy we had on this planet. Our enemies on this planet are less than 12 men. They are members of the Bank of England, and other higher financial circles. They own and control newspaper chains and they are oddly enough directors in all the Mental Health groups in the world ... Wilson ... the current premier of England [sic] is totally involved with these fellows ... They have collected rather interesting files on us ... and their orders concerning what to do about this as part of their files all makes very interesting reading. We of course have full copies of their files. It was, of course, their bad luck to tangle with someone who had been trained in the field of intelligence by the allied governments, which is myself and they had insufficient security and insufficient loyalty amongst their own people to keep out the intelligence agents which we sent against them." (JCA-153).

83. Ten years after Hubbard initiated the practice of infiltration and theft, Churches of Scientology in the US were raided. This led to the conviction and imprisonment of eleven Scientology officials (JCA-154). Almost forty others were cited as "unindicted co-conspirators", including Hubbard (JCA-155). Similar events led to convictions in Canada in 1992.

84. The sentencing memorandum in USA v. Mary Sue Hubbard et al makes clear the scale of the offences committed by Hubbard's agents: "The United States initiated the investigation which resulted in the instant indictment in view of the brazen, systematic and persistent burglaries of United States Government offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California, over an extended period of at least some two years. Additionally, the United States was confronted with the pervasive conduct of the defendants in this case in thwarting a federal Grand Jury investigation by harboring a fugitive, in effect forcefully kidnapping a witness who had decided to surrender to the federal authorities, submitting false evidence to the Grand Jury, destroying other evidence which might have been of valuable aid to its investigation, preparing a cover-up story, and encouraging and drilling a crucial witness to give false testimony under oath to that Grand Jury ... a review of the documents seized in the ... searches ... show the incredible and sweeping nature of the criminal conduct of the defendants and of the organization which they led. These crimes include infiltration and theft of documents from a number of prominent private national and world organizations, law firms and newspapers; the execution of smear campaigns and baseless law suits to destroy private individuals who had attempted to exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression; the framing of private citizens who had been critical of Scientology, including the forging of documents which led to the indictment of at least one innocent person; violation of the civil rights of prominent private figures and public officials. These are but a few of the criminal acts not covered in the 'uncontested' stipulation of evidence ... defendant Heldt's assertion that 'the policy of the Church prohibits any illegality on the part of its members or staff...' is totally unfounded and incorrect. The evidence in this case ... establish[es] beyond peradventure that the Church and its leadership had, over the years, approved, condoned and engaged in gross and widespread illegality. One, indeed, wonders how it can even be suggested that the defendants and their organization did not make illegal activities part and parcel of their daily work." (JCA-154).

Scientology's Attitude Towards the Courts

85. The scriptures of Scientology show little respect for the judicial system. In 1965, Hubbard wrote "Don't react to Scientology Ethics as though it were 'wog' law. In society's 'courts' one is given the works and truth has little bearing on the findings. A mean judge or clever attorney and small legal errors decide a lot of their cases. Wog courts are like throwing dice. There is huge cost and publicity and punishment galore even for the innocent." (JCA-156). In another 1965 "Policy Letter", Hubbard said "Want to know why wog courts make people nervy? Who can predict a wog court decision? Who can even predict the sentence man to man for the same crime?" (JCA-157).

86. The second edition of What is Scientology? contains a section comparing "Scientology justice" to "wog law", which says that the "justice system is bogged down in a morass of Latinized grammatical complexities and has become, sadly, a matter of which attorney can present the better argument. Right and wrong, guilt and innocence are relegated to bit players in the show. A lawyer defending a criminal on trial for armed robbery, for instance, is not interested in establishing guilt or innocence; he is looking for a loophole or technicality on which the case can be dismissed and his client set free whether guilty or not. Few have the wealth necessary or even try to pursue justice through the courts and even if one prevails, attorney costs often make it a Pyrrhic victory. The due process of the court system is in a virtual gridlock of motions, countermotions, depositions, injunctions, appeals, claims and counterclaims." (JCA-158).

87. In a statement recusing himself from a Scientology case, California judge James Ideman said "The past eight years have consisted mainly of a prolonged, and ultimately unsucessful, attempt to persuade or compel the plaintiff to comply with lawful discovery. These efforts have been fiercely resisted by plaintiffs. They have utilized every device that we on the District Court have ever heard of to avoid such compliance, and some that are new to us. This noncompliance has consisted of evasions, misrepresentations, broken promises and lies, but ultimately with refusal. As part of this scheme to not comply, the plaintiffs have undertaken a massive campaign of filing every conceivable motion (and some inconceivable) to disguise the true issue in these pretrial proceedings. Apparently viewing litigation as war, plaintiffs by this tactic have had the effect of massively increasing the costs to the other parties, and, for a while, to the Court ... The scope of the plaintiffs' efforts have to be seen to be believed ... 1,737 filings [were made by Scientology] ... Yet it is almost all puffery — motions without merit or substance." (JCA-159).

88. In the "scriptures" of Scientology, Hubbard wrote: "the law can be used very easily to harass." The December 1980 issue of "The American Lawyer" makes it clear that this policy has extended to judges in trials involving Scientology (JCA-160).

89. As part of their membership contract, Scientologists are compelled to sign the "Pledge to Mankind", first issued in 1984, which reads in part "In the United States ... we are the targets of unprincipled attacks in the court system by those who would line their pockets from our hard won coffers. Bigots in all branches of government ... are bent on our destruction through taxation and repressive legislation. We have been subjected to illegal heresy trials in two countries before prejudiced and malinformed judges who are not qualified or inclined to perceive the truth." (JCA-161).

90. A 1985 issue of the Scientology magazine "Impact" carries the following account: "Rev. Ken Hoden ... President of the Church of Scientology of California recently won a motion in Los Angeles that allowed the Church to rebring an important Federal Lawsuit. After one of the Church attorneys was arrested on the charge of contempt of court and another escorted out of the Courtrooms by order of a suppressive Judge ... Rev. Hoden got up. He argued before the judge for a full twenty minutes. He had effectively picked up the ball and gave a most moving, pro-Church and anti-suppression speech, right to the face of the suppression: the judge in the case." (JCA-162).

Counselling

91. Since 1983, I have counselled tens of former Scientologists and been appalled by a succession of accounts of financial and psychological devastation. I have met individuals who borrowed money under false pretences, bankrupted businesses to pay immense amounts for Scientology "auditing", and abandoned spouses and even small children to pursue Scientology. I have also counselled individuals who had left Scientology as much as 20 years before and who had been plagued by guilt and a sense of inadequacy induced by Scientology and its techniques of psychological domination. Scientology is especially dangerous to those with incipient mental illness. I have counselled two individuals who were first committed to mental hospitals after encountering Scientology and been consulted by the staff of a psychiatric hospital in a third case. A California Appeal Court judgment, upheld by the US Supreme Court, shows that Scientology brought about manic depression and suicidal tendencies in former member Lawrence Wollersheim (JCA-147, p.A-2).

92. The promises of Dianetics and Scientology are so attractive, the counselling procedures so invasive and the selling techniques so forceful that former members can take years to see them as simply techniques of psychological domination. U.S. academics Conway and Siegelman, who studied 400 former cult members from 48 groups, concluded that Scientology has "the most debilitating set of rituals of any cult in America ... although claiming the most severe long-term effects, former Scientologists surveyed reported the lowest total of hours per week spent in ritual and indoctrination." Conway and Siegelman approximated the time for unaided recovery at 12.5 years (JCA-163). My own experiences as a counsellor bear this out.

Jonathan Caven-Atack General Report on Scientology — Exhibits List:

• JCA-1. Sea Organization Executive Directive 2192 International, "List of Declared Suppressive Persons", 27 January 1983.
• JCA-2. Scientology Policy Directive 28, "Suppressive Act - Dealing with a Suppressive Person", 13 August 1982.
• JCA-3. Sea Organization Executive Directive 2104, "The Flow Up the Bridge...", 7 November 1982, p.7.
• JCA-4. AOSHUK price list, 1983.
• JCA-5. Professor Stephen A. Kent, "International Social Control by the Church of Scientology.", 23 March 1992.
• JCA-6. Professor Louis Jolyon West, M.D., "Psychiatry and Scientology", 6 May 1992.
• JCA-7. Memorandum of Intended Decision in Church of Scientology of California v. Gerald Armstrong, Superior Court for the State of California, C420153, 20 June 1984.
• JCA-8. Church of Scientology International, What is Scientology?, second edition, 1992.
• JCA-9. Church of Scientology, "A Report to Members of Parliament on Scientology, December 1968.
• JCA-10. US Navy medical records for L. Ron Hubbard.
• JCA-11. Look magazine, 5 December 1950.
• JCA-12. Letter from the Department of the Navy to Mark Jones, 1 October 1985.
• JCA-13. Hubbard, "Man who invented Scientology", Bulletin of 26 May 1959, reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 4, pp.470-471, 1979 printing.
• JCA-14. Letter from the registrar, George Washington University to the US Navy, 27 May 1941, including Hubbard's college grades.
• JCA-15. Hubbard, Mission into Time, 1973.
• JCA-16. Hubbard, "A Short Biography of L. Ron Hubbard", "The Auditor" issue 63.
• JCA-17. Church of Scientology of California, What is Scientology?, 1978 edition.
• JCA-18. Hubbard, journal of his 1927 trip to Guam (exhibit 62 in CSC v Armstrong, 1984).
• JCA-19. Hubbard, journal of his 1928 trip to Guam (exhibit 65 in CSC v Armstong).
• JCA-20. Hubbard, "The Camp-Fire", "Adventure" magazine, 1 October1935.
• JCA-21. Hubbard, Dianetics: The-Modern Science of Mental Health, New Era, Denmark, 1982 printing.
• JCA-22. Freud, Two Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis, trans and ed James Strachey, Pelican Books, England, 1984.
• JCA-23. Hubbard, Address by L, Ron Hubbard, Arcadia Theater, Wichita, Kansas", 6 February 1952,
• JCA-24. Hubbard, Scientology: A History of Man, 1968 printing.
• JCA-25. Hubbard, "The Old Man's Case-Book", from "The Journal of Scientology", issue 15-G, May 1953, reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 1, p.337, 1979 printing.
• JCA-26. "The Auditor", issue 198, worldwide, 1975.
• JCA-27. Hubbard, "The Scientologist - A Manual on the Dissemination of Material", reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology volume 2, pp.151-171, 1979 printing.
• JCA-28. "Advance!", issue 10, p.2.
• JCA-29. "The Auditor", Africa and Europe, issue 231, p.3.
• JCA-30. "Celebrity", minor issue 247, p.14.
• JCA-31. Hubbard, Scientology 0-8, pp.134-135 (removed from subsequent editions), 1971 printing.
• JCA-32. Advanced Organisation Saint Hill United Kingdom, "Donations Information", March 1992.
• JCA-33. Hubbard, "Philadelphia Doctorate Course", lecture 18, 1982 transcript, p.17.
• JCA-34. Hubbard letter to Helen O'Brien, 10 April 1953 (exhibit 500-4V in CSC v Armstrong 1984, cited in vol.12, p.1976 and vol.26, p.4619).
• JCA-35. Hubbard, Associate Letter of 10 March 1954, reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 2, pp.32-34, 1979 printing.
• JCA-36. Hubbard, Modern Management Technology Defined, 1976 edition, definition of "Church of American Science".
• JCA-37, Roy Wallis, PhD, The Road to Total Freedom - a sociological analysis of Scientology, Heinmann, England, 1976, p.128.
• JCA-38. Hubbard, "Why Doctor of Divinity?" in "Professional Auditor's Bulletin", issue 32, reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 2, pp.72-75, 1979 edition.
• JCA-39. Hubbard, "Religious Philosophy and Religious Practice", Bulletin of 18 April 1967, reprinted in The Technical Volumes of Dianetics and Scientology,volume 6, p.195, 1979 edition.
• JCA-40. Hubbard, "Six Basic Processes", Bulletin of 4 May 1972, reprinted in The Technical Volumes of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 8, pp.107-111, 1979 edition.
• JCA-41. Hubbard, All About Radiation, Bridge, LA, 1989 edition.
• JCA-42. Church of Scientology International. What is Scientology?, p.688, second edition, 1992.
• JCA-43. Hubbard, The Background and Ceremonies of the Church of Scientology of California, World Wide, Church of Scientology of California, East Grinstead, 1973, pp.26-55.
• JCA-44. Affirmation of E.G.Parrinder, 25 November 1971.
• JCA-45. Frank K. Flinn testimony in Church of Scientology of California, 1984, vol.23, pp.4032-4160.
• JCA-46. "The Corporations of Scientology", p.24, 1989.
• JCA-47. Trademark License Agreement - SMI/Mission, licence to use Religious Technology Center trademarks and service marks.
• JCA-48. Scientology Policy Directive 19, "The Integrity of Source", 7 July 1982.
• JCA-49. Japan Eval, Vinay Agarwala, 29 January 1981, Sea Org Aides Order 549-1.
• JCA-50. Regina v Registrar General, ex parte Segerdal, Queens Bench, London, November 1969 and Court of Appeal, July 1970.
• JCA-51. Church of Scientology International, "Field Staff Member Kit ", 1993.
• JCA-52. Hubbard, "Registrar Drills", Policy Letter of 27 May 1980, revised 2 October 1981.
• JCA-53. HCOB FSM Breakthrough - New FSM TRs - Controlling a Conversation, 27 January 1984, Field Staff Member Specialist, Bridge, LA, 1991.
• JCA-54. Hubbard, "Second Lecture on Clearing Methodology", 13 May 1959.
• JCA-55. Hubbard, Volunteer Minister's Handbook, pp.61-66, 1977 printing.
• JCA-56. Hubbard, "The Tone Scale", Scientology 0-8, p.101, 1971 printing.
• JCA-57. Hubbard, "Lower Awareness Levels", Scientology 0-8, p.133, 1971 printing.
• JCA-58. Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, p.471, 1975 edition.
• JCA-59. Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, p.335, 1975 edition.
• JCA-60. Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, p.104, 1975 edition.
• JCA-61. Hubbard, "Books are Dissemination", Bulletin of 28 April 1960, reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 4, pp.78-81, 1979 printing.
• JCA-62. The Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis.
• JCA-63. The Hat of the Personality Test Evaluator.
• JCA-64, Hubbard, "The Hard Sell Reference Pack", pp.i-vi, 1987.
• JCA-65. Lee Lawrence, "To the Scientologist Loan Applicant", undated.
• JCA-66. Hubbard, "The No-Interference Area Clarified and Re-enforced", undated.
• JCA-67. Sea Organisation Executive Directive 2104 International, "The Flow Up the Bridge...", 7 November 1982, pp.17-18.
• JCA-68. Hubbard, "Registrar Salesmanship Course Checksheet", Policy Letter of 2 December 1972, revised 20 May 1980.
• JCA-69. Hubbard, promotional leaflet, 1992, from Flag Mission Order 375, 1970.
• JCA-70. Hubbard, "OT and Beyond", " The Auditor" issue 19, 1966.
• JCA-71. Hubbard, "The Organization of a PE Foundation", Bulletin of 29 September 1959, reprinted in The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volume 3, pp.527-528, 1979 printing.
• JCA-72. Hubbard, "Keeping Scientology Working", Policy Letter of 7 February 1965, reissued in 1980, The Organization Executive Course, volume 0, pp.7-13, 1991 edition.
• JCA-73. Hubbard, "Critics of Scientology", Bulletin of 5 November 1967, reprinted in The Organization Executive Course, volume 1, pp.782-784, 1991 edition.
• JCA-74. Hubbard, "Philadelphia Doctorate Course", lecture 20, 1982 printing.
• JCA-75. Court transcript in Church of Scientology of California v Armstrong, volume 13, p.2056-2057.
• JCA-76. Hubbard, Introducing Dianetics, 1950, reprinted in The Research and Discovery Series, vol.3, p.15, Bridge, LA, 1st edition, 1982.
• JCA-77. Hubbard, Science of Survival, Hubbard College of Scientology, East Grinstead, 1968, pp.227-228.
• JCA-78. Hubbard Dianetics Auditor Course, Bridge, LA, 1988, p.54.
• JCA-79. Hubbard, Educational Dianetics, 1950, reprinted in Research and Discovery Series, volume 3, p.241, Bridge, LA, 1st edition, 1982.
• JCA-80. HCOB Training Drills Remodernized, 5 July 1978.
• JCA-81. HCOB Op Pro by Dup, 4 February 1959.
• JCA-82. Promotional leaflet, "It's up to you", 1988.
• JCA-83. Promotional leaflet, "What is the Sea Organization and what does it do?", dated "2/12/1979".
• JCA-84. Hubbard, "Towards a Worthwhile Purpose", 1976.
• JCA-85. Hubbard, "Functions of the Sea Org", 26 April 1968.
• JCA-86. "New Sea Org Uniforms Enhance Ethics Presence", "High Winds", issue 7, 1987.
• JCA-87. W.B.Robertson, "Service Insignia", Flag Order 2327R, 16 January 1974.
• JCA-88. Church of Scientology International, Sea Organization "Contract of Employment", 1987.
• JCA-89. Church of Scientology International, What is Scientology?, 1992 edition, p.360.
• JCA-90. Hubbard, "The Code of a Sea Org Member", 1978.
• JCA-91. Hubbard, "Awards and Penalties", Policy Letter of 26 September 1967.
• JCA-92. Hubbard, "Penalties for Lower Conditions", Policy Letter of 18 October 1967, issue iv, published in Scientology Basic Staff Hat Book, number 1, p.26, Church of Scientology of California, East Grinstead, 1968.
• JCA-93. Hubbard, "Penalties for Lower Conditions", Policy Letter of 21 July 1968.
• JCA-94. Hubbard, "Titles of Address", Flag Order 87, 2 September 1967.
• JCA-95. Hubbard, "The Auditor", issue 41.
• JCA-96. Hubbard, Modern Management Technology Defined, Church of Scientology of California, 1976, definitions of "Rehabilitation Project Force" and "rehabilitation unit".
• JCA-97. as exhibit 96, definition of "Mud Box Brigade".
• JCA-98. City of Clearwater Commission Hearings, Re: Church of Scientology, 7 May 1982, testimony of David Ray, vol.3, pp.165-170.
• JCA-99. Team Share System, Sea Org Executive Directive 3490 Int, 24 July 1986.
• JCA-100. Clearwater Hearings, 7 May 1982, testimony of Casey Kelly, vol.3, pp.51-53.
• JCA-101. RPF Policy Checksheet, Flag Order 3434R-25RA, 25 July 1974.
• JCA-102. RPF Graduation Requirements Checklist, Flag Order 3434RC-56, 17 March 1980.
• JCA-103. Confessional Procedure, HCOB 30 November 1978, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol XII, Church of Scientology of California, Los Angeles, 1980 edition.
• JCA-104. HCOB Introspection Rundown - additional actions, 20 February 1974, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol. VIII, pp.260-261, Church of Scientology of California, Los Angeles, 1976.
• JCA-105. Sea Org HCO Ethics Order, AOSHUK 2543, Confidential Board of Investigation - Findings and Recommendations - Isolation Watch Heidi Degro, September 1993.
• JCA-106. The Independent, England, 31 January 1994, The Prisoners of Saint Hill.
• JCA-107. Hubbard, "Dianetics and Scientology compared to 19th Century practices", Bulletin of 29 November 1981.
• JCA-108. Hubbard, "Criminals and Psychiatry", Bulletin of 29 July 1980.
• JCA-109. Hubbard, "Scientology is a religion", Policy Letter of 6 March 1969, reprinted in The Organization Executive Course, volume 5, pp.289-290, 1974 printing.
• JCA-110. Hubbard, "Routine 3 - Heaven", Bulletin of 11 May 1963.
• JCA-111. Hubbard, "Confidential Resistive Cases - Former Therapy", Class VIII Bulletin of 23 September 1968,
• JCA-112. Hubbard, "Ethics Chits", Policy Letter of 1 July 1965, reprinted in The Organization Executive Course, vol.1, pp.703-704, 1991 edition.
• JCA-113. Hubbard, "Jokers and Degraders", Bulletin and Policy Letter of 5 February 1977, reprinted in The Organization Executive Course, volume 1, pp.822-823, 1991 edition.
• JCA-114. Hubbard, "A New Type of Crime", Policy Letter of 17 January 1979, reprinted in The Organization Executive Course, volume 1, pp.908-909, 1991 edition.
• JCA-115. Hubbard, "Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists", Policy Letter of 23 December 1965, re-revised 8 January 1991. reprinted in The Organization Executive Course, volume 1, pp.873-889, 1991 edition.
• JCA-116. Hubbard, "The Future of Scientology", "Ron's Journal 34", 13 March 1982.
• JCA-117. Hubbard, "Critics of Scientology", 5 November 1967, reissued as a Bulletin 27 August 1987, reprinted in "Impact" magazine, issue 15, pp.36-37.
• JCA-118. Heber Jentzsch letter of 7 April 1988.
• JCA-119. Hubbard, Electropsychometric Auditing - Operator's Manual, 1952.
• JCA-120. HCOB Interrogation (How to read an E-meter on a silent subject), 30 March 1960, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IV, pp.59-60, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-121. Board Technical Bulletin Miscellaneous Reports, 7 November 1972R, Auditor Admin Series 20R, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IX, p.53, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-122. HCOPL The Only Valid Security Check, 22 May 1961, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IV, pp.275-281, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-123. Board Technical Bulletin Integrity Processing Series 1 Definitions, 4 December 1972R, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IX, pp.261-263, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-124. Board Technical Bulletin Integrity Processing Series 16RA, Integrity Processing Info, 6 June 1968RA, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IX, pp.287-288.
• JCA-125. Hubbard, HCO Manual of Justice, HCO, London, 1959.
• JCA-126. HCOB Integrity Processing Series 10R, Integrity Processing Questions Must Be F/Ned, 13 December 1972R, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IX, p.278.
• JCA-127. Mary Sue Hubbard, Guardian Order 121669, Programme: Intelligence: Internal Security, 16 December 1969.
• JCA-128. Laurel Sullivan testimony, Church of Scientology of California v Armstrong, Los Angeles, case no. C 420 153, vol.19A, pp.3001-3004, 24 May 1984.
• JCA-129. Nancy Dincalci testimony, CSC v Armstrong, 29 May 1984, vol.20, pp.3531-3533, 3553, 3568, 3569.
• JCA-130. Kima Douglas testimony, CSC v Armstrong, 5 June 1984, vol.25, pp.4437-4439, 4460.
• JCA-131. testimony of Edward Walters, CSC v Armstrong, 29 May 1984, vol.20, p. 3585. (see also testimony of Ernest and Adelle Hartwell in the Clearwater Hearings, May 1982).
• JCA-132. HCOB Word Clearing, 24 June 1971, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IX, p.392, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-133. HCOB Confused Ideas, 31 August 1971, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.VII, p.373, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-134. HCOPL Sanity, 19 May 1970, The Management Series, vol.1, Bridge, LA, 1982.
• JCA-135. Board Technical Bulletin High Crime Checkouts and Technical OKs, 8 March 1975, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.IX, pp.99-101, CSC, LA, 1976.
• JCA-136. HCOPL Policies on Physical Healing, Insanity and Sources of Trouble, 27 October 1964R, Organization Executive Course, vol.1, 2nd edition, 1991.
• JCA-137. HCOPL Students Guide to Acceptable Behaviour, 15 December 1965.
• JCA-138. HCOB Expanded Green Form 40RD, 30 June 1971RD, Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, vol.XII, pp.60-69, CSC, LA, 1980.
• JCA-139. Boards of Directors of the Churches of Scientology, "Ethics, Cancellation of Fair Game, more about", Policy Letter of 22 July 1980.
• JCA-140. Hubbard, "Ethics, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists, the Fair Game Law", Policy Letter of 1 March 1965,
• reprinted in the Scientology Basic Staff Hat Book, number 1, pp.40-44, 1968 edition.
• JCA-141. Hubbard, "Penalties for Lower Conditions", Policy Letter of 18 October 1967, reprinted in the Scientology Basic Staff Hat Book, number 1, p.26, Church of Scientology of California, East Grinstead, 1968.
• JCA-142. Hubbard, "Cancellation of Fair Game", Policy Letter of 21 October 1968.
• JCA-143. Leif Windle, Morris Budlong & Jane Kember, "Confidential Intelligence Course", Guardian Order of 9 September 1974.
• JCA-144. Sentencing memorandum of the United States of America, in USA v. Kember and Budlong, US District Court for the District of Columbia, criminal no. 78 401 (2) & (3).
• JCA-145. Church of Scientology International, "Cancellation of Issues on Suppressive Acts and PTSes", Policy Letter of 8 September 1983.
• JCA-146. Mr. Justice Latey in "B & G wards", Royal Courts of Justice, 23 July 1984.
• JCA-147. Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California, Court of Appeal of the State of California, civ.no.B023193, 18 July 1989 (upheld by the U,S. Supreme Court, 7 March 1994).
• JCA-148. Hubbard, "Dept of Government Affairs", Policy Letter of 15 August 1960,
• JCA-149. The Auditor, issue 31.
• JCA-150, Hubbard, Overcoming Ups and Downs in Life, "The Antisocial Personality", 1988 edition.JCA-151. Sue Porter, "Suppressive Persons and Suppressive Groups List", Sea Organization Flag Executive Directive, 25 July 1992.
• JCA-152. Miscavige, reported in International Scientology News, issue 31.
• JCA-153. Hubbard, "Ron's Journal, 1967", transcript of lecture, recorded 20 September 1967 (issued as a cassette tape recording in 1983).
• JCA-154. Sentencing Memorandum in USA v MSH et al, US District Court for the District of Columbia, criminal case no. 78-401, pp.1-4 & 14.
• JCA-155. ibid, p.69 (see also Stipulation of Evidence in this case, where the following co-conspirators or participants are named: Joseph Alesi (pp.98, 75); Don Alverzo (22, 89, 101f); Peeter Alvet (183, 244); Brian Andrus (231, 233, 241, 243, 251, 265); Michael Baum (146); Jim Douglas (249f); Nancy Douglas ("Pitts") (46, 70); Jim Fiducia (239); Janet Finn (183); Martin Greenberg (107, 133); Richard Kimmel (98); Paul Klopper (peripheral involvement) (157, 265); Gary Lawrence (247); Joe Lisa (35, 200); John Luke (247); Lynn McNeill (45); Arthur "Artie" Maren (51, 170); John Matoon (248); Carla Moxon (22); Rick Moxon (presumably Kendrick Moxon, attorney) (197, 213f); Jimmy Mulligan (108, 180); george Pilat (247); Lexie Ramirez (143); Bruce Raymond (aka Randy Windment) (131f, 212, 251); Chuck Reese (244, 250); Tom Reitze (Snow White I/C) (142); Mary Rezzonico (107, 170); Michael Taylor (62); Peggy Tyson (71); Bruce Ullman (22, 176); Hugh Wilhere (150); Lt warren Young (San Diego police) (205).
• JCA-156 HCOPL The Ethics of Scientology Its Use and Purpose Being a Scientologist, 27 March 1965.
• JCA-157. HCOPL Handling the Public Individual, 16 April 1965, issue III, Organization Execuitve Course, vol.1, 2nd edition, Bridge, LA, 1991.
• JCA-158. What is Scientology?, 2nd edition, p.245, Bridge, LA, 1992.
• JCA-159. Declaration of Hon. James M. Ideman, United States District Court, Central District of California, in Religious Technology Center v Scott et al (no. CV 85-711 JMI [Bx]) and Religious Technology Center v Wollersheim et al (no. CV 85-7197 JMI [Bx]), filed 21 June 1993.
• JCA-160. James B.Stewart, jr, Scientology's War Against Judges, American Lawyer, December 1980.
• JCA-161. The Pledge to Mankind.
• JCA-162. Impact, issue 3, 1985, pp.19 & 32.
• JCA-163. Conway and Siegelman, Information Disease - Have Cults Created a New Mental Illness?, Science Digest, January 1982.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:00 am

How Scientology Got to Bob Minton
by Thomas C. Tobin and Joe Childs
Times Staff Writers
November 2, 2009

Image
Bob Minton pickets in Clearwater. At the time, Marty Rathbun, identified as a “top Scientology official,’’ said this of Minton: “I worry about this guy because he’s deranged.”

Robert S. Minton seemed to surface out of nowhere in late 1997.

• A retired investment banker and millionaire from New England, he began to show up at anti-Scientology demonstrations in Boston and Clearwater. He gave millions to groups critical of the church.
• He became the money man behind a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of Lisa McPherson, whose unexplained death at Scientology's Clearwater mecca threw the church into crisis.
• Minton quickly became the Church of Scientology's No. 1 nemesis.
• "I felt that the little guys needed some help," he once said. "I'm putting my money where my mouth is."

Much of the church's response to Minton has been documented — the legal onslaught, the skirmishes that sought to bait him, get him in trouble and torpedo his credibility.

Twice he was arrested and charged after minor scuffles with Scientologists while picketing church properties. Once, he fired a shotgun into the air after Scientologists appeared at his New Hampshire farm.

Early on, the church dispatched private investigators to talk to his son, his brother, his wife's family in England, his elderly mother in Florida.

Still, Minton wouldn't go away.

Now former church officials Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder reveal the other tactics they used.

Shortly after Minton burst onto the scene, the pair arranged two meetings with the millionaire to introduce themselves and glean his motives. Both times they brought a tool worthy of James Bond. They set it on the table.

"It was a black briefcase with a small pinhole camera hole and a small mic hole," Rathbun said. "And so we recorded the entire thing without the guy's knowledge."

This and other accounts illustrate how far Scientology was willing to go to stop Minton, who, in a stunning reversal five years later, ended up testifying in court on the church's behalf.

That part of the story begins with David Lubow, the same private investigator the church used just a few years earlier to infiltrate a group of Scientologists in Las Vegas.

Rathbun and Rinder said they turned to Lubow in the late 1990s to look into Minton's financial affairs overseas. Lubow deployed to the capitals of Europe, dropping aliases and recruiting helpers to make Minton think he was being investigated by multiple agents, Rathbun said.

"He was very elaborate," Rathbun said of Lubow. "He's actually very good at what he does.''

Rinder said the operation fit with the directives of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who wrote that if a person accuses you of something, they themselves are guilty of those crimes.

"Minton was accusing the church of having bought off the IRS and gained false tax-exempt status," Rinder said. "So, the focus was: Find his financial crimes.''

In 2001, Lubow returned from overseas with loads of information, including details on an alleged money-laundering scheme involving Minton and a Nigerian dictator that was never proved. Lubow wanted direction.

He said he had been dealing with personnel at OSA, the Office of Special Affairs, headed at the time by Rinder. The office served as the church's legal, intelligence and public affairs arm, but the people under Rinder didn't have the authority to give Lubow the freedom he needed.

Rinder and Rathbun corrected that problem, bringing Lubow to Clearwater for a meeting. They said they went to the parking lot of a bank on Cleveland Street, not wanting to risk someone spotting him entering a Scientology building. The three convened for hours in a car.

"We got the guy focused like a laser beam," Rathbun said.

Rinder said he told Lubow not to take orders from anyone else at OSA and to report only to Rathbun and him.

"Here is your order," Rinder said he told the PI. "Get the goods on Minton to shut him the f--- up."

By the spring of 2002, Scientology had painted Minton into a corner.

On the legal front, the church pulled Minton into its efforts to have the lawsuit by McPherson's family dismissed.

During a memorable court hearing on April 19, 2002, Minton took the stand and made the jaw-dropping statement that the plaintiff's attorney, Ken Dandar, was a "lying thief" who was "only in this for money."

Dandar had considered Minton a strong ally for years. He couldn't believe it.

"This man I adore, he was a saint," the Tampa lawyer said at the time. "It's like stabbing me in the heart. I'm just sitting there going, 'What did they do to you?' "

Also, the millionaire now had a legal problem. He previously testified under oath that he had given $1 million or $1.3 million to the McPherson family's legal effort. Now he said in an affidavit it was $2 million.

The judge in the case, Susan Schaeffer, made noises about perjury and wondered aloud if someone should read Minton his rights.

What had gone on behind the scenes to change Minton's stripes?

Rathbun and Rinder told how it was done.

In the weeks before Minton's public turnaround, they say the church met with him some 20 times to discuss dropping the McPherson case and compensating Scientology. Church officials said Minton had caused them to spend $28 million to defend against his efforts.

At one of the meetings, Rinder said, he presented Minton with what Lubow had found about the millionaire's finances.

"There were things that, really, he was worried about and had caused problems for him in the investigation that we had done," Rinder said, declining to give more detail. "I'm just going to leave it at that."

Dandar said he can't talk about the case, citing the terms of the 2004 settlement agreement.

But he said in 2002 that Minton called him in a panic after one of his meetings with the church. Minton begged him to drop the lawsuit, Dandar said at the time.

At one of the private meetings, Rinder issued an ultimatum, saying the church knew he had lied under oath. He demanded that Minton come clean.

"If you are not willing to tell the truth, we are wasting our time and we'll just keep going after you," Rinder said he told Minton.

"And what we were going after him on was where he got and had earned his money.''

Later, in Schaeffer's courtroom, Minton said he lied, at Dandar's direction. In a subsequent interview, he said he feared being sent to jail for perjury.

Dandar has denied Minton's accusation and charged that the perjury scare was a charade. The church had something serious on Minton, he said at the time.

"Here's a man who put in six years and $10 million and all of a sudden he's having an about-face? All you have to do is apply common sense."

Minton could not be reached for comment.

He had become an anti-Scientology crusader in the mid 1990s after learning about the church's efforts to keep its materials from being publicized on the Internet. The more he read, he said in interviews, the more he became concerned about Scientology practices that, to him, seemed to violate its members' civil and human rights.

But after years spent on anti-Scientology causes, he left the public stage as quickly as he had arrived, thoroughly subdued.

When you fought Scientology, Minton once said, "It was like the Terminator was after you."

Rinder, who once described Minton's actions as "despicable and disgusting," said he now considers him a friend.

Asked to comment about the church's use of Lubow to investigate Minton, Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis did not address the case specifically but talked about the church's use of private investigators in general. He said in a statement that the church doesn't hire PIs, its lawyers do, and they operate within legal and ethical bounds.

If Rinder and Rathbun abused anyone, "they are the ones to blame," Davis wrote. "Other church officials were not involved in their duties."
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:02 am

Hubbard and the Occult
by Jon Atack

I stand before you having been accused in print by L. Ron Hubbard's followers of having an avid interest in black magic. I would like to put firmly on record that whatever interest I have is related entirely to achieving a better understanding of the creator of Dianetics and Scientology. Hubbard's followers have the right to be made aware that he had not only an avid interest, but that he was also a practitioner of black magic. Today I shall discuss these matters in depth, but I shall not repeat all of the proofs which already exist in my book A Piece of Blue Sky (1).

Scientology is a twisting together of many threads. Ron Hubbard's first system, Dianetics, which emerged in 1950, owes much to early Freudian ideas (2). For example, Hubbard's "Reactive Mind" obviously derives from Freud's "Unconscious". The notion that this mind thinks in identities comes from Korzybski's General Semantics. Initially, before deciding that he was the sole source of Dianetics and Scientology (3), Hubbard acknowledged his debt to these thinkers (4). Dianetics bears marked similarities to work reported by American psychiatrists Grinker and Speigel (5) and English psychiatrist William Sargant (6). The first edition of Hubbard's 1950 text Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (7) carried an advertisement for a book published a year earlier (8). Psychiatrist Nandor Fodor had been writing about his belief in the residual effects of the birth trauma for some years, following in the footsteps of Otto Rank. In lectures given in 1950, Hubbard also referred to works on hypnosis which had obviously influenced his techniques (9). The very name "Dianetics" probably owes something to the, at the time, highly popular subject of Cybernetics. (10).

By 1952, Hubbard had lost the rights to Dianetics, having bailed out just before the bankruptcy of the original Hubbard Research Foundation. He had also managed to avoid the charges brought against that Foundation by the New Jersey Medical Association for teaching medicine without a license (11). In a matter of days in the early spring of 1952, Hubbard moved from his purported "science of mental health" into the territory of reincarnation and spirit possession. He called his new subject Scientology, claiming that the name derived for "scio" and "logos" and meant "knowing how to know". However, Hubbard was notorious for his sly humour and "scio" might also refer to the Greek word for a "shade" or "ghost". Scientology itself had already been used at the turn of the century to mean "pseudo-science" and in something close to Hubbard's meaning in 1934 by one of the proponents of Aryan racial theory (12). Other possible links between Hubbard's thought and that of the Nazis will be made clear later in this paper.

Scientology seems to be a hybrid of science-fiction and magic. Hubbard's reflection on philosophy seem to derive largely from Will Durant's Story of Philosophy (13) and the works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley is surely the most famous black magician of the twentieth-century. It is impossible to arrive at an understanding of Scientology without taking into account its creator's extensive involvement with magic. The trail has been so well obscured in the past that even such a scholar as Professor Gordon Melton has been deceived into the opinion that Hubbard was not a practitioner of ritual magic and that Scientology is not related to magical beliefs and practices. In the book A Piece of Blue Sky, I explored these connections in detail. The revelations surrounding Hubbard's private papers in the 1984 Armstrong case in California makes any denial of the connections fatuous. The significances of these connections is of course open to discussion.

The chapter in A Piece of Blue Sky that describes Hubbard's involvement with the ideas of magic is called His Magickal Career. I hope I shall be excused for relying upon it. I shall also here describe further research, and comment particularly upon Hubbard's use of magical symbols, and the inescapable view that many of the beliefs and practices of Scientology are a reformation of ritual magic (14).

In 1984, a former close colleague of Hubbard's told me that thirty years before when asked how he had managed to write Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health in just three weeks, Hubbard had replied that it had been automatic writing. He said that the book had been dictated by "the Empress". At the time, I had no idea who or what "the Empress" might be. Later, I noticed that in an article printed immediately prior to the book Dianetics, Hubbard had openly admitted to his use of "automatic writing, speaking and clairvoyance" (15). However, it took several years to understand this tantalising reference to the Empress.

In the 1930's, Hubbard became friendly with fellow adventure writer Arthur J. Burks. Burks described an encounter with "the Redhead" in his book Monitors. The text makes it clear that "the Redhead" is none other than Ron Hubbard. Burk said that when the Redhead had been flying gliders he would be saved from trouble by a "smiling woman" who would appear on the aircraft's wing (16). Burk put forward the view that this was the Redhead's "monitor" or guardian angel.

In 1945, Hubbard became involved with Crowley's acolyte, Jack Parsons. Parsons wrote to Crowley that Hubbard had "described his angel as a beautiful winged woman with red hair, whom he calls the Empress, and who had guided him through his life and saved him many times." In the Crowleyite system, adherents seek contact with their "Holy Guardian Angel".

John Whiteside Parsons, usually known as Jack, first met Hubbard at a party in August 1945. When his terminal leave from the US Navy began, on Dec 6th, 1945, Hubbard went straight to Parsons' house in Pasadena, and took up residence in a trailer in the yard. Parsons was a young chemist who had helped set up Jet Propulsion Laboratories and was one of the innovators of solid fuel for rockets. Parsons was besotted with Crowley's Sex Magick, and had recently become head of the Agape Lodge of the Church of Thelema in Los Angeles. The Agape Lodge was an aspect of the Ordo Templi Orientis, the small international group headed by Aleister Crowley.

Parsons' girlfriend soon transferred her affection to Hubbard. With her, Hubbard and Parsons formed a business partnership, as a consequence of which Parsons lost most of his money to Hubbard. However, before Hubbard ran away with the loot, he and Parsons participated in magical rituals which have received great attention among contemporary practitioners.

Parsons and Hubbard together performed their own version of the secret eighth degree ritual (17) of the Ordo Templi Orientis in January 1946. The ritual is called "concerning the secret marriage of gods with men" or "the magical masturbation" and is usually a homosexual ritual. The purpose of this ritual was to attract a woman willing to participate in the next stage of Hubbard and Parsons' Sex Magick.

Hubbard and Parsons were attempting the most daring magical feat imaginable. They were trying to incarnate the Scarlet Woman described in the Book of Revelation as "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlot and Abominations of the Earth...drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."(18). During the rituals, Parsons described Babalon as "mother of anarchy and abominations". The women who they believed had answered their call, Majorie Cameron, joined in with their sexual rituals in March 1946.

Parsons used a recording machine to keep a record of his ceremonies. He also kept Crowley informed by letter. The correspondence still exists. Crowley wrote to his deputy in New York "I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts".

Crowley was being disingenuous. His own novel The Moonchild describes a ritual with a similar purpose. Further, the secret IXth degree ritual of the Ordo Templi Orientis (19) contains "Of the Homunculus" in which the adept seeks to create a human embodiment of one of the energies of nature - a god or goddess. The ritual says "to it thou are Sole God and Lord, and it must serve thee."

In fact, Hubbard and Parsons were committing sacrilege in Crowley's terms. Crowley respelled "Babylon" as he respelled "magic". His magick was entirely dedicated to Babalon, the Scarlet Woman. Crowley believed himself the servant and slave of Babalon, the antichrist, styling himself "The Beast, 666". For anyone to try to incarnate and control the goddess must have been an impossible blasphemy to him. Crowley, after all, called Babalon "Our Lady".

Hubbard and Parsons attempt did not end with the conception of a human child. However, just as Crowley said that "Gods are but names for the forces of Nature themselves" (21), so it might be speculated that Hubbard embodied Babalon not in human form, but through his organization.

Parsons sued Hubbard in Florida in July 1946, managing to regain a little of his money. The record of their rituals was later transcribed and has since been published as The Babalon Working (22). Parsons made a return to Magick, writing The Book of The Antichrist in 1949 (23). Parsons pronounced himself the Antichrist. In a scientology text, Hubbard spoke favourably of Parsons, making no mention of their magical liaison (24). A Piece of Blue Sky covers Hubbard's involvement with Parsons in much greater detail than I have given here.

Hubbard's interest in the occult was kindled long before he met Parsons. It dates back at least to his membership of the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis or AMORC, in 1940. Hubbard had completed the first two neophyte degrees before his membership lapsed, and later there were private complaints that he had incorporated some of the teaching he had promised to keep secret into Scientology (25).

Having stolen Parsons' girl and his money, Hubbard carried on with magical practices of his own devising. Scientology attempted to reclaim documents which recorded these practices in its case against former Hubbard archivist Gerald Armstrong. Some $280,000 was paid to publishers Ralston Pilot to prevent publication of Omar Garrison's authorised biography of Hubbard. However, Garrison retained copies of thousands of Hubbard's documents and showed me one which had been referred to in the Armstrong trial. The Blood Ritual is an invocation of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, performed by Hubbard during the late 1940's. As the name suggests, the ritual involved the use of blood. Hubbard mingled his own blood with that of his then wife (the girlfriend he had stolen from Parsons and with whom Hubbard contracted a bigamous marriage.)

In a 1952 Scientology lecture, Hubbard referred to "Aleister Crowley, my very good friend" (26). In fact, the two black magicians never met, and Crowley expressed a very low opinion of the man who he saw had tricked his disciple Jack Parsons. Even so, Hubbard had a very positive regard for Crowley, calling his work "fascinating" (27) and recommending one of his books to Scientologists. Having referred to Crowley as "The Beast 666", Hubbard said that he had "picked a level of religious worship which is very interesting." (28). He also made it clear that he had read the fundamental text of the Crowley teaching, The Book of the Law (29).

In his 1952 lectures, Hubbard also referred to the Tarot cards, saying that they were not simply a system of divination but a "philosophical machine". He gave particular mention to the Fool card, saying "The Fool of course is the wisest of all. The Fool who goes down the road with the alligators at his heels, and the dogs yapping at him, blindfolded on his way, he knows all there is and does nothing about it...nothing could touch him" (30).

The only Tarot pack which has a alligator on the Fool Card is Crowley's (31). When I interviewed Gerald Armstrong, Hubbard's archivist, in 1984, he told me of a Hubbard scale dating from the 1940's. At the base of the scale was the word "animals". It then ascended through "labourers, farmers, financiers, fanatics" and "the Fool" to "God". Hubbard seemed to have seen himself as the Fool and was perhaps trying to create a trampoline of fanatics through whom he could achieve divinity. Indeed, if Scientology could live up to its claims, then Hubbard would be a "godmaker".

Of course, the Tarot pack also contains the Empress card and knowing this it is finally possible to understand what Hubbard believed his Guardian Angel to be.

Crowley examined the Tarot in The Book of Thoth (32). Of the Empress card he said "She combines the highest spiritual with the lowest material qualities" (33). Crowley identifies the Empress as the "Great Mother" and indeed on her robe are bees (34), the traditional symbol of Cybele. Crowley is not alone in the belief that different cultures give different names to the same deities. The worship of Cybele goes back to at least 3,000 B.C. She entered Greek culture as Artemis and to the Romans was Diana, the huntress. Crowley also identified the Empress with the Hindu goddess Shakti (35), and the Egyptian goddess Isis and Hathor. Crowley directly identified Isis with Diana (36). More usually, Crowley called the Empress by the name Babalon (37).

Contemporary New Age groups see the Great Mother in the aspect of Gaia the Earth Mother. This is far from Crowley's view. Diana, the patroness of witchcraft (38) was seen by Hubbard rather through the eyes of Crowley than as a benevolent, loving mother. Hubbard made no reference for example to Robert Graves' White Goddess, but only to Crowley and peripherally to Frazer's Golden Bough and Gibbon's Decline and Fall, both or which give reference to the cult of Diana. To Crowley, the Great Mother, Babalon, is, of course, also the antichrist.

While Crowley's path was submission to the Empress, Hubbard seems to have tried to dominate the same force, bringing it into being as a servile homunculus. Hubbard's eldest son, although a questionable witness, was insistent that his father taught him magic and privately referred to the goddess as Hathor. The Blood Ritual confirms this assertion if nothing else.

Publicly, Hubbard was taken with the Roman name of the goddess, Diana, giving it to one of his daughters and also to one of his Scientology Sea Organization boats. Curiously this boat had been renamed The Enchanter and before Scientology he had owned another called The Magician. Hubbard had also used Jack Parsons' money to buy a yacht called Diane (39). "Dianetics" may also be a reference to Diana. Shortly before its inception, another former US Navy Officer and practitioner of the VIIIth degree of the Ordo Templi Orientis had formed a group called Dianism (40).

When The Blood Ritual was mentioned during the Armstrong trial in 1984, Scientology's lawyer asserted that it was an invocation of an Egyptian goddess of love (41). Hathor is indeed popularly seen as a winged and spotted cow which feeds humanity. However, there is an important lesson about Scientology in the practice of magicians. The teachings of magic are considered by many practitioners to be powerful and potentially dangerous and therefore have to be kept secret. One of the easiest ways to conceal the true meaning of a teaching is to reverse it. By magicians Hathor is also seen as an aspect of Sekmet, the avenging lioness. One authority on ritual magic has revealed the identity of Hathor as "the destroyer of man" (42). The important lesson is that Scientology has both a public and a hidden agenda. Publicly it is a Church, privately as the record of convictions shows, it is an Intelligence agency. Many public Hubbard works speak of helping people. In his largely secret Fair Game teachings, however, Hubbard is outspoken in his attack upon either critics of himself or his works. For example, in What is Greatness? Hubbard says "The hardest task one can have is to continue to love one's fellows despite all reasons he should not. And the true sign of sanity and greatness is so to continue." In one statement of the Fair Game Law, however, Hubbard said that opponents "May be tricked, sued or lied or destroyed" (43). Of practitioners unlicensed by him Hubbard said "Harass these persons in any possible way" (44). Nor did he exclude the possibility of murder against those who opposed him (45). The harassment of critics, may explain the dearth of academic research into Scientology. Hubbard's use of contradiction to captivate and redirect his followers is worthy of a separate study (46) but it has its roots in his study of magic. Perhaps he related his "Dianetics" also to Janus, the two-faced god whose name is sometimes called "Dianus".

While Hubbard was supposedly researching his Dianetics in the late 1940s, he was in fact engaging in magical rituals, and trying out hypnosis both on himself and others. During the 1984 Armstrong trial, extracts from Hubbard's voluminous self-hypnotic affirmations were read into the record. The statements, hundreds of pages of them, are written in red ink and Hubbard frequently drew pictures of the male genitalia alongside the text (47). Amongst his suggestions to himself we find, "Men are my slaves", "Elemental Spirits are my slaves" and "You can be merciless whenever your will is crossed and you have every right to be merciless" (48).

Black magic is distinguished from white in the desire of the practitioner to bring harm. "Maleficium" is the traditional word for such magic. The "Suppressive Person declare" and the "Fair Game Law" speak reams in terms of Hubbard's intent.

Scientology is a neo-gnostic system, which is to say that it teaches the attainment of insight through a series of stages. These stages are called by Scientologists "the Bridge to Total Freedom". The Bridge currently consists of some 27 levels. These levels might be compared to the initiations of magical systems. While the stages appear dissimilar to those of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis, it is worth noting that both systems consist of stages, that both have secret levels and that both are numbered with Roman numerals. Hubbard also shared with Crowley a numbering system which begins at 0 rather than 1.

The Scientology Bridge has as its end the creation of an "Operating Thetan". Hubbard used the word "thetan" to identify the self, the spirit which is the person. He claimed that the word derived from an earlier Greek usage of the letter theta for "spirit" (49). I have been unable to find such a usage, but can comment that the theta symbol is central to the Crowley system where it is found as an aspect of the sign used for Babalon. To Crowley, the theta sign represented the essential principles of his system - thelema or the will. (50)

By "Operating Thetan", Hubbard meant and individual or "thetan" able to "operate" freely from the physical body, able to cause effects at a distance by will alone. In Hubbard's words "a thetan exterior who can have but doesn't have to have a body in order to control or operate thought, life, matter, energy, space and time" (51). Hubbard used the term "intention" rather than "will" (52), but the goal of Scientology is clearly the same as that of the Crowley system. The Scientologist wishes to be able to control events and the minds of others by intention. This seems to be exactly what Crowley called "thelema". In a 1952 lecture, Hubbard recommended a book which he called "The Master Therion" (53). This was in fact one of Crowley's "magical" names. I have been advised by an officer of one of the Ordo Templi Orientis groups that the reference is most likely to Crowley's magnum opus Magick in Theory and Practice. In that work, Crowley gave this definition "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will" (54). So the aim of both Crowley and Hubbard seems to have been the same.

As a recovering Scientologist, I must raise an ethical objection to the desire to control the minds of others without their consent. This is the purpose of many Scientology procedures (55), and can be seen either as deliberate "mind control" or as the black magician's contempt of others. Scientology is a curious hybrid of magic and psychology. After all, Hubbard boasted "we can brainwash faster than the Russians - 20 seconds to total amnesia" (56).

At the centre of Crowley's teaching is the notion that we can control our own destiny: "Postulate: Any required Change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner through the proper medium of the proper object" (57); further "Every intentional act is a Magical Act" (58); "Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the postulate have not been fulfilled" (59). Hubbard taught that everything is down to the intention of the individual. He called such intentions "postulates". The victim of any negative event is said to have "pulled it in". Hubbard taught a contempt for "victims" and regarded sympathy as a low emotional condition (60). As Crowley put it "Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers ... he may thus subjugate the whole Universe of which he is conscious to his individual Will" (61).

Hubbard was to employ or parallel so many of Crowley's ideas and approaches that it is impossible, especially with Hubbard's references to Crowley, to avoid comparison. For example, in his Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard laid much emphasis on the recollection of birth. Crowley had earlier insisted that the magician must recall his birth (62). Crowley spoke of "A equals" (63), where Hubbard, again in Dianetics spoke of "A equals A equals A". Both men were noisy in their contempt for pyschotherapists (64). Both Hubbard and Crowley spoke of "past lives" rather than "reincarnation" (65). Indeed, the notion of past lives and their recollection is essential to both systems, as Crowley wrote "There is no more important task than the exploration of one's previous incarnations" (66). Scientology and Dianetics also rely upon the supposed recollection of previous incarnations. Crowley called this the "magical memory" (67).

Hubbard gave as the fundamental axiom of his system "Life is basically a static. A Life static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time." (68). Crowley was more succinct, called the self "nothing" (69). Hubbard was to say that even an "Operating Thetan" could not "operate" alone, and Crowley said "Even in Magick we cannot get on without the help of others" (70).

The first essential teaching of Scientology is that "reality is basically agreement" (71) or "reality is the agreed-upon apparency of existence" (72), which Crowley expressed as "The universe is a projection of ourselves; an image as unreal as that of our faces in the mirror...not to be altered save as we alter ourselves" (73). The controlling power of thought, or will, is evident in both systems, Crowley has it "we can never affect anything outside ourselves save only as it is also within us."(74).

Both men believed that truth is unobtainable in the material world. Crowley expressed it thus "There is no such thing as truth in the perceptible universe (75). Hubbard said "The ultimate truth...has no mass, meaning, mobility, no wavelength, no location in space, no space." (76)

Hubbard's concept of the "thetan exterior" - operating apart from the body - is found in Crowley's "interior body of the Magician" which can "pass through matter" (77). Both systems seek to get the spirit "out of the body" (78).

Crowley said "Evil is only an appearance...like good" (79), where Hubbard said that "goodness and badness...are considerations, and no other basis than opinion" (80).

Each spoke of a personal "universe" (81). Hubbard also followed in Crowley's footsteps with the insistence that the meaning of words should be clarified or "cleared" (82).

Crowley announced that Christ was "concocted" (83) which tallies with Hubbard's assertion that Christ was a hypnotic "implant" (84). Here the major difference between Crowley and Hubbard becomes apparent: Crowley was publicly outspoken about his views, Hubbard was careful to keep negative material secret. Scientology claims to be eclectic and non-denominational. Only in secret teachings is Hubbard's contempt for Christianity apparent (85).

The long series of lectures in which Hubbard called Crowley his "very good friend" and recommended his writings, centres on a technique called "creative processing" by Hubbard. It is unsurprising that this technique is common to magicians. Nowadays it is more usually known as "visualisation."

Scientology surely has the distinction of containing the largest collection of teachings produced by one man. There are more than a hundred books and over 2,500 recorded lectures. But there are also thousands of registered trademarks, including many symbols.

Many of these symbols have magical significance. It seems highly unlikely given his study of the occult that Hubbard was unaware of the earlier use of these symbols. The Scientology cross which Hubbard claimed to have seen in an old Spanish church in Arizona (86) is markedly similar to the Rosicrucian cross (87) and also to Aleister Crowley's OTO cross. Hubbard had been a member of the Rosicrucians. He had also commented on Crowley's Tarot which carries the OTO cross on the back of every card. Hubbard cannot have been ignorant of these uses.

The Scientology cross could also be seen as a crossed out cross, with potentially Satanic implications. It seems strange that Hubbard who called Scientology a "better" activity than Christianity (88) called Christ an invention (89) and said that the "Creator of Heaven" would be found "with beetles under the rocks" (90), should have adopted the exclusive Christian word "church", the garb of Christian ministers and the use of the cross as a symbol. But Scientology is based upon deception and contradictions.

The Rosicrucians and the Freemasons share a ritual called the "grave of fire" (91). A senior Rosicrucian who had also studied Scientology told me that the initiate lies on a carpet within a pattern of lapping flames. He claimed that Scientology's Religious Technology Center - or RTC - symbol was very similar.

The RTC symbol contains the Dianetics triangle, which is a common magical symbol, representing the door of the Cabala, the letter Daleth. Hubbard indeed assigned it to the Greek equivalent of Daleth, Delta. The triangle on its base is also the symbol of Set, the Egyptian god called by some "the destroyer of man", the male equivalent of Babalon. Indeed Crowley equates Set with Satan (93). The triangle is universally recognised as a sign of malign power. Alexandra David-Neel commented upon its use as such among the Tibetans. Her best-selling books of the 1930's contain many other possible comparisons with Hubbard's work.

The "S and double triangle" is a major symbol found throughout Scientology. The "S" supposedly represents "Scientology" and the two triangles Affinity-Reality- communication and Knowledge-Responsibility-Control. There is another possible interpretation. The "S" seen on its own can easily be seen as a snake. To Crowley, indeed, the "S" represented the tempting serpent, Satan. Perhaps Hubbard's "thetan" is pronounced to match with a lisped "satan"? He was after all wry in his humour. The two triangles can be assembled differently to form the Star of David, called the Seal of Solomon by magicians (94). This symbol allegedly represents "tetragrammaton" the holy name of God which must never be spoken. Perhaps breaking it apart is similar to hanging the Christian cross upside down.

Next we see the Sea Organization symbol. The five pointed star, or pentacle is the most commonly known symbol of magical power. It is held between two thirteen-leaved laurels. Armstrong told me in 1984 that judging by the papers in Hubbard's archive the creator of Scientology was more interested in numerology than any other aspect of magic.

Among the more seemingly fanciful claims of Hubbard's oldest son, L. Ron, junior, was that his father was the successor to the magicians who created Nazism. Nazism was certainly an authoritarian group, a protypical destructive cult. Recent revelations about leading Scientologist Thomas Marcellus' long-running direction of the Institute for Historical Review can only add to speculation (95). Dusty Sklar has said that had she known about Hubbard she would have used him in the last chapter of The Nazis and the Occult rather than Sun Myung Moon (96). L. Ron, junior, was sure that the teachings of the Germanen Orden and the Thule Society had passed directly to his father by courier. In this light, the white circle on a red square of Scientology's International Management Organization (97) can be readily compared to the Nazi flag. The four lightning flashes or "sig runes" are also common to Nazism. No explanation is given for these sig runes by Scientology. They also appear on the RTC symbol. At the time that both of these symbols were introduced, Hubbard also created the International Finance Police, headed by the International Finance Dictator. An unusual choice of words.

Image

Hitler too had been aware of the power of occult symbols and rituals. Speaking of Freemasons, he said "All the supposed abominations, the skeletons and death's head, the coffins and the mysteries, are mere bogeys for children. But there is one dangerous element and that is the element I have copied from them. They form a sort of priestly nobility. They have developed an esoteric doctrine more merely formulated, but imparted through the symbols and mysteries in degrees of initiation. The hierarchical organization and the initiation through symbolic rites, that is to say, without bothering the brain by working on the imagination through magic and the symbols of a cult, all this has a dangerous element, and the element I have taken over. Don't you see that our party must be of this character...? An Order, the hierarchical Order of a secular priesthood." (98)

Having shown many comparisons between Crowley's work and Hubbard's, and having shown the common intent of both systems, I shall now move on to the secret rituals of Scientology. The attempt to obtain magical powers is certainly not unique to Hubbard and Crowley. Every culture seems to have its own approach.

One common element to most cultures is the belief in disembodied spirits. Disembodied spirits can be found in the teachings of all the major religions (99). Crowley shared with many the belief that such spirits can be used in the practice of magic (100). Most of the secret teachings of Scientology concern such disembodied spirits.

Toward the end of his life, Hubbard wrote some chirpy pop songs which were recorded under his direction (101). One of these songs, The Evil Purpose, begins "in olden days the populace was much afraid of demons and paid an awful sky high price to buy some priestly begones". The song goes on to explain that there are no demons, "just the easily erased evil purpose". In fact, the Operating Thetan levels are concerned almost entirely with "body thetans" or indwelling spirits or demons.

Hubbard first floated the idea to his adherents in spring 1952, during his first Scientology lectures (102). He spoke of "theta" as the life-force and went on to describe "theta beings" and "theta bodies". Mention was made again that June in the book What to Audit, which is still in print, minus a chapter - as Scientology: A History of Man. Here Hubbard said that we are all inhabited by seven foreign spirits, the leader of which he called the "crew chief". The idea did not find favour, so it was abandoned for fourteen years.

In December 1966, in North Africa, Hubbard undertook "research" into an incident which he claimed had occurred 75 million years ago. In a tape recorded lecture given in September, 1967, Hubbard announced his revelation to Scientologists. On the same tape he boasted about his wife Mary Sue Hubbard's use of "Professional Intelligence Agents" to steal files. His wife, the controller of all Scientology organizations subsequently went to prison. Scientology continues to claim that its creator knew nothing of the events that put his wife into prison, but also continues to sell the tape. Armstrong, Hubbard's former archivist has said that the Hubbard archive contains letters written while he was creating Operating Thetan level three. In his lecture, Hubbard claimed to have broken his back while researching. Armstrong told me in 1984 that Hubbard had in fact got very drunk and fallen down in the gutter. A doctor had been called out to him to deal with a sprain. Hubbard also detailed his drug use in this correspondence. In February, 1967, Hubbard flew to Los Palmas and the woman who attended him there has told me that he was taking enormous quantities of drugs and was in a very debilitated state.

The result of Hubbard's "research" was a mixture of science-fiction and old-fashioned magic. According to Hubbard, 75 million years ago, Xenu, the overlord of 76 planets, rounded up most of the people of his empire, some 178 billion per planet - and brought them to Earth. Here they were exploded in volcanoes using hydrogen bombs and the spirits or thetans collected on "electronic ribbons". Disoriented from the massacre, the disembodied thetans were subjected to some 36 days of hypnotic "implanting" and clustered together. From seven indwelling spirits per person Hubbard's estimate had gone into the thousands. The "implants" supposedly contained the blueprint for future civilizations, including the Christian teaching, 75 million years before Christ. Operating Thetan level three had to be kept secret, according to Hubbard, because the unprepared will die within two days of discovering its contents. The story has in fact been published in many newspapers without noticeable loss of life. Hubbard was so taken with his science fiction, that he finally wrote a screenplay called Revolt in the Stars about the "OT3" incident, ignoring his own warnings.

It is often the case with Hubbard's work that he has simply taken other ideas and dressed them up in new expressions. Careful study shows that Dianetics included such words as "operator", "reverie", and "regression" common to hypnotic practitioners at the time. On leaving Scientology, most people cannot see that the "body thetans" of Operating Thetan levels three to seven are in fact the demons of Christian belief. The "OT levels" are factually the most expensive form of exorcism known to man. Unfortunately, such beliefs and practices can have a severe effect upon practitioners, who take Hubbard's warning to heart and come to believe themselves multiple personalities. I have been called to help in several times in such instances.

Indeed, the whole process of "auditing" can be seen as an update of magical ritual. Scientology is a mixture of occult ritual and 1950s style psychotherapy. The adherents travel through increasingly expensive initiations with the hope of attaining supernatural powers. There are badges, symbols and titles for almost every stage of the way.

Other links with ritual magic have emerged. A peculiar event occurred aboard Hubbard's flagship, the Apollo, in 1973. Those aboard ship responsible for overseeing the management of Scientology organizations were involved in a ceremony called thee Kali ceremony after the Hindu goddess of destruction. The whole was staged very seriously, and the managers were led into a dimly lit hold of the ship and ordered to destroy models of their organizations. A few years before, a high-ranking Sea Organization Officer claims to have been ordered to Los Angeles where he was meant to mount an armed attack on a magician's sabat. He did not mount the attack but claims that the meeting happened exactly where Hubbard had told him it would.

In 1976, Hubbard ordered a secret research project into the teachings of gnostic groups. He had already carried out a project to determine which of his ship's crew members were "soldiers of light" and which "soldiers of darkness". The latter group were apparently promoted. Jeff Jacobsen has provided insight into a possible connection between Hubbard's OT levels and gnostic teachings (103). Jacobsen quotes from the third century Christian gnostic Valentinus: "For many spirits dwell in it (the body) and do not permit it to be pure; each of them brings to fruition its own works, and they treat it abusively by means of unseemly desires". Jacobsen goes on to cite the gnostic Basildes, man "preserves the appearance of a wooden horse, according to the poetic myth, embracing as he does in one body a host of such different spirits." Jacobsen points out that multiple possession seems to have been considered normal by these gnostics. Possession equates to madness in orthodox Christianity, and example of multiple possession are rare [the Gadarene swine for example]. Jacobsen draws other interesting parallels between gnosticism and Scientology.

Another former Sea Organization member affidavited a meeting in the 1970's with an old man whose description fitted Hubbard's. She claimed to have been taken to the top floor of a Scientology building by high-ranking officials and left there with this man, who performed the sexual act with her, but very slowly (104). Indeed, in the way advocated by Crowley and called karezzo. No outside witness has corroborated this statement.

I have already said that the public and private faces of Scientology are very different. The vast majority of Hubbard's followers are good people who genuinely believe that the techniques of Scientology can help the world. Most are ignorant of the hidden Fair Game teachings. Hubbard presented himself as a messiah, as Maitreya the last Buddha, but in fact he was privately a highly disturbed and frequently ill man. There are a number of reports of his drug abuse. He advocated the use of amphetamines (105). He admitted to barbiturate addiction (106) and was also at times a heavy drinker. His treatment of those around him was often deplorable. Although holding himself out as an authority on child-rearing, his relationship with his children was genuinely dreadful. He disowned his first son, barely saw his first daughter, and Quentin, the oldest son of his third marriage, committed suicide. Quentin had reached the highest level of Scientology twice. He was a Class XII auditor and a "cleared theta clear", but he was also a homosexual. Hubbard was publicly homophobic - saying that all homosexuals are "covertly hostile" or backstabbers. I have received alarming reports of his sexual behaviour. I must emphasise that these reports are not corroborated, so can only stand as allegations.. One Sea Organization officer claims to have witnessed a sexual encounter between Hubbard and a young boy in North Africa. Another claims that Hubbard admitted to a sexual relationship with one of his own children. It is impossible to substantiate such reports. But such behaviour would be in keeping with an extreme devotee of Aleister Crowley who said that in the training of a magician "Acts which are essentially dishonourable must be done." (107).

In conclusion, I believe that Hubbard was a classic psychopath. Some trauma in infancy separated him from the world and made him untrusting of other people. This developed into a paranoia, a need to control others. He created a dissociated world, inhabited by the Empress. Bear in mind that he actually saw the Empress in full colour, and that she spoke to him (108). From his comments about automatic writing and speaking, it could be averred that Hubbard was in fact "channeling" the Empress. Hubbard separated off a compartment of himself calling it the Empress and gave in to its urging. He lived a life of dreadful contradiction. He claimed expertise in all things, but factually was a failure at most. Some will see him as having a psychiatric complaint, others will believe that he invoked the very devil, or Babalon, and was possessed. Hubbard's own belief lives on with all of its contradictions in his teaching. Ultimately, as Fritz Haack put it, Scientology is twentieth-century magic.

References:

(1) Atack, Jon, Lyle Stuart Books, New Jersey 1990

(2) Sigmund Freud, Clarke Lectures 1-3, in Two Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis, Penguin Books, London, 1962, Cf Hubbard "Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health" and "The Dianetic Auditors Course"

(3) Hubbard HCO Policy letter "Keeping Scientology Working", 7 February 1965

(4) e.g. acknowledgements lists in Hubbard's "Science of Survival", 1951, and "Scientology 8-8008, 1952, Phoenix Lectures, p. 264

(5) Grinker and Speigel, "Men Under Stress", McGraw-Hill, New York, 1945

(6) Sargant, "Battle for the Mind", Heinemann, London, 1957. Hubbard had a copy of this book on his library shelf in Washington, D.C. in 1958. It also has relevance to other aspects of Scientology.

(7) Hermitage House, 1950

(8) Fodor, "The Search for the Beloved - a clinical investigation of birth and the trauma of prenatal conditioning", Hermitage House, 1949

(9) Wolfe & Rosenthal, Hypnotism Comes of Age, Blue Ribbon, NY, 1949, Young Twenty-Five Lessons in Hypnotism, Padell, NY, 1944. Both recommended by Hubbard in Research & Discovery, volume 2, p. 12, 1st edition.

(10) Jeff Jacobsen has written two interesting papers relevant to any discussion of the origins of Scientology. Dianetics: From Out of the Blue, the Skeptic, UK, March/April 1992, which discusses the origins of Dianetics and The Hubbard is Bare, 1992, a more general discussion including comments about Crowley and gnosticism. I have worked for some time on a set of papers which discuss Hubbard's plagiarism, as yet these are unavailable.

(11) A Piece of Blue Sky, pp. 119 & 125-126.

(12) A Piece of Blue Sky, pg. 128

(13) See particularly the chapters on Bergson and Spencer.

(14) See also Jacobsen's The Hubbard is Bare and Bent Corydon's L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? Corydon relied upon excellent research by Brian Ambry but also upon L. Ron Hubbard jnr, whose credibility is questionable. See also L. Ron Hubbard, jnr, A Look Into Scientology or 1/10 of 1% of Scientology, manuscript, 1972.

(15) Hubbard, "Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science" originally printed in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1950. Republished by AOSH DK Publications Department, 1972, quotation from p. 56, see also p. 59.

(16) Burks, "Monitors" CSA Press, Lakemount, Georgia, 1967.

(17) King, Francis, The Secret Rituals of the OTO, C.W. Daniel, London, 1973.

(18) Revelation, chapter 17.

(19) Secret Rituals of the OTO

(20) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, Castle Books, New York, p. 88

(21) Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 120

(22) There is contention between the various OTO groups about the Book of Babalon. Its existence is sometimes denied, and the OTO New York have claimed that only a fragment exists (published in Parsons, Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword, Falcon, Las Vegas, 1989) I have read three versions of the manuscript, one is the Yorke transcript, another is un-named. The third was published in vol.1, issue 3 of Starfire, London, 1989.

(23) Published by Isis Research, Edmonton, Alberta, 1980, ed Plawiuk

(24) Professional Auditors Bulletin, no. 110, 15 April 1957.

(25) Author's interview with 15th degree Rosicrucian, 1984.

(26) Hubbard, Philadelphia Doctorate Course, lecture 18 "Conditions of Space-Time- Energy".

(27) Philadelphia Doctorate Course, lecture 18

(28) Philadelphia Doctorate Course, lecture 35

(29) Philadelphia Doctorate Course, lecture 40

(30) Hubbard, Philadelphia Doctorate Course, lecture 1, "Opening, What is to be done in the Course".

(31) Thoth Tarot Deck, US Games Systems, NY, ISBN 0-913866-15-6.

(32) Crowley, The Book of Thoth, Samuel Weiser, Maine, 1984. First edition 1944.

(33) Book of Thoth, p. 75

(34) Book of Thoth, p. 76

(35) Francis King, The Magical World of Aleister Crowley, Arrow Books, p. 56

(36) Crowley, Confessions, Bantam, New York, 1971, p. 693.

(37) e.g, Book of Thoth, pp. 136

(38) Cavendish, The Magical Arts, Arkana, London, 1984, p. 304

(39) A Piece of Blue Sky, p. 99

(40) Francis King, Ritual Magic in England, Spearman, London, 1970, p. 161

(41) Litt, in Church of Scientology v Armstrong, vol. 26, p. 4607

(42) Hope, Practical Egyptian Magic, Aquaarian, Northants, 1984, pp. 39 & 47. (43) HCO Policy

(43) HCO Policy letter, Penalities for Lower Conditions, 18 October 1967, Issue IV.

(44) HCO Executive Letter, Ampriministics, 27 September IV.

(44) HCO Executive letter, Amprinistics, 27 September 1975.

(45) e.g. HCO Policy Letter, Ethics, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientologists, the Fair Game Law, 1 March 1965. The offending part of the text was read into an English court judgment (Hubbard v Vosper, November, 1971, Court of Appeal). In USA v Jame Kember and Morris Budlong, in 1980, Scientology lawyers admitted that despite public representations Fair Game has never truly been "abrogated" (sentencing memorandum, District Court, Washington, D.C. criminal no. 78.401 (2) & (3), p. 16, footnote). The Policy Letter which did eventually cancel it, off 22 July 1980, was itself withdrawn on 8 September 1983. Unknown to MOST of its adherents, Fair game is still a scripture, and according to Hubbard's Standard Tech principle binding upon Scientologists. Hubbard issued a murder order in 1978 under the name "R2-45" (The Auditor issue 35). Thankfully, this order was not complied with.

(46) See for example the technique called False Data Stripping and Hubbard's comments on controlling people through contradictory instructions.

(47) Interview with Robert Vaughan Young, former Hubbard archivist, Corona Del Mar, April 1993.

(48) Affirmations, exhibits 500-4D, E, F & G, See Church of Scientology v Armstrong, transcript volume 11, p. 1886

(49) Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Dictionary, Church of Scientology of California, L.A., 1975, "theta" definition 6.

(50) The Babalon sign with a theta at the centre of a 7-pointed star is found in many of Crowley's works, e.g. The Book of Thoth. The winged sign of the OTO and the use of the theta sign can be found in various place, e.g. Equinox - Sex and Religion, Thelema Publishing Co., Nashville, 1981.

(51) Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, definition of "Operating Thetan".

(52) e.g., PAB 91, The Anatomy of Failure, 3 July 1956. See also definition of "Tone 40" in the Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, "giving a command and just knowing that it will be executed despite any contrary appearances"..

(53) Philadelphia Doctorate Course, lecture 18

(54) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. xii

(55) e.g., Dissemination Drill, CCHS, Opening Procedure by Duplication, Mood TRS & Tone Scale Drills, TRS 6-8, TR-8Q, the FSM TR "How to control a conversation". On the OTVII practised up to 1982, the student was expected to telepathically implant thoughts into others.

(56) Technical Bulletin of 22 July 1956.

(57) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. xiii

(58) ibid, p. xiii

(59) ibid. p. xiv.

(60) e.g. The Tone Scale. For a discussion of Scientology beliefs, see A Piece of Blue Sky, pp. 378.

(61) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. xvi-xvii.

(62) ibid, p. 419

(63) ibid, p. 9

(64) e.g., Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. xxiv.

(65) e.g. Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 228. Hubbard Have You Lived Before this Life?, Church of Scientology of California, L.A., 1977, p. 3

(66) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 50

(67) ibid. pp. 50 & 228

(68) Hubbard, Phoenix Lectures, Church of Scientology of California, Edinburgh, 1968, Scxientology Axiom 1, p. 146

(69) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 30

(70) ibid. p. 63

(71) Phoenix Lectures, p. 175

(72) Phoenix Lectures, p. 173, Scientology Axioms 26 & 27.

(73) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 110

(74) ibid. p. 121.

(75) ibid. p. 143-144

(76) Phoenix Lectures, p. 180, Scientology Axiom 35

(77) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 144.

(78) e.g., ibid, p. 147

(79) ibid, p. 153

(80) Phoenix Lectures, p. 180, Scientology Axiom 31.

(81) Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 251. Hubbard, PAB 1, General Comments, 10 May 1953.

(82) Crowley, Magick Without Tears, Falcon Press, Phoenix, AZ, 1983, pp. xii, 26, 407 & 440. Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, definition of "word clearing". Korzybski also advocated understanding of words.

(83) Crowley, Magick Without Tears, p. 11

(84) HCO Bulletin, Confidential - Resistive Cases - Former Therapies, 23 September 1978.

(85) e.g. Hubbard, HCO Policy Letter Routine Three - Heaven, 11 May 1963 and the original preface to the Phoenix Lectures, Hubbard South Africa Association of Scientologists, Johannesburg, 1954 "God just happens to be the trick of this universe", p. 5. In HCO Bulletin Technically Speaking, of 8 July 1959, Hubbard said "The whole Christian movement is based on the victim...Christianity succeeded by making people into victims. We can succeed by making victims into people."

(86) What is Scientology?" Church of Scientology of California, first edition, 1978, p. 301

(87) H. Spencer Lewis, Rosicrucian Manual, AMORC , San Jose, 1982.

(88) Modern Management Technology Defined, definition of Church of American Science

(89) HCO Policy Letter, Former practices, 1968

(90) HCO Policy Letter, Heaven, 1963

(91) cf Hubbard's use of "wall of fire" to describe OT III & OT V. These may also be compared to gnostic ideas.

(92) The RTC symbol is frequently used, e.g., What is Scientology, 2nd edition, 1992, p. 92

(93) Magick Without Tears, p. 259

(94) Cavendish, p. 243

(95) Paul Bracchi, The Cult and a Right-Winger, Evening Argus, Brighton, England, 4 April 1995.

(96) Letter to the author. Sklar's book was published by Crowell, NY, 1977. It was originally released as Gods and Beasts. See also Gerald Suster Hitler and the Age of Horus, Sphere, London, 1981.

(97) This symbol is frequently used, e.g., What is Scientology, 2nd edition, 1992, p. 358

(98) Suster, Hitler and the Age of Horus, p. 138

(99) Francoise Stachan, Casting out the Devils, Aquarian Press, London, 1972. See also Alexandra David-Neel Initiates and Initiations in Tibet, pp. 168-169.

(100) Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 16

(101) The Road to Total Freedom, BPI records, L.A., 1986

(102) The Hubbard College Lectures

(103) The Hubbard is Bare

(104) Affidavit of Ann Bailey, p. 34

(105) e.g. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Bridge, L.A.m 1985, p. 389 or AOSHDK, Denmark, 1973, p. 363. See also the Research and Discovery series.

(106) The Research and Discovery Series, vol. 1, 1st edition 1980, Scientology Publications Org, p. 124

(107) Magick in Theory and Practice, p. 339

(108) Hubbard ordered that new dust sleeves should be put onto his books after he'd released OT3, in 1967. These book covers are supposedly meant to depict images from the 36 days of implanting and will supposedly compel people to buy the books. The cover for Hubbard's Scientology 8-80, Publications Department, AOSH Denmark, 1973, shows a winged couple. The woman could well be the Empress. A similar design was used on the dust sleeve of Hubbard's Scientology 8-8008 in the 1990 Bridge, L.A., edition.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:05 am

Hubbard Used Black Magic
by George-Wayne Shelor
Sun staff writer
Clearwater SunWitness
Sunday May 16, 1984

LOS ANGELES - Bigamy and black magic were a part of the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, according to documents introduced Tuesday as exhibits in Superior Court.

And according to a former high-ranking Scientologist, Hubbard wrote a series of "Admissions" in which he acknowledged to himself his systematic manipulation of the US Navy and the Veterans Administration to increase his disability pension.

Basing his testimony on 11 years of firsthand knowledge and thousands of documents under court seal, Gerald Armstrong said the handwritten papers prove the 73-year-old founder of the worldwide Church of Scientology "has lied from his earliest youth."

If the court documents are true and authentic records of Hubbard's past, they apparently indicate a dark and decadent side of a man revered by six million devotees worldwide as an author, scientist and religious leader.

Armstrong is the subject of a sect suit charging him with taking 10,000 papers, recordings and pictures when he fled his position as Hubbard's personal archivist in December 1981. The Scientologists, and Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, claim ownership of the contested material and are demanding the return of the documents - unsealed - and unspecified damages.

Armstrong's attorney, Michael Flynn, was discussing the papers under seal when he made mention of the documents called "Admissions," bringing sect attorney Barrett Litt to his feet. Litt was adamant in his argument that those particular documents not be discussed in open court. He said the papers, reportedly in Hubbard's own hand, have not been authenticated and are protected from introduction by the California evidence code.

Nonetheless, Superior Court Judge Paul G. Breckenridge allowed Flynn to proceed, stipulating that he restrict his inquiry to certain areas of the "Admissions" described an a list of sealed documents as:

* Hubbard handwriting RE: Feigning injuries and illness.

* Hubbard handwriting admissions RE: Control over all mankind and naval records.

* Hubbard handwriting RE: Psychoses.

* Hubbard handwriting admissions RE: Hubbard's control over others.

The information in those candid, introspective papers, Armstrong testified, "shocked me. And I knew at that point - (Hubbard) was opportunistic and had lied with impunity."

Armstrong also said the documents indicate an "imbalanced state of mind" from Hubbard's use of opium and, added Flynn, sulfathiazole:

Although not allowed to go into any great detail, Flynn and Armstrong discussed a number of documents allegedly indicating that in the 1940s Hubbard was married to two women at the same time, denied paternity of his daughter, experimented with drugs and dabbled in black magic.

Armstrong said Hubbard had claimed he once worked for U.S. Naval Intelligence and, in the line, of duty, infiltrated a black magic group to rescue a young woman. Holding papers called "The Blood Ritual," Armstrong said it is "a magical rite which Mr. Hubbard has written and invokes the powers of various Egyptian gods."

"I found that Mr. Hubbard was not connected with Naval Intelligence (and) was part of the black magic group," Armstrong said. That revelation shocked him, said Armstrong, formerly one of Hubbard's most trusted lieutenants.

But attorney Litt, again arguing the documents not be discussed in open court, said: "These particular documents do not lend themselves ... for one to conclude ... that the statements are statements of fact.

"They are (being interpreted by Armstrong) completely out of context."

Breckenridge agreed in part, saying Hubbard's writings "may be totally allegorical" or even evidence of "deficiencies" Hubbard saw, saw within himself.

Breckenridge would not allow Flynn to talk in any context about alleged references to Hubbard's use of opium. But the judge himself acknowledged "the reference is here" as he read from a document often referred to as "the most sensitive" of those under seal.

After the 37-year-old Armstrong's testimony Tuesday, Scientology spokesman Sandy Block compared him with presidential assassin John W. Hinckley Jr. "(Armstrong) is the John Hinckley of character, assassination," Block said. "He's trying to make a" big name for himself by attacking a famous man." The trial, now entering its third week, continues today with the completion of Armstrong's testimony. Scientology lawyers said they expect the cross-examination of Armstrong will take 10 days.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:06 am

Part 1 of 2

Inside Scientology
by Janet Reitman
February 23, 2006

The faded little downtown area of Clearwater, Florida, has a beauty salon, a pizza parlor and one or two run-down bars, as well as a bunch of withered bungalows and some old storefronts that look as if they haven't seen customers in years. There are few cars and almost no pedestrians. There are, however, buses — a fleet of gleaming white and blue ones that slowly crawl through town, stopping at regular intervals to discharge a small army of tightly organized, young, almost exclusively white men and women, all clad in uniform preppy attire: khaki, black or navy-blue trousers and crisp white, blue or yellow dress shirts. Some wear pagers on their belts; others carry briefcases. The men have short hair, and the women keep theirs pulled back or tucked under headbands that match their outfits. No one crosses against the light, and everybody calls everybody else "sir" — even when the "sir" is a woman. They move throughout the center of Clearwater in tight clusters, from corner to corner, building to building.

This regimented mass represents the "Sea Organization," the most dedicated and elite members of the Church of Scientology. For the past thirty years, Scientology has made the city of Clearwater its worldwide spiritual headquarters — its Mecca, or its Temple Square. There are 8,300 or so Scientologists living and working in Clearwater — more than in any other city in the world outside of Los Angeles. Scientologists own more than 200 businesses in Clearwater. Members of the church run schools and private tutoring programs, day-care centers and a drug-rehab clinic. They sit on the boards of the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts.

In July 2004, The St. Petersburg Times dubbed Clearwater, a community of 108,000 people, "Scientology's Town." On the newspaper's front page was a photograph of Scientology's newest building, a vast, white, Mediterranean Revival-style edifice known within Scientology circles as the "Super Power" building. Occupying a full square block of downtown, this structure, which has been under construction since 1998, is billed as the single largest Scientology church in the world. When it is finally completed — presumably in late 2006, at an estimated final cost of $50 million — it will have 889 rooms on six floors, an indoor sculpture garden and a large Scientology museum. The crowning touch will be a two-story, illuminated Scientology cross that, perched atop the building's highest tower, will shine over the city of Clearwater like a beacon.

* * * *

Scientology — the term means "the study of truth," in the words of its founder and spiritual messiah, the late science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard — calls itself "the world's fastest-growing religion." Born in 1954, the group now claims 10 million members in 159 countries and more than 6,000 Scientology churches, missions and outreach groups across the globe. Its holdings, which include real estate on several continents, are widely assumed to value in the billions of dollars. Its missionaries — known as "volunteer ministers" — take part in "cavalcades" throughout the developing world and have been found, en masse, at the site of disasters ranging from 9/11 to the Asian tsunami to Hurricane Katrina. Within the field of comparative religions, some academics see Scientology as one of the most significant new religious movements of the past century.

Scientology is also America's most controversial religion: widely derided, but little understood. It is rooted in elements of Buddhism, Hinduism and a number of Western philosophies, including aspects of Christianity. The French sociologist Regis Dericquebourg, an expert in comparative religions, explains Scientology's belief system as one of "regressive utopia," in which man seeks to return to a once-perfect state through a variety of meticulous, and rigorous, processes intended to put him in touch with his primordial spirit. These processes are highly controlled, and, at the advanced levels, highly secretive. Critics of the church point out that Scientology, unique among religions, withholds key aspects of its central theology from all but its most exalted followers. To those in the mainstream, this would be akin to the Catholic Church refusing to tell all but a select number of the faithful that Jesus Christ died for their sins.
In June of last year, I set out to discover Scientology, an undertaking that would take nearly nine months. A closed faith that has often been hostile to journalistic inquiry, the church initially offered no help on this story; most of my research was done without its assistance and involved dozens of interviews with both current and former Scientologists, as well as academic researchers who have studied the group. Ultimately, however, the church decided to cooperate and gave me unprecedented access to its officials, social programs and key religious headquarters. What I found was a faith that is at once mainstream and marginal — a religious community known for its Hollywood members but run by a uniformed sect of believers who rarely, if ever, appear in the public eye. It is an insular society — one that exists, to a large degree, as something of a parallel universe to the secular world, with its own nomenclature and ethical code, and, most daunting to those who break its rules, its own rigorously enforced justice system.

Scientologists, much like Mormons or Christian evangelicals, consider themselves to be on a mission. They frequently speak of "helping people," and this mission is stressed in a number of church testaments. "Scientologists see themselves as possessors of doctrines and skills that can save the world, if not the galaxy," says Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, in Canada, who has extensively studied the group.

Church officials boast that Scientology has grown more in the past five years than in the previous fifty. Some evidence, however, suggests otherwise. In 2001, a survey conducted by the City University of New York found only 55,000 people in the United States who claimed to be Scientologists. Worldwide, some observers believe a reasonable estimate of Scientology's core practicing membership ranges between 100,000 and 200,000, mostly in the U.S., Europe, South Africa and Australia. According to the church's own course-completion lists — many of which are available in a church publication and on the Internet — only 6,126 people signed up for religious services at the Clearwater organization in 2004, down from a peak of 11,210 in 1989. According to Kristi Wachter, a San Francisco activist who maintains an online database devoted to Scientology's numbers, this pattern is replicated at nearly all of Scientology's key organizations and churches. To some observers, this suggests that Scientology may, in fact, be shrinking.

But discerning what is true about the Church of Scientology is no easy task. Tax-exempt since 1993 (status granted by the IRS after a long legal battle), Scientology releases no information about its membership or its finances. Nor does it welcome analysis of its writings or practices. The church has a storied reputation for squelching its critics through litigation, and according to some reports, intimidation (a trait that may explain why the creators of South Park jokingly attributed every credit on its November 2005 sendup of Scientology to the fictional John and Jane Smith; Paramount, reportedly under pressure, has agreed not to rerun the episode here or to air it in England). Nevertheless, Scientology's critics comprise a sizable network of ex-members (or "apostates," in church parlance), academics and independent free-speech and human-rights activists like Wachter, who have declared war on the group by posting a significant amount of previously unknown information on the Internet. This includes scans of controversial memos, photographs and legal briefs, as well as testimonials from disillusioned former members, including some high-ranking members of its Sea Organization. All paint the church in a negative, even abusive, light.

When asked what, if anything, posted by the apostates is true, Mike Rinder, the fifty-year-old director of the Church of Scientology International's legal and public-relations wing, known as the Office of Special Affairs, says bluntly, "It's all bullshit, pretty much."

But he admits that Scientology has been on a campaign to raise its public profile. More than 23 million people visited the Scientology Web site last year, says Rinder, one of the highest-ranking officials in the church. In addition, the church claims that Scientology received 289,000 minutes of radio and TV coverage in 2005, many of them devoted to the actions of Tom Cruise, the most famous Scientologist in the world, who spent much of the spring and summer of 2005 promoting Scientology and its beliefs to interviewers ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Matt Lauer.

Shortly after Rolling Stone decided to embark on this story, Cruise called our offices to say that he would not participate. Several weeks later, the magazine was visited by Cruise's sister, Lee Anne DeVette, an upper-level Scientologist who until recently also served as Cruise's publicist, along with Mike Rinder. Both expressed their dissatisfaction with previous coverage of Scientology by major media outlets, and they warned against what they perceived to be the unreliability of the faith's critics — "the wackos," as Rinder described them. He then invited Rolling Stone to Los Angeles to show us "the real Scientology" — a trip that took five months to set up.

A number of people who have spoken for the purposes of this article have done so for the very first time. Several, in speaking of their lives spent in the church, requested that their identities be protected through the change of names and other characteristics. Others insisted that not even a gender be attached to their comments.

There will always be schisms in any religious group, as well as people who, upon leaving their faith, decide to "purge" themselves of their experiences. This is particularly true in the case of members of so-called new religions, which often demand total commitment from their members. Scientology is one of these religions. "We're not playing some minor game in Scientology," Hubbard wrote in a policy paper titled "Keeping Scientology Working," which is required reading for every member. "The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology. This is a deadly serious activity."

* * * *

It is impossible to go anywhere in downtown Clearwater without being watched by security cameras. There are about 100 of them, set up on all of Scientology's properties, which include several hotels, a former bank and a number of administrative buildings. Cameras face in, toward the buildings themselves, as well as out at the street.

While some might find this disconcerting, Natalie Walet, 17, thinks it's normal. "It's just a point of security," she says over coffee one evening at the downtown Starbucks. She notes that Scientology's buildings have been marred with graffiti and are routinely picketed, which she sees as a sign of religious bigotry. "You have a church that a lot of people don't like, and some people are assholes," she says. That said, Natalie adds, most people in Clearwater have "very high standards and morals — they're ethical people."

A pretty girl with a long black ponytail, Natalie was born and raised in Scientology. Both of her parents and her grandmother are church members, and her involvement in Scientology centers around Clearwater. But the church has other far-flung hubs, including the organizational headquarters in Los Angeles, home to the powerful Church of Scientology International; and Freewinds, the 440-foot cruise ship that docks in Curacao and is used as a training facility, meeting hall and vacation destination for elite Scientologists, including Cruise and John Travolta. There is also "Gold Base," the exclusive desert compound housing the Religious Technology Center, or RTC, the financial hub of the church, located about eighty miles southeast of Los Angeles, home to David Miscavige, the charismatic forty-five-year-old who heads up the international church.

