The 2005 IAS event was held at Saint Hill, UK over the weekend of October 30th. The night before the IAS event, the IAS Patron's Ball/Charity event was held. That was the event reported by the media that told of Tom Cruise, Katie, John Travolta and others entertaining the guests.
The video of this event played at the US orgs the weekend of November 4th and 12th.
I really didn't want to attend this event. My husband refuses to go with me anymore and my friends have been losing interest as well. It's tough to get a date for this thing!
Since I have always been a "trooper," I decided I'd go to the event even if I had to go on my own, so I could make this report. I'm sorry I never wrote up my notes from this summer's "Freewind's Anniversary Events" but those events were so boring and so lacking of any real information that you didn't miss much.
My premeal event report is that I ate leftovers at home from the night before. Grilled salmon, with a mango salsa (to die for), asparagus and little red potatoes! Yummy indeed! I don't put in too much jalapeno pepper because I don't like breaking out into sweats!
I arrive at the event to the same old faces. I'd say attendance was about 15% down from last year.
The event starts with the classic "Crusader" looking men on horseback riding in the back fields of Saint Hill, coming to the rescue. Take a look at this so you can get an idea of what they actually look like.
http://www.iasmembership.org/#start
Next, there is this gruesome high tech, in your face, anti-psych video. It was like ars anti-psych spammers on steroids. It looks like a sci-fi short movie about what the world would be like dominated by psychiatry, as Scientology portrays it. It's 4 or 5 minutes of the most outrageous anti-psych propaganda I've ever seen and it's obvious that it was designed to scare and outrage people.
Later in the event when Mike Rinder was speaking, he gave quotes from one of the world's most evil SP's ever, Brock Chisholm, President of the World Federation of Mental Health (1957 - 1958). I don't remember the exact quotes he used but it was something like this one:
"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas."
Scientology freaks out about stuff like this and uses it to prove that psychiatry is the ultimate evil.
Rinder tells us that Chisholm and an evil British psych joined in a "pivotal moment in psychiatry" when they set these goals because if you look around, you can see that psychiatry has actually achieved them, and it is now up to us to take care of it and rid the world of the evil psychs once and for all.
Which brings me to the "theme" of this year's IAS event.
THE EVIL PSYCHS MUST BE TAKEN OUT! BUT THIS TIME I REALLY MEAN IT!
After the opening video, DM came out on stage wearing his crisp, perfectly fit tux and "inflowed" the thunderous applause of his adoring followers. Even if the past year was not good for Scientology's image, DM has been tightening the screws of indoctrination like never before. I'd say the applause for him was 15% up from last year.
He began the event with another of his straight-up-vertical-bullshit introductions. He explained that whatever we thought this event might be about, we were wrong. Then he launched into the psychs in a way that made last year's event, that up until then was the most in-your-face attack on psychs ever, look mamby-pamby in comparison.
DM's hyperbole impressed me. I think it would have impressed even LRH!
Now I just want to stress here that if you think the Scientologists were bat shit crazy about the evil psychs before, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
DM says, "the final product of psychiatry is death!" We are going for their heart and we're going to "tear it out!" "There will be no mo' re gradients!" "No mercy will be shown!" Tom delivered that line better at last year's event but then he is a better actor.
Creepy! Very creepy!
Maybe Tom will show a video of the event to Katie's parents. I'm sure they'll love it!
I find myself sitting there and asking myself again when the Scientologist's in the audience will start to wonder when all these grand plans and schemes are supposed to actually occur? Scientology has been "taking out the psych's" for as long as I can remember. For years Heber has been showing graphs of the number of psychs jailed and how many dollars aren't going to the psychs anymore due to CCHR's activities. But each year we are told that illiteracy in schools is getting worse, there are more drug addicts and more criminality. We're told that the social programs are expanding like mad and that more and more auditors are being made. So why do things keep getting worse instead of better? Scientologists don't ever seem to ask this question.
Scientologists are very disconnected from the real world around them. They see the world through Hubbard's and DM's eyes rather than their own. There is no comparison to the claims being made by Scientology and the actual stats and the Scientologists are unable to see it. They are completely taken in by the bullshit.
So there I am, a lowly evil SP, among the sheep. I am watching DM ranting and raving about the trillions of dollars that the psychs rake in from the government, when I finally I have a major cognition.
It's all about money. Don't get me wrong, it's always been about money, but now it's about A LOT more money. DM is serious, make that very serious, about getting his hands on government funding.
He's been having some success doing this with greedy politicians that will happily look the other way when it comes to Scientology front groups if they can get some campaign donations and lunch with a Scientology celeb.
Money talks. It talked to Sheriff Lee of New Orleans, who happened to be at this event and walked away with a check for $340,000. DM is spending money on getting their orgs to look "ideal" and expensively upstat. He is using the money they reg from Scientologists to buy their way into the mainstream. Why? Because it works. Because the mainstream is where the real money is. And because the easiest mainstream money to get is from governments. The psychs get the billions now. If DM could get his hands on this money, man he could... he would... Clear the planet!
Up until it was exposed, they had success with this strategy by donating sizeable amounts of cash to the campaign of the openly gay, NY Councilwoman, Margarita Lopez, and she in turn assisted them in getting a grant for $630,000 in city funds for the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, that is nothing more than another Purification recruitment center for the "Church" of Scientology.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/programs/p rograms15.html
I mention "gay" because it goes to show that Scientology will violate their own "beliefs" and "tech" by contributing to a gay politician. Per the tech, gays are 1.1 on the "tone scale" and they are all perverts and should never be trusted.
They also have Applied Scholastics working with a wog grant writer to get government money in order to get study tech into the schools, and new recruits on the "Bridge to Total Freedom."
Like it or not, they are having some successes buying politicians and lobby governments. If you notice, they can keep it very quiet when they want to. They never announced at any event or published in any mag that they had obtained a $630,000 grant from NY City.
The money DM is spending sometimes gets them to first base. We're going to see a lot more of this unless IAS and other donations dry up.
You would think they would brag about these "wins" but I think they've stopped doing that. Would it have something do to with SP's attending events and reading their mags and blowing the whistle on them? :)
I can picture DM as his master plan moves forward. In his mind he has nothing to lose. He wants Scientology to be mainstream. He wants to replace psychiatry with Scientology and get government money and the power comm lines that go with it.
I haven't forgotten that the psychs give the loyal followers an external enemy to keep them from getting any closer to understanding the things that never get resolved in Scientology.
I haven't forgotten that they use the psychs to turn away the attention of wogs from their "sacred 'scriptures.'" Ask Mike Rinder a question on the Today show about "he who must not be named" [Lord Xenu] and he'll sidestep it and tell you all about the evil psychs.
But it's also about the money, the power comm lines and getting into the mainstream.
I believe the anti psych-spammers on alt.religion.scientology now are part of the program to push the whole anti-psych program. DM didn't wait for the IAS event to give his orders to OSA. They got the orders right before the latest psych spammers arrived on ars. If you don't like the anti-psych spamming, get used to it because it's not going to go away until the spammers have a cognition and "blow." Hint to you spammers: don't forget to take documents with you when you leave!
Whenever there was applause the cameras would pan the front row that was loaded with all the Big Scientology Celebrities wearing their "Freedom Medals." Those front row seats are ONