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 » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:14 pm

Part 1 of 2

Operating Thetan Materials
by Church of Scientology

Table of Contents:

• OT I Description
• OT II Course summary. (by Karin Spaink; ruled legal by a Dutch court)
• OT III Course summary (by Karin Spaink; ruled legal by a Dutch court)
• OT IV Rundown
• OT V
• OT VI
• OT VII Rundown
• OT VIII Part 1: Why Thetans Mock Up
• OT VIII Part 2: OT VIII Series I Confidential Student Briefing

OT I Description
(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

OT I
L. Ron Hubbard

There have been three different OT. Its put out by Hubbard. Here they all are.

Earliest OT T

1. On an E-Meter, find the last 3,000 years of lifetimes. Plot out the entire 3,000 year chart as follows:

(a) Find an overt lifetime. Get the identity and the approximate dates of birth and death. Find the overt and pull all the justifications to it.

(b) Find the following motivator lifetime, and follow procedure as above. (Identity and dates.)

(c) Find the postulate from each lifetime and the basic postulate in each group of lifetimes.

(d) Continue the first three steps until the entire 3,000 years is charted and the individuals kharma, i.e. (over motivator sequence) becomes apparent.

(e) In some cases additional benefit could be obtained by locating the basic misunderstood which proceeded the basic overt on this chain.

Second OT I

(a) Route I ... The entire 15 steps as listed in "Creation of Human Ability".

(b) With an E-Meter, scan out entire present lifetime to a floating needle.

(c) Mock-up heat until body feels warm.

(d) Postulating mass: With the use of the E-Meter and the command "I have Mass", create a reactive mind. Put sufficient significance on to it to cause the T.A to rise. Then spot it until the T.A. falls and the mass erases. Run to an FIN. Then mock it up again and erase it each time to a floating needle. This procedure is repeated until the pre-OT is certain he can create and dissipate a reactive mind.

Third OT I

The current OT I is done outdoors and consists solely of one command run until cognition.

"Spot a person"

concludes OT I

OT II Course, summary and comments

In OT 2,

OT COURSE - SECTION TWO - INSTRUCTIONS

Hubbard gives instructions for the 'whole track tables', that is: the timeline of trillions of years of memory Scientologists claim to have. There are supposedly ten of them. In the following I will try to summarize it, because my lawyer, after having finally having seen evidence handed over to him on behalf of RTC, has advised me that including the full text is at this time against my interests. So be it. I therefore will give you this summary, taken from Michael Robinson's article Oparating Thetan Summary and Analysis. Your comments are kindly invited. Please correct any errors and tell me about any information that I may have missed.

According to Hubbard, there are ten of these 'whole track' tables or time lines. Each time line contains only one GPM or 'Goals Problems Mass' (according to Martin Hunt's dictionary: "a supposed mass which develops when one is thwarted from reaching a Goal by a Problem or stop.") Each set should be run separately:

he GPM found in each set are as follows: ELECTRICAL, TOCKY, BIG BEING, HOUSE, PSYCHO, BANKY, FORERUNNER, BASIC-BASIC, BASIC, THE COMMAND, LOWER LP, LP, and BODY GPM. In addition to these GPM, there are a number of Implant Incidents which have no line plot, as follows: THE ARROW, DOUBLE ROD, WOMAN, WHITE BLACK SPHERE, HOT COLD, LAUGHTER CALM, and DANCE MOB.

The GPM in these "whole track tables" are supposedly the residual mass of incidents that happened untold numbers of lifetimes ago to the individual's immortal "thetan". Approximate dates for each of the incidents are provided, although some, such as "about trillions 214th Power years ago" for the BASIC BASIC GPM, challenge credulity regardless.

The version of Level Two reproduced in the Fishman Declaration is incomplete. A summary of the available GPM follows:

The GPM in these "whole track tables" are supposedly the residual mass of incidents that happened untold numbers of lifetimes ago to the individual's immortal "thetan". Approximate dates for each of the incidents are provided, although some, such as "about trillions 214th Power years ago" for the BASIC BASIC GPM, challenge credulity regardless.
The version of Level Two reproduced in the Fishman Declaration is incomplete. A summary of the available GPM follows:

1. ELECTRICAL

The purpose of the ELECTRICAL GPM was to "CONVINCE a thetan he should think of himself as an electrical being". Thus, the end word of the permutation is not a word, but a shock. The permutation for the ELECTRICAL GPM is as follows:

Create / (shock)
Destroy / no (shock)
Love / --
Hate / --
Be / --
Disown / --
Use / --
Condemn / --
Seize / --
Escape / --


2. TOCKY

In the TOCKY GPM, there is a swing of "Sun" from left to right which gives a read after each item. The permutation for the TOCKY GPM is as follows:

Create / Sun Swing
Abide / no Sun Swing
Enjoy / --
Welcome / --
Share / --
Keep / --
Hold / --
Exploit / --
Deplore / --
Skip / --
Continue / --
Forget / --


Also included are the following two cryptic commands:

"That's what you get for making this Universe."
"Get Out --"


No explanation is given for what is "that", who exactly is "you", which universe is "this Universe", nor exactly "out" of what or where one is to get. Either it is expected that all these ambiguities will be clarified at the time one runs this GPM, or that the ambiguities are irrelevant, and it is sufficient simply to run the GPM without this information.

3. BIG BEING

The BIG BEING GPM is associated with the image of an explosion and the subsequent appearance of a BIG BEING (thus the name) in the sky.

The permutation for the BIG BEING GPM is as follows:

You / Must / Survive
He / Mustn't / --
They / Should / --
We / Shouldn't / --
All / Can / --
Can't / -- / --


This is followed by another explosion.

4. THE HOUSE

The only identification of this GPM is the possible appearance of a house or internal room.

5. THE ARROW

In the space of 1/10th of a second, an image appears of two back-to-back targets, the front white, and the back black, with an arrow centered on each of the targets (the two arrows thus aimed at each other).

6. WOMAN

The figure of a woman appears for a few hours. Nothing else.

7. WHITE BLACK SPHERE

An image of a sphere and a pole, black in front, white in back.

8. HOT COLD

For 1 1/8 seconds an image appears of a split pole, cold in front, hot in back.

9. LAUGHTER CALM

For 7 1/8ths of a second, in a cave, screams of very wild laughter come from the rear (then front) of a split pole, while calm ("a frozen numbness") comes from the front (then rear), giving a sensation of total disagreement.

"The trick is to conceive of both at the same time."


10. DANCE MOB

In the incident proper, one is stuck on a pole and trying to get off it. After this, a chanting mob dances around. The Pre-OT is supposed to get the phrases the mob chants while running this incident.

However, the duration is only 7/8ths of a second, so it is not clear how much of the chanting the Pre-OT will be able to "get".

11. DOUBLE ROD

A long shiny black rod moves from left to right, develops a split in the middle, becoming a white rod revolving forward and a black rod revolving backward. Both rods then disappear forward and up.

According to L. Ron Hubbard:

"There is a tremendous feeling of EXCITEMENT attached to this incident. It has a sort of feeling attached to it as if it was being squashed between the two revolving rods."


12. BASIC BASIC

This is actually a series of 5 GPM's consisting of explosions inside ones head, "where the Thetan is."

13. THE LOWER BANK

Contained in the lower bank are 48 pairs (of which 8 are found in the Fishman Declaration). All 48 affirmative items are first run, then the negative items, than each pair together. The pair schematic is as follows:

Affirmative: To build a _______ingness machine.
Negative: Not to _______ yourself.


The eight listed items are: postulate, think, ideanize (ideafyingness), reason, solve, order, space, and time.

OT III Course, summary and comments

In OT 3,

OPERATING THETAN
Section Three


Hubbard explains his cosmology and the ins & outs of 'body thetans'. I will try to summarize it, because my lawyer, after having finally having seen evidence handed over to him on behalf of RTC, has advised me that including the full text is at this time against my interests. So be it. I therefore will give you this summary, interspersed with comments. Your comments are kindly invited. Please correct any errors and tell me about any information that I may have missed. Page numbers refer to the version of OT 3 as given in the Fishman Affidavit.

The following portion of OT 3 is quoted in full in Margery Wakefield's book The Road to Xenu, chapter 13, and I believe all of it has been quoted in other books and articles as well. It provides a nice context for my summary and comments:

The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.

One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.

In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.


(p. 76-77) Well, lots of things to dissect and discuss here, and perhaps even more things that need some elucidation before we can even begin to understand what Hubbard says in this rather strange and condensed tidbit.

But before we start, I believe it may be useful to first explain some more about Scientology's basic beliefs; otherwise it's difficult to make head or tails of the quote.

Jon Atack, who once was a member of Scientology and who has in fact completed OT 3 before he became a very effective critic of the cult, has provided us with a very useful analysis, OT 3 rewritten for beginners. Here's what Jon says:

Scientologists believe that they have reincarnated from before the beginning of time. They believe that many interplanetary civilizations have existed. Hubbard restyled the spirit the "thetan". Before the beginning of time, thetans existed, separate from one another (thetans were not created; they have existed for all time and indeed precede the creation of time). With the creation of energy and matter, thetans have gradually become trapped. The principal method of entrapment is through "implanting", where the thetan is hypnotised and given positive suggestions which limit its powers. This process, according to Hubbard, has been going on in this universe for four quadrillion years (4,000,000,000,000,000, rather than the mere 8-20,000,000 held by astrophysicists). However, this is just one universe in a series of several.

Scientology seeks to return the thetan's power by stripping away implants and using drills to heighten extrasensory perception and ability. The goal of these procedures is an "operating thetan" -- a being who can act independently of his physical body, and can cause physical events to occur through sheer force of will. The "operating thetan" would be capable of dismissing illness and psychological disorder in others at will.


Now that we know that, let's go through it again. Here's how the story start:

The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".


(p. 77) Hubbard believes in various universes, an idea that has been explored in sci-fi under the name of 'parallel universes'. Hubbard postulates that 95 million years ago, in our particular universe, a Galactic Federation was founded. There are, according to him, seventy-six planets that have gained membership to it. Sure bigger than the United Nations, and very space-opera indeed.

According to Hubbard, earth was once part of this Federation. It suffered from severe overpopulation; an average 178 billion people per planet is indeed rather crowded. The head of the Federation, whose name is later on to be revealed as 'Xenu', although some people think it's 'Xemu' (Hubbard's handwriting is spidery, and thus easy to misread) took draconian measures to reduce the number of inhabitants. Xenu transported the lot of them to earth, then referred to as 'Teegeeack'. After transportation, Xenu used hydrogen bombs on various volcanos and thereby wiped out all these people. Very effective indeed. He then proceeded to carry off their souls/spirits or 'thetans' and 'implanted' those. This episode -- the transport, the bombing, the implanting -- was labelled 'Incident II' by Hubbard.

In the other universes, other things happened. All thetans on this planet and on twenty-one nearby stars have Incident II and 'R6' in common. Hubbard refers to these twenty-two planets as 'the Confederation'.

It might be worth mentioning here that the Sea Org's insigna carries twenty-two stars. The number of stars is surely not chosen haphazardly: the insigna is obviously intended to be a symbol of this confederation that had to 'suffer' Incident II.

The other planets within the Galactic Federation -- there were seventy-six of them, Hubbard says -- supposedly have their own version of Incident II. And other universes -- remember, Hubbard believed in parallel universes -- would probably have other versions of Incident II as well. But what all universes have in common, according to Hubbard, is Incident I. He describes it in just a few lines and obviously didn't give the matter much thought, or perhaps he didn't dare 'to take the plunge' into this one. Hubbard doesn't say how much time this incident took, nor does he locate it. He's also notably silent upon what happened inbetween Incident I and II, if I may say so.

Incident I
Occurs at start of track (4 quadrillion years ago).
LOUD SNAP
WAVES OF LIGHT
CHARIOT COMES OUT, TURNS RIGHT AND LEFT
CHERUB COMES OUT
BLOWS HORN, COMES CLOSE
SHATTERING SERIES OF SNAPS
CHERUB FADES BACK (RETREATS)
BLACKNESS DUMPED ON THETAN


(p. 99-100) Judging by this, I don't think Hubbard supported either the Bing Bang or the Expanding Universe theory in his private cosmology, although both make much more sense than his. Let's label this one the Snap Story. We have here an indecisive cherub, who doesn't know whether to turn left or right and who comes out twice without ever retreating; and we have horns. A bit angelic for somebody who, as we shall see later, believed that Christ was an implant.

Let's turn to Incident II, which allegedly happened 75 million years ago and occurred on earth:

Incident II is over 36 days long. Capture on other planets was weeks or months before the implant. Those on Teegeeack (Earth) were just blown up except for Loyal officers who were (shortly before the explosion on Earth) rounded up.


(p. 79) So Xenu captured everybody who did not live on earth, held them imprisoned for a few weeks or sometimes even months, and then transported them to earth and mixed them with the rest, that is, the people who did live there. He then proceeded to nuke the lot. Just a few loyal officers escaped this major hydrogen bombing. Judging from this excerpt, it would seem that Hubbard conjures that loyal officers were only to be found on earth. That's exobiotist, I think... I also wonder where they went?

Incident II is described in greater detail. Here's the 'sequence':

H-BOMB DROPPED ON VOLCANO
EXPLOSION
TERRIFIC WINDS
THETAN CARRIED OVER PEAK
ELECTRONIC RIBBON CAME UP
HE STUCK TO IT
IT WAS THEN PULLED DOWN AND HE WAS (AS PART OF A GROUP)
IMPLANTED WITH R6
PICTURE OF PILOT SAYING HE IS MOCKING IT UP


(p. 99) Every bit as cryptic, but at least he elaborates on it throughout OT 3. The bit about the thetan, the soul or spirit of a nuked-out guy, getting stuck to an electric ribbon surely reflects Margery Wakefield's comparison of them to insects: upon hearing for the first time about body thetans, she said they sounded like flees. Based on this description, I'd vote for flies.

Another nicety is the pilot mentioned in the last part of the sequence. Sounds like the ending of a bad horror movie: 'Twas all a dream ... But although 'mocking something up' usually means 'imagining it', in Scieno-lingo it means more than a mental picture; it is supposedly a self-created object; it is a thing which one can be. Operating Thetans are, again, supposedly able to 'mock up' a picture that has dimensions and location in space and time.

After the bombing, the thetans were 'implanted'. Hubbard describes the 'sequence' of the 'implant' thus:

(1) capture (being shot)
(2) freezing
(3) transport to Teegeeack (sometimes via a relay point)
(4) being placed near a volcano
(5) beginning implant up to "the pilot"
(6) various picture sequences
(7) the 7s and C.C. and OT II materials
(8) 36 days of picture implants which give a vast array of materials and three explanations for the bombing
(9) transport to Hawaii or Las Palmas for packaging up into clusters.

The pictures contain God, the Devil, angels, space opera, theaters, helicopters, a constant spinning, a spinning dancer, trains and various scenes very like modern England. You name it, it's in this implant we call in its entirely "R6".


(p. 80). Jon Atack gives some more details than I've been able to find in the Fishman version of OT 3. For instance, he explains how the thetans were transported, according to Hubbard:

The people were killed and the thetans (or spirits) gathered, frozen in a mixture of glycol and alcohol, and brought to Earth where they were placed near volcanoes which were exploded with hydrogen bombs. The thetans were gathered on "electronic ribbons," packaged together as clusters and given 36 days of implanting, to render them servile and incapable of decision.


So what happens is that they're caught, transported, nuked, get implanted up to a certain point (the pilot saying it was all mocked up) and then get fed pictures. They're also given the '7s' (a set of supposed implants, and for the life of me, I don't know which; I don't know if Hubbard does, either. He does not further describe it in OT 3). 'C.C.' is the clearing course, the courses Scientologists have to finish before they are allowed to do the OT's. It strikes me as rather funny that Hubbard says they were fed OT 2 as well: something is coming full circle here. I think it helps Scientologists to relate to these poor imprisoned inoperate thetans; after all, it means they're at the same point in their studies. After they're fed OT 2, it's movie-time again. Thirty six days, no less! Then they're transported again and delivered at the volcanos.

What strikes me as odd is that in the description of Incident II itself, the thetans get to be implanted before they encounter this pilot who says it's all mocked up; but during this implant, they are "implanted up to 'the pilot.'" Mirrors in mirrors here ... The gist of the implanting, as per Hubbard, are pictures of theaters, trains, helicopters, and modern British life. Pictures of God and the devil are part of it, Hubbard says here. This of course is a statement highly objectionable to those who adhere to Christianity. Elsewhere, Hubbard happens to mention that Christ was part of the implant too.

'R6' is short for the 'reactive mind', i.e. the whole of the implant during OT 3. The 'reactive mind' is also being referred to as 'bank' (short for memory bank).

Hubbard repeatedly states that this is all 'fact.' Fact, not fiction. But he obviously chose to ignore a few harder facts, and his story is in flagrant contradiction with, for instance, geology. In Jon Atack's words:

OT 3 is of course in substantial disagreement with conventional geology. Geologists hold that almost all of the volcanoes listed by Hubbard and both Hawaii and Los Palmas came into being far more recently than 75 million years ago. On a simple point of logic, it seems strange that none of these volcanoes was damaged by the explosion of the hydrogen bombs.


One of these scientific refutations may be found on my homepage: Peter Fordes Scientific Scrutiny of OT 3. Hubbard's 'facts' flunk on astrophysics: our universe is much younger that he believes it to be. So be well advised and take Hubbard's story as fiction rather than fact.

There's another confusing paragraph:

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.


(p. 76) Ahhh, here we have the first occurrence of the name of the Beast, sometimes also referred to as 'the Dark Prince': Xenu. The name 'Xenu' is shunned by most Scientologists: they will not speak it, and try to prevent others from reading it. (There's this one guy on a.r.s. who carefully edits 'Xenu' out of the name of Steven Fishman's account any time he replies to Fishman: he changes it into zenu@ix.netcom.com instead. Rather funny, in fact.) Or Scientologists will pretend they've never heard of Xenu, in adherence with their belief that OT 3 is very secret and must not be revealed to or be discussed with anybody whatsoever.

So Xenu availed himself of renegades to carry out his devilish plot. But renegades of what? Xenu was the leader of the Galactic Federation, according to Ron, wasn't he? So if they were renegades, you would hardly expect them to plot with Xenu, but rather against, wouldn't you? It doesn't make sense. Even fiction needs a coherent plot and should not mess up details.

The next sentence deals with the content of the 'implants'. According to Hubbard, implants are 'false memories', a kind of post-hypnotic suggestion. Here he describes them as 'misleading data'. Hubbard explains that Xenu and his renegades used 'circuits' to place this misleading data in the populace. It's a shame he doesn't give more details. He was a sci-fi writer, wasn't he? So surely he should have been able to come up with something. Now I can't help but think of this movie of Johnnie Mnemonic and his memory bank...

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.


(p. 76) Loyal officers -- that is, loyal to the people, but I think that from Xenu's point of view we would have the real renegades here, considering what's up next -- some officers captured Xenu after his frightful misdeeds. It was not an easy catch: it took six years of battle. These officers then proceeded by caging Xenu in and trapping him in a mountain on one of the Federation's planets. Hubbard believes that Xenu is still there, supposedly alive. According to Hubbard, the place where all this happened has suffered severely and is still bare.

Hubbard turns to the implant now. It is allegedly deadly 'calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc)', but he quickly ensures his readers that he himself has developed the tech to deal with that, and render the implant harmless.

One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto- running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc., and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.


(p. 76-77) Now it's becoming complicated. Until now, this was just a nice sci-fi story starring evil princes, but now we'll get entangled in Scieno-speak: lots of lingo to come. Hubbard here explains to his followers how to deal with the implants placed in us in Incident I and II. Remember, Scientologists 'run' things. They 'run' a routine, for instance, or a procedure. 'Running' means going over a memory or following an auditing procedure. You can also 'overrun' something, meaning that you take a routine or procedure beyond the end of an auditing process. To put it simply, when you 'overrun' something, you didn't stop in time. I take it that 'auto-running' is meant to denote that a procedure or routine takes off by itself, and just goes 'on and on'. 'Freewheeling' must be akin to running in circles in perpetuum. Hubbard believes that it will kill a person.

But what about this: 'fail to complete one thetan at a time.' I take it that that's a body thetan. But how do you 'take' them? I think I need help on this. Jon?

On OT 3, the individual finds "body thetans" by locating any sensation of pressure or mass in his or her body. This is addressed "telepathically" as a cluster, and taken through the cluster-making incident of 75 million years ago. Once this is done, the individual body thetans should be available to be taken through either the same incident or through incident one. (...) According to OT 3, everyone on Earth is in fact a collection of such clusters (Hubbard says that each person doing OT 3 will find "hundreds" of body thetans -- many victims of this course believe that they find millions).


Thanks, Jon. So one needs to take all one's body thetans through one of these Incidents, one by one. Sounds like a lot of work indeed.