Natalie's everyday reality is one of total immersion in all things Hubbard. Scientology kids are raised in a very different manner than mainstream kids. Most of them, like Natalie, have been educated by special tutors, and enrolled, as Natalie was when she was younger, in private schools run by Scientologists that use a Hubbard-approved study technique. Most kids are also put "on course" — enrolled in classes at the church that teach both children and adults self-control, focus and communication skills. Natalie was put on course, upon her own insistence, when she was seven or eight years old. Between school and church, life was "kind of a bubble," she says.

It is a steamy night, and Natalie is dressed in a sleeveless black Empire-waist blouse and tight jeans; her short, bitten nails are painted red. She lights a Marlboro Menthol. Smoking is Natalie's only vice. She neither drinks nor takes drugs of any sort — "once in a grand while I'll take a Tylenol," she says. "But only if my headache is really bad." She admits this with embarrassment because Scientologists consider many illnesses to be psychosomatic and don't believe in treating them with medicine, even aspirin.

Like all Scientologists, Natalie considers her body to be simply a temporary vessel. She thinks of herself as an immortal being, or "thetan," which means that she has lived trillions of years, and will continue to be reborn, again and again. Many Eastern religions have similar beliefs, and Natalie is quick to note that Scientology is "actually a very basic religion. It has a lot of the same moral beliefs as others." What's special about Scientology, Natalie says, is that it "bears a workable applied technology that you can use in your everyday life."

"Technology," or "tech," is what Scientologists call the theories, methods and principles espoused by L. Ron Hubbard — "LRH," as Natalie calls him. To the devout, he is part prophet, part teacher, part savior — some Scientologists rank Hubbard's importance as greater than Christ's — and Hubbard's word is considered the word. Hubbard was a prolific writer all his life; there are millions of words credited to him, roughly a quarter-million of them contained within Dianetics, the best-selling quasiscientific self-help book that is the most famous Scientology text.

Published in 1950, Dianetics maintained that the source of mental and physical illness could be traced back to psychic scars called "engrams" that were rooted in early, even prenatal, experiences, and remained locked in a person's subconscious, or "reactive mind." To rid oneself of the reactive mind, a process known as going "Clear," Dianetics, and later Scientology, preached a regressive-therapy technique called auditing, which involves re-experiencing incidents in one's past life in order to erase their engrams.

Natalie is a fan of auditing, something she's been doing since she was a small child. Most auditing is done with a device called the electropsychometer, or E-meter. Often compared to lie detectors, E-meters measure the changes in small electrical currents in the body, in response to questions posed by an auditor. Scientologists believe the meter registers thoughts of the reactive mind and can root out unconscious lies. As Natalie explains it, the E-meter is "like a guide that helps the auditor to know what questions to ask." Sometimes, she says, you might not remember certain events, and you might not know what is causing your problems. "But they'll just dig it up until you go, 'Holy shit, was that what was going on?'" She smiles. "And afterward, you feel so much better."

Natalie has just begun her path to Scientology enlightenment, known as the Bridge to Total Freedom. There are specific stages, or "grades," of the Bridge, and the key to progressing "upward" is auditing: hundreds, if not thousands, of sessions that Scientologists believe can not only help them resolve their problems but also fix their ethical breaches, much as Catholics might do in confessing their sins. The ultimate goal in every auditing session is to have a "win," or moment of revelation, which can take a few minutes, hours or even weeks — Scientologists are not allowed to leave an auditing session until their auditor is satisfied.

So far, Natalie has gotten much of her auditing for free, through her parents, who have both worked for the church. But many Scientologists pay dearly for the service. Unique among religious faiths, Scientology charges for virtually all of its religious services. Auditing is purchased in 12.5-hour blocks, known as "intensives." Each intensive can cost anywhere from $750 for introductory sessions to between $8,000 and $9,000 for advanced sessions. When asked about money, church officials can become defensive. "Do you want to know the real answer? If we could offer everything for free, we would do it," says Rinder. Another official offers, "We don't have 2,000 years of acquired wealth to fall back on." But Scientology isn't alone, church leaders insist. Mormons, for example, expect members to tithe a tenth of their earnings.

Still, religious scholars note that this is an untraditional approach. "Among the things that have made this movement so controversial," says S. Scott Bartchy, director of the Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA, "are its claims that its forms of therapy are 'scientific' and that the 'truth' will only be revealed to those who have the money to purchase advancement to the various levels leading to 'being clear.' It is this unvarnished demand for money that has led many observers to opine that the entire operation looks more like a business than a religion." Clearing the stages along the Bridge to Total Freedom is a process that can take years and cost tens and often hundreds of thousands of dollars — one veteran Scientologist told me she "donated" $250,000 in a twenty-year period. Other Scientologists can wind up spending family inheritances and mortgaging homes to pay the fees. Many, like Natalie's parents, work for their local church so they can receive auditing and courses for free.

Both of Natalie's parents are Clear, she says. Her grandmother is what's called an "Operating Thetan," or "OT." So is Tom Cruise, who is near the top of Scientology's Bridge, at a level known as OT VII. OTs are Scientology's elite — enlightened beings who are said to have total "control" over themselves and their environment. OTs can allegedly move inanimate objects with their minds, leave their bodies at will and telepathically communicate with, and control the behavior of, both animals and human beings. At the highest levels, they are allegedly liberated from the physical universe, to the point where they can psychically control what Scientologists call MEST: Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

* * * *

The most important, and highly anticipated, of the eight "OT levels" is OT III, also known as the Wall of Fire. It is here that Scientologists are told the secrets of the universe, and, some believe, the creation story behind the entire religion. It is knowledge so dangerous, they are told, any Scientologist learning this material before he is ready could die. When I ask Mike Rinder about this, he casts the warning in less-dire terms, explaining that, before he reached OT III — he is now OT V — he was told that looking at the material early was "spiritually not good for you." But Hubbard, who told followers that he discovered these secrets while on a trip to North Africa in 1967, was more dramatic. "Somehow or other I brought it off, and obtained the material and was able to live through it," he wrote. "I am very sure that I was the first one that ever did live through any attempt to attain that material."

Scientologists must be "invited" to do OT III. Beforehand, they are put through an intensive auditing process to verify that they are ready. They sign a waiver promising never to reveal the secrets of OT III, nor to hold Scientology responsible for any trauma or damage one might endure at this stage of auditing. Finally, they are given a manila folder, which they must read in a private, locked room.

These materials, which the Church of Scientology has long struggled to keep secret, were published online by a former member in 1995 and have been widely circulated in the mainstream media, ranging from The New York Times to last year's South Park episode. They assert that 75 million years ago, an evil galactic warlord named Xenu controlled seventy-six planets in this corner of the galaxy, each of which was severely overpopulated. To solve this problem, Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings and then flew them to Earth, where they were dumped into volcanoes around the globe and vaporized with bombs. This scattered their radioactive souls, or thetans, until they were caught in electronic traps set up around the atmosphere and "implanted" with a number of false ideas — including the concepts of God, Christ and organized religion. Scientologists later learn that many of these entities attached themselves to human beings, where they remain to this day, creating not just the root of all of our emotional and physical problems but the root of all problems of the modern world.

"Hubbard thought it was important to have a story about how things got going, similar to the way both Jews and Christians did in the early chapters of Genesis," says UCLA's Bartchy. "All religion lives from the sense either that something in life is terribly wrong or is profoundly missing. For the most part, Christianity has claimed that people have rebelled against God with the result that they are 'sinners' in need of restoration and that the world is a very unjust place in need of healing. What Hubbard seems to be saying is that human beings are really something else — thetans trapped in bodies in the material world — and that Scientology can both wake them up and save them from this bad situation."

The church considers OT III confidential material. But there are numerous science-fiction references in Scientology texts available to members of all levels. The official "Glossary for Scientology and Dianetics" includes an entry for "space opera," a sci-fi genre that the glossary says "is not fiction and concerns actual incidents." Scientology's "Technical Dictionary" makes reference to a number of extraterrestrial "invader forces," including one, the "Marcab Confederacy," explained as a vast, interplanetary civilization more than 200,000 years old that "looks almost exact duplicate [sic] but is worse off than the current U.S. civilization." Indeed, as even Rinder himself points out, Hubbard presented a rough outline of the Xenu story to his followers in a 1967 taped lecture, "RJ 67," in which he noted that 75 million years ago a cataclysmic event happened in this sector of the galaxy that has caused negative effects for everyone since. This material is available to lower-level Scientologists. But the details of the story remain secret within Scientology.

Rinder has fielded questions on Scientology's beliefs for years. When I ask him whether there is any validity to the Xenu story, he gets red-faced, almost going into a tirade. "It is not a story, it is an auditing level," he says, neither confirming nor denying that this theology exists. He says that OT material — and specifically the material on OT III — comprises "a small percent" of what Scientology is all about. But it is carefully guarded. Scientologists on the OT levels often carry their materials in locked briefcases and are told to store them in special secure locations in their homes. They are also strictly forbidden from discussing any facet of the materials, even with their families. "I'm not explaining it to you, and I could not explain it to you," says Rinder heatedly. "You don't have a hope of understanding it."

Those who have experienced OT III report that getting through it can be a harrowing experience. Tory Christman, a former high-ranking Scientologist who during her tenure in the faith reached the near-pinnacle of enlightenment, OT VII, says it took more than ten years before she was finally invited onto OT III. Once there, Christman was shocked. "You've jumped through all these hoops just to get to it, and then you open that packet, and the first thing you think is, 'Come on,'" she says. "You're surrounded by all these people who're going, 'Wow, isn't it amazing, just getting the data? I can tell it's really changed you.' After a while, enough people say it and you're like, 'Wow. You know, I really feel it.'"

Natalie has a long way to go before she reaches OT III. Although virtually everything about the OT levels is available on the Internet, "I don't look at that stuff," Natalie says. She believes it is mostly "entheta," which are lies, or negative information about Scientology meant to undermine the faith. "You know, sometimes in school, kids would hear I'm a Scientologist and be like, 'No way — are you an alien?'" Natalie says. "I don't get mad about it. I just go, 'OK, let me tell you what it really is.'"

Natalie's view of Scientology is the one church officials promote: that it is not a religion about "space aliens" but simply a set of beliefs that can help a person live a better life. And Natalie appears to be the poster child for Scientology as a formula for a well-adjusted adolescence. Articulate and poised, she is close to her family, has a wide circle of Scientologist and non-Scientologist friends and graduated from high school last spring as a straight-A student. "I'm not saying that everybody must be a Scientologist," she says. "But what I am saying is that I see it work. I've learned so much about myself. LRH says, 'What is true for you is what you observe to be true.' So I'm not here to tell you that Scientology is the way, or that these are the answers. You decide what is true."

* * * *

Truth is a relative concept when discussing the life of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. He was born in 1911, and, according to his legend, lived a life of heroic acts and great scientific and spiritual accomplishment until his death, in 1986. Photos of Hubbard in robust middle age — often wearing an ascot — hang in every Scientology center. You can read Hubbard's official biography on the Scientology Web site, which portrays the man Scientologists call the "Founder" as a great thinker, teacher, scientist, adventurer, ethnographer, photographer, sailor and war hero.

The reality of Hubbard's life is less exhilarating but in many ways more interesting. The son of a U.S. naval officer, he was by all accounts an unremarkable youth from Tilden, Nebraska, who flunked out of George Washington University after his sophomore year and later found moderate success as a penny-a-word writer of pulp fiction, publishing hundreds of stories in fantasy magazines like Astounding Science Fiction. As a lieutenant in the Navy, Hubbard served, briefly, in World War II, but never saw combat and was relieved of his command. He spent the last months of the war as an outpatient at a naval hospital in Oakland, California, where he received treatment for ulcers. Years later, Hubbard would claim to have been "crippled and blinded" in battle, and that, over a year or so of intense "scientific research," he'd cured himself using techniques that would later become part of Dianetics.

After the war, Hubbard made his way to Pasadena, California, a scientific boomtown of the 1940s, where he met John Whiteside Parsons, a society figure and a founder of CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A sci-fi buff, Parsons was also a follower of the English occultist Aleister Crowley. Parsons befriended Hubbard and invited him to move onto his estate. In one of the stranger chapters in Hubbard's life, recorded in detail by several biographers, the soon-to-be founder of Dianetics became Parsons' assistant — helping him with a variety of black-magic and sex rituals, including one in which Parsons attempted to conjure a literal "whore of Babalon [sic]," with Hubbard serving as apprentice.

Charming and charismatic, Hubbard succeeded in wooing away Parsons' mistress, Sara Northrup, whom he would later marry. Soon afterward, he fell out with Parsons over a business venture. But having absorbed lessons learned at Parsons' "lodge," Hubbard set out to figure his next step. In his 1983 autobiography, Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era, the sci-fi writer Lloyd Eshbach describes meeting Hubbard in the late 1940s. "I'd like to start a religion," Eshbach recalls Hubbard saying. "That's where the money is."

Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published in May 1950, and it soon became a runaway hit. Written as sort of a practical pop-psychology book, Dianetics promised that by practicing certain techniques, some of which seemed almost hypnotic, one could be free of sickness, anxiety, aggression and anti-social tendencies, and develop perfect memory and astounding intelligence. Hailed by the newspaper columnist Walter Winchell as a "new science" that "from all indications will prove to be as revolutionary for humanity as the first caveman's discovery and utilization of fire," Dianetics remained on the New York Times best-seller list for twenty-eight consecutive weeks.

But a number of factors, including condemnation from the American Psychological Association, hurt book sales. Public support for Dianetics took a downturn, and by the end of 1952, Hubbard was facing financial ruin.

Rather than admit defeat, Hubbard "improved" Dianetics and unveiled what he claimed was an even more sophisticated path to enlightenment: Scientology. This new technique was designed to restore, or enhance, the abilities of the individual, as opposed to simply getting rid of the reactive mind. In 1954, the first Church of Scientology was born, in Los Angeles. L. Ron Hubbard was now the founder of his own religion.

From there, Hubbard set about spreading Scientology around the world, opening churches in England, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. In 1955, a policy known as "Project Celebrity" was launched with the aim of recruiting stars in the arts, sports, business and government — those dubbed "Prime Communicators" — who could help disseminate the message. As incentive, these celebrities were given free courses; those who did outstanding work could be "awarded" an OT level, in honor of their service to the organization. Special churches — known as "celebrity centres" — were set up, allowing its members to practice Scientology away from the public eye. The most lavish of these is the neo-Gothic Celebrity Centre International, which is housed in a former chateau on Franklin Avenue, at the foot of the Hollywood Hills.

Among the high-profile types who dabbled in Scientology was the writer William S. Burroughs, who would later attack the organizational structure as suppressive of independent thought. But other artists were less critical. John Travolta became a Scientologist in 1975 after reading Dianetics. "My career immediately took off," he states in a personal "success story" published in the book What Is Scientology? "I landed a leading role on the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter and had a string of successful films." Indeed, Travolta says, "Scientology put me into the big time."

In addition to Travolta, Scientology attracted musicians Chick Corea and Isaac Hayes, actresses Mimi Rogers and Kirstie Alley, and the influential acting coach Milton Katselas, who brought in a number of others, including actresses Anne Archer and Kelly Preston, who later became Travolta's wife. And those celebrities begat others, including Tom Cruise, who was introduced by his then-wife, Rogers, and Jenna Elfman, introduced by her husband, actor Bodhi Elfman. Others, such as Juliette Lewis, Erika Christensen and Beck, were born into Scientology.

But as Scientology raised its profile, so too did it find itself under increased scrutiny by the U.S. government, which raided Scientology's offices a number of times in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963, the Food and Drug Administration confiscated hundreds of E-meters from Scientology's Washington, D.C., offices (the FDA accused the church of making false claims about its healing powers). Soon afterward, Hubbard moved his base of operation from the U.S. to England, but continued to face condemnation from a variety of Western governments. To avoid such scrutiny, Hubbard purchased a small fleet of ships in 1967, and, dubbing himself "Commodore," headed for the high seas, which would serve as Scientology's official home and, some maintain, tax shelter until the mid-1970s.

Serving Hubbard at sea were a small group of devoted followers who comprised a private navy of sorts. They were known, collectively, as the "Sea Organization," and dressed in full naval uniforms. Mike Rinder, who joined the Sea Org when he was eighteen, served on Hubbard's lead ship, the Apollo, as a deckhand. He arrived in 1973, having endured years of discrimination in his native Australia (southeastern Australia banned Scientology from 1965 to 1982). "You couldn't own Scientology books," he says. "If you did, you had to hide them because if the police came and found them, they'd take them away."

On the Apollo, Rinder found Hubbard, a reputed recluse, to be totally accessible. He hosted weekly movie nights and often strolled across the ship talking with the crew. "What was most incredible about being with him was that he made you feel that you were important," Rinder recalls. "He didn't in any way promote himself or his own self-importance. He was very, very loving and had the widest range of knowledge and experience that you could possibly imagine — he'd studied everything." Rinder marvels at Hubbard's abilities: He knew how to cultivate plants, fix cars, shoot movies, mix music, fly an airplane, sail ships.

At sea, Hubbard, who had officially resigned his post as the head of the Church of Scientology (leaving the day-to-day management of the church to lesser officials), worked on his writings and "discoveries." Hubbard also began to obsess over the forces he saw opposing him, including journalists, whom Hubbard long distrusted and even banned from ever becoming Scientologists. Worse still were psychiatrists, a group that, coupled with the pharmaceutical-drug industry — in Hubbard's words, a "front group" — operated "straight out of the terrorist textbooks," as he wrote in a 1969 essay titled "Today's Terrorism." He accused psychiatrists of kidnapping, torturing and murdering with impunity. "A psychiatrist," he wrote, "kills a young girl for sexual kicks, murders a dozen patients with an ice pick, castrates a hundred men."

To attack his enemies, Hubbard issued a policy known as "Fair Game," which maintained that all who opposed Scientology could be "tricked, sued or lied to and destroyed." This policy was enforced by Scientology's quasisecret police force, known as the Guardian's Office. By the 1970s, among its tasks was "Operation Snow White," a series of covert activities that included bugging the Justice Department and stealing documents from the IRS. (Scientology officials say Fair Game was canceled decades ago.)