In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.


(p. 77) Oh-wee! Hubbard dived straight into the implant! The first one to do so in 75 million years! Such a shame that he does not give 'all the data' but holds back on us. Now he's dead and we'll never know all the details of his space soap opera. Oh well. Star Wars is still being televised. At least Hubbard had the grace to explain about these body thetans of his:

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.


(p. 77) So we are made up of this 'mass of individual thetans' that are stuck to us. Yuk. And they can form clusters too! "A cluster is a group of body thetans crushed or held together by some mutual bad experience" -- that's what I read somewhere. I bet the mutual bad experience is either Incident I or Incident II.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.


(p. 77) See? I was right. But 'running beings'? I guess it's following processes not unlike those the pre-clear use when they're 'running an engram', the difference being that they now 'run body thetans'. And the body thetans behave like pre-clears. Hmm, do they have to hand in stats too?

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.


(p. 77). 'Primary error' sounds like 'primary sin'. And these Scientologist believe all that? Wow. And gee, thanks for the good wishes. I think that the Scientologist who has just started on OT 3, and has just read all this, could use them. Quite a few of them took a real fright, I've gathered. And what exactly happens to the body thetan when you get rid of it? Does it jump on somebody else? No, they don't, Hubbbard says. It's explained a bit further in the text.

Body Thetans are just Thetans. When you get rid of one he goes off, and possibly squares around, picks up a body or admires daisies. He is in fact a sort of cleared Being. He cannot fail to eventually, if not at once, regain many abilities. Many have been asleep for the last 75,000,000 years. A Body Thetan responds to any process any Thetan responds to.


(p. 78) Many body thetans have been asleep for the last 75 million years'? They sure outdo Sleeping Beauty! And when the Scientologist has rid himself of one of these body thetans, the little thingies may pick up a body of their own. They even like daisies! Where's all the sci-fi gone, I wonder, and the horror?

So what the Scientologist needs to do, is audit all these body thetans, that is, lead them through Incident II, and perhaps I. Then they'll be off. Every body thetan has to be processed individually. I couldn't find a reference as to their numbers. There might be hundreds; could be more, could be less. If you find none, Hubbard says, one needs to go back to some basic courses and perhaps file for a 'Review', that is, a serious talk with one's supervisor, because finding no body thetans is out of the question.

In a chapter called 'The Basic on BT's', Hubbard goes on to explain that body thetans tend to stick together. They form 'clusters' by collision; they keep a picture of this collision, and, in turn, this picture attracts yet other body thetans. (I remember this fairy tale in which a boy with a swan starred; everybody wanted to touch the swan, but once they had, they couldn't get loose. After the first person got stuck, someone tried to pull him loose. He in turn got stuck as well. And the next. And the next. Hubbard's story reminds me of this tale.) Hubbard then goes in a complicated spin, explaining how the collision and the picture of the collision conflate:

Thus we get the concept of a "black theta body". This would be actual BT's stuck to a thetan plus pictures of BT's stuck to a thetan.


(p. 81) The solution to this tangled web of stuck body thetans and pictures of stuck body thetans stuck to thetans, is to try and trace the first incident or 'picture' of such a collision or contact, and work from there.

What one has to do is break up the cluster. Clusters are usually derived from Incident II (one is never sure though; they might date back to Incident I). In the real big clusters that are formed in Incident II, these clusters even have hierarchies within the partaking body thetans:

Incident II sometimes forms gigantic clusters. In such there is a leader, an alternate leader and several (eight to eighteen) more.


(p. 83) There is alas no reference to the function of this leadership and alternate leadership. Perhaps it's just for the heck of it; after al, they're nasty implanted little bastards. It is even quite common to find that there are clusters made up out of clusters:

In doing a cluster one is likely to find it is made up of other earlier clusters.


(p. 90) So how does one break up a cluster? Take 'em through Incident II and then they'll loosen up, so that you can address the individual body thetans. As I said before, a lot of work to do here.

Another complication is that it will sometimes only appear as if a body thetan isn't gone, but he fooled ya. He is gone indeed. He just left a trace of himself, and what you are trying to audit away is not the thingie itself:

Thetans in the body may obsessively copy the pictures of other thetans. Therefore you can find it seems that the thetan who just left is still there because there is a picture left.


(p. 85) While this may be a nasty trick, there's worse that you may encounter:

Some Body Thetans are suppressive. A suppressive is out of valence in R6. He is in valence in Incident I almost always.


(p. 78) Suppressive body thetans! Wouldn't you know. Hubbard sees suppressives everywhere. What do you want to do with them? Send them to Ethics? Expel them from Scientology? Fair game them?

But what is a suppressive body thetan? In Scieno-speak, 'valence' is an adopted personality; 'being out of valence' therefore means behaving as if you're someone else; imposturing, so to say. So when Hubbard says that a body thetan is 'out of valence' in 'R6' -- R6 being the Incident II implant -- I guess what he means is that these particular body thetans pretend to be linked with the bombing, while in fact they're linked with the cherubs and the Snap Story. The little pranksters!

According to Hubbard, when one manages to rid oneself of all body thetans, one will be able to "accomplish full stable exteriorization" with full perception, that is: get out of your body and move at will through the universe. As L. Ron Hubbard puts it:

"OT III is a vital grade. One fronts up to it and does it. When he is really done, the rewards of OT III and IV exceed his wildest dreams."


(p. 93). For me, I think it's not wild at all. Wildly mad, at best.

Copyright for this version: Karin Spaink, February 1996.
Quotes taken from L. Ron Hubbard, OT III, as included in the Fishman Affidavit (US District Court, Central District of California, CV 91-6426 HLH (Tx)
Feel free to distribute this, as long as you don't sue one another or ask money for it.

For completion's sake, and because my grasp of such an ephemeral subject as that of body thetans is quite flimsy (and I intend to keep it that way) I further include an excerpt from a book written by Geoffrey Filbert, Excalibur Revisited that deals with OT 3 as well. Filbert goes on at length about the body thetans and the procedures one should apply on them.

Excalibur Revisited was published in electronic form, and Mr. Filbert has given it to the public domain in the fall of 1994. It is, amongst others, available via America Online and has been since December 1994. The material is in fact copyrighted by Filbert; he received his copyright registration on April 25, 1982. Scientology received their first copyright filings for their OT 3 material on May 12, 1982... So I guess Filbert predates them. These are pages 266 - 268.

OT III

1. Check for any BTs (E-meter, theta perceptics, intention, pressure areas, telepathy is HOW) on and in:

a. Body surface (WHERE)
b. Body inside
c. In thetan's space (Approx. 40' X 60')
d. On thetan

2. Run Incident 2, then Incident 1, until BT(s) have gone and are released. Then, check for additional Incidents 1's and 2's until dry (on the meter).

3. Return to Step 2, to find new ones to run. Use ruds while running if necessary. There is an effort to stop and hurry on Incident 1.

4. When complete, exact date and run both of the incidents on self.

5. If a bog, do Millazo Pack. Write down some 'mutual associations'. Re each one on this list, FIND THE INCIDENT THAT MADE THEM ONE, and run that. Then, run OT III, Incident 2 and 1 after that cluster is broken up. Occasionally, BTs will have an incident that made them one other then Incident 2, thus this action.

INCIDENT 2: Dates approx. 75 million years ago, earth years, location, Earth, named TEEGEEACK at that time (meaning planet of sorrow), involved 33 planets of this sector, each with populations of 80 - 200 BILLION PER PLANET. XENU, the ruler, and 'Renegades' decided to solve overpopulation as follows, but was halted, and XENU placed in a mountain trap after over 5 years of war.

Incident 2 Patter: DETERMINE IF A LOYAL OFFICER, RESIDENT OF EARTH, or FROM ANOTHER PLANET. If the latter two, start at their being picked up and shot and if from another planet, frozen in an ice cube, transported (flying saucer), taken to mountain, a volcano always, H BOMB EXPLOSION, TERRIFIC WINDS, EFFORT TO ORIENT, MAGNETIC STRIP UP FROM CENTER OF VOLCANO OR DOWN FROM AN AIRPLANE, EFFORT TO GET OFF AND FIND REST OF SELF, PROTEST, BEING PULLED ON STRIP, VISUAL DISPLAY OF INSTRUCTION BY A 'GO TO THE PILOT', WHO SAYS 'HE'S MOCKING IT UP'. There are 26 - 29 days of implanting (the CC and OT II, God and Devil material, reasons for this being done, helicopters, etc.) that need not be run. SOME WERE PACKAGED INTO CLUSTERS in the HAWAII and LOS PALMAS ISLANDS (8 to a cluster). If a loyal officer, the sequence is SURPRISE at being shot, placed at the volcano. Use meter to determine and determine volcano. Watch for earlier beginning (pulled in for a tax audit), run only up to the 'HE'S MOCKING IT UP' as BTs can go into 'free fall', spin and get sick from the 29 days implanting, with pneumonia and death the implanted phenomena of free fall in addition to insomnia. Coltus, the Reigning planet, Hubbard a part of the 'rescuing force that put an end to it'. Don't force or push them off, and answer the BTs questions. There were probably not any good or bad guys in this incident, although Hubbard insists the sector to have been a cultural desert since. Very SP BTs can usually be brought around with adept 2WC, Charm, Ruds, but if not use Power Processing on the rare hard core.

Incident 1: Dates 4 QUADRILLION YEARS AGO (which is 15 zeros or 4,000 trillion years ago).

Incident 1 Patter: LOUD SNAP, WAVES OF LIGHT, HORSES DRAWING CHARIOT RIGHT TO LEFT, CHERUB COMES OUT, BLOWS HORN, COMES CLOSE, SHATTERING SERIES OF SNAPS, CHERUB FADES, RETREATS, BLACK MASS IS DUMPED ON THE THETAN.

Volcano List

HAWAII Pacific Ocean
MT HOOD Pacific NW
MT BAYER Pacific NW
MT RAINIER Washington
MT ETNA Mediterranean
MT ST. HELENS Washington
MT EREBUS Antarctica
MT FUJI Japan
MT EVEREST Himalayas - Nepal & Tibet
MT KILIMANJARO Northeastern Africa
LAS PALMAS Canary Islands off NE
Africa MT SHASTA California
MT VESUVIUS Italy
MT KRAKATOA Indonesia
MT PELEE Martinique
MT MCKINLEY Alaska
Volcanoes existed New Zealand
at these locations Philippines
then, but no Mexico
longer South America
North Dakota
Vermont
Scotland
Iceland

Note: These were the most common locations. 600 other volcanoes did and do exist, which I did not list.

You clear up that a BT is a body thetan, The instructions are self explanatory, Basically, the reason they are doing this is to where they won't be confused with hundreds of different thoughts so that they can have some peace and quiet, and so they won't be other-determined. After they have run all these remnants of folks out by telepathic auditing on them, they attain the state of freedom from overwhelm and a return of full self determinism. One cleans off those 4 areas in the order listed. It is generally underrun, it is rarely overrun, What you have been doing all the way up the Bridge is breaking these clusters apart. With Expanded Dianetics, Grades and all the previous auditing, you have been taking these off. About 1/2 of the BTs come off and leave and go live their own lives by doing the lower Bridge right, and the other 1/2 come off here by doing OT III correctly. So, if you don't do the lower Bridge correctly on someone and they do a real good job on OT III, they will get about 1/2 of it done. It is pretty wild material to run and the gains of it are beyond description. It is not a crazy idea at all. The irony of it is that it happened a lot more than once. It is listed as an event that happened 75 million years ago. It probably happened to the preclear dozens of times. So, watch out for your dates.

After that you do not do OT VII, and then put them on OT III again, like the churches do. You do OT IV which is included here. After they have done that they have attained the state of certainty of self as a being and freedom from uncertainty of self.

On OT V they attain the state of freedom from fixated introversion into MEST and gain the ability to refamiliarize as a thetan exterior with the physical universe.

(end excerpt)

OT IV RUNDOWN

(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

Non-Solo

OT IV Rundown

Symptoms

Has completed OT III

OT IV Warning.

This is in fact a grade. Therefore to run it without setting the case up fully is to waste it.

Often the case has to:

(1) Be discharged with a lot of corrective actions and

(2) OT III must be run on the PC by the auditor or at least cleaned up. It might not be uncommon to have to do half or more of the C/Ses in the book before doing the OT IV Rundown.

If one holds off and really flies the case, then the person winds up at OT Exterior very nicely when one does OT IV.

If you do OT IV and he's still in his head, all is not lost, you have other actions you can take. Clusters, Prep-Checks, failed to exteriorise directions.

OT V and VI are designed for someone already exterior. If a person doesn't go exterior after OT IV Rundown, you set him up for V by then seeing he jolly well does go exterior before going on to V.

OT IV Rundown

Done only by an Auditor on a Case fully set up by various Directions.

2 April 1978

OT IV SOLO

The end phenomenon of OT IV is "Certainty of Self as a Being". The thing that would make a Being uncertain is the possibility of future implants. OT IV Solo is designed to "proof up a Being" against any possibility of being re-implanted now that he/she has finished running implants with the completion of OT.

The main idea on OT IV Solo is to mock-up (create) each line of the Clearing Course (7's, The Basic End Words, The Confusion GPM, Objects-Hollow, Objects-Solid) with all the perceptics, force, impact, and unconsciousness of the original implant (as much as you are able). When the line is mocked up (created or recreated), then unmock it, cease creating it, and blow the charge you have recreated or mocked up. Do this repetitively with each line of the Clearing Course (including lights) to a floating needle on each line. Continue until you feel totally free with and at cause over this implant sequence; (you may or may not need to complete all 5 parts). Do it until you can freely and easily mock-up and blow this implant and can confront implants.

Lastly, scan out all of your auditing early to late adding up all the hours in session as you go along.

Come up with a total number of auditing hours for yourself.

Find and run a havingness process.

Attest to OT IV

(1) Rudiments or GF (Green Form) to FIN.
(2) Rehab Drugs.
(3) Valence Shifter. "What valence would be safe?"
(4) Rehab ARC Straight Wire to Grade IV.
(5) Rehab R6EW - OT II.
(6) Prepcheck OT Ill.
(7) Rehab OT V &.VI.
(8) Run "What has been Overrun?"
(9) Run "What can you confront?"

(IF THE PRE OT DOES NOT EXTERIORIZE, WE WILL DO 7 CASES NEXT

SESSION AND HANDLE UNTIL HE DOES GO EXTERIOR which is really the end phenomena of OT IV Audited only by a Class VIII.)
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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Part 2 of 2

OT V

(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

CAUSE OVER MEST

Gain Freedom from Fixated

Introversion into MEST

For eons, man has speculated and guessed about the nature of the Physical Universe. There have been many opinions and much discussion. Even the modern physicist, with his many names and labels, is still in the dark when it comes to how it got here and why. Before Scientology, the exact truth about the MEST Universe was lost, and the way out of the trap unknown. Lies and misinformation had taken the place of the truth.

In 1967, L. Ron Hubbard released Section V of the Operating Thetan Course, the most powerful level released up to that time. On OT V you learn the truth about the Physical Universe, not the laws of physical scientists, but the basic considerations about Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

The tremendous power that this universe seems to have over thetans resulting in entrapment, degradation and death, is traced to its source. As you exteriorize from the Physical Universe at Section V. you discover exactly what MEST is, and become free of its laws.

At OT V, a Being is re-familiarized as a thetan exterior with the Physical Universe. OT drills are done to remarkably increase a Being's ability to communicate with his environment. He is now able to do so, totally free of the mind and body, and free from a fixated introversion into MEST.

Solo auditing on this level serves as an introduction to the rehabilitation of his total abilities as a thetan. He learns to use his new abilities Is a thetan with wisdom and judgment.

OT V

Pre OT is to lie down in a comfortable position with eyes shut.

(1) Spot a spot in the room.

(2) Spot a spot in your body.

Alternate 1 and 2 until commands are flat then,

(3) Spot two spots in your body.

(4) Spot two spots outside.

Alternate 3 and 4 until flat then,

(5) Spot a spot outside.

(6) Spot a spot on the sun.

(Notice the distance between.)

(7) Spot two spots outside.

(8) Spot two spots on the sun.

(Notice what happens.)

The pre OT may exteriorize during these drills but doesn't necessarily have to.

While still inside with eyes shut in a comfortable position the pre-OT is to follow the following commands and write down any major cognitions.

(9) Spot an object in the-room.

(10) Spot an object outside.

(11) Locate a moving object.

(12) Locate a spot in your body.

(13) Spot a motion.

(14) Locate a space.

(15) Spot a Thetan.

Continue the above steps until major cognition, very good indicators or exteriorization occurs.

The following steps are done outside. The pre OT takes a paper and pencil with him to take notes.

1. The pre-OT is to put his attention on an object that is ahead of him like a parked car, lamp post, etc. and walk towards it noticing the distance between him and it. He is to continue to do this until cognition.

2. Next the pre-OT is to again pick out an object ahead of him and wrap in energy beam around it and himself and pull himself toward the object with shortening of the beam.

Notice what happens.

3. Locate an object, draw energy from it into you. Repeat at least ten times.

Note any cognitions.

4. Locate an object as above and walk toward it. Notice what is holding you to it.

5. Notice a cloud and notice the space between you and it.

6. Notice your body.

7. Notice the motion of the earth and your relationship to it.

8. Notice something about 10 people.

Do all the above steps to a cognition.

Note: Originally it was not necessary to be exteriorized in order to do OT V or VI 6. Recently however, it has been changed and the state of exteriorization is supposed to be achieved by OT 4, thereby leaving OT V and VI to be done while exterior.

END OF OT V
(0109)

OT VI

(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

Each of the following processes are run to a

(1) Floating needle

(2) Major cognition

(3) Regained ability.

(Preferably all three together as the ideal end. End Phenomena.)

Be three feet in back of your head. Whatever you are looking at, copy it a dozen times, put it into you. Find the two back corners of the room and hold onto them without thinking for two minutes.

Find two corners of the planet Earth, hold onto them for two minutes.

Find a place where you are not.

Spot three spots in your body.

Spot three spots in the room.

Be in the following places: The room, the sky, the moon, the sun.

Locate an animal .. postulate him moving from one spot to another. Observe him doing this.

Find a walking man ... postulate his walking faster. Do this with 20 people.

Find a walking person .. postulate that he will stop, then continue walking. Do this 20 times.

Find a person in a distant land. Notice the time of day. Notice the terrain. Notice the general environment. Smell the air. Locate a thought that is his. Locate a thought that is yours. Continue until flat.

Notice differences between you and your body.

Create in your body a feeling of calmness; create in your body sexual desire and turn it off. Continue that step until you feel you have control over the sexual drives. Create in the body a feeling of pain. Create in the body a feeling of serenity. Do the above until flat. Create in the body a feeling of hunger and turn it off. Continue this step until you are in control of hunger drives.

The end result of these particular drills is the regained ability to control the body and its sensations.

Now: Postulate Anger, boredom, grief, cheerfulness and serenity -- in that order. This is continued until you are sure that you can create any emotion.

Finally, exteriorized visit a friend who lives in another state.

Greet him and flow affinity to him. Ask him to communicate to you by letter.

End of OT VI

OT VII Rundown

(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

OT VII RUNDOWN

June 1979 Revision

1. Basic Processes Set-up.

OT7-1

What are you willing to cause?

What are you willing to be the effect of?

OT7-2

Decide something.

OT7-3

Clear intention. (Very thoroughly.) Have client use word in at least six sentences. (If needed.)

*CDP/MCP "Intention"

OT7-4

1. What is a clear intention.

2. Give me an example.

3. What isn't a clear intention.

4. Give me an example.

OT7-5

2 W/C .. the subject of intention.

OT7-6

Recall an intention.

OT7-7

invent (mock-up) some intentions.

CDP - Creative Definition Procedure

MCP - Meaning Control Procedure

These are both Eductivism procedures for clearing words.

OT7-8

F-2. Tell me a thought/intention you would be willing to receive from another.. (Whichever reads.)

F-2. Tell me a thought/intention another would be willing to receive from you.

F-3. Tell me a thought/intention others would be willing to receive from others.

F-0. Tell me a thought/intention you'd be willing to receive from yourself.

0T7-9

F-1. What intention of yours has another helped? What intention of yours has another not helped?

F-2. What intention of another's have you helped? What intention of another's have you not helped?

F-3. What intention of another's have others helped? What intention of another's have others not helped?

F-0. What intention of yours have you helped? What intention of yours have you not helped?

OT7-10

F-1. What intention of another's could you confront? What intention of another's would you rather not confront?

F-2. What intention of yours could another confront? What intention of yours would another rather not confront?

F-3. What intention of another's could others confront? What intention of another's would others rather not confront?

F-0. What intention of yours could you confront? What intention of yours would you rather not confront?

OT7-11

F-1. What intention of yours could another be responsible for?

F-2. What intention of another's could you be responsible for?

F-3. What intention of another's could others be responsible for?