The plan was discovered in FBI raids on Scientology's Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., offices in 1977, which yielded wiretap equipment, burglary tools and about 90,000 pages of documents. Eleven Scientology officials, including Hubbard's third wife, Mary Sue, went to federal prison for their role in the plot, which led to a 1982 "sweep" of the church's upper management.

By then, Hubbard, who was cited as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in Operation Snow White, had vanished from the public eye. For the next several years, rumors of his whereabouts circulated freely — he was at sea; he was on an island. In fact, Hubbard was on his isolated ranch, Whispering Wind, near the town of Creston, in the California desert. He was attended by a small number of Scientology officials, and his physician, Dr. Eugene Denk, who treated him for a number of conditions, including chronic pancreatitis. On January 17th, 1986, Hubbard suffered a crippling stroke. A week later, he died, in a 1982 Blue Bird motor home on his property. He was seventy-four years old.

Upon Hubbard's death, his ambitious twenty-five-year-old aide, David Miscavige, who would soon succeed him as leader of the church, announced that Scientology's founder had willingly "dropped" his healthy body and moved on to another dimension. In keeping with Hubbard's wishes, his body was cremated within twenty-four hours. There was no autopsy. But the coroner's report described the father of Scientology as in a state of decrepitude: unshaven, with long, thinning whitish-red hair and unkempt fingernails and toenails. In Hubbard's system was the anti-anxiety drug hydroxyzine (Vistaril), which several of his assistants would later attest was only one of many psychiatric and pain medications Hubbard ingested over the years.

These secrets were kept under wraps by Scientology officials. The church would later be named Hubbard's successor in accordance with his will, which had been amended and signed just a day before his death. In it, Hubbard ceded the copyrights to all of his works, as well as a significant portion of his estate, making Scientology, not Hubbard's wife and five children, his primary heir.

Today, every church or Scientology organization has an office reserved for Hubbard. Usually found on the church's ground floor, it is carefully maintained with books, desk, chair, pens, notepads, desk ornaments and other accouterments, as if the Founder might walk in at any moment.

* * * *

The imposing limestone-and-granite Church of Scientology in midtown Manhattan calls itself the "New York Org." A stately building on West 46th Street, northwest of Times Square, it is here that I come, on a hot July afternoon, to experience Scientology for myself.

The first Scientologist I meet here is a kid named Emmett: a clear-eyed and enthusiastic young man in his early twenties whose job is to be a "body-router," which means someone who brings people into the church. "Hi!" he says, accosting me as I stand near the center's entrance. "Do you have a minute?" He waves a postcard-size flier in my face. "We're showing a fifteen-minute film inside," he says. "It's about Dianetics. Ever heard of it?"

He ushers me through a set of glass doors and into the church's lobby, a glossy-marble space with the kind of lighting that bathes everything in a pinkish-golden glow. It is set up as a sort of museum, with a number of video-display panels, one of which offers an earnest testimonial by Tom Cruise. "The Aims of Scientology," a document written by Hubbard, also hangs in the lobby, and it declares Scientology's goals as "simple, but great," including "a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war; where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights."

The New York Org claims to receive more than 500 phone calls per day, and nearly as many visitors in a week. But aside from its staff, I find the place to be almost entirely empty. Seated alone in a small auditorium, I watch the film, which turns out to be an infomercial featuring a cast of "real" people talking about how Dianetics changed their lives, curing them of ailments ranging from cancer to depression. Scientology is not mentioned once in the film. Nor is Hubbard. And neither are mentioned afterward, during an hour or so conversation I have with a motherly woman in her early fifties named Laurie. She is what is known as a "greeter," and her role is to keep me in the church long enough for me to feel encouraged that, maybe, all of this is worth my time.

Self-betterment is a powerful concept to use as a sales technique, and Laurie begins her pitch in the gentlest of ways. "Tell me about yourself," she says. "What made you interested in Scientology?"

"I guess I was just curious," I tell Laurie.

"Good!" she says with a smile. "We like curious!"
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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Part 2 of 2

In the next hour or so, Laurie asks me a number of questions: Am I married? Am I happy? What are my goals? Do I feel that I'm living up to my potential?

A failure to live up to potential is one of the things known in Scientology as one's "ruin." In trying to get at mine, Laurie is warm and nonaggressive. And, to my amazement, I begin to open up to her. While we chat, she delivers a soft sell for Scientology's "introductory package": a four-hour seminar and twelve hours of Dianetics auditing, which is done without the E-meter. The cost: just fifty dollars. "You don't have to do it," Laurie says. "It's just something I get the feeling might help you." She pats my arm, squeezes it warmly.

Then she gets down to business and presents me with the $100 Dianetics "starter" kit, which includes a large-type copy of Hubbard's tome, a few CDs and some workbooks to practice the stuff at home. "It's really such a good thing you came in," Laurie adds reassuringly. "You'll see."

On my next visit to the church, the following day, I see Laurie again. She spots me as soon as I walk in and rushes to greet me. "You're back!" She gives me a hug. "I am so glad you decided to give this a try." She then introduces me to a preppy-looking guy in his early thirties named Rurik, who, wasting no time on small talk, leads me to the church's second floor and installs me in a room for my introductory seminar. As with the previous day's film, I'm the only one there. Rurik starts his lecture with the claim that the mind really isn't in the brain. "Close your eyes and think of a picture of a cat," he tells me. I do. "Now, open your eyes and point to where you saw that picture."

I point to my eyes.

Rurik grins. "See? When you're asked to use your mind, you don't point to the brain."

The brain, Rurik says, has absolutely no bearing on our thoughts or feelings. Nor, he adds, does the mind — its chief function is to serve as a memory bank of all we've experienced in trillions of years of lifetimes. Indeed, Scientology holds that the entire field of neurological and mental-health research — from Freud to the study of brain chemistry — is pseudoscience. In Scientology's overview text, What Is Scientology?, psychiatry is described as a "hodgepodge of unproven theories that have never produced any result — except an ability to make the unmanageable and mutinous more docile and quiet, and turn the troubled into apathetic souls beyond the point of caring."

Most of the dedicated Scientologists I meet echo this opinion, including Kirstie Alley, who has been a Scientologist for more than twenty years and is the international spokesperson for Narconon, the church-supported anti-drug program. In an interview with Alley several weeks later, she calls Scientology the "anti-therapy." "Therapy is based on some guy analyzing you, and what he thinks is going on with you," she says. "And when he can't quite figure it out, he makes up a disease and gets a drug for that. If that doesn't work, he shocks you. And then surgery . . ." Scientology employs a holistic detoxification program known as the "purification rundown," which involves heavy doses of vitamin supplements, primarily niacin, used in conjunction with exercise and long hours in a sauna. Though many doctors point out that none of this has ever been scientifically proven, and, indeed, might be harmful, Scientology claims that the "purif" cleanses the body of impurities. "I can get someone off heroin a hell of a lot faster than I can get somebody off a psych drug," says Alley. "The guy on heroin's not being told daily, 'This is what you need for your disease, and you're gonna have to take this the rest of your life.'"

A few days later I arrive for my free Dianetics auditing sessions. I am put in a large, glass-enclosed room with a student auditor named David, who asks me to "relive" a moment of physical pain. "Don't choose something that's too stressful," David suggests.

Try as I might, I cannot relive much of anything — indeed, I can barely focus, given that I am surrounded in the room by a number of other pairs who are all being asked to do the same thing. After fifteen minutes, I give up.

Jane, the registrar who is now handling my "case," then whisks me away and, taking a look at my Oxford Capacity Analysis — a 200-item questionnaire that I filled out on my first day — tells me that she thinks I need something more personal. "I really want you to have a win," she says.

What Jane recommends is called Life Repair, basic Scientology counseling that she explains will "get to the root of what's inhibiting you." It is conducted in a private room, and involves one, but most likely two, 12.5-hour auditing "intensives," using the E-meter, which will cost around $2,000. Coupled with the purif, which is recommended to anyone starting in Scientology, the total cost will be around $4,000. "And then you'll be on the Bridge," Jane says enthusiastically. "You'll see. It'll change your life."

At the intake level, Scientology comes across as good, practical self-help. Rather than playing on themes that might distance a potential member — the concept that I am a "thetan," for example — members hit on topics that have universal appeal. Instead of claiming some heightened degree of enlightenment, they come across as fellow travelers: people who smoke too much, who have had bad marriages, who have had addictions they couldn't handle but have somehow managed to land on their feet. Scientology, they explain, has been a form of "recovery." As one woman I meet puts it, "Scientology works."

There are, however, a few things that seem jarring. Like the cost: $4,000 is a lot to spend for what Jane suggests are "basic" sessions. But perhaps even more alarming is the keen interest they take in my boyfriend. While Laurie inquired sympathetically about the dynamic of our relationship, Jane is suspicious, concerned with his views of the church and his attitude toward my being here. "If he's not open," she says, "that could be a problem."

And then there are Scientology's rules. A fiercely doctrinaire religion, Scientology follows Hubbard's edicts to the letter. Dissent or opposition to any of Hubbard's views isn't tolerated. Nor is debating certain church tenets — a practice Scientologists view as "counterintentioned." Comporting oneself in any way that could be seen as contrary to church goals is considered subversive and is known as a "suppressive act." One text that sheds enlightenment on both the mind-set of the founder and the inner workings of the church is Introduction to Scientology Ethics, which every Scientologist owns. In this book, the list of suppressive acts is six pages long and includes crimes ranging from murder to "squirreling," or altering Hubbard's teachings.

Jane hands me a form and asks me to sign. The document absolves Scientology of liability if I am not wholly satisfied with its services, and also requires me to pledge that neither I nor my family has ever sued, attacked or publicly criticized Scientology. It also asks me to pledge that I will never sue the church myself.

For the next several months, Jane and various other registrars call my cell phone, asking me to come back to the church and have a "win." I never do.

* * * *

Somewhere in the vast California scrubland east of Los Angeles, west of Palm Springs and near the town of Hemet, is Gold Base, the heart of the Scientology empire. It has been described in some news reports as a "top-secret" facility, monitored by security cameras and protected by electric fences. Most Scientologists have never been to Gold. Within church circles, it is often spoken of in whispers: as INT Base, Scientology's management headquarters and hangout for the likes of Tom Cruise and David Miscavige.

Gold, a former resort, was purchased by the church in the mid-Eighties and sits at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains. A simple metal gate announces its presence, behind which is a long driveway and, beyond that, a golf course. The 500-acre grounds include grassy meadows and a small lake where swans and ducks roam at will. There are no visible security cameras. But there are electric fences. "Of course we have fences," says Tommy Davis, a senior church official who, with Rinder, accompanies me on a tour of the compound. "We have $60 million worth of equipment here."

Gold is the central dissemination facility for the church. It is best known as the home of Golden Era Productions, Scientology's film, video and sound facilities. Scientology produces myriad promotional and training films here, teaching parishioners everything from auditing techniques to what goes on during a marriage-counseling session. It also makes CDs, produces events and prints its own packaging. Even its E-meters are made here, in a building where Scientologists work on a sort of corporate assembly line, producing roughly 200 of the devices per week.

There is a Disney-esque quality to Gold Base. The focal point of the complex is a beige estate house, known as the Castle, which houses the film wing. The Tavern, a nearby stone carriage-house building, is used for visiting VIPs and is decorated in a King Arthur motif, complete with a sizable round table. There are winding paths and walkways made out of what appears to be fake flagstone. All of the buildings, save the Castle, are white, with blue-tiled roofs.

Breaking up the uniformity is a startling sight: a three-mast rudderless clipper ship, the Star of California, built into a hill overlooking the campus. Some former Scientologists say this structure was built for Hubbard — though he'd "dropped his body" before it was finished — but Rinder explains it as just "an idea someone had to build a ship" as a place to house restrooms and a snack bar near the pool. It has a broad wooden deck, mermaid figurines and, at its gangplank, a fishing net adorned with plastic crabs.

Despite these colorful landmarks, Gold is essentially an office park. Its buildings are furnished like a series of corporate suites, complete with bland gray or blue rugs. There's virtually no artwork save a few Scientology posters inscribed with the words of L. Ron Hubbard, and, in the sound studio, framed headshots of various Scientologist celebrities, including Tommy Davis' mother, Anne Archer.

Davis, 33, helps run the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood and is the scion of one of California's real estate dynasties. He freely admits to being a Hollywood rich kid. He dresses in Italian suits, drives a BMW and is addicted to his Blackberry. "I have enough money to never work a day in my life," he says.

But Davis, who calls L. Ron Hubbard "the coolest guy ever," works for the church as a nonuniformed member of the Sea Organization, the Church of Scientology's most powerful entity. Sea Org members staff all of the senior ecclesiastic positions in the church hierarchy, and the top members have exclusive authority over Scientology's funds. In a nod to the group's nautical beginnings, Sea Org members were required to wear naval-style uniforms, complete with epaulets for "officers," until several years ago. Today, for all but those who serve on the Freewinds, the epaulets have been retired. At Gold, whose entire population, save the actors and directors of Scientology films, are Sea Org members, men and women dress in the style of deckhands: short-sleeve dress shirts over dark T-shirts and chinos.

The church describes the Sea Org as a fraternal order — not a legal entity — requiring lifelong commitment. It is, in fact, an eternal commitment: Sea Org members sign contracts pledging 1 billion years of service to the church. Scientology's publicity materials portray the Sea Org as similar to the U.S. Marines: "The toughest, most dedicated team this planet has ever known," according to one recruiting brochure. "Against such a powerful team the opposition hasn't got a chance."

Kim Fries, who works in Gold's audiovisual editing department, has been in the Sea Org since she was fifteen. Now thirty-two, Fries says she couldn't imagine living any other way. "What else are you going to do with your life?" she says, with a flick of her dark, wavy hair.

The Sea Org has often been portrayed as isolated, almost monastic; members are rarely allowed to see films, watch TV or read mainstream magazines. "Are we devoted? Yes. Sequestered? No," says Fries, who married a fellow Sea Org member. "I go out into the world, I talk to people out in the world, I definitely live a very full life. This isn't a priesthood. I mean, if it were a priesthood, do you think I'd work here? It would just be so unhip."

Gold is seen as the place "every Sea Org member aspires to work," says Rinder. There are expansive grounds to wander, a crystal-blue pool in which to swim; the dining hall is large and features low-fat and vegetarian entrees. A tiny shop sells cigarettes, juice, soft drinks and junk food.

In my ten or so hours at Gold, I am aware of being taken on an elaborately orchestrated junket, in which every step of my day has been plotted and planned. I don't blame the group for wanting to present its best face; at least half of my conversations with Rinder and Davis pertain in one way or another to what Scientology perceives as a smear campaign on the part of the mainstream media. A chief complaint is that reporters, eager for a story, take the words of lapsed members as gospel. Davis says Scientology gets little credit for the success of its social-betterment programs, which include Narconon and also literacy and educational programs. "Look around," says Davis. "People are out here busting their butt every day to make a difference. And one guy who leaves because he wants to go to the movies gets to characterize the whole organization? That sucks."

Scientologists do not look kindly on critics, particularly those who were once devout. Apostasy, which in Scientology means speaking out against the church in any public forum, is considered to be the highest form of treason. This is one of the most serious "suppressive acts," and those who apostatize are immediately branded as "Suppressive Persons," or SPs. Scientologists are taught that SPs are evil — Hitler was an SP, says Rinder. Indeed, Hubbard believed that a full 2.5 percent of the population was "suppressive." As he wrote in the Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, a suppressive person is someone who "goofs up or vilifies any effort to help anybody and particularly knife with violence anything calculated to make human beings more powerful or more intelligent."

Given this viewpoint, I wonder why anyone with connections to Scientology would critique them publicly. "Makes them famous," Rinder says. "They do it for their fifteen minutes."

Scientology has been extremely effective at attacking its defectors, often destroying their credibility entirely, a policy that observers call "dead agenting." Some of the church's highest-profile critics say they have been on the receiving end of this policy. In the past six years, Tory Christman claims, the church has spread lies about her on the Internet, filed suit against her for violating an injunction for picketing on church property and attempted to get her fired from her job. Rinder dismisses Christman as a "wacko" and says her allegations are "absolute bullshit."

When Christman split from the church, her husband and most of her friends — all of them Scientologists — refused to talk to her again. Apostates are not just discredited from the church; they are also excommunicated, isolated from their loved ones who, under Scientology rules, must sever or "disconnect" from them. Scientology defines those associated with Suppressive People as "Potential Trouble Sources," or PTS.

Rinder says disconnection is a policy of last resort. "The first step is always to try to handle the situation," he says. A "handling" generally refers to persuading a wayward member to return to the church in order to maintain contact with his family. The parent of someone who's apostatized might call his child and ask him to "handle" a problem by essentially recanting. "They'll ask them to make some amends, show they can be trusted . . . something to make up the damage," says Davis. Those amends might range from volunteering in a literacy program to taking a public advocacy role — campaigning against psychiatry, for example.

But some people, the officials admit, refuse to be handled. What happens to them? "Then I guess not believing in Scientology means more to them than not seeing their family," Davis says.

Excommunication is nothing new in organized religion. A number of sects have similar policies to Scientology's: the Amish, the Mormon Fundamentalists, the Jehovah's Witnesses. All have a rationale. Scientology's rationale is very simple: "We are protecting the good of the religion and all the parishioners," says Rinder.

"It's for the good of the group," says Davis.

"How are you going to judge what is and isn't the worst tenets and violations of the Church of Scientology?" Rinder asks. "You aren't a Scientologist." Complaints about these policies, he adds, "come from people who aren't Scientologists [anymore]. What do they give a shit for anymore? They left!"

I spend a lot of time talking about the question of apostasy with Rinder and Davis. Both feel the church has been miscast. "Somewhere there is a concept that we hold strings over all these people and control them," says Rinder. But provided you don't denounce Scientology, it's perfectly fine to leave the church, he says. "Whatever. What's true for you is true for you." Nothing will happen to those who lose their faith, he says, unless they "tell bald-faced lies to malign and libel the organization — unless they make it seem like something it isn't."

* * * *

Paul James is not this twenty-two-year-old man's real name. He is the son of established Scientologists, blond and blue-eyed, with the easy smile and chiseled good looks of a young Matt Damon. He has had no contact with the church since he was seventeen. "I honestly don't know how people can live psychotically happy all the time," Paul tells me over coffee one afternoon at his small, tidy house outside Los Angeles. "Or thinking that they're happy," he adds with a grin. "I'm talking about that fake-happiness thing that people make themselves believe."