F-0. What intention of yours could you be responsible for?

OT7-13

Give me an unknown datum.

OT7-14 (PAB 69)

Tell me some orders you wouldn't mind receiving.

Tell me something that would obey you.

OT7-15

Get the idea I can place an intention.

Get the idea I cannot place an intention.

II. L & N Intention Process

OT7-16

Has an intention been....

Suppressed / Forgotten
Invalidated / Hidden
Blunted / Avoided
Abandoned / Altered
Denied / Twisted
Enforced / Changed
Desired / Completed
Decided / Made Wrong

on biggest reading item L & N ...

What intention has been?

R3R Quad if evil intention.

III. Placing thoughts and intentions (inside Auditing room).

OT7-17

A. Spot an object.

B. Locate an object from which you are separate.

Locate an object which is separate from you.

OT7-18

Think a thought.

Creatively place that thought in/on that. (Indicated object.)

Row creatively get that (indicated object) thinking that thought.

Creatively have that (indicated object) continue thinking that thought.

Creatively have that (indicated object) cease thinking that thought.

OT7-19

Clear intention.

Mock up (invent) an intention.

Get the idea of placing (or place) that intention in that (indicated object).

OT7-20

From (indicated point) make a choice between (indicated positions or objects).

OT7-21

Putting the decision on (in) that (indicted object) make a decision about it.

OT7-22

Decide something.

IV. Outside Processes with an Auditor (objects).

OT7-23

Spot an object.

OT7-24

Locate an object from which you are separate.

Locate an object which is separate from you.

OT7-25

Think a thought in (on) that (object or position)

or

Do you see that (object)?

Think a thought in (on) it.

Did the thought appear where it is?

OT7-26

From (indicated point) make a choice between (indicated positions or objects).

OT7-27

Putting the decision on (in) that (indicated object) make a decision about it.

V. Outside Processes with an Auditor (people).

OT7-28

Spot an acceptable energy source.

OT7-29

Spot a person.

OT7-30

Locate a person from whom you are separate.

Locate a person who is separate from you.

OT7-31

Point out a difference between that person's body and yours.

OT7-32

Tell me something you really know about that person.

What would you permit that person to know about you?

OT7-33

Postulate perfection into that person.

Now postulate perfection into that one.

OT7-34

Tell me something you wouldn't mind knowing about that person.

Tell me something you wouldn't mind that person not-knowing about you.

OT7-35

Think a Thought in (on) that person

or

Do you see that person?

Think a thought in (on) him/her?

Did the thought appear where it is?

OT7-36

From that person make a choice between (indicated positions or objects).

OT7-37

Putting the decision on (in) that person, make a decision about him/her.

OT7-38

Decide something.

OT VII SOLO SECTION

VI Inside Processes Solo
(On the Meter)

OT7-39

Spot an object.

OT7-40

Mock-up a confusion.

Unmock it;

or

What confusion could you create?

OT7-41

Mock-up a communication terminal.

Mock-up another communication terminal.

Dispose of these mock-ups.

OT7-42

What wouldn't you mind communicating with.

OT7-43

Mock-up your (father, wife, mother, husband).

Mock him (her) up again.

Dispose of these mock-ups.

OT7-44

How could you appreciate another as a human Being.

How could another appreciate you as a human Being.

How could you appreciate yourself as a human Being.

How could another appreciate themselves as a human Being.

How could another appreciate another as a human Being.

OT7-45

Find and run a havingness process on yourself.

VIII Outside Processes Solo
(Off the Meter)

OT7-46

Spot a person

or

Spot a Thetan.

OT7-47

1. Go to a place with lots of people.

2. Spot them one at a time.

3. As you spot each person, do the following:

A. Perceive the individual as a Life Source (Thetan).

B. Know something about that person.

C. Be willing to not-know something about that person.

D. Grant beingness to that person (by cognizing the way they are).

E. Having that person grant beingness to you.

OT7-48

1. Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them individually until you know they received your communication.

2. Go to a zoo or a place with many types of life, and communicate with each of them until you know the communication is received and, if possible, returned.

OT7-49

Go out to a park, train station or other busy area. Practice placing an intention into individuals until you can successfully and easily place an intention into or on a Being and/or a body.

Attest to OT7

OT VIII, Part 1

(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

OT VIII

HCO BULLETIN OF 1 OCTOBER 1969

SECRET

WHY THETANS MOCK-UP

This question has been the most plaguing one in Dianetics and Scientology.

The ONLY way a thetan ever gets in trouble, the ONLY way he can get trapped or become part of a cluster is by mocking-up and making pictures of bad experiences.

And why record all bad experiences? This too is not good sense.

One can explain it by a yearning for events, by havingness and other ways, but these do not factually lead to a total solution.

The real reason stems from a characteristic of a thetan. He never totally gives up.

There is, seemingly, a streak of resistance or resentment that makes a thetan wish to persist in the same place. If he cannot, he will do so covertly.

All power comes from the ability to occupy a point. The base that separates two terminals must be firm or there will be no exchange of energy.

The effort to weaken a thetan is to make him relinquish his point in space. Covertly or overtly a thetan seeks to assert his position in space.

If he cannot do so overtly he does so covertly.

When a thetan is moved unwillingly from a point or position, he even then refuses to give up that point, but MOCKS IT UP. He also mocks up the events of his departure as a part of the action of mocking up the point he is leaving. This, unwittingly, gives him a picture, an engram.

Now let us see if this theory holds true in practice.

A. Just ahead of any engram there must be an effort to retain a position, and there must be a point or location being mocked up.

This is true. You can blow an engram without running it by spotting its first point in space and time. In a secondary, "Where did you first hear of the loss" is a vital question.

B. In a Contact Assist getting a person to touch again the point where he was hurt with what was hurt will blow the engram.

C. Getting a person to locate areas (locations) that are not safe produces blows of engrams without running them.

D. Exact and accurate dating sometimes blows an engram. Those times when it does not, it should blow when the location is exactly spotted.

E. Implants and traps were done mainly to keep thetans out of an area. The thetan, resenting and resisting mocks up the place anyway and so implants himself.

A thetan too easily substitutes a mock-up for a point in the real universe.

One could also say that a thetan, by mocking up, warns himself against certain points in space or areas in the Physical Universe.

Anxiety is solely not being able to be in certain places and not where one is either.

Making people leave is the most unpopular action, unless one also frees them to be anywhere.

Transferring people is a degrading thing to do to them.

Jail denies a thetan all spaces except where he has been placed and note that thetans are made very miserable in jail. Jailing is a sure way to confirm criminals and also to make them crazy as well.

Any thetan, stuck in an engram, is asserting the effort to be at the point where he was hit at the beginning of that engram.

An engram therefore is a refusal to leave a place at which force was exerted to drive one away.

Reversely, one can refuse to be held at a place where one does not wish to be, but this is a negation of a place, a not-is of it and its time.

Power of choice over where one is and where one is not is thus a key to engrams.

Finally -- a thetan mocks up because he covertly refuses to abandon a location under duress and not-ises the place where he does not wish to be but must.

Using these facts one can blow engrams without running them.

Some sample questions:

What point (location) is unsafe?

What location could you have held absolutely?

Where did you first get an intimation of danger?

What place would you rather not be in?

What effort would it take to hold (that) (a) location?


Working with this you will see a door open to a higher level than Dianetic R3R. But realize that it is only for a high level thetan.

This is the road to returned personal power in the Physical Universe.

L. RON HUBBARD
Founder

LRH:rs
Copyright (c) 1969
By L. Ron Hubbard
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

OT VIII, Part 2

(From Steven A. Fishman Declaration)

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor. East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO BULLETIN OF 5 MAY 1980

LIMITED DISTRIBUTION ISSUE I

OT VIII Course Students
OT OT VIII Auditors
OT VIII CIS*s
AO Review Auditors
AO C/Ses
OT VIII Series I

C O N F I D E N T I A L

STUDENT BRIEFING


By the time you read this I will no longer be occupying the body and identity that you have known as Ron. That identity continues to live in the hearts and minds of many as well as in on-Source tech and admin centers around the planet, and will inspire for years to come Scientologists and lovers of truth every-where.

What follows is a story that has been withheld, for reasons which will soon be obvious, until such time as there were enough OTs that something could be done about it. That time Is now. It is not a nice or a pretty story. but I trust that having arrived on the OT VIII Course you are ready to hear it. You have undoubtedly heard pieces of data over the years that hinted at the greater untold reality of my mission here on Earth. but the story was never written, nor spoken in its entirety due to security problems that have unfortunately always plagued the organization. It is only now that I feel it safe to release the information, although the time is rapidly approaching when I will have no choice in the matter, the hour draws that near.

I an not going to delve too deeply into specifics as people have a tendency to bog themselves down in significance which would only serve to delay the immediacy of the task at hand. Therefore I will be brief.

Some eighty-odd million years ago Earth time (it actually dates at 78,395,042 but dates are a bit superfluous with this material) plans were drawn by a group outside the MEST universe for the eventual takeover of a good portion of this universe. Not a particularly large nor Imaginative crew, their exterior perspective, however, gives them considerable advantage over the time- bound beings of the MEST universe. Borrowing from earlier operations such as Helotrobus. they conceived an ongoing implant, some portions of which have been fairly faithfully rendered in parts of the Bible. This implant, laid in by carefully controlled genetic mutation at Incident Two of OT Ill, and periodically reinforced by controlled historic events since then, makes it effectively impossible for beings on the more heavily affected planets such as Earth to become free. It causes progressive genetic "evolution" that gives the subject population greater and greater susceptibility to the telepathic impingement and direction of the controllers. In its final stage the progression becomes almost geometric, and it is this final stage that we are rapidly approaching.

Another aspect of this GE-line implant is that the body becomes in effect a sort of thetan trap that kicks in heavily on the being should he attempt to expand his horizons beyond that of pure physical universe reality. There can be temporary key-outs which we have all experienced in varying degrees, but until this area is handled it can honestly be said that there is no hope for continued expansion. The good news is that once this is run out. expansion becomes rather effortless and almost automatic.

No doubt you are familiar with the Revelations section of the Bible, where various events are predicted. Also mentioned Is a brief period of time in which an arch-enemy of Christ, referred to as the anti-Christ, will reign and his opinions will have sway. All this makes for very fantastic, entertaining reading, but there is truth in it. This anti-Christ represents the forces of Lucifer (literally, the "light bearers" or "light bringer"), Lucifer being a mythical representation of the forces of enlightenment, the Galactic Confederacy. My mission could be said to fulfill the Biblical promise represented by this brief anti-Christ period. During this period there is a fleeting opportunity for the whole scenario to be effectively derailed, which would make it impossible for the mass Marcabian landing (Second Coming) to take place. The Second Coming is designed, among other things, to trigger a rapid series of destructive events.

With the exception of the original Buddhism, virtually all religions of any consequence on this planet, mono- and pantheistic alike, have been instruments to speed the progress of this "evolution of consciousness," and bring about the eventual enslavement of mankind. As you know, Siddhartha Gautama never claimed to be anything more than a man. Having caught on to this operation, he postulated his own return as Maitreya, part of which prophecy will have been fulfilled upon the passing of L. Ron Hubbard.

For those of you whose Christian toes I may have stepped on, let me take the opportunity to disabuse you of some lovely myths. For instance, the historic Jesus was not nearly the sainted figure has been made out to be. In addition to being a lover of young boys and men, he was given to uncontrollable bursts of temper and hatred that belied the general message of love, understanding and other typical Marcab PR. You have only to look at the history his teachings inspired to see where it all inevitably leads. It Is historic fact and yet man still clings to the ideal, so deep and insidious is the biologic implanting.

It Is a good joke that the Galactic Confederacy is associated with the Serpent in the Garden, the beast and other emissaries of the "Prince of Darkness." Yet in certain passages and esoteric interpretations of the Bible (much of which has been taken out and effectively suppressed for centuries) as well as the Cabbalah, the truth reveals itself quite nicely for the clever and the ungullible.

So it really is a race against time, and one that we happen to be losing at the moment, as the implant drama inexorably plays itself out in spite of the breakneck pace I've managed to keep up these last thirty-five years.

I had an inkling, but only that, of the insidiousness of this material as far back as 1945. Later. in characteristic over-optimism, I thought that R6 would be the end of it. But that was followed by NOTs and the Purification Rundown, and still the string continued to unwind with the ball at the end of it just out of sight. It makes one wonder about such things as fate and destiny, such was the resolve with which I managed to cling to that string, not often knowing how close I was to falling into the abyss myself, but destiny is merely the rationalization of feeble minds. Things don't just happen, they are caused. And causative beings can undo the plans of madmen and would-be enslavers, no matter how long those plans may have been in the making.

I will soon leave this world only to return and complete my mission with another Identity. Although I long to stretch my arms back in repose on some distant star in some distant galaxy, it appears that is one dream that will have to wait. But my return depends on people like you doing these materials thoroughly and completely, so that there will be a genetically uncontaminated body for me to pick up and resume where I left off. A body free of religious mania, right/wrong dichotomy and synthetic karma. The job ahead is far too tough to even contemplate doing with your standard -- courtesy of certain other-dimensional players and their Marcab pieces, many of whom are right here In the general populace -- genetically altered body.

Without the biogenetic meddling of those who stand outside time (who cannot yet directly influence our world and must work through others), the dwindling spiral is not nearly as automatic and self-perpetuating as it appears. There are regions, even in isolated parts of the Milky Way, where poets are free to poet, and magicians can paint reality with their magic wands, and exteriorize without body kickback. But these areas, unfortunately, are fewer and fewer.

I will return not as a religious leader, but a political one. That happens to be the requisite beingness for the task at hand. I will not be known to most of you, my activities misunderstood by many, yet along with your constant effort in the theta band, I will effectively postpone and then halt a series of events designed to make happy slaves of us all.

So there you have it. The secret that I have kept close to my chest all these years. Now you too are part of this secret, and I no longer have to shoulder the burden alone, or live with the possibility of body death before all the data could be released. And with this briefing, I entrust to each of you the responsibility for this material until such time as I am able to return. For we have no help from any other quarter in this matter. The handful of secret societies throughout history that have caught on to this game have long since fallen by the wayside or been taken over and become instruments of the very menace they were set up to combat.

The rundown is long and can be arduous, but it must be done thoroughly if there is to be any effect not only on the body of the pre-OT, but the body of his or her progeny as well. There is some danger, but with OT VII thoroughly complete, It is not nearly so great as the danger witnessed by assorted unfortunates who happened to stumble into this area in their sleep, or in moments of reverie or anaten, experiencing an hitherto mysterious phenomenon known as "spontaneous combustion".

CAUTION: DO NOT BE PTS WHILE TRAVERSING THIS THIRD AND FINAL WALL OF FIRE

But the area is well charted, the rundown many years in secret development, and by the time you read this, undoubtedly completed on myself. The wins awaiting you are like none that you have ever experienced, not just for you. but for your children, your children's children, and the whole of mankind if we succeed. And we will. If we had time, we should pity the many poor souls, from 1950 to PT, who chose such an exactly inopportune moment to drop off the road to truth, and disconnect from reality, the full burst and glory of OT practically within their grasp. But we haven't the time to "wax philosophic" or ponder might have beens.

The rundown follows. Again I say, do it thoroughly and completely, for it is your ticket to the stars. And beyond!

L. RON HUBBARD
FOUNDER

LRH:lrh
Copyright (c) 1980
by L. Ron Hubbard
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:16 pm

OT 3 Rewritten for Beginners
by Jonathan Caven-Atack
© Jonathan Caven-Atack
1996

OT III - Scientology's "secret" course rewritten for beginners

According to Scientology theory, we are all multiple personalities made up of hundreds of compacted extraterrestrial entities. We have reincarnated for 75 million years since this happened to us all. Scientology has claimed that this is a business trade secret.

There has been great controversy, and massive litigation, concerning the Scientology cult's once secret "Operating Thetan Section Three Course". To save the brain strain of reading this purportedly lethal material in the original Ronspeak, and to save any danger of litigation for violation of copyright, this version is humbly tendered as a gift to mankind.

Scientologists believe that they have reincarnated from before the beginning of time. They believe that many interplanetary civilizations have existed. Hubbard restyled the spirit the "thetan". Before the beginning of time, thetans existed, separate from one another (thetans were not created they have existed for all time and indeed precede the creation of time). With the creation of energy and matter, thetans have gradually become trapped. The principal method of entrapment is through "implanting", where the thetan is hypnotised and given positive suggestions which limit its powers. This process, according to Hubbard has been going on in this universe for four quadrillion Years (4,000,000,000,000,000, rather than the mere 8-20,000,000 held by astrophysicists). However, this is just one universe in a series of several.

Scientology seeks to return the thetan's power by stripping away implants and using drills to heighten extrasensory perception and ability. The goal of these procedures is an "operating thetan" -- a being who can act independently of his physical body, and can cause physical events to occur through sheer force of will. The "operating thetan" would be capable of dismissing illness and psychological disorder in others at will.

The Scientologist generally undertakes hundreds of hours of preparation prior to taking the first section of the Operating Thetan level courses -- OT 1 (a version of which is available on Karin Spaink's homepage). OT 2 consists of over a hundred pages of handwritten lists of opposites, such as "create - create no". These are supposedly the basic positive suggestions from implants administered 75 million years ago. These implants were part of the so-called OT 3 incident.

According to Hubbard, 75 million years ago, there was a confederation of 76 planets, including Earth. The "Galactic Confederation" (the title comes from the science fiction of E.E. 'Doc' Smith), was ruled by Xenu (also called "Xemu" by Hubbard). Overpopulation had become a serious problem, which Xenu resolved by murdering many of the inhabitants of the Confederation. Hubbard estimated that the 76 planets averaged 178 billion people each. The people were killed and the thetans (or spirits) gathered, frozen in a mixture of glycol and alcohol, and brought to Earth where they were placed near volcanoes which were exploded with hydrogen bombs. The thetans were gathered on "electronic ribbons", packaged together as clusters and given 36 days of implanting, to render them servile and incapable of decision. A cluster is a collection of body thetans containing a leader and an "alternate" leader. The cluster conceives itself to be an individual. According to OT 3, everyone on Earth is in fact a collection of such clusters (Hubbard says that each person doing OT 3 will find "hundreds" of body thetans -- many victims of this course believe that they find millions).

On OT 3, the individual finds "body thetans" by locating any sensation of pressure or mass in his or her body. This is addressed "telepathically" as a cluster, and taken through the cluster-making incident of 75 million years ago. Once this is done, the individual body thetans should be available to be taken through either the same incident or the incident of entry into this universe. This is called "incident one", and supposedly occurred four quadrillion years ago. This incident is described in the materials as: "Loud snap -- waves of light -- chariot comes out, turns left and right -- cherub comes out -- blows horn, comes close -- shattering series of snaps -- cherub fades back (retreats) -- blackness dumped on thetan." Most scientologists are unaware of the true definition of "cherub".

The Scientologist spends days or years dealing with "body thetans" (I have known two people who "audited" this procedure almost every day for eleven years). Scientology materials of different dates assert that at the end of OT 3 the individual will be "stably exterior" (from his body - out of his head, it might be rephrased), free from "overwhelm" (i.e., nothing will ever overwhelm him emotionally again), and have total recall of his entire round of incarnations from four quadrillion years ago to the present. Secret materials seen only by those selling the course give the "end phenomenon" as a "big win" urging that the person be put onto the next course - where they pay by the hour - quickly.

Anyone who encounters this material without having undertaken Scientology courses up to OT 2 will supposedly die from pneumonia.

OT 3 is of course in substantial disagreement with conventional geology. Geologists hold that almost all of the volcanoes listed by Hubbard and both Hawaii and Los Palmas came into being far more recently than 75 million years ago. On a simple point of logic, it seems strange that none of these volcanoes was damaged by the explosion of the hydrogen bombs. Hubbard was taking barbiturates and drinking heavily when he wrote this material, according to letters he wrote at the time which are kept from scientologists by the management of Scientology.