Like Natalie, Paul was educated by Scientology tutors, sent to Scientologist-run private schools and put "on course" at his church. Unlike her, he hated it. "I never found anything in Scientology that had to do with spiritual enlightenment," he says. "As soon as common sense started hitting me" — around the age of ten — "it creeped me out."

Though there are a significant number of second-generation Scientologists who, like Natalie, are devoted to the church, there are also kids like Paul. This, says the University of Alberta's Stephen Kent, is to be expected. One "unanticipated consequence" of the widespread conversions of young people to sects like Scientology in the 1960s and 1970s, Kent says, has been a "wave" of defections of these members' adult children.

A fundamental element of Scientology is that children are often regarded as small adults — "big thetans in little bodies," as some parents call them. Paul's parents worked eighteen-hour days for the church, he says, and generally left him and his older brother to their own devices. "My brother was baby-sitting me by himself when he was eleven years old," Paul says. When his brother went off with his friends, "I'd get home from school and be wandering around the [apartment] complex."

Paul's school was no more structured, he says. Students were encouraged to work at their own pace on subjects of their choosing, and, according to Paul, received little guidance from teachers, who are called "supervisors." I found this to be true at the Delphi Academy in Lake View Terrace, California, part of a network of elite schools that use Hubbard's study technology. Maggie Reinhart, Delphi's director, says that this technique forces a student to take an active role in his education. A number of Scientology kids have thrived in this environment. Others, like Paul, felt lost. "I just kind of roamed from classroom to classroom and nobody cared," he says. At Delphi, I saw teachers assisting certain students, but there was no generalized "teaching," no class discussions.

Discussion, as some academics like Kent note, isn't encouraged in Scientology, nor in Scientology-oriented schools. It is seen as running counter to the teachings of Scientology, which are absolute. Thus, debate is relegated to those in the world of "Wogs" — what Scientologists call non-Scientologists. Or, as Hubbard described them, "common, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety humanoid[s]."

Paul met very few Wogs growing up, and those he did know often didn't understand him. Scientology has its own unique lexicon. "It's kind of like being a French Canadian," Paul explains. "You speak one thing out in the world and another thing at home."

Many kids who've grown up in Scientology describe it as Natalie did: "a bubble" that exists in tandem with the mainstream world. "It's impossible to understand it unless you've lived it," says Paul.

Even when you've lived it, as one young woman notes, it's hard to fully understand. This twenty-two-year-old, whom we'll call Sara, left Scientology in high school. After leaving, she and a friend who quit with her sat down with a dictionary. "We looked up all the words we used [because] we didn't know if we were speaking English or not," she says.

Hubbard created Scientology's language to be unique to its members. It includes words that are interpretations, or variations, of standard terms: "isness," for example, which Scientology's glossaries say, in essence, means "reality." But there are also words that are wholly made up, such as "obnosis," which means "observation of the obvious."

The chaotic world, as one might call it in the mainstream, is, in Scientology, "enturbulated," which means "agitated and disturbed." To correct, or solve, personal or societal problems requires the proper application of "ethics," which in Scientology refers to one's moral choices, as well as to a distinct moral system. Those who conduct themselves correctly have their ethics "in." Those who misbehave are "out-ethics." A person's harmful or negative acts are known as "overts." Covering them up is known as a "withhold."

All of these terms, and many more, are contained in a number of Scientology dictionaries, all written by Hubbard. Scientologists consider word comprehension and vocabulary skills to be essential parts of their faith.

The Hubbard Study Technology is administered in schools through an organization called "Applied Scholastics"; it emphasizes looking up any unknown or "misunderstood" word in a dictionary, and never skipping past a word you don't understand. This same study method is used in church, where adults of all ages and levels of advancement spend hours poring over dictionaries and course manuals.

One key word is "gradient," which is defined in the official Scientology and Dianetics glossary as "a gradual approach to something, taken step by step, level by level, each step or level being, of itself, easily surmountable so that, finally, quite complicated and difficult activities or high states of being can be achieved with relative ease." This principle, the glossary notes, "is applied to both Scientology processing and training."

Another key belief is "communication." One of Scientology's basic courses is "Success Through Communication," taught to young people and adults. It involves a series of drills, known as "training routines," or "TRs." One drill asks students to close their eyes and simply sit, sometimes for hours. Another asks them to stare at a partner, immobile. A third requires students to mock, joke with or otherwise verbally engage their partner. The partner must passively receive these comments without moving or saying a word.

These drills, Scientologists say, help improve what they call their "confront," which in Scientology's lexicon means "the ability to be there comfortably and perceive." A fourth drill requires students to pose a series of questions to one another, such as "Do fish swim?" Their partner may respond in any way they like, with the question being asked repeatedly until the partner answers correctly. Sara's favorite drill involved an ashtray: "You tell it to stand up, sit down, and you 'move' the ashtray for hours. You're supposed to be beaming your intention into the ashtray, and the supervisor is going to tell you if you're intent enough."

At Delphi, students take a course called "Improving Conditions." "Conditions" refers to key Hubbard principles. Charted on a scale, they relate to one's relationship to oneself and to those within one's organization, school or "group." A Scientologist's goal, it's often noted, is to "improve conditions."

From highest to lowest, the Conditions are: Power, Power Change, Affluence, Normal, Emergency, Danger, Non-Existence, Liability, Doubt, Enemy, Treason and Confusion. Together, these conditions form the spine of the practical application of Scientology "ethics," which is, many say, the true heart of the faith. "Ethics," as a Scientological term, is defined as "rationality toward the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics," as well as "reason and the contemplation of optimum survival."

To survive, Scientology applies its philosophy, or "ethics tech," across a broad social and societal scale. They do good works — indeed, as Rinder notes, "Scientologists are driven by a real concern for the well-being of others. They see the world around them and want to do something about it."

But the church's drug-treatment and literacy programs and anti-psychiatry campaigns do more than just evangelize through charity; in fact, they exist largely to help prepare people to become Scientologists. Once a person is drug-free, psychiatrist-free and literate, he is qualified for auditing. And auditing is the centerpiece of Scientology. "It's all about going up the Bridge," says Paul.

Paul began auditing when he was four. Rebellious by nature, he says it did very little for him. By the age of eleven or twelve, he says, "I was so out of control, my parents had no idea what to do with me."

Scientologists run a number of boarding schools around the country, including the prestigious Delphian School, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, which counts Earthlink founder Sky Dayton among its graduates. Scientologists' kids who caused trouble, or otherwise displeased their parents, have been sent to more restrictive private boarding schools. Paul was sent to Mace-Kingsley Ranch, located on 2,000 acres in New Mexico, which was closed in 2002.

Paul arrived at Mace-Kingsley when he was thirteen, and stayed for three and a half years. As he tells it, he underwent what sounds like a typical "boot camp" experience, complete with hard labor, bad food, tough supervision — all with a high price tag, roughly $30,000 per year. The school enforced a rigid Scientology focus that many former students now say served as both a mechanism of control and a form of religious indoctrination.

The process began for all new students with an IQ test and the Purification Rundown, which Paul says was given to kids as young as eight or nine years old. Then they were administered the Oxford Capacity Analysis, created by Scientologists in 1953. The test was designed to find out the student's "tone," or emotional state, in preparation for auditing. Students were audited daily at the ranch. By the age of sixteen, Paul says, he'd grown so used to the process, he'd figured out how to "trick" the E-meter: By remaining calm enough for no electrical charge to register, he was often able to hide most of his inner feelings from his auditors and his "case supervisor," who oversaw his progress.

But not always. "There are things they wanted to know, and they'd just keep asking until you finally told them," he says. "They'd get me to tell them about lies, or things that were bad, right down to my thoughts — some of which were overts." So were some of his deeds. Masturbation is an overt — strictly forbidden in Scientology, as Hubbard believed that it can slow one's process to enlightenment. "It's not evil, just out-ethics," says Paul. "They'll dig it up in session and tell you to stop because it's slowing you down."

Another overt is homosexuality, which Hubbard believed was a form of sexual "deviance" best treated by therapy, or institutionalization. This view was espoused by many psychiatrists of Hubbard's generation. Mainstream psychiatry has changed its view since the 1950s. Scientology as an institution takes no formal position on issues like gay marriage, but homosexuality, sexual promiscuity or any other form of "perversion" ranks low on Scientology's "tone scale," a register of human behavior Hubbard described in his 1951 book Science of Survival: Prediction of Human Behavior.

This book, according to Mike Rinder, is perhaps the most important Scientology text after Dianetics. In it, Hubbard denounced virtually every sexual practice that doesn't directly relate to marriage and children. "Such people should be taken from the society as rapidly as possible . . . for here is the level of the contagion of immortality and the destruction of ethics," he wrote of homosexuals. "No social order will survive which does not remove these people from its midst."

In auditing, Scientologists are frequently asked about their sexual thoughts or practices, particularly in the special auditing sessions called "security checks." This process requires a church member to write down any break with the ethical code. Security checks are administered to every Scientologist on the Bridge, and particularly to all OTs, who must be checked every six months "to make sure they're using the tech correctly," as church officials explain. In September, I received, through a source, a faxed copy of the standard security-check sheet for adults. Its questions include "Have you ever been involved in an abortion?" "Have you ever practiced sex with animals?" "Have you ever practiced sodomy?" "Have you ever slept with a member of a race of another color?" as well as "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?"

Paul resisted his security checks — he says he sometimes fell asleep during the sessions. But Sara, who says she went through months of "sec checks" after deciding, at age fifteen, that she didn't want to be a Scientologist any longer, says she was highly disturbed by the process. At first, she says, counselors at her church tried to "clear" her. She was forced to repeatedly look up words in the dictionary to make sure she misunderstood nothing about Scientology. Then they gave her a security check. "For months I'm going to the church every night after school, and I'm in this fucking basement for four hours a night, on the E-meter," she says. "They're asking me questions about sex — every personal question known to man." If she tried to leave, Sara adds, the auditors would physically block her path and force her back in her chair. Officials say this forced auditing is for the subjects' own good, as it might be harmful if they were to leave a session before they were ready.

"Scientology has a plausible explanation for everything they do — that's the genius of it," says Sara. "But make no mistakes: Scientology is brainwashing."

* * * *

Jeffrey Aylor was thirteen when he joined the sea Organization. Raised in a Scientology family in Los Angeles, he was at church one day when a Sea Org recruiter approached him. "What are you doing with your life?" he asked the teen.

Jeffrey had no idea what to say. "I'm thirteen, I'm not doing anything with my life," Jeffrey said. The recruiter asked him if he wanted to "help" people. Jeffrey said, "Sure. What kid doesn't want to help people?"

Thus began Jeffrey's immersion into the tightly wound world of the Sea Org, where he would spend the next seven years of his life. In that time, he would see fewer than ten movies, would rarely listen to music and never had sex. Though theoretically reading newspapers and magazines was allowed — USA Today is sold openly on Gold Base — in practice it was discouraged, along with surfing the Internet and watching TV. Indeed, all contact with the world at large was "entheta." "I never considered myself a Scientologist until I joined the Sea Org," Jeffrey says.

Jeffrey's indoctrination began with a boot camp known as the "Estates Project Force," or EPF. There, he learned to march, salute and perform manual labor. Physical work is a key training technique for new recruits. Jeffrey's sister, for instance, went through the EPF when she was twelve and was forced to crawl through ducts that were roach- and rat-infested. Like the TRs, this kind of work, Jeffrey explains, is meant to raise a person's "confront," enabling them to be more in control of their environment.

After the EPF, Jeffrey was given a blue shirt, blue tie and dark-blue trousers, and sent to work as a receptionist at the American Saint Hill Organization for spiritual training, on Scientology's expansive Hollywood campus. He was paid fifty dollars per week and worked an average of fifteen hours per day, including an hour or two of auditing and other training. Home was a large barracks-style room in a building where Jeffrey lived with about twenty other boys and men. In seven years, Jeffrey says, he saw his family just a handful of times. His only free time was the few hours he received on Sunday mornings to do his laundry. Hubbard believed strongly in productivity, which he saw as highly ethical behavior. "We reward production and up-statistics and penalize nonproduction and down-statistics," he wrote in Introduction to Scientology Ethics.

Eventually, Jeffrey found himself on "PTS watch," monitoring Sea Org members who wanted to leave the order. According to church officials, Sea Org members can leave anytime they want. But in practice, the attitude is "the only reason you'd want to leave is because you've done something wrong," says Jeffrey. This would call for a round of "sec checks," which would continue throughout the "route out" process, which can take up to a year. During that time, former Sea Org members have asserted, they are subjected to so much pressure they often decide not to leave after all.

To make sure no one would leave before their route-out was complete, Jeffrey would shadow them: "I've been assigned to go and sleep outside somebody's door — all night, for as many nights as it takes — on the floor, against the door, so I could feel if they opened it. If they went to the bathroom, someone would stand right outside. Someone is always there."

Some wayward members have "disappeared" for long periods of time, sent to special Scientology facilities known as the "Rehabilitation Project Force." Created by Hubbard in 1974, the RPF is described by the church as a voluntary rehabilitation program offering a "second chance" to Sea Org members who have become unproductive or have strayed from the church's codes. It involves intensive physical labor (at church facilities) and auditing and study sessions to address the individual's personal problems. The process is given a positive spin in church writings. "Personnel 'burnout' is not new to organizations," a post on Scientology's official Web site reads, in relation to the RPF, "but the concept of complete rehabilitation is."

Former Sea Org members who've been through the program charge that it is a form of re-indoctrination, in which hard physical labor and intense ideological study are used to break a subject's will. Chuck Beatty, a former Sea Org member, spent seven years in the RPF facilities in Southern California, from 1996 to 2003, after expressing a desire to speak out against the church. For this, he was accused of "disloyalty," a condition calling for rehabilitation. "My idea was to go to the RPF for six or eight months and then route out," says Beatty. "I thought that was the honorable thing to do." In the RPF he was given a "twin," or auditing partner, who was responsible for making sure he didn't escape. "It's a prison system," he says, explaining that all RPFers are watched twenty-four hours per day and prevented from having contact with the outside world. "It's a mind-bending situation where you feel like you're betraying the group if you try to leave."

Quiet and disciplined by nature, Jeffrey never minded the regimentation and order of the Sea Org. "I was wrapped up in work," he says. "And that's what I liked doing. And I thought I was helping people." But when he became ill, his perspective radically changed. For the first six years of his Sea Org service, Jeffrey had kept his asthma and other health issues in check. In the spring of 2004, he began to develop severe chest pains. By the summer, he was unable to work. By fall, he could barely get out of bed.

Scientologists believe that most illnesses are products of a person's own psychic traumas — they are brought upon themselves. Sea Org members are promised medical care for any illness, but Jeffrey says that he received little medical attention or money with which to seek outside medical care. Instead, he was sent to Ethics counseling. When that didn't cure him, it was suggested he return to the EPF to repeat his training.

Even while bedridden, "if I wasn't there pushing somebody to take me to a doctor . . . it didn't happen," he says. Lying in bed one night, Jeffrey listened to a taped lecture given by L. Ron Hubbard, in which he made his famous statement "If it isn't true for you, it isn't true." For Jeffrey, this began a questioning process that would eventually lead to his leaving Scientology altogether. "Nobody can force Scientology upon you, but that is exactly what was happening to me," he says.

And so, one day last February, he asked for some time off to see a doctor. Then he called his mother and asked her to come get him. When she arrived the next morning, Jeffrey left his keys and his Sea Organization ID card behind on his bed. Then, taking only his clothes, he left.

Now twenty-three, Jeffrey lives in a small mountain town more than four hours from Los Angeles. Since his "escape," as he calls it, from the Sea Org, he has not returned to the church. He has never spoken out about his experiences, which he still insists "weren't all that bad." But because he left the Sea Org without permission, he has been declared suppressive. Soon, he believes, his family still in the church will have nothing more to do with him.

The order of disconnection, called a "declare," is issued on a piece of gold-colored parchment known as a "goldenrod." This document proclaims the suppressive person's name, as well as his or her "crime." According to one friend of Jeffrey's mother who has read his declare, Jeffrey's crimes are vague, but every Scientologist who sees it will understand its point.

"This declare is a warning to Jeffrey's friends in the Sea Org," this woman, who is still a member of the church, explains. "It's saying to them, 'See this kid, he left without permission. This is what happened to him. Don't you make the same mistake.'"

* * * *

During the time I was researching this piece, I received a number of e-mails from several of the Scientologists I had interviewed. Most were still technically members of the church in good standing; privately they had grown disillusioned and have spoken about their feelings for the first time in this article. All of the young people mentioned in this story, save Natalie, are considered by the church hierarchy to be Potential Trouble Sources. But many have begun to worry they will be declared Suppressive Persons.

Their e-mails expressed their second thoughts and their fears.

"PLEASE, let me know what you will be writing in the story," wrote one young woman. "I just want to make sure that people won't be able to read it and figure out who I am. I know my mom will be reading."

"The church is a big, scary deal," wrote another. "My [initial] attitude was if this information could save just one person the money, heartache and mind-bending control, then all would be worth it. [But] I'm frightened of what could happen."

"I'm about two seconds away from losing my whole family, and if that story comes out with my stuff in it, I will," wrote a third. "I'm terrified. Please, please, please . . . if it's not too late . . . help me keep my family."

One particularly frantic e-mail arrived shortly before this story was published. It came from a young Scientologist with whom I had corresponded several times in the course of three or four months. When we first met, she spoke passionately and angrily about the impact of the church on herself and those close to her.

"Please forgive me," she wrote. "The huge majority of things I told you were lies. Perhaps I don't like Scientology. True. But what I do know is that I was born with the family I was born with, and I love them. Don't ask me to tear down the foundation of their lives." Like almost every young person mentioned in this piece, this woman was given a pseudonym to protect her identity, and her family's. But it wasn't enough, she decided. "This is my life . . . Accept what I tell you now for fact: I will not corroborate or back up a single thing I said.

"I'm so sorry," she concluded. "I hope you understand that everyone I love is terribly important to me, and I am willing to look beyond their beliefs in order to keep them around. I will explain in further detail, perhaps, some other day."
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