OT III glossary for those who have the original materials but cannot make head nor tail of them:

7s - a set of supposed "implants", part of the OT 3 incident.
ARC - Affinity, Reality and Communication.
ARC break - upset.
auditing - Dianetic or Scientology "counselling".
basic basic - the earliest traumatic incident.
blow - leave.
blowdown - a sudden change in electrical resistance, shown by downward movement of the Tone Arm on the E-meter. Held to mean release of emotional "charge".
body thetan - "a thetan who is stuck to another thetan or body but is not in control".
BPC - bypassed charge, q.v.
BT - body thetan.
bypassed charge - upset stirred up during auditing but unhandled.
case - personal difficulties, the "reactive mind" and the "implants" and "body thetans" of OT levels.
C.C. - Clearing Course.
chain - a string of similar traumata arranged according to time.
charge - harmful energy stored in the reactive mind.
circuit - post hypnotic suggestion.
clear - an individual without a "reactive mind".
cluster - a group of fused body thetans.
cognite - realize.
comm laggy - (comm - communication) hesitant.
C/Sing - case supervising, overseeing auditing sessions.
earlier similar - earlier similar incident or trauma.
exterior - out of the body.
exterior with full perception - out of the body and able to perceive fully (this is the goal of Scientology).
flat - finished.
F/N - floating needle, an E-meter reaction supposed to show that "charge" has been released from the topic being addressed.
GF 40 - "Green Form 40", an auditing repair list.
grades - preparatory auditing.
grades IV & V - preparatory auditing.
grind - keep on going over a traumatic incident without change.
HDG - "Hubbard Dianetic Graduate", Dianetic auditor.
implant - implantation of post-hypnotic suggestion.
Interiorization processes - designed to return an "exterior" being into his body.
item - something that bothers the individual psychologically.
itsa earlier itsa - itsa "it is a", to find earlier realizations.
LIC - "list one 0", an auditing repair list.
low TA - unable to face life.
meter - E-meter (Hubbard Electropsychometer). The psychogalvonometer adopted by Hubbard. A simple lie detector.
milazzo - an auditing technique used on OT 3.
none on OT 3 - no body thetans found.
one-hand electrode - soup can used as an electrode. The "solo auditor" uses two soup can divided by a piece of plastic connected to an E-meter.
O/R - overrun, q.v.
OT - "Operating Thetan", a being who can operate independently of his physical body; who can supposedly cause events through intention (or will-power).
out of valence - behaving as if he were someone else (see "valence").
overrun - taken beyond the end of an auditing process.
PC - preclear, person receiving auditing.
picture - mental image picture.
process - auditing procedure.
R3R - "routine 3 revised", the procedure of Dianetic auditing.
R6 - the "reactive mind", supposedly created by the "OT 3 implant" or "incident 2".
Review - review auditing which seeks to "repair" earlier auditing errors.
rudiments - upsets, problems or "withholds" that prevent the individual from being attentive to an auditing procedure.
ruds - see "rudiments".
running - going over a memory or following an auditing procedure.
S & D - "Search and Discovery", procedure for finding who is supposedly suppressing the individual receiving auditing.
soaring TA - increased electrical resistance, supposed to indicate an inability to face a memory.
solo auditing - on OT 3 the subject audits himself.
SP - Suppressive Person. A critic of Scientology. Anyone who thinks that OT 3 is nonsense.
space opera - science fiction.
TA - Tone Arm action - change of electrical resistance, supposed to show relief of emotional "charge".
Teegeeack - Earth.
theta bop - E-meter reaction, supposed to indicate that the thetan or spirit is going in and out of the body.
thetan - "an individual being ... not a body".
TR - training routine. Role play drill (which can be practiced to hypnotic excess, leading hallucination, euphoria, heightening of colour and sound and a feeling of floating). The most famous of these is TR 8 where scientologists shout "stand up" and "sit down" at an ashtray.
TR 1 - a drill to make sure you can be heard (and induce obedience, but that isn't the point here).
TR 4 - getting questions answered (in the role-play drill the scientologist repeats either the question "do fish swim" or "do birds fly" sometimes for hours on end).
rim knob - an E-meter control.
triple flows - what was done to the individual, what was done by the individual and what the individual saw others doing.
unflat - not finished.
valence - an adopted personality.
withhold - an undisclosed moral transgression.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:21 pm

Political Action Committee -- A Briefing: How Scientologists Can Take Responsibility for And Be at Cause Over the Fourth Dynamic
by John Coale

We have been advised by legislative consultants, by allies who are experienced with the government and Congress and even by congressmen themselves that the only viable way to get the attention, assistance or support of politicians is to be in a position to deliver to them either (or both) of their most sought after needs -- MONEY and VOTES.

One congressman quite bluntly told us that if we (i.e. adherents to the Scientology religion) were serious about creating any kind of substantive power base in D.C. we would have to plug into this formula. He said that no matter how unfortunate, most politicians simply do not respond or take action on an issue because it is "right" or for altruistic reasons. Per this congressman (and as has been repeated by many in D.C. who are politically experienced) most politicians respond to the hand that feeds them -- and their food is MONEY and VOTES.

It is not possible for the Church to get directly involved in political campaigns. The Church must conform to the mandates of current non-profit tax law which prohibits it from getting directly involved in this MONEY and VOTES game. Even the newly established Washington, D.C. based Office of Public Affairs is limited in its lobby activities to the "no substantial part of its (Church of Scientology International corporation) activities" language of the tax exemption law.

The point is that the Church doesn't need any more headaches from the IRS, but at the same time it is important for Scientology to plug into this MONEY and VOTES formula in order to secure safepoints in this key political power arena for the long haul and also to create positive effects on this society.

Scientologists themselves, however, as individual citizens and voters, can take a role in this game and create a power base for the goals and purposes of Scientology. One of the most successful ways to play this game is via what is called a Political Action Committee, or PAC.

WHAT IS A PAC?

A PAC is a group organized under federal election and registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). It is usually not a corporation and in fact until recent years were not allowed to incorporate. (Note that corporations are forbidden to make political contributions.)

Due to the abuses and financial irregularities of the late 60's and early 70's, and in order to try and knock out massive donations from single sources (especially large corporations), the current federal election laws were enacted. There are various kinds of PACs, e.g. all candidates for federal office are required to have one to act as receipt point for all campaign contributions. A PAC is created by filing a simple one page "Statement of Organization".

What a PAC does is solicit funds and then distribute them by making contributions to candidates for elected office and/or to political parties. A PAC can also support a candidate by assisting in fund raising activities, This normally entails purchase of tickets to fundraisers (where one gets to mix with candidates and their staff and get to know people).

One thing which makes PACs valuable is that individuals are limited, by law, to a contribution of $1,000 per candidate per year. Thus the ultra-rich cannot bankroll (at least legally) political campaigns as was possible in the past. A PAC, however, can give a candidate up to $5,000 in a year (and an individual can give a PAC $5,000 which the PAC can pass along to his favorite candidate allowing him to contribute more than he would have been able to by making a direct donation to the candidate.)

The point is that $5,000 to a political campaign is a MAJOR dono and puts you at the top of the candidates hospitality list.

A PAC must record in detail each donation it receives 1nc1uding the amount of the donation, the name and address, occupation and name of business of the donor, Likewise, the PAC must record the details for each contribution made and for any other operating expenditures. This information is filed with the FEC and ALL of the data is public information and available for inspection at the FEC. A copy of the relevant portions of the FEC guide on the kind of PAC we will be setting up is available.

As you can see this activity is conducted in a fishbowl.

WHAT IS OUR PLAN?

A group of Scientologists, centered in Washington D.C., have been working on setting up a PAC for many months. The purpose is to create a group which forwards the aims of Scientology and which can create power based on the principles outlined in the Aims of Scientology and the Creed. The PAC can be used to get Scientologists credible access to important political figures. This should allow us to create relationships, to make friends, handle entheta on Scientology and create safepoints for scientology which can be used to help in handling present and any future attacks on our Church, as well as making successful Scientologists known on these important lines.

One of the main objectives which we have been working towards is to create a group which could be easily identified by Scientologists without involving any blatantly Scientology terms (such as "dianetics"), and which is general enough to allow for participation by non Scientologists as well.

A local Washington, D.C. attorney who has had much experience on setting up and running PACs has drafted a set of governing "By-Laws", which will operate as the policy for the PAC organization. These By-Laws will govern the operation of the PAC much the same way that they do for corporations. A copy of the proposed draft By-Laws is attached. The name of the PAC is:

FLAGG PAC

Freedom, Liberty And Good Government Political Action Committee


The draft By-Laws outline the following pattern of organization:

1.) specific criteria are listed which cover guidelines as to what kind of candidates can receive contributions. The language is taken directly from the Aims of Scientology (subpara. a) and the Creed (subpara. b - 1). This will enable nearly all Scientologists to instantly see that the PAC aligns with the goals of the Scientology religion, but is general enough to allow non-Scners to align with. these goals as well.

Secondly, we included provisions to specifically eliminate from consideration for funds any candidates who have supported destructive psychiatric practices or anti-religious groups or activities.

2.) We have limited the PAC to funding of campaigns for federal elected office, which allows us to focus on our most immediately important public, the U.S. Congress. This can always be expanded in the future if need be.

3.) A Board of Directors. consisting of no less than 3 and no more than 5 Directors, controls the PAC and elects from its ranks the Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary. These posts administer the funds. The Board interprets the criteria (noted in 1 above) when deciding which candidates to give contributions.

4.) We will establish a "steering Committee" made up of the key contributors for input and assistance on PAC actions. This group will also take a leadership role around the US.

5.) The By-Laws provide for setting up an "advisory committee" upon which we would like to place celebs, businessmen and others who want to be there. We plan to use the "advisory committee" to assist with PAC fundraising activities and we want celebs and others who are willing to be on tap as resources for fundraisers, which gives us even more to offer to candidates we are supporting.

6.) Directors serve until they resign or are removed. The Board of Directors can remove another Director "for cause" by a majority vote.

And that is the simplicity of it.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The current members of the Board of Directors for this undertaking are as follows:

John Coale

John has been a Scientologist since the 1970's. He is currently a public on Flag lines and has completed all his "L's". His case level is Clear.

John is a well known Washington, D.C. lawyer with experience in political campaigns and activities. Currently, John is a lead attorney on the case involving the thousands of victims of the poison gas leaks in Bhopal, India.

John has agreed to be a Board Member of the PAC and use his D.C. law offices as the business offices for the PAC.

Rev. John D. Stanard II

John has been a Church staff member since 1975, most of these years on the front lines in D.C. He headed up the D.C. Legal Bureau for the Church which handled all litigation involving the federal government in the late 70's and early 80's.

Currently, John is the Director of the newly established Church of Scientology International, Office of Public Affairs which has plush new offices in Washington, D.C., within 3 blocks of the Congress. Due to this position John is able to lend his insight to the Committee into the issues confronting the Church today.

***

It was our desire to centralize the main Board in Washington, so that decisions could be made easily and quickly and so that we could avoid telephone conferences. We plan to have the PAC issue a Newsletter which outlines what it is doing and where the funds are going so that all donor's and supportors are kept up to date and can give their input.

Since the exact details of where each dollar goes must be filed as a public record with the Federal Election Commission, it Is easy to let people know which candidates are being supported or campaigned against. The newsletter will explain why.

WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?

Right now we need confirmed supporters. We must, by law, register the PAC within 10 days of accumulating $1,000 in contributions. Since there are a number of administrative set up and overhead costs involved (such as letterhead, mailings and all that, not to mention the fantastic amount of paperwork required by the FEC) we don't want to receive any funds yet. We want to have at least $50,000 pledges in contributions before we start to receive actual donations.

What we need from you is as follows:

1., Read this briefing carefully and also the accompanying draft By-Laws.

2.) Decide to support the formation and activities of the PAC and agree to pledge a contribution. Some of you who receive this may have already pledged.

3.) Show this briefing to as many Scientologists as you can and get them all to do #1 and 2 above. Get them to send in the enclosed pledge form.

4.) Set up a briefing and fundraiser for the PAC in your area. We are happy to come and fill people in on this and answer their questions. Get in touch with us.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

WRITE US AT: John Coale
FLAGG PAC
1019 19th St. N.W. Suite 1040
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 783-6600

FLAGG PAC

Freedom, Liberty And Good Government Political Action Committee


Constitution and By-Laws

I
NAME

The name of the organization shall be FLAGG PAC, an acronym for Freedom, Liberty and Good Government Action Committee.

II
PURPOSE

The purpose of the committee shall be to give financial assistance to candidates for federal elective office e.g., President, Vice President, U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, subject to the limitations set forth herein.

The Committee shall have the further purpose to propose, support, oppose or otherwise effect federal legislation; to issue ratings of federal legislators; to give other such assistance to candidates for federal elective office as appropriate, all such action being consistent with the criteria outlined herein.

III
CRITERIA

Candidates may receive contributions only after the Board of Directors. as herein provided, believes that said candidates substantially support the majority of the following principles:

a.) That man needs a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights.

b.) That all men of whatever race, color or creed were created with equal rights.

c.) That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance.

d.) That all men have inalienable rights to the creation of their own kind.

e.) That the souls of men have the rights of men.

f.) That the study of the mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in nonreligious fields.

g.) And that no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly.

Further, financial assistance, or any other support, may not be given to candidates which the Board of Directors believe:

a.) Support destructive psychiatric practices such as electro-shock, chemical shock, psycho-surgery, behavior modification, and any other applications of the basic psychiatric belief that "Man is a soulless animal."

b.) Support groups or individuals who are attacking religions or churches or who advocate suppression of religious and spiritual thought.

IV
ELECTIONS - MULTI CANDIDATE COMMITTEES

Contributions may be made only to candidates in federal elections. Nothing herein shall prohibit this Committee from making contributions to multicandidate Committees such as the Republican and Democratic House and Senate Committees.

V
BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The Board of Directors shall be composed of no less than three or more than five persons and members thereof shall serve until their successors are appointed by a majority of the remaining Directors. Directors may be removed for cause by a majority of the Directors at any time. Vacancies on the Board of Directors shall be filled by a majority of the Directors with or without a meeting.

The initial Board of Directors shall be John Coale, John Stanard and

VI
DUTIES OF DIRECTORS

The principle function of the Directors is to determine which candidates shall receive contributions from the Committee and in what amounts. Additional functions shall include passing on rating criteria, determining other support to be given including use of Committee members to support campaign actions, use of celebrities as fundraisers and all such related activity. In execution of all these duties the Directors shall be responsible for interpreting and applying the criteria set forth in paragraph III.

The Directors shall elect from their ranks a Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer.

The Directors may appoint an "advisory committee" who shall support the Board and Committee when called upon.

The Directors shall be responsible for overall management of the committee's activities including the solicitation of funds from donors and the compliance with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations.

The Directors may retain or otherwise hire staff, both professional and clerical, to assist them in the performance of their duties and responsibilities. Expenditure of solicited funds may be made for this purpose.

VII
DUTIES OF OFFICERS

A. Chairman -- The Chairman shall preside over all Committee Board Meetings. In his absence the Treasurer shall so preside. The Chairman shall be the person directly responsible for implementing the contribution solicitation program and shall serve as the committee's principle spokesman.

B. Secretary -- The secretary shall maintain in proper order all requests for contributions from candidates for federal office. The Secretary shall keep minutes of all Board meetings and maintain same for inspection by other Board members.

C. Treasurer -- The Treasurer shall be responsible for the receipt and disbursement of all funds including the preparation of all contribution checks approved by the Board.

The Treasurer shall prepare, file and maintain all reports required by the Federal Election Commission, appropriate State agencies and the Internal Revenue Service.

The Treasurer shall file a "Statement of Organization" with the Federal Election Commission within the time limits prescribed by law.

VIII
STEERING COMMITTEE

The Committee shall form a Steering Committee composed of those contributors, having given at least $2500 per calender year, who wish to contribute to Committee actions, functions and activities directly.

Steering Committee members may attend Board Meetings and shall be given an opportunity to give their input into all matters relating to the functions and activities of the Committee. Steering Committee members may be designated as Regional or State representatives of the Committee and may organize and operate groups affiliated with the Committee, under the direction and guidance of the Board which remains the senior authority for all financial and policy matters.

No limit shall be placed on the number of Steering Committee members.

IX
AMENDMENTS

These By-Laws may be amended by a majority vote of the Board or Directors.

FLAGG PAC

January 15, 1986

Dear Chuck:

As promised I have enclosed the briefing on the PAC including the By Laws as currently constituted.

I have also enclosed some pledge forms to use when briefing others -- we need all the pledges we can get.

We hope to officially establish the PAC in February and will be back in touch with you when this is accomplished. Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

John Coale
John Stanard

PS: Thanks a lot for your support. I really appreciate it.

FLAGG PAC

Production Targets:


1.) Name the group. DONE

2.) $50,000 pledged. ______ Jan. 31

3.) Organizing and briefing meeting held in LA to Scientologists there and get them involved. ______ Feb. 16

4.) Lobby book re-written, IA gotten and book printed. ______ Feb. 28

5.) Organizational meeting held in D.C. to finalize Admin Scale, strategy and draft initial programs. ______ Feb. 28

6.) 2 congressmen allied and closed to support anti-IRS bill. ______ Mar. 13

POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

Survey and Pledge of Support


NAME: ______

ADDRESS: ______

EMPLOYER: ______

OCCUPATION: ______

PHONE (Work) ______

(Home) ______

(Note: The above information is required by Federal Election laws to be recorded and filed periodically with the FEC for each donor.)

**********

1 pledge the following amount to the PAC. which I can contribute within 30 days of the actual formation of the PAC. (We hope to form the PAC in February.)

GOVERNMENTAL AWARENESS SEMINAR

Event purpose

To increase the awareness of Scientologists on the general subject of the structure and function of American government with an emphasis on the positive effects which each individual can create by knowing and wearing their CITIZEN HAT.

Speakers

Mr. John Coale, Attorney, Washington, D.C. / Political Action Committee: What it is and why Scientologists Scientologists need to get involved.

Mr. Dennis Dubin, Luxe Enterprises . Field activities as a public Scientologist.

Mr. Kevin O'Donnel, President, Co-owner Technology Services Inc., Alexandria, VA / The goals and purposes of the present day democratic party.

Ms. Betsy Roush, MAC IC FLAG / Flag and US legal scene. The need for action.

Rev. John D. Stanard III, Director Church of Scientology, Int, Office of public Affairs, Washington, D.C. / Current legislative items and events of interest. The impact Scientologists can make on the political process.

Mr. Willie B. Wilson, Owner, William B. Wilson Companies, Midland. TX / The aims and actions of the Republican party and his personal experience as a party supporter.

Materials

Seminar pack containing:

Name tag
Pen and note pad
Booklet: The Citizens Hat
Various key PLs

Draft booklet available for viewing and purchase from the Political Action Committee:

Making Your Government Work for You
A Manual for political Action


Confidential LRH PLs: (Will be individually numbered and handed out during the event. Copies will be collected after use.)

HCOPL TARGETS, DEFENSE
HCOPL BATTLE TACTICS

Identification of Participants

Seminar participants will be issued color-coded name tags at the time of registration. The tags are coded as follows:

WHITE: Seminar participant.
YELLOW: Seminar speaker.
RED: Seminar staff. The staff can answer any questions or help out with any problems as needed.

PROGRAM AND AGENDA

(All events to be in the Crystal Ballroom)

Saturday, January 11

11:00 am - all day / Registration. Fort Harrison lobby.
1:00 pm / Seminar starts. Opening comments by John Stanard.
2:00 pm / Ms. Betsy Roush, MAC IC FLAG. gives an overview of the current legal scene at Flag. Highlights need for 4D action.
3:00 pm / Study confidential HCOPLs
4:00 pm / Dennis Dubin. Application of source data from confidential references to public action. Questions to panel.
5:00 pm / Break for the day.
7:00 pm / IAS banquet.

Sunday. January 12

9:30 am / Re-start.
10:00 am / Kevin O'Donnell. Talk on democratic party. Questions.
11:00 am / Wille B. Wilson. Talk on republican party. Questions.
12 NOON / Lunch, buffet in Lemon Tree.
1:00 pm / Re-start. Study The Citizen Hat booklet. Panel to take questions on material covered in booklet.
2:30 pm / John Coale. Talk on the Political Action Action Committee. Questions to Coale and attorney Larry Boffheimer, from Washington, D.C., an expert on Political Action Committees.
4:00 pm / John Stanard. Wrap up. Group discussion of of plans for action. Questions to panel of speakers.
4:30 pm / Conclusion of seminar.


*****

THANKS FOR COMING!

PLEASE FILL OUT AND TURN IN SURVEYS BEFORE LEAVING.


*****

POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

Survey and Pledge of Support


NAME: ______

ADDRESS: ______

EMPLOYER: ______

OCCUPATION: ______

PHONE (Work) ______

(Home) ______

(Note: The above information is required by Federal Election laws to be recorded and filed periodically with the FEC for each donor.)

**********

1 pledge the following amount to the PAC. which I can contribute within 30 days of the actual formation of the PAC. (We hope to form the PAC in February.)

*****

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
Flag Service Organization, 503 Cleveland, Clearwater, FL 33515 (727) 461-1282

Office of Special Affairs


Dear Scientologist,

Office of Special Affairs, International is doing a special project to collect up the comm lines of Scientologists in the world so that we can better coordinate our activities, and do the best job possible on all our endeavors.

It is understood the following information is personal in nature. You can be guaranteed that this information will only be used by authorized senior Church management personnel for handling situations vital to the survival of the Church.

This is the data we need:

1. Who you have comm lines to: This would name specific terminals, (i.e.: Judge Jones, Senator Smith etc.)

2. What your influence with this person is: Here you would elaborate on the quality of the comm line with the terminal and how you influence the terminal (i .e.: his close and trusted friend, respected business associate, OL for him. know his mother, etc.)

3; Why the terminal is considered influential; This may be evident as in the case of a very prominent politician or this may not be evident as in the case of someone in financial circles. Do not assume, though, that because the terminal is prominent that the information need not be listed. There should also be the terminals' position or profession or connections etc. are, is he/she an OL or VIP in some vital or important area? Is this terminal a key or otherwise a member on some congressional committee or corporate executive board, or is the terminal his or herself influentially connected by virtue of position or family ties or whatever. You get the point.

4. What are the terminals connections: Be as complete as possible.

So you can see by the above that full and complete data is what is needed and wanted here. We greatly appreciate. your help on this!

Thanks. Please turn these in to an Office of Public Affairs staff member. or PR Flag, Ludwig Alpers.

*****

It is understood the following information is personal in nature. You can be guaranteed that this information will only be used by authorized senior Church management personnel for handling situations vital to the survival of the Church.

NAME: _____ SCN?/CASE LEVEL _____

BUSINESS ADDRESS: _____

HOME ADDRESS: _____

BUSINESS PHONE: _____ HOME PHONE: _____

OCCUPATION/PROFESSION: _____

PAST ASSISTANCE TO THE CHURCH: _____

LINES OF INFLUENCE

POLITICAL LINES:

This would be any political figures on a state or US level, local or national level. Such as senators, congressmen, local city officials, mayors, governors, members of parliaments and councillors etc. It would also include government officials, civil servants, tax and immigration officials etc.

1) _____

2) _____

3) _____

4) _____

5) _____

MEDIA LINES:

This would be any media terminals such as owners or members of the board of magazines and newspapers or publishing houses, TV networks or stations, radio and wire services etc. Also publishers, general managers, editors, newscasters, reporters etc.

1) _____

2) _____

3) _____

4) _____

5) _____

JUDICIAL/LEGAL LINES:

This would be any justice oept officials, judges, senior legal officials, senior partners in large or prestigious law firms, lawyers, barristers etc.,

1) _____

2) _____

3) _____

4) _____

5) _____

FINANCIAL/CORPORATE LINES:

This would be any members of the board or presidents, vice presidents or other senior officials/executives within banks or other financial institutions (such as savings and loans, credit unions etc.). Also financiers (this could be govt. or private industry) stockbrokers, financial advisors, commodities brokers, very wealthy individuals, etc.

1) _____

2) _____

3) _____

4) _____

5) _____

ENTERTAINMENT/CELEBRITY LINES:

This would be any producers, directors etc in stage, motion pictures or television. Actors, artists, writers and any opinion leaders in these areas.

1) _____

2) _____

3) _____

4) _____

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

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:25 pm

Sarah Palin Adviser's Secret Scientology Plot to Take Over Washington
by John Cook
March 26, 2009

Image

John Coale, currently advising Sarah Palin on running for president in 2012, is a Scientologist. And according to a memo obtained by Gawker, Coale once plotted to use friendly politicians to advance the power-hungry cult's agenda.

Coale is a prominent Washington power broker and husband to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. According to the Washington Post, he is running Palin's political action committee behind the scenes and "guiding [her] political image in Washington."

The Protecters of the Palin Brand
by Chris Cillizza
Washington Post
March 17, 2009; 12:25 PM ET

Image
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has put together a group of "brand managers" as she prepares for 2012. (AP Photo/Al Grillo)

There is no brand in Republican politics as powerful -- or as tenuous -- as that of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

She is simultaneously the hottest commodity on the Republican fundraising circuit and a figure of ridicule among Democrats (and even many Independents) who believe that her status as a national figure is entirely undeserved.

Even Palin and her political team seem to be struggling somewhat with how much or little to expose her at the national level.

Witness the odd back and forth over the past 24 hours regarding her involvement in the annual Republican House-Senate fundraising dinner in June.

Yesterday afternoon the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a joint press release touting Palin as the keynote speaker at their fundraising dinner on June 8 in Washington. Then the governor's spokesman told the Anchorage Daily News that the NRSC and NRCC were mistaken in announcing Palin as the keynoter, insisting that she had agreed to no such thing.

The misunderstanding appeared to be the result of a miscommunication (or lack of communication) between Palin's office in Alaska and her still-forming political team running Sarah PAC. (The dinner, as we understand it, is on.)

"A lot of people may be able to overlook the campaign, because the McCain team was calling the shots," said one D.C.-based source familiar with Palin's political operation. "But even since the election she has not been served well by her inner circle. Going forward, there needs to be a seamless operation if they want to position her as a serious contender for 2012."

So, who are the figures charged with guiding Palin's political image in Washington? Here's the lineup based on our conversations with informed strategists.

John Coale: Coale, a well-known Washington lawyer and the husband of Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren, drew national media attention when he endorsed Sen. John McCain's presidential bid in protest of the way in which Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who he backed in the primary, was treated. Coale, in an interview with the Fix, described himself simply as a "friend" of the Alaska governor but acknowledged that he suggested she start a leadership PAC and helped her navigate through some of the questions surrounding her family that lingered after the campaign. Others familiar with Palin's political team insist that Coale has far more power than he is letting on -- essentially helping to run Sarah PAC. Coale demurred on that front, noting only that he talks to Palin regularly and that she is a "fascinating person" who is "definitely not what the right thinks or the left thinks."

Meg Stapleton: Stapleton serves as the Alaska spokeswoman for Sarah PAC after having played a similar role for the governor during the vice presidential campaign and in the governor's office. Stapleton has been the lead defender of Palin from barbs thrown at her -- often from those allied with McCain -- in the aftermath of the 2008 campaign and, generally, wins positive reviews from Washington insiders not directly allied with the governor.

Pam Pryor: Pryor is the Washington spokesperson for Sarah PAC after serving as a senior adviser to the Republican National Committee during last year's general election campaign. Pryor has previously served in a variety of political jobs in Washington including as press secretary and chief of staff to former Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts.

Becki Donatelli: Donatelli, as we reported a few weeks ago, is officially running Sarah PAC. She is the chairman of Campaign Solutions, a fundraising and Internet strategy firm based in Virginia.


In 1986, he masterminded a plan—which was never executed—for Scientology to get into the "MONEY and VOTES game" in order to "create power" for Scientology and win influence Washington, D.C.

[You can read Coale's complete memo and other documents outlining his scheme here.]

Reached this morning, Coale confirmed that he had launched the plan for what he called the FLAGG PAC. "I thought it was a brilliant idea," Coale said, "but no one else did, so it never went anywhere. I was looking at ways to move a new religion forward. I looked at the history of Mormons, who had a lot of people in office, and I looked at the Jews, who were very successful and influential. But the church didn't want to be part of it. They didn't want to be misconstrued. There was one small meeting with parishioners in DC. Maybe 9 or 10 people showed up."

Coale denies playing any role in Palin's political career aside from that of a friend who e-mails her once a week or so. And he insists that he has never used his political influence—in addition to Palin, his friends include the Clintons and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among many others in Washington—to advance the aims of Scientology. "I don't think I have ever said, to the Clintons or Nancy Pelosi, or anyone else, a word about Scientology. Not a word."

The idea was to launch a political action committee that would attract donations from Scientologists but could be plausibly distanced from the cult, which claims to be a church and therefore barred from engaging directly in political activities.

The PAC was to be called FLAGG PAC, which stood for "Freedom, Liberty, and Good Government Political Action Committee," but would act as a sort of dog whistle for Scientologists, who would hear an echo of "Flag Land Base," the group's international headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.

Its goal would have been to advance the Scientology creed, which calls for an end to "insanity" (good idea!) and the abolition of psychiatry.

But Scientology also had a more concrete problem that a PAC could address. In the mid-1980s, it was in the midst of a 26-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which involved bugging IRS offices, infiltrating the Department of Justice, and breaking into federal buildings, to secure tax-exempt status as a church. According to a document outlining FLAGG PAC's "Production Targets," Coale hoped that the IRS could be brought to heel.

In January 1986, Coale spoke at a Scientology "government awareness seminar" in Washington, D.C., to pitch parishioners on the idea and begin raising money. Attendees were given detailed surveys from the church's Office of Special Affairs—the arm that handles public affairs and conducts covert operations—asking for personal data on any powerful political, media, or financial figures they may know so that the OSA could "better coordinate our activities."

The documents identify Coale as the force behind the PAC idea, and as the point man for people interested in contributing.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:32 pm

Scientologists Convicted of Fraud in France
by Dorothee Moisan
October 27, 2009

Image

PARIS — French judges fined the Church of Scientology almost a million dollars on Tuesday for fleecing vulnerable followers but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France.

Scientology's Celebrity Centre and its bookshop in Paris, the two branches of its French operations, were ordered to pay 600,000 euros (900,000 dollars) in fines for preying financially on several followers in the 1990s.

Alain Rosenberg, the French leader of a movement best known for its Hollywood followers Tom Cruise and John Travolta, was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined 30,000 euros on the same charge of fraud.

Five more Scientologists were give fines ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 euros for fraud or the illegal practice of pharmacy.

France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and has prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but this case marks the first time the organisation as a whole has been convicted.

"Religious freedom is in danger in this country," declared Celebrity Centre spokesman Eric Roux after the verdict, urging France to recognise a movement that claims 45,000 followers in the country.

The Church of Scientology said it was the victim of a politically-motivated "witchhunt" and its lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve announced he would appeal.

But a statement from the group also said the court, by stopping short of an outright ban, had acknowledged that "there is a large community of Scientologists who are happy to practice their religion".

The Paris case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom says she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy.

A second claims she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enroll in courses, also in 1998. When she refused she was fired.

The Scientologists were ordered to publish the Paris court's ruling in half a dozen newspapers and magazines in France and abroad.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Olivier Morice, welcomed "a historic decision" that would help "future victims to be warned about the methods of Scientology".

Prosecutors initially asked the court to order a ban on the movement's French operations.

But last month the court was alerted to a little-noticed legal change voted in by parliament in May, the month the trial began, which barred judges from dissolving an organisation convicted of fraud.

Although this rule change has since been dropped, it forced the court to downgrade its sentence in the Scientology case.

Critics of Scientology had accused it of "infiltrating" the National Assembly to lobby for the legal change -- a charge they angrily denied.

The head of France's interministerial body on cults, Georges Fenech, said the ruling was an important milestone, but said he was sorry that judges were prevented from tougher action.

"I strongly regret that the law was changed discreetly during the trial, just before the trial, without anyone knowing," he told France 24 television.

But Judge Sophie-Helene Chateau argued "a very heavy fine" would be more effective than a ban that would risk driving the group underground.

Catherine Picard, of the anti-cult pressure group UNADFI called it "a fairly subtle and intelligent judgment that will undermine the organisation and allow greater control over it".

Founded in 1954 by US science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology is recognised as a religion in the United States and claims a worldwide membership of 12 million.

But officials in France, Germany, Greece, Russia and elsewhere accuse it of tricking vulnerable members out of large sums.

The French ruling marks a new chapter in a global battle over the group's image, one that forced Wikipedia to block known Scientologists from editing entries at the communally-crafted online encyclopedia earlier this year.

"We will not give up," the movement said in a statement after the verdict. "We believe that no one has the right to tell the French people what to think and what to believe on matters of religion."

Copyright © 2009 AFP.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:34 pm

Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult
by Eugene H. Methvin
Reader's Digest
May 1980

In the late 1940s, pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard declared, "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

Hubbard *did* start his own religion, calling it the "Church of Scientology," and it has grown into an enterprise today grossing an estimated $100 million a year worldwide. His churches have paid him a percentage of their gross, usually ten percent, and stashed untold riches away in bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere under his and his wife's control. Surrounded by aides who cater to his every whim, he reportedly lives on church-owned property, formerly a resort, in Southern California.

Scientology is one of the oldest, wealthiest -- and most dangerous -- of the major "new religions" or cults operating in America today. Some of its fanatic operatives have engaged in burglary, espionage, kidnapping and smear campaigns to further their goals. Says Assistant U.S. Attorney Raymond Banoun, who directed a massive investigation that resulted in conspiracy or theft convictions of nine top Scientology officials in Washington, D.C., last October: "The evidence presented to the court shows brazen criminal campaigns against private and public organizations and individuals. The Scientology officials hid behind claims of religious liberty while inflicting injuries upon every element of society."

In 1950, Hubbard, then 39, published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In 1954 he founded the first Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. By 1978 the organization claimed 38 U.S. churches, with 41 more abroad, and 172 "missions" and 5,437,000 members worldwide. These claims are highly doubtful; critical observers have estimated a hard core of around 3000 full-time staff and no more than 30,000 adherents in the United States.

Even so, Hubbard may live more regally than did the Maharajah of Jaipur, whose 30-room mansion and 57-acre estate in England Hubbard bought in the late 1950s as "world headquarters" for his growing movement. His retinue includes young women, known officially as "messengers," who light his ever-present cigarettes and catch the ashes. They record every word he says, including his frequent obscene outbursts of rage. They help him out of bed in the morning, run his shower, dress him. They scrub his office for a daily "white glove" inspection and rinse his laundry in 13 fresh waters. (Former members say he erupts volcanically if he sniffs soap on his clothes.)

Hubbard attracts and holds his worshipful followers by his amazing capacity to spin out an endless science-fiction fantasy in which he is the supreme leader of a chosen elite. He tells them he is a nuclear physicist who was severely wounded while serving with the U.S. Navy in World War II. "Taken crippled and blinded" to a Naval hospital, he claims to have "worked his way back to fitness and full perception in less than two years." In the process, he developed the "research" that led him to discover "Dianetics" and Scientology, the answers to most of mankind's ills.

The truth is something else. Hubbard did take a college course in molecular and atomic physics, which he flunked. He served in the Navy, but Navy records do not indicate he saw combat or was ever wounded. He was discharged and later given a 40-percent disability pension because of an ulcer, arthritis and other ailments. About this time he was petitioning the Veterans Administration for psychiatric care to treat "long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations." He was also arrested for petty theft in connection with checks. When he wrote to the FBI that communist spies were after him, an agent attached a note to one of his letters: "Make 'appears mental' card."

Since Dianetics, Hubbard's bizarre "philosophy" has expanded into a 25-million-word collection of books, articles and tape-recorded lectures. Hubbard claims to have traced human existence back 74 trillion years, suggesting it began on Venus. Today's earthlings are material manifestations of eternal spirits who are reincarnated time and again over the eons. But, Hubbard claims, our earthly troubles often result from ghostly mental images which he calls "engrams" -- painful experiences either in this life or in former incarnations.

Hubbard's original book created a sensation; he claimed to have "cleared" 270 cases of engrams, thus greatly increasing the subjects' I.Q.s and curing them of assorted ills from arthritis to heart troubles. Later Hubbard said that Scientology eradicated cancer and was the only specific cure for atomic-bomb burns.

To detect engrams, Hubbard adopted a battery-powered galvanometer with a needle dial wired to two empty tin cans. Charging $150 an hour, a Scientology "minister" audits a subject by having him grip the tin cans and answer detailed questions about his present or past lives. The needle's gyrations supposedly detect the engrams. By causing the subject to "confront" the engrams, the minister claims to "clear his memory bin," thus raising both body and mind to a superhuman state of "total freedom."

The Scientology auditor also carefully records any intimate revelations, including sexual or criminal activities or marital or family troubles. According to the church's own documents and defectors' affidavits, such records are filed for blackmail purposes against any member (or member's family) who becomes a "potential trouble source" by threatening to defect, go to the authorities, or generate hostile publicity.

Of course, new prospects are never asked to swallow the whole ridiculous story at first gulp; they get it in timed-release capsules. The process transforms them into what one who went through it calls a "robot-like" state.

Typical was the experience of 17-year-old Julie Christofferson, a high-school honors graduate who was invited by an acquaintance -- actually a shill -- to take a "communications course." (The church advertises that these "field-staff members" get ten-percent commissions on all money their recruits pay.) Unknowingly, Julie hooked herself onto a mind- scrambling conveyor belt of hypnotic "training routines" developed by Hubbard. The recruit, cynically referred to as "raw meat," sits knee to knee with a "coach" for hours, her eyes closed. Next she sits, eyes open, for hours. Then the coach tries to find "emotional buttons." Hours of commands follow: "Lift that chair." "Move that chair." "Sit in that chair."

As Margaret Thaler Singer, a University of California psychologist who interviewed Julie and over 400 former members of cults, observes, "These routines can split the personality into a severe, dissociated state, and the recruits are hooked before they realize what is happening."

Julie found that the next step, auditing, continued to erase the boundary between reality and fantasy. In this phase, Julie exhausted all $3000 of her college savings. Then she was told she could take college-level courses while going "on staff" and working full time to recruit and process new raw meat. She ended up working 60 to 80 hours a week, at a maximum salary of $7.50. She had now reached the "robot-like" state.

Julie felt superior, one of the chosen elite of this universe. She was one of the faithful who are promised they will "go with Ron to the next planet." Thus, they are conditioned to the "us against them" outlook that characterizes so much religious and political fanaticism.

Julie Christofferson was among the lucky, however. After nine months, her parents removed her from the cult and snapped her out of her zombie-like trance. Last August, a Portland, Ore., jury found the church's conduct so fraudulent and outrageous that it awarded her $2,067,000.20 in damages.

Less fortunate was Anne Rosenblum, who spent nearly six years in Scientology. During her last 15 months she was in the church's punishment unit, the "Rehabilitation Project Force." There, prisoners are guarded constantly, never left alone or allowed to speak to any outsider without permission. They eat leftovers, sleep on the floor, and fill their days with strenuous physical and menial labor, classroom study of Ron's works and grueling auditing to detect "crimes against Ron" in "this or past lives."

As defectors have attested, subjects become hysterical and psychotic in their auditing. Then they are locked in isolation. Not surprisingly, suicides occur. Last January in Clearwater, Fla., for example, a Scientology member hurled herself into the bay and drowned.

Through the years, Hubbard has continually added new grades and "levels" of belief. The "clearing course" costs $3812, but to get to the highest level, the devotee shells out $14,295. Hubbard has punctuated his policy letters to staff with exhortations to MAKE MONEY, MAKE MORE MONEY, MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MONEY. When numbers of recruits and receipts fall off, Hubbard orders staffers onto a diet of rice and beans.

But revenues appear to have been consistently high. In 1974 the church spent $1.1 million for an old Jesuit novitiate in Oregon. In 1976 the IRS turned up $2.86 million in cash aboard Hubbard's 320-foot flagship Apollo. Moving secretly, the church paid another $8 million for a hotel and other properties in Clearwater, Fla. A top Hubbard lieutenant who recently defected has attested that the Clearwater organization alone last year was grossing as high as $1 million per week.

In 1966 Hubbard created his own "intelligence" organization, called the "Guardian Office" (GO). He had convinced himself that a "central agency" was behind attacks against Scientology, and his suspicion focused on the World Federation for Mental Health. "Psychiatry and the KGB operate in direct collusion," he declared. He seemed to think they worked through the FBI, CIA, various newspapers and other groups. He named his third wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, to direct his own counterattack from the Los Angeles headquarters. She defined the GO's objective: "To sweep aside opposition sufficiently to create a vacuum into which Scientology can expand."

The GO training program included instructions in how to make an anonymous death threat to a journalist, smear an antagonistic clergyman, forge phony newspaper clips, plan and execute burglaries. Public-relations spokesmen were drilled on how to lie to the press -- "to outflow false data effectively." A favorite dirty trick: making anonymous phone calls to the IRS, accusing enemies of income-tax cheating and thereby inducing the IRS to audit them. Big targets were organizations that investigated Scientology or published unfavorable articles about it -- newspapers, Forbes magazine, the American Medical Association, Better Business Bureau and American Psychiatric Association.

Individuals were also targeted. In 1971 Paulette Cooper, a New York free-lance writer, published a book called The Scandal of Scientology. The church responded with an elaborate campaign of litigation, theft, defamation and malicious prosecution. She got death-threatening phone calls. According to church documents later revealed, this campaign was aimed at "getting P.C. incarcerated in a mental institution or in jail."

It came incredibly close. Miss Cooper and her publisher were sued in several U.S. cities and foreign countries. In order to call off the Scientology legal war, her publisher agreed to withdraw the book. "It just wasn't worth the legal expenses," he explained.

The worst thrust, Miss Cooper says, came after a Scientology agent stole some of her stationery, faked bomb-threat letters and framed her. She was indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of making bomb threats. She went through two years of torment until she volunteered to take a Sodium Pentothal "truth" test. Only after she passed did the government drop the charges. Defending herself cost her $28,000.

In 1976 the FBI discovered that two Scientology agents were using forged credentials to rummage through a Justice Department office at night, and thereby uncovered the tip of a widespread espionage operation in Washington. One agent, Michael Meisner, after nearly a year as a fugitive, offered to cooperate with the government. Meisner said that in 1974 Scientology had mounted an all-out attack on U.S. government agencies the church thought were interfering with its operations. He himself supervised Washington operations. With another agent, he broke into the IRS photographic- identification room and forged the credentials that they used to enter various government buildings, steal and copy keys left carelessly on desks, pick locks, and steal and copy government files.

With Meisner's testimony, the FBI obtained search warrants and, on July 8, 1977, raided Scientology headquarters in Washington and Los Angeles. Agents in Los Angeles seized 23,000 documents, many stolen from the U.S. government, plus burglar tools and electronic-surveillance equipment. The scope of the espionage operation was staggering. In a Justice Department agency, a Scientology employee-plant actually worked in a vault containing top-secret CIA and defense documents. Other Scientologists entered on nights and weekends and ransacked offices, including the Deputy Attorney General's, stealing highly secret papers and copying them on government copiers.

On October 26, 1979, nine high Scientology officials stood before a federal judge and were found guilty of theft or conspiracy charges arising from their plot against the government. Heading the list was Mary Sue Hubbard, 48, who had supervised the operation. Hubbard himself and 24 other Scientologists were named as unindicted co-conspirators.

Since the convictions, many former Scientologists have come forward to tell stories they had previously kept secret for fear of Hubbard's Guardians. In Boston, attorney Michael Flynn has filed a $200-million federal class-action suit for fraud, outrageous conduct and breach of contract on behalf of a former Scientologist and others who have been abused by the cult.

But Hubbard and his Scientologists have not been deterred. After last fall's convictions, they issued an appeal for volunteers for the Guardian counterattack, "to ferret out those who want to stop Scientology."

The lessons of Hubbard's Church of Scientology are many. As history demonstrates, when a fanatical individual employing powerful communication skills gathers an entourage of followers, infects them with his own delusion, persuades them that the outside world is hostile and they alone can save the world, and exacts blind obedience, the collective may break the fabric of civilized restraints and descend into terrifying crimes. Convictions, seized church documents, stipulated evidence and defectors' affidavits demonstrate that Scientologists have already indulged in burglary, espionage, blackmail, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and conspiracies to steal government documents and to obstruct justice; some have committed suicide. The parents of a teen-age girl, after following her into Hubbard's entourage for several weeks, issued an urgent appeal last January to help prevent "what we believe could be another mass murder or suicide."

Above all, the 20th-century record of leader-cults demonstrates that such collectives need watching. Nothing in our legal tradition requires us to shut our eyes to a racket religion simply because it masquerades and claims immunity under our First Amendment. As the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson pointed out, the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

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Part 1 of 2

Scientology: Is This a Religion?
by Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.
The revised and corrected version of a shorter presentation given at the 27th Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag, June 20, 1997, Leipzig, Germany
July 1, 1997

Stephen A. Kent (Ph.D.)
Department of Sociology
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA
T6G 2H4
skent@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca

Abstract

Although some social scientists insist that Scientology is a religion, the more appropriate position to take is that the organization is a multi-faceted transnational that has religion as only one of its many components. Other components include political aspirations, business ventures, cultural productions, pseudo-medical practices, pseudo-psychiatric claims, and (among its most devoted members who have joined the Sea Organization), an alternative family structure. Sea Organization's job demands appear to allow little time for quality child rearing. Most disturbing, however, about Sea Organization life is that members can be subject to extremely severe and intrusive punishments through security checks, internal hearings called "Committees of Evidence," and a forced labour and reindoctrination program known as the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) and its harshest companion, the RPF's RPF. Taken together, these harsh and intrusive punishments likely violate a number of human rights clauses as outlined by two United Nations statements.

June 30, 1997

SCIENTOLOGY -- IS THIS A RELIGION?

Rarely, if ever, in the post-war period have diplomats from the superpowers troubled themselves over questions about the alleged religious nature of a transnational organization. Consequently, the current debate between Germany and the United States over the alleged religious nature of Scientology is remarkable, and probably unique in recent history. The fact that German officials, institutions, and citizens are seeking additional information about this organization is commendable, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share insights that may help to clarify the issues in this debate.

For the record, I did not have any contact with German parliamentary officials as I was preparing my talk. For about ten minutes I spoke by telephone with one German professor who is involved with the current discussion about the organization, but we only touched briefly on issues related to Scientology. The German Kirchentag paid my air fare and my hotel in Leipzig, and Berliner Dialog is covering some of my expenses, but they are not paying me a fee or honorarium. I prepared my talk while in Canada, and did not consult with anyone in Germany or elsewhere about its content. I had complete freedom to write whatever I wanted around the general topic of the debate about Scientology's religious claims.

As a person trained in religious studies, I find the debate about Scientology's alleged religious nature to be an interesting and important one. It should not be, however, the only issue over which we evaluate the German-American debate over Scientology's religious claims. Intimately related to the religious question are human rights questions. Some people assume that religious practice is a guaranteed human right, but even a superficial examination of world events shows that many atrocities occur in the name of God or religion. Universally, therefore, religious belief must receive absolute protection, but religious practice stemming from that belief must receive protection only until it begins to violate the rights of its members or nonmembers. Following from this last point, I argue that even if Scientology contains a theology and cosmology that some members interpret religiously, its organizational actions and behaviours raise serious human rights questions. Without wanting to review the pronouncements from all German officials about the organization, I conclude that the German government has good reason to investigate Scientology's activities in this country. It also has compelling reasons to inquire about the well-being of German citizens in Scientology facilities in the United States and elsewhere. I will share just a few of the documents that led me to these conclusions, and some of them are available in numerous world wide web sites on the "internet."

Is Scientology a Religion?

For a number of my social scientific colleagues around the world, the debate between Germany and the U.S. revolves around the question of Scientology's religious claims. Many of my social scientific colleagues have examined some Scientology documents and possibly participated in some Scientology events, and they have concluded that the organization is religious in nature. Bryan R. Wilson (b. 1926), for example, who is a respected British sociologist of religion, concluded "that Scientology must indeed be regarded as a religion" (Wilson, 1990: 288). He reached this conclusion after comparing Scientology's belief system with twenty characteristics usually found within what he called "known religions" (Wilson, 1990: 279). Significantly for the current debate in this country, he dismissed historical information from the early 1950s about Dianetics presenting itself as "a mental therapy and Scientology a science." Specifically with these early self- representations in mind, Wilson insisted that "even if it could be conclusively shown that Scientology took the title of 'church' specifically to secure at law as a religion, that would say nothing about the status of the belief-system, and it is with the belief system that we are specifically concerned" (Wilson, 1990: 282-283).1

In fact, I have made precisely the argument that Wilson dismisses. In a study that Berliner Dialog (Heft 1-97) translated into German, and in another study that I hope to publish soon, I show that L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology's founder) claimed that Scientology was a religion because he saw the claim as a marketing device to make money and avoid taxes (Kent, 1997b: 25ff; Miller, 1987: 199-203, 220) as well as a way "to reduce the likelihood of governmental interventions against it for allegedly practising medicine without a license" (Kent, 1996: 30). Moreover, Scientology denies its reputedly religious nature if it is attempting to enter a country that might react adversely to religious proselytization (such as Japan or Greece [Kent, 1997a: 18-19]). Nevertheless, the historical reasons behind Scientology's religious claims, as well as the organization's selectivity in making the claims, do not diminish the probability that many Scientologists view their commitment as a religious one.

From a social scientific perspective, and probably from a legal one as well, the objective "truth" of an ideology is not the determinant of a group's "religious" designation. Mere belief in supernatural beings or forces may be enough to get an ideology designated as religious, even if the origins or doctrines of the belief system are highly suspect. Along these lines, the inspirational figure in the sociology of religion, Max Weber, refused to exclude charlatans from his identification of charismatic figures, since the devotion of followers was a far more salient fact than authenticity. After mentioning two types of charismatic figures, Weber added that "[a]nother type is represented by Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonisn, who may have been a very sophisticated swindler (although this cannot be definitely established)" (Weber, 1968: 242). Similarly, from a social scientific perspective, a belief system is religious if it contains supposedly supernatural elements, regardless of the accuracy of those elements. Perhaps unlike Joseph Smith, Hubbard's sophisticated swindle has been definitely exposed by a number of critics (for example, Atack, 1990; Kent, 1996; Miller, 1987) who have shown that his religious alignment was purely expedient, but now many of his followers see their lives in the context of the doctrines that he developed.

Scientology as a Multi-Faceted Transnational

Even if we grant the point that Scientology cosmology and soteriology have supernatural elements that classify the belief- system as religious (regardless of these elements' suspect history), neither government officials nor society at large should necessarily grant Scientology religious status for purposes of receiving societal benefits. Rather than struggling over whether or not to label Scientology as a religion, I find it far more helpful to view it as a multifaceted transnational, only one element of which is religious. Coinciding with supernatural claims are equally important secular dimensions relating to political aspirations, business operations, cultural productions, pseudo-medical practice, pseudo- psychiatric practice, social services (some of which are of dubious quality), and alternative family structures. A few examples of each dimension will suffice, but countless examples of each one exist throughout both Scientology's literature and the social behaviour of its members. The most salient aspect of Scientology, however, is the totalitarian, some would say fascistic, use of power that holds the organization together. I will speak about some of these totalitarian uses of power, and in doing so it will be very clear that the German government has taken the only appropriate avenue open to it.

Politics

Scientology's political aspirations have surfaced at various times throughout its nearly fifty year history, with the organization involving itself with politicians or political structures in Rhodesian (in 1966), Greece (in 1968 to 1969), Morocco (in 1972), and in the Russian city of Perm (where it was training city officials in Hubbard Management ideology). Observers wonder about the fate of Scientology training to Albanian government officials after the recent popular uprisings and social collapse (see Kent, 1997a: 17-18).

Business

At times related to its political aspirations (as in Perm) are Scientology's programs designed to train business executives and professionals often in medically related areas. Through an organization named WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises), Scientology offers a business consultancy and management program. A recent publication claims that "WISE [m]embers form a network of highly trained consultants in Hubbard Management Technology who can provide you with tailor-made training programs to suit your company's needs" (WISE International, 1994b). WISE programs target various clients through numerous companies, and in Germany and other parts of Europe the best known WISE company is U- Man (see, for example, WISE International, 1994a). For all practical purposes, this dimension of Scientology is secular, regardless of how the organization portrays it.

Cultural

Culturally, Scientology has an entire industry devoted to the production and dissemination of Hubbard's writings and ideological material to both members and outsiders. The Scientology owned and operated (and now tax exempt) Bridge Publications, for example, produced a volume solely dedicated to The Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard (Widder, 1994), which discusses his writings of Westerns, adventure stories, mystery and detective stories, romance, fantasy, science fiction, plays, and screenplays (among others), and makes little if any mention of his supposedly "religious" writings. The actor and Scientology public relations officer, John Travolta (Anderson, 1980: 3; Church of Scientology International, 1994), is working on a movie version of Hubbard's science fiction work, Battlefield Earth, while a team of Hollywood producers is developing a film version of the Hubbard pulp novel, To the Stars (Reuters, 1997).

As these current film productions suggest, Scientology is eager to be involved with projects that disseminate its ideology to nonmembers through high profile cultural undertakings. One vital aspect of this dissemination effort involves cultivating the conversion and support of society's cultural celebrities. Beginning in 1955, Hubbard's "Project Celebrity" targeted what he called "prime communicators" with the hope that they would "mention" Scientology "now and again" ( Hubbard], 1955). By 1992, thirteen "celebrity centres" existed around the world (Church of Scientology International, 1992: 353), and their purpose was "[t]o fully utilize opinion leaders and Scientologists to permeate society and get all the different publics utilizing LRH's Technology in every aspect..." (Jentzsch and Foster, 1977: 1). This organizational push to get everyone using Hubbard's so-called technology has dramatic secular implications for such issues of how to organize an office, how to generate and handle money, and how to measure office growth. It presumably also may have implications for people's supernatural belief systems, but it is understandable that critics see Scientology celebrities as participating in the dissemination of secular Scientology goals.

In addition to free publicity for Scientology, celebrities also give large financial contributions back to the organization. Had Scientologist Chick Corea, for example, received money from the Baden-Wurttemberg state culture ministry for performing at state-sponsored events, then some of that income may have become part of his contributions to the International Association of Scientologists. The avowed purpose of this organization is "[t]o unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion and Scientologists in all parts of the world, so as to achieve the Aims of Scientology as originated by L. Ron Hubbard" (International Association of Scientologists, 1995: [back cover]). In one of the Association's 1995 magazines, both he and actress Kirstie Alley each appeared as having contributed US$100,000 (Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International, 1995: 8; International Association of Scientologists Administration, 1995: 49, see 60). By comparison, the $2,000 contribution that John Travolta made seems small (Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International, 1996: 8; see International Association of Scientologists Administration, 1995: 60). What Germans will want to know, however, is that this organization provided grants to the Church of Scientology International in order to fund the series of anti-Germany ads in the New York Times and the Washington Post (both beginning, I believe, on September 15, 1994). Utilizing cultural productions and prominent cultural figures, therefore, to disseminate all aspects of Hubbard's so-called tech is an intimate aspect of the organization's overall public relations and (it would seem) financial strategies.

Pseudo-Medicine

A glimpse into Scientology's pseudo-medical practices -- in this case one that also relates to a social service effort of dubious effectiveness--is its Narconon program. This program purports to rid the body of drug and radiation residues, and a 1996 Scientology publication told a story about an American Gulf War veteran suffering from Gulf War Syndrome who "arrived to do the detoxification program... complain[ing] of disorientation, dizziness, memory loss and muscle and joint pain. He finished the program and has no more dizziness, memory loss OR muscle and joint pain--ALL his symptoms have been handled TOTALLY" (Church of Scientology International, 1996: 68 [original emphasis). You may have read recently that Scientologists applied the Narconon program to children suffering from radiation-related illnesses in Chernobyl (Bev, 1997).

Regardless of how Scientology portrays these claims, they are medical ones that purport to offer a social service, but one about which experts remain highly critical. In the American state of Oklahoma, for example, a 1991 mental health board examined a Narconon program and concluded that "there is substantial credible evidence, as found by the Board, that the Narconon Program is unsafe and ineffective" (Mental Health Board, 1991; reproduced in Lobsinger, 1991: 58).

Pseudo-Psychiatry

Another dimension of pseudo-medical claims are pseudo-psychiatric ones. Scientology's hatred of psychiatry is worthy of a study in itself, and some of its own documents very clearly indicate that Scientology's primary social purpose is the destruction of psychiatry and its replacement with Scientology techniques. In, for example, a confidential document written for Scientology's intelligence branch (then known as the Guardian Office), the unidentified author, who most certainly was Hubbard himself, had a section entitled "The War." The text in this section stated that "[o]ur war has been forced to become 'To take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms.'" The next sentences have significant implications for the current religious debate. "That was not the original purpose. The original purpose was to clear Earth. The battles suffered developed the data that we had an enemy who would have to be gotten out of the way and this meant we were at war" ([Hubbard], 1969: [5]). The central target in Scientology's efforts to "take over the field of mental healing" is psychiatry. Indeed, several Scientology organizations, including the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, the International Association of Scientologists, and Freedom magazine are working diligently in attempting to achieve the goal of "Eradicating Psychiatry" (Weiland, 1990: 21).

One aspect of Scientology's efforts to eradicate psychiatry and replace it with its own techniques is that members can take a course (called a rundown) that claims to teach members how to cure psychosis. Called the "Introspection Rundown Auditor Course," this course supposedly "factually handles the last of the 'unsolvable' conditions which can trap a person--the psychotic break. And end forever the 'reason' psychs were kept around with their icepicks and shock machines" (Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, 1992: [2]). This course is based upon what Hubbard described as "a technical breakthrough which possibly ranks with the major discoveries of the Twentieth Century." The consequence of this alleged breakthrough was that "THIS MEANS THE LAST REASON TO HAVE PSYCHIATRY AROUND IS GONE" (Hubbard, 1974: 346). The self- proclaimed "breakthrough" involved isolating the person having the psychotic breakdown while not speaking to the person, giving the person particular vitamins and minerals, determining what incident triggered the illness, then putting the person through a long and complex series of Scientology "counselling" sessions (called auditing) that focus on the triggering incident Hubbard, 1974: 353).

Currently this course is at the centre of controversy involving the December 5, 1995 death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson in Clearwater, Florida. After a minor car accident, McPherson exhibited bizarre behaviour--publicly undressing, speaking in monotone with a fixed stare, exhibiting forgetfulness and confusion, and crying. Against medical advice, she signed herself out of a hospital and into the care of visiting Scientology "friends" who took her to the organization's Fort Harrison Hotel. Seventeen days later, Scientologists took her back to a somewhat distant hospital where a doctor was working who was a Scientologist, and he pronounced her dead. A police investigation continues over her death, but McPherson's estate launched a lawsuit that accused Scientology "of allowing McPherson to languish in a coma without nutrition and liquids while she was in isolation as part of an Introspection Rundown" (Tobin, 1997: 12A). In this context, a Scientology lawyer acknowledged "that the Introspection Rundown remains 'part of church services'" (Tobin, 1997: 12A). Undoubtedly, therefore, Scientology practices pseudo-psychiatry, and the lawsuit over McPherson's death may establish the extent to which at least one of these practices can have potentially fatal consequences.

Scientology as an Alternative Family Structure

Finally, Scientology is an alternative family structure, at least as it is lived by its most devoted followers who are members of a Scientology organization called Sea Org[anization]. Scientology portrays the Sea Org as "a fraternal organization existing within the formalized structure of the Churches of Scientology. It consists of highly dedicated members of the Church [who] take vows of service" (Church of Scientology of California, 1978: 205). (The organization downplays the fact that these people sign billion year contracts.) Many indicators point to the fact that Scientology structures the Sea Org in a manner that damages parent-child relations if not the well-being of children in general. In essence, Sea Org becomes one's new family, often at the expense of spouses and children.

Indication of organizationally influenced damage caused by Sea Org parents to their children formed the basis of a critical article that appeared in a major newspaper of the Florida city near to where the Scientology organization called Flag is based. In November, 1991, the St. Petersburg Times ran a long article entitled, "Scientology's Children," and it contained an excerpt about a German mother and her son:

Eva Kleinberg moved from Germany to Clearwater with her 9-year old son, Mark, in 1986. She had joined a group of Scientology staff members called the 'Sea Org.'

Eva was told she would have two hours a day for family time. But with her travel time from work, she said she actually had only one hour with her son. Because of the 12-hour workdays, she couldn't always stay awake for the full hour.

'I would compromise with my son,' she said. After eating, she and her son would divide the remaining half- hour of their family time. 'I would play a game with him for 15 minutes, and I would go to lay down for 15 minutes and sleep.'

While Eva worked, Mark cleaned up around the motel or played with friends.

About a year later, Eva and Mark left the church.

Asked what he thinks of Scientology, Mark, now 14, said, 'I don't think it's good 'cause the people... they don't get to spend time with their family and it's real expensive.'

Church spokesman Richard Haworth said staff Scientologists actually spend three or four hours a day with their children, which he said is more than the average family (Krueger, 1991: 12A).


I believe the Kleinbergs' account rather than the one by the Scientology spokesperson because I had heard the same scenario (about parents having little time to spend with children) during an interview with a former Sea Org member that I conducted in December, 1987. At Flag in Florida during the late 1970s and early 1980s, infants stayed in a Scientology- un nursery during the day when parents worked, and usually parents would return from work at about 6:00 in the evening and spend about an hour-and-a-half with their children before taking them back to the nursery at 7:30 for bed. Parents then caught a bus back to the Sea Org, and finally did not leave for the night until 10:30 or later. In the morning, they would pick up their children from the nursery, have them dressed and in the dining room by 7:30 AM, drop them back at the nursery, and be on the bus going to work by ten minutes past 8. This informant added, however, that "there'd be some people who had kids who didn't go home for two or three days in a row. They'd be working all night" (Kent interview with Fern, 1987: 44, see 43).

The Kleinbergs' account about limited family time also rings true because of a series of internal memos (of which I have copies) from Scientology's Pacific Area Command (in Los Angeles, California) beginning in early November, 1989. These memos centre around an Executive Directive that the commanding officer issued which abolished the one hour nightly family time. He cited two reasons for doing so. First, he claimed, "[a] thorough research [sic] revealed that there is no LRH [L. Ron Hubbard] reference covering Sea Org members taking 1 hour family time per day. Also to have such break in schedules in the middle of production has been found to be detrimental to production...." Instead he wanted people to work the extra hour a day in order to build up their production output so that they would receive a "liberty day" (Gouessan, 1989) once every two weeks (Shapiro, 1989).

Several parents objected, and their objections were revealing. One person asked rhetorically, "[h]ow can one keep track of one's child without even an hour a day with the child? I HAVE seen staff distracted by NOT caring for their children and this time could be well utilized for this" (Swartz, 1989). Another person cited the text of a Hubbard tape where Scientology's founder complained about a condition that he had seen (and which he said had existed in the Pacific Area Command): "I wish somebody would tell me why we consistently had to ORDER parents to see their children when they hadn't seen them for weeks" (Hubbard, Transcript of LRH Taped Briefing to CS-& and Pers Comm 22 Sept 73; attached to Shapiro, 1989). This same person acknowledged in his letter of protest that "[i]n the 19 years I have been in the Sea Org in PAC this condition (parental neglect, etc.) has several times been the source of major upset and enturbulation [agitation] on Church lines" (Shapiro, 1989 [round brackets in original]). Taken together, the interview material, media accounts, internal policy directive, and responses point to the fact that parents' time with their children is severely constrained and sometimes eliminated because of the organizational pressure and job demands under which Sea Org members work. It seems that Scientology, in its Sea Org manifestation, becomes something akin to an alternative or "fictive" family structure to its members (see Cartwright and Kent, 1992: 348-349), receiving more time and commitment than their own children.

On a related point, the new Sea Org family to which adults devote their lives may at times place children in medically detrimental situations. This fictive family may not always be a medically responsible one. The informant whom I interviewed in 1978, for example, complained to me that "the nursery conditions were terrible." She complained that, in one nursery room, "there were, I think, sixteen babies in the room, all under a year old, and throughout the whole day, there were three nannies who did shifts in that room, looking after sixteen babies all under a year old" (Kent interview with Fern, 1987: 48). Under these conditions, children developed medical problems (according to my informant, Fern), because the facility did not have an isolation nursery. Consequently, common childhood illnesses (such as ear infections) spread rapidly among the children and remained in the nursery population for a long time. To support her assertion, this informant showed me medical records that she kept of her child's visits to doctors while the child was under nursery care, and compared them with similar records from after the time that she and her child left Sea Org and the nursery arrangement. The child made seventeen visits to the doctor's office during an eight month period while in the nursery, then only four visits in the twenty-nine months following the family's departure from the organization (Kent interview with Fern, 1987: 49-50).

Researchers always must be cautious in accepting as fact the account of a single person, but I heard similar stories about the condition of children's facilities in Scientology's child care program on the other side of the American continent--Los Angeles, California. The person who related the account had occasion to visit the children's facility (called the Cadet Org) in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and she saw an infant who was the child of a man she knew. This child, she stated:

was very, very ill and she was laying in a urine soaked crib and she was--she just had her diaper on.... She had lots of like little fruit flies and gnats on her body and she had been so ill that she had tremendous amounts of mucous plugging her nose and her eyes were, like, welded shut with mucous and I, I just snapped in my head (Kent Interview with Pat, 1997: 34).


After this incident of allegedly witnessing severe child neglect, the person began plotting how she would leave the organization.

The final example of alleged child neglect is documented in a report filed by the commanding officer of the Cadet Estates Organization in late October, 1989, concerning the hygiene of three children--ages 4, 8, and 10 or 11. Two of the children had lice, and for one of them it was a recurring problem. A guardian was in charge of them, but she "is herself on mission quite often." [That is to say, the organization frequently sent her away on assignments.] The report continued by stating that, "[w]hile the guardian was on a mission, the kids were picked up at night by another staff member that [sic: who] lives next door, and the little one would be brought in in the morning while the other two older once [sic: ones] would walk to the Cadet Org by themself [sic]. The children would dress themself [sic] and we have no data who does the laundry or room hygiene for the children" (Gabriele, 1989: 1). We must be careful when interpreting this data on possible child neglect or endangerment, since none of it is current. Sufficient indicators exist, however, that investigative officials in the United States and elsewhere should examine Scientology's treatment of Sea Org children.

Because the attitude among some Sea Org leadership appears to be that children hinder adults from performing their vital assignments, researchers should not be surprised to learn of pressures that Sea Org women felt to either abort pregnancies or give-up children for adoption. My 1987 informant told me that when Sea Org operated on ships during the mid 1970s, women knew that they were not allowed to raise children on the vessels. Consequently, they experienced pressure to have abortions. She told me that, "on the ship, I know of a lot of people that [sic: who] had abortions, because they didn't want to leave the ship. It wasn't like anybody said 'You have got to get an abortion.' It was more an implied thing. If you don't you're going to leave" (Kent interview with Fern, 1989: 41-42). Years later I saw the same pressures described in a 1994 legal declaration by Mary Tabayoyon, who became a Scientologist in 1967, joined Sea Org in 1971, and stayed in it until her departure in 1992. She stated that in 1986, while on the Scientology base in Hemet, California, "members of the Sea Org were forbidden to have any more children if they were to stay on post[,] and the Hubbard technology was applied to coercively persuade us to have abortions so that we could remain on post" (M. Tabayoyon, 1994: 2). The pressure came partly through what Scientology called "ethics handling," which involved the organization pressing people to conform to Hubbard's policies and the organization's directives. Tabayoyon herself "gave up my child due to my greatly misguided obligation and dedication to the Sea Org" (M. Tabayoyon, 1994: 4). She relinquished her child after being "indoctrinated to believe that I should never put my own personal desires ahead of the accomplishment of the purpose of the Sea Org" (M. Tabayoyon, 1994: 5).

Taken together, the interviews, legal declarations, media accounts, and internal documents present troubling glimpses into the lives of Scientology's most committed members. Sea Org obligations override many personal and family obligations and responsibilities, and devotion to the Scientology cause often appears to take priority over the needs of children. Equally disturbing, however, are accounts that some older children and teenagers have had to endure, along with Sea Org adults, the abuses of Scientology's forced labour and reindoctrination programs. Although several labour and intensive instruction programs have operated within the Scientology organization over the years, among the most intense ones is the Rehabilitation Project Force--usually just called the RPF.

The Rehabilitation Project Force--Forced Labour and Reindoctrination

When Sea Org members commit what the organization considers to be serious deviations (such as dramatic e-meter readings, unsatisfactory job performance, or job disruption [including challenges to senior officials]), then they likely wind up in the RPF. Even discussing the policies and techniques that Hubbard wrote by using ideas other than his own was called "verbal tech" and apparently was a punishable act (see Hubbard, 1976: 546). Begun in early 1974 while Hubbard and his crew still were at sea, it now operates in several locations around the world. Currently RPFs are running at the Cedars of Lebanon building in Los Angeles; on the Scientology property near Hemet, California; in the facilities in Clearwater, Florida; and in the British headquarters at East Grinstead, Sussex. I cannot confirm the existence of RPFs in or near Copenhagen (Denmark), Johannesburg (South Africa), Sydney (Australia), and several other American locations.

In a phrase, the RPF program places Scientology's most committed members in forced labour and re-education camps. The operation of these camps raises serious human rights questions, and their continuation reflects badly on nations that allow them to operate unchecked. Particular blame must be placed on American state and federal authorities, since at least three RPF programs have operated for years on American soil. Moreover, the American Internal Revenue Service granted Scientology tax exemption despite what almost certainly are illegal conditions under which RPF inmates must work, study, and live. Extensive material about RPFs in the United States has existed for years in various court cases, and now most of this information is readily available on the World Wide Web. German government officials know about the RPF, and almost certainly this knowledge played a major role in the government's continued opposition to the Scientology organization.

Getting assigned to the RPF is a traumatic event for most people. Procedurally, what is supposed to happen is that leaders call a hearing, known as a "Committee of Evidence," to evaluate a person's performance or attitude. A former member described this body as "a Scientology trial, where the Committee [members] act as prosecutors, judges and jury rolled into one" (Atack, 1990: 306). Committees sometimes obtain evidence against the person from security checks (called sec checks [see Kent interview with Young, 1994: 49]), which the organization portrays as "Integrity Processing" or "Confessional Auditing," but which is really a form of interrogation (Atack, 1990: 147). In fact, in 1960, Hubbard wrote a policy called "Interrogation" about how to use the device known as an e-meter as an interrogation device rather than merely as a spiritual aide in counselling or auditing sessions as the organization represents it to the outside world (Hubbard, 1960).

Hubbard had used security checks on his followers since 1959, but the most notorious sec check probably was the "Johannesburg Security Check," published April 7, 1961. It consisted of over one hundred questions, almost all of which inquire about previous or current participation in a wide range of deviant and criminal acts including spying, kidnapping, murder, drugs, sex, and Communism. The most revealing ones, however, involved people's thoughts about Hubbard and his wife, Mary Sue Hubbard. The sec check specifically asked, "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about LRH?," and "Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about Mary Sue?" Not only, therefore, were people forced to reveal personal information about serious transgressions, but also they were forced to reveal the existence of any negative thoughts about the leader or his wife. One former member-turned critic, Robert Vaughn Young, reported that he was sec- checked for several hours a day for about two weeks (Kent Interview with Young, 1994: 50).

An even more severe form of sec check was the "gang bang sec check," a process that presumably takes its name from group rape (a slang term for which is gang bang). Gang bang sec checks involve two or more interrogators rapidly firing questions and verbal abuse at a victim who is hooked up to or holding an e-meter. A brief description of this practice occurs in a legal declaration (sworn under oath) by former member Stacy Young. She declared that her repeated protests about the way that (the now-current head of Scientology) David Miscavige treated staff led Miscavige to send her to the RPF in September, 1982 (S. Young, 1994: 8, 65). The specific incident that triggered her assignment was that Miscavige learned that Young had reacted to his (alleged) screaming fits by telling someone that he was "a brutal, tyrannical bully" (S. Young, 1994: 65). In response, Miscavige:

ordered me to submit to what was known as a 'gang bang sec check.' Two very large, strong men... locked me in a room and interrogated me for hours. During the interrogation, they screamed and swore at me. They accused me of crimes against Scientology. They demanded that I confess to being an enemy agent (S. Young, 1994: 66).

Soon Young found herself in the RPF's 'Running Program," which involved "running around an orange pole for 12 hours a day" (S. Young, 1994: 66).


When Committees of Evidence find Sea Org members guilty of serious crimes, then they send many of them to RPF programs. Inmates are not sentenced to the programs for specific lengths time. Instead, they remain in until they complete a rigorous program of hard physical labour, constant verbal abuse from immediate superiors, social isolation, intense co-auditing and sec checking, and study of Hubbard policies and techniques.

A series of policies about the RPF began appearing in January, 1974 when Hubbard was aboard ship, and a few revised versions of them have leaked out of the organization. One of these early documents revealed the totalistic nature of the program when it said that "[a] member of the RPF is a member of the RPF and of nothing outside of it, till released" (Walker and Webb, 1977: 3). Part of the program consisted of hard physical labour--building structures, cleaning, renovating, garbage disposal, and moving furniture. Typically work projects of this nature took about ten hours a day, since people were supposed to get "around 7 hours sleep, 5 hours study or auditing, 30 minutes for each meal, and 30 minutes personal hygiene, per day" (Walker and Webb, 1977: 4). They were dark worksuits and were prohibited from speaking (unless necessary) with persons outside the RPF, and they ate and slept separate from other Sea Org members (Walker and Webb, 1977: 10). They had to run everywhere they went, and often they had to run extra distances for punishment. On a ship, running punishments usually meant laps around the deck (Pignotti, 1997: 18-19). On land, running punishments sometimes meant running around a pole for hours at a time, often in hot sun (see Kent Interview with Pignotti, 1997: 22; S. Young, 1994: 66). Severe restrictions were placed upon visitation rights with spouses or children (Walker and Webb, 1977: 10).

Accounts from former inmates indicate that RPF life can be extremely harsh, degrading, and abusive. Certainly experiences varied somewhat according to year and location, but Hanna Whitfield's description of RPF at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida in 1978 captures many common elements from other accounts that I have heard and read:

Some of us slept on thin mattresses on the bare cement floor. Some had crude bunk beds. There was no place for clothes, so we lived out of suitcases and bags which were kept on bare floors. Some privacy was maintained by hanging sheets up between bunk beds and between floor mattresses. The women and men had separate bathrooms and toilets but they were small. We were not allowed to shower longer than 30 seconds. We had only to run through the shower and out the other end. There was no spare time for talk or relaxation. We awoke at 6:30 A.M. or earlier at times, did hard labor and heavy construction work and cleaning until late afternoon. After [a] quick shower and change of clothing, we had to audit each other and 'rehabilitate' ourselves until 10:30 P.M. or later each evening. There were no days off, four weeks a month. We ate our meals in the garage or at times in the dining rooms AFTER normal meals had ended. Our food consisted of leftovers from staff. On occasions which seemed like Christmas, we were able to prepare ourselves fresh meals if leftovers were insufficient (Whitfield, 1989: 7-8).

A similar, but more passionate, description exists of the Fort Harrison RPF in the account written by a woman using the pseudonym Nefertiti (1997), who in turn reproduces excerpts from ten other former Scientologists who related RPF experiences aboard two Scientology ships, FLAG at Clearwater, Florida, Pacific Area Command in Los Angeles, and Happy Valley near Hemet, California.

Certainly the amount of work that RPF members performed varied according to era and circumstances, but in some instances conditions became unbelievably bad. For example, In a California RPF, former inmate Pat reported that her RPF crew "worked shifts of thirty hours at a time" (Kent Interview with Pat, 1997: 25). Her RPF team would "start working in the morning and we would work all night into the next morning and then we worked through the next day until we got our thirty hours and then we'd go to sleep" (Kent Interview with Pat, 199: 25).

The most extensive description of the RPF at Scientology's facility near Hemet, California appears in a sworn declaration by former Sea Org member Andre Tabayoyon (1994). From comments that Bavaria's Minister of the Interior, Dr. Gunther Beckstein, made in a January 15, 1997 press release, it is clear that he is familiar with this declaration. Tabayoyon stated that he spent approximately six years in the RPF during his 21 years in the organization (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 7, 8). In the RPF program that he was on beneath Scientology's Cedars Sinai Hospital building in Los Angeles, he allegedly slept on "a slab inside the vault of the morgue." In the RPF in the property near Hemet, he stayed in "the chicken coop dormitory... which still smelled of chicken coup droppings [sic]" (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 18; see Kent Interview with Young, 1994: 20).

While nearly all RPF accounts speak of guards who were posted to prevent people from escaping the program, Tabayoyon reported that the guards at the Gilman Hot Springs facility (where Sea Org staff lived and an RPF operated) were armed (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 25). Indeed, he helped to construct the facility's security system, which included "the perimeter fence, the ultra razor barriers, the lighting of the perimeter fence, the electronic monitors, the concealed microphones, the ground sensors, the motion sensors and hidden cameras...." He also said that he trained guards in the use of force, including the use of weapons, many of which had been purchased with "Church" money and not registered (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 15, 16).

This facility (which sometimes is called "Gold" and other times "Hemet" in various documents) is less than a two hour drive from Los Angeles and Hollywood, and on its property apparently are a number of facilities that Scientology's celebrities use. Part of the labour used to build an apartment for Scientologist and actor Tom Cruise allegedly was from the RPF (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 53). As Tabayoyon himself stated, "[u]sing RPFers to renovate and reconstruct Tom Cruise's personal and exclusive apartment at the Scientology Gold base is equivalent to the use of slave labor for Tom Cruise's benefit" (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 53). In one instance, when Cruise's apartment was damaged by a mud slide, "prison [i.e., RPF] slave labor" were "worked almost around the clock" to repair it (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 53).
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:38 pm

Part 2 of 2

The RPF's RPF

More extreme than the RPF is the RPF's RPF, an institution even described in one of Scientology's own dictionaries. According to the dictionary definition, the first inmate sent to the RPF's RPF was because the person "considered their [sic] RPF assignment amusing" (Hubbard, 1976: 451). Various accounts, however, also suggest that people who did not perform according to acceptable RPF standards ended up in this extreme program.

Hubbard succinctly outlined the ten restrictions under which inmates on the RPF's RPF operated. Six of the ten were:

(1) segregated from other RPF members with regard to work, messing, berthing, musters and any other common activity.

(2) no pay.

(3) no training.

(4) no auditing.

(5) may only work on mud boxes in the E/R [engine room]. May not work with RPF members. [Elsewhere Hubbard identified mud boxes as "those areas in the bilge which collect the mud out of the bilge water" (Hubbard, 1976: 341)].

(6) six hours sleep maximum (Hubbard, 1976: 451).

Andre Tabayoyon, who spent 19 days on the RPF's RPF, summed up the program by saying that it "is designed to totally destroy any individual determinism to not want to do the RPF" (A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 9).

Accounts both about people who were on the program, and from inmates of the program itself, are chilling, and they reinforce Tabayoyon's summation. Monica Pignotti, for example, spoke to me about her five days in the RPF's RPF in 1975. She related that:

[A]t that point I was in a horrible depression and I was crying almost all the time all day long and I'm sure I was in a state where I probably would have been hospitalized if... any mental health profession had seen me then 'cuz I was severely depressed. But they sent me to the RPF's RPF and I was made to go down and clean muck from the bilges. That was my job all day long was to do that, getting up at four in the morning and--it was all day long. And then I was allowed a short meal break to eat by myself and then I had to go right back down there and I had to clean all this sludge out and then paint, paint it.... [The person in charge of the RPF's RPF] would make the prisoners write these essays until they got it right, until they were saying what the group wanted them to say. So that was where I really snapped--where I went into this state of complete-- where I didn't feel anything any more after that. I was completely numbed out and I'd do whatever they said and I didn't rebel any more after my experience on the RPF. I stopped rebelling for a while (Kent Interview with Pignotti, 1997: 26; see Pignotti, 1989: 28-29).

Nefertiti reported speaking with a woman in her 'thirties on the RPF's RPF whose ankles were chained together while she was performing a "nasty" job in the basement of the Fort Harrison Hotel in Florida (Nefertiti, 1997: 3). Finally, Dennis Erlich reported that, for the first day or two of his time on the program in the basement at the Fort Harrison, he was locked in a wire cage and had a guard outside the room (Kent Interview with Erlich, 1997: 8).

A final word must be said about the RPF, the RPF's RPF, and children. Some evidence exists that children may be subject to these programs. Monica Pignotti, for example, reported to me that she was an RPF inmate along with a twelve year old girl (Kent Interview with Pignotti, 1997: 30), and a posting in the <alt.religion.scientology> news group by Martin Hunt stated that "I have seen children on both the RPF and the RPF's RPF" (Hunt, 1997: 1). Finally, a poorly reproduced document from Scientology's Pacific Area Command (circa 1989) spoke about the "need to re-institute the Children's RPF" (Cohee, n.d.).

One hardly has to point out that the RPF and the RPF's RPF are brainwashing programs. Scientology operates them to break the wills of, and correct deviations of, its most committed members, and then to reformulate them into persons whose personalities directly mimic the organizational mould. That mould is itself a reflection of Hubbard's troubled personality. I am fully aware that many of my social scientific colleagues insist that researchers should restrict using the controversial brainwashing term only to situations where there is incarceration and physical maltreatment (Anthony, 1990 : 304). The RPF and the RPF's RPF meet these criteria. These two programs also used forced confessions, physical fatigue, intense indoctrination through extended study of the leader's policies and teachings, humiliation, and fear. Persons familiar, however, with the early history of Scientology are not surprised to see that Hubbard sanctioned a brainwashing program for his followers, since he almost certainly is the author of a brainwashing manual that Scientology printed and distributed for years beginning in 1955.

Brainwashing

The manual that Scientology distributed was entitled, Brain-Washing[:] A Synthesis of the Russian Textbooks on Psychopolitics ([Hubbard?], 1955). Purported to be an address by the noted Soviet spy, Lavrenti Beria, it was exposed as a fake in 1970 by debunker Morris Kominsky (1970). As Kominsky noted, much of the book was "a vicious attack against the sciences and professions of psychology and psychiatry, as well as against the entire legitimate mental health movement" (Kominsky, 1970: 538). Attacks of this nature remain a central element in Scientology's secular activities, and one former member-turned-critic was almost certainly correct when he stated that the brainwashing book or manual " w]as secretly authored by L. Ron Hubbard in 1955...." The former member also was absolutely correct about the importance of the brainwashing manual when he concluded that Hubbard "incorporated its methods into his organization in the mid 1960s and beyond" (Corydon, 1996: 107). One thinks automatically of the RPF, but we know for certain that Hubbard had the manual as required reading for members of the Guardian Office (Anonymous, 1974).

One chapter of the brainwashing book is especially pertinent to understanding Scientology's contemporary tactics against Germany and its officials. The organization's attacks on the national character of the country; its continual attempts to paint current events in the context of 1930s Nazism (for example, Freedom Magazine, [1996?]); its efforts to discredit current German government officials by linking them to Nazism through (so I was told) their older relatives; and charges that German churches campaign against Scientology for fear of losing members to it (Church of Scientology International, 1997: 101); all seem to have general parallels with tactics advocated in the brainwashing manual.

I will read the relevant passages, but I will do so making similar substitutions of words in the text that Kevin Anderson made in his 1965 report to the Australian Parliament (Anderson, 1965: 198- 199). By doing so, Anderson dramatically illustrated his claim that "a great part of the manual is almost a blue print for the propagation of [S]cientology" (Anderson, 1965: 84). Whenever the manual says "psychopolitics" or "psychopolitical," I will say "Scientology." I replace "psychopolitician" with "Scientologist," and I replace "Communist Party Members" with "Sea Org members." With these substitutions in mind, I now quote excerpts form Chapter VIII entitled, "Degradation, Shock and Endurance:"

Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of [Scientologists] on the broad field. Continual and constant degradation of national leaders, national institutions, national practices, and national heros must be systematically carried out, but this is the chief function of [Sea Org Members] in general, not the Scientologist ([Hubbard?], 1955: 41).

***

The officials of government, students, readers, partakers of entertainment, must all be indoctrinated, by whatever means, into the complete belief that the restless, the ambitious, the natural leaders, are suffering from environmental maladjustments, which can only be healed by recourse to [Scientology] operatives in the guise of mental healers.

By thus degrading the general belief in the status of Man, it is relatively simple, with co-operation from economic salients being driven into the country, to drive citizens apart, one from another, to bring about a question of the wisdom of their own government, and to cause them to actively beg for enslavement.

***

As it seems in foreign nations that the church is the most ennobling influence, each and every branch and activity of each and every church must, one way or another, be discredited.... Thus, there must be no standing belief in the church, and the power of the church must be denied at every hand.

The [Scientology] operative, in his programme of degradation, should at all times bring into question any family which is deeply religious, and should any neurosis or insanity be occasioned in that family, to blame and hold responsible their religious connections for the neurotic or psychotic condition. Religious must be made synonymous with neurosis and psychosis. People who are deeply religious would be less and less held responsible for their own sanity, and should more and more be relegated to the ministrations of [Scientology] operatives.

By perverting the institutions of a nation and bringing about a general degradation, by interfering with the economics of a nation to the degree that privation and depression come about, only minor shocks will be necessary to produce, on the populace as a whole, an obedient reaction or an hysteria ([Hubbard?], 1955: 43- 44).

With only a little imagination, one can see that the brainwashing manual seems to provide an outline for Scientology's battle plan against Germany.

Through, for example, innumerable publications such as Freedom magazine, Sea Org members and other Scientologists produce a barrage of material that denigrates the nation and its leaders. German Scientologists are now able to label its political leaders as violators of human rights, thanks in part to criticism that the United States Department of State levelled against the country's attempts to curb the organization and boycott films starring American Scientologists (Lippman, 1997). On the economic front, critics might see events in the Hamburg real estate market as evidence of Scientologists' attempt to cause what the brainwashing manual called "privation and depression" among apartment renters. Reportedly Scientologists bought rental properties and turned them overnight into cooperatives. The chairperson of the Hamburg branch of the German real estate agents association, Peter Landmann, told the New York Times that these Scientologists were "'using disreputable methods to frighten and coerce the renters into buying them back at high prices'" (Whitney, 1994: A12). Finally, of course, Scientology continues to blast psychiatry, attempting to link it with both Nazism and current German efforts against it. Hubbard, or whomever wrote the brainwashing manual's instructions about how to degrade a country, undoubtedly would be proud of his followers' public relations successes thus far.

Indeed, from a public relations perspective, Scientology may be winning the battle, at least back in North America. When, for example, the prestigious New York Review of Books published an article on "Germany vrs. Scientology," the German reporter (who writes for the Suddeutsche Zeitung) strongly implied that government officials were scapegoating Scientology. His argument seems to be that attacks against the group have become part of a moral panic, when in fact other social issues, such as double-digit unemployment, declining state generosity, tensions over European union, and problems with national identity, should be the real areas of concern (Joffe, 1997: 20). This argument, however, as well as the American State Department human rights criticisms, shows a profound and increasingly inexcusable ignorance of disturbing if not dangerous abuses that occur as routine Scientology policy against many of its members.

Scientology and Probable Human Rights Abuses

Even to concede that Scientology may be a religion to many of its adherents, the basis for German governmental opposition to it has nothing to do with what people believe. It has everything to do with what German government officials know that the organization does. Consequently, this presentation concentrated heavily on the organization's social-psychological assaults on many of its most committed members, and I barely mentioned Scientology's ideological system. The assaults that I described are ones that German government officials seem to know about, and with that knowledge they have no choice other than to see Scientology as a threat to the democratic state. Were officials to grant Scientology religious status, then even more citizens than already now do, would increase their involvement to the point of becoming Sea Org members, and then at least some of them would be subject to the brutal conditions and programs that I described. With Germany's unique experiences with both National Socialism and Communism, it is unthinkable that responsible officials would facilitate the operation of a totalitarian organization that throws its members into forced labour and reeducation camps.

One of the tragedies in this debate is that normal Scientologists will feel persecuted and threatened. These people likely know nothing about RPF conditions, and they genuinely feel that Scientology involvement has benefitted them. The organization to which they belong, however, appears to be committing serious human rights abuses. Consequently, I conclude my presentation by highlighting areas of concern raised by examining the United Nations' 1948 resolution entitled The International Bill of Human Rights (United Nations, 1996b), and the 1996 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (United Nations, 1996a).

First, Scientology's procedures involving committees of evidence, sec checking, gang bang sec checking, and the two RPF programs almost certainly violate Articles 9 and 10 of the Bill. Article 9 protects people against "arbitrary arrest, detention or exile" while article 10 guarantees "a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his [sic] rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him" (United Nations, 1996: 23).

Second, Scientology's punishment of members for merely discussing the merits of Hubbard's teachings, as well as its invasive probing into people's thoughts though sec checking, almost certainly violate Articles 18 and 19 of the Bill that deal with both "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" and "the right to freedom of opinion and expression" (United Nations, 1996: 25).

Third, the various Scientology practices and procedures that I discussed may violate Article 17 of the Bill, which states that "[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation" (United Nations, 1996: 49).

Fourth, the conditions of the RPF and the RPF's RPF almost certainly violate Article 7 of the Covenant, which discusses "the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work..." (United Nations, 1996a: 38). The article specifically identifies fair wages, "[a] decent living for themselves and their families..., [s]afe and healthy working conditions..., and [r]est, leisure, and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay...." (United Nations, 1996a: 38). Indeed, many Sea Org jobs themselves may not meet these reasonable standards of propriety, safety, and fairness.

Fifth and finally, the extreme social psychological assaults and forced confessions that RPF and RPF's RPF inmates suffer almost certainly violate Article 12 of the Covenant, which recognizes "the right of everyone to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health" (United Nations, 1996a: 18).

These and probably other serious human rights issues swirl around Scientology programs that have tax exemption and operate within the boundaries of the United States. With these serious issues in mind, the American human rights criticism of Germany's opposition to Scientology is the height diplomatic arrogance. By granting Scientology tax exemption, the United States government is cooperating with an organization that appears to put citizens from around the world at significant mental health and perhaps medical risk. While in no way do I want my remarks today to be taken as a blanket endorsement of the German government's rhetoric or tactics, on the battle with Scientology the government has the high moral ground.

_______________

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------. 1996b. The International Bill of Human Rights. Geneva: United Nations.

Walker, Ens. Susan; and Lt. Art Webb, 2nd. 1977. "The Rehabilitation Project Force." Sea Organization Flag Order 3434RB. Re-Revised by Commodore's Messenger; Approved by L. Ron Hubbard, Commodore. (January 7, 1974; Revised August 21, 1976;Re-Revised May 30, 1977): 14pp.

Weber, Max. 1968. Economy and Society. Volume 1. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Weiland, Kurt. 1990. "Eradicating Psychiatry." Impact [Magazine of the International Association of Scientologists]. Issue 33: 21.

Whitfield, Hana. 1989. "Affidavit." (August 8): 11pp, downloaded from <alt.religion.scientology>.

Whitney, Craig R. 1994. "Scientology and Its German Foes: A Bitter Conflict." New York Times (November 7): A12.

Widder, William J. 1994. The Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard. Los Angeles: Bridge Publications.

Wilson, Bryan R. [no date]. Religious Toleration & Religious Diversity. Booklet. Santa Barbara, California: Institute for the Study of American Religion.

------. 1990. The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism. Sects and New Religious Movements in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

------. 1994. "Expert Opinion Submitted to "Church of Scientology International vs. Steven Fishman and Uwe Geertz, United States District Court for the Central District of California, Case No. 91-6426 HLH (Tx), (November 26): 10pp.

WISE International. 1994a. "News in Brief." Prosperity Magazine, Issue 36: 5.

______. 1994b. "The Purpose of WISE." Prosperity Magazine, Issue 36: [Inside Front Cover].

Young, Stacy Brooks. 1994. "Declaration of Stacy Brooks Young." in Church of Scientology International vs. Steven Fishman and Uwe Geertz. United States District Court, Central District of California, Case No. CV 91 6426 HLH (Tx), (April 4): 82pp. (Plus Attachments).

_______________

Notes:

1 Undoubtedly because of this interpretation, Wilson has become a champion of Scientology's religious claims (see also Wilson, n.d.: 35) and the organization alludes to him ("[t]he foremost sociologist in the world") as an academic who concluded "that Scientology was setting the trend for the 21st century for all religions--as it offers practical solutions for people's problems in the real world" (International Association of Scientologists, 1995: [10]). Scientology also employs his opinion in arguing before an American court that the organization has the right to keep secret its upper level materials (Wilson, 1994: 11).
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Re: Journalism: Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard's Brainchild

Postby admin » Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:39 pm

Scientology: The Sickness Spreads
by Eugene H. Methvin
Reader's Digest
September 1981

Eighteen months ago, the U.S.-based Church of Scientology launched a global -- and unsuccessful -- campaign to prevent publication of a Reader's Digest report called "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult." The church engaged a detective agency to investigate the author, Digest Senior Editor Eugene H. Methvin. Digest offices in a half-dozen nations were picketed or bombarded with nuisance phone calls. In Denmark, South Africa and Australia, the church sued unsuccessfully to prevent publication.

In the months since the article appeared, in May 1980, a flood of reader reaction both here and abroad has convinced us that our article only scratched the surface. Indeed, there is every indication that Scientology's international operations are at least as chilling as the U.S. operations described in our May '80 article. And they continue to grow at an alarming pace.

Here, then, is a follow-up look at Scientology worldwide.

Scientology: The Sickness Spreads
by Eugene H. Methvin

• In Brescia, Italy, radio-station owner Rodolfo Zucca receives repeated personal threats. His car is vandalized. Twice, the wires from his broadcasting studio are cut, forcing him off the air.
• In Paris, university professor Yves Lecerf learns that all the neighbors in his apartment building have been telephoned by someone posing as a health-ministry official. The bogus official has told them that Professor Lecerf is a danger to his neighbors' children.
• In St. Petersburg, Fla., Andrew Orsini, executive director of the Easter Seal Society for Crippled Children and Adults, is accused in anonymous letters to newspapers and state and city agencies of criminal misconduct in the charity's financial and administrative affairs. The letters demand Orsini's arrest and prosecution.

These diverse people share one common connection: each had attracted the enmity of the "Church of Scientology" -- which in 1978 claimed more than five million adherents, with thousands more joining yearly.

Scientology is far more than mere religion. An analysis of sworn testimony and the findings of official tribunals in 12 nations, plus independent investigation, reveals it to be a multinational racket masquerading as a religion.

Operating from centers in Clearwater, Fla., Los Angeles, Calif., Saint Hill Manor in Sussex, England, and Copenhagen, Denmark, an elite corps of "missionaires" shuttles between 79 Scientology churches and 172 missions and "study groups" in 34 nations -- from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Operating with 19 volumes of manuals on how to bamboozle the unwary, they administer what amounts to franchises-for-fraud -- schemes based on a largely secret hocus-pocus dogma.

The church in 1978 claimed 6559 full-time staffers throughout the world. They live mainly off "ministerial" counseling services for which naive converts pay a minimum of $175 per hour. Advanced courses of enlightenment and salvation cost as much as $16,100. The profits? Enormous. According to U.S. government information, the church has been grossing more than $150 million a year in the United States alone.

Just what *is* the cult called Scientology, and how did it reach its present proportions?

In the beginning, founder L. Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, touted his theories not as religion but as "the most advanced and most clearly presented method of psychotherapy and self-improvement ever discovered." In 1950, he published his theories in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, a supposed cure-all for the ills of mankind. Two years later, he published another, Scientology: A History of Man. In 1954, Hubbard, then 42, established the first Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C.

He had, he said, scientifically established that the personality is an immortal spirit, called a "Thetan," that can separate from the body without death or derangement. Using an "E-meter," Hubbard claimed he could "audit" or "process" recruits into supernatural "Operating Thetans" who can make vast space journeys and return to their bodies at will.

Hubbard's E-meter is no more than a battery-powered galvanometer. Using a needle dial wired to two tin cans, it functions as a crude "lie detector." Candidates for indoctrination grip the cans and supply the most personal details of their lives (which former Scientology officials have sworn are recorded and filed away for possible future blackmail use). Skin perspiration causes the needle to jump, and, when this occurs, the candidate is told that an "engram" -- a recall of unpleasant experiences either in this life or in former incarnations -- has been detected. When these experiences are confronted, he will become "totally free," restored to a superhuman state.

The true believer is told he is an elite Thetan -- a hero of a long-lost intergalactic civilization slaughtered by evil forces on the planet Helatrobus some 40 trillion years ago. The defeated Thetans were then exiled to the planet Earth, where they remained, in ignorance, until Hubbard summoned them to resume their rightful place in the Galactic Confederation.

A genius at propaganda and organization, Hubbard reveals these secret doctrines only in stages. "If they were to tell you that stuff at the start, you'd just laugh and walk out," explained one "auditor" who defected after ten years in Scientology. "It seems incredible now, but I came to *believe* it."

Hubbard attracts recruits by preying on their anxieties and loneliness with an unholy brew of hypnosis, Pavlovian conditioning and twisted psychotherapy. In monthly magazines and "personal" letters, he advertises that Scientology can remedy ailments from cancer to the common cold -- and even promises that his "auditing" will increase I.Q. one point per hour. Scientologists, Hubbard brags, are "the upper tenth of the upper tenth in intelligence."

Hubbard also directs Scientology "ministers" to watch newspapers for stories of accident, illness or death. "As speedily as possible, make a personal call on the bereaved or injured person," he orders. "Unless you have bodies in the shop, you get no income. So, on any pretext, get bodies in the place."

In Vancouver, Wash., Alan Wilson, recovering from a mangled hip suffered in an auto accident, met a Scientology "field- staff member" working on a ten-percent commission. Promised a cure, he took some courses and soon found himself fleeced of his $7000 accident-insurance settlement. Vibeke Damman, a Danish woman who spent six years in Scientology, explained: "You get this blaze of attention. You're important, but only -- you discover later -- because you have money."

And Hubbard's moneymaking machine succeeds phenomenally. One French Scientologist spent $200,000 for a few weeks' "services" at the Florida center. A son of a former U.S. ambassador to London poured in $123,000. A German couple took out a $125,000 mortgage to pay for "advanced" enlightenment in Copenhagen.

And at the end of this galactic fantasyland of salvation? Once Hubbard is firmly in control of mind and money, he reduces converts to emotional serfs working 16 hours a day for $10 or $20 a week, fervidly proselytizing and delivering more recruits and more money to "help Ron clear this planet" of insanity, crime and evil.

The result is an international trail of tragic victims. In Australia, a woman subjected to more than 60 hours of Scientology "processing" had to be committed to a mental institution. In Germany, a young man who struggled for two years to free himself from the cult's hold left his parents' home on Christmas Day and lay down in front of a train. A young man in Paris who underwent the cult's processing quit his job, closeted himself and slashed his veins. As he bled to death, he scrawled on a memo pad: "Go to Scientology and you will understand all!"

In 1966, as the uproar over Scientology grew, Hubbard created a clandestine enforcement arm called the World-Wide Guardian Office to silence it. His third wife, Mary Sue, and Jane Kember, a fanatically loyal South African, were named to head the Guardians. "Don't ever defend. Always attack," Hubbard's standing orders exhort. "*Find or manufacture* enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace. Originate a black PR campaign to destroy the person's repute and to discredit them so thoroughly they will be ostracized. Be very alert to sue for slander at the slightest chance so as to discourage the public presses from mentioning Scientology. The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win."

When Hubbard secretly moved his Scientologists into Clearwater, Fla., Mayor Gabriel Cazares denounced them for "lying" about their covert multimillion-dollar property acquisitions and for deceiving local ministers. From Saint Hill in England, Jane Kember telexed Guardian Program Order 398, a "Mayor Cazares Handling Project," to their U.S. operatives.

The Guardians sued Cazares for one million dollars for violating the Scientologists' "freedom of religion." They staged a fake hit-and-run accident in a plot to smear him, then infiltrated and disrupted his campaign organization at election time. Ultimately, a federal judge ruled the cult's suit "frivolous, unreasonable and groundless," and made the Scientologists pay Cazares's legal costs of $36,022.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Los Angeles Times were compelled to spend thousands of dollars to defend investigative reports into Scientology activities. The newspapers were ultimately upheld by the courts. According to former Guardians, their agents burglarized law firms representing the St. Petersburg Times and penetrated and stole papers from another firm representing the Boston Globe to obtain information about the newspapers' actions on Scientology.

"Suits filed by the church were for the sole purpose of financially bankrupting its critics and to create an atmosphere of fear so that they would shy away from exercising their fundamental rights of free speech," declared Assistant U.S. Attorney Ray Banoun in court. Banoun has prosecuted to conviction Hubbard's top 11 Guardian aides on charges of conspiracy, burglary or theft of secret documents from U.S. government offices. (The cases are on appeal.)

But Guardians do not deal solely with Scientology detractors. In 1975, Hubbard ordered his troops to cash in on government grants for mental health, education and other social causes by setting up a series of front groups that would qualify for taxpayer support. To this end, a "Social Coordination Bureau" was added at Saint Hill and in Guardian offices throughout Europe and America.

In Copenhagen, the church operates two schools to exploit the Danish government's subsidy of up to 85 percent of the cost of private schooling. In America, 22 so-called Apple Schools operated under concealed Scientology management, subjecting children to Hubbard's intergalactic processing.

But Scientology's biggest social-reform gimmick to date has been the "Narconons," fronts that allegedly rehabilitate drug addicts. Guardian legal experts at Saint Hill designed a whole package of "correspondence" and phony minutes of directors' meetings to make the Narconons appear independent and justify government cash payments for "consultation" fees. Ignorant of the Scientology connection, at least one political figure and several Hollywood stars were persuaded to lend their names as endorsers; last September the celebrities were touted in a Congressional hearing in Washington. Narconon charges $530 for its basic two-week detoxification program, and more for advanced courses. And they claim an 86-percent "cure" rate.

Impressed, two Idaho school systems hired Narconon "experts" to lecture their schoolchildren on drugs. Michigan's Department of Corrections paid Narconon more than $100,000 to rehabilitate its prisoners. (Only later did its study of 29 Narconon subjects show that they did *worse* than other prison parolees after six months in the community.) And in West Berlin, city authorities wasted an estimated $700,000 before press and television exposed the Narconon operation. A West Berlin senate investigation found only about ten percent of those treated really cured.

Hubbard reportedly lives in seclusion on a Southern California resort ranch. According to a former member of his retinue of "communicators," he has bought and sold gold, silver and other precious commodities with the millions of dollars harvested by his worldwide missions. Meanwhile, he directs an army of lawyers in appeals designed to keep his 11 convicted aides out of jail while holding other law-enforcement agencies and civil suits at bay. Last December, in his traditional Christmas Day "Executive Directive," he declared: "I am as well as can be expected for anyone several trillion years old ... The future *is* ours."

But the future may instead belong to cult victims and their families. In Europe and America, they have joined to provide legal and psychological help for those still entrapped, and to take their fight to courts and legislatures. In Paris, the Association for Defense of the Family and Individuals helped a victim bring criminal fraud charges that resulted in the conviction (in absentia) of Hubbard, a top French executive and a former French executive. If he ever shows up in France, Hubbard faces four years in prison and a $7000 fine. (A fourth defendant was convicted but the conviction was reversed by the appeals court on grounds of his youthfulness, sincere beliefs and peripheral involvement.)

Lorna Levett of Calgary, Alberta, founded a Scientology mission and headed it for six years until she came to realize "we are involved in an international conspiracy." In 1974, she led a mass defection of 43 fellow members. Despite smears, harassment and a $100,000 lawsuit, they have successfully resisted every Scientology effort to silence them. Speaking for disillusioned cult members and their families everywhere, Ms. Levett declares: "Psychological coercion by dangerous mind-bending cults under cover of religion can only occur, like disease, when there is no immunization against it. In this case, the immunization is freedom of speech. The cults, using tax-free dollars, can violate human rights only when the truth is allowed to go unpublished."
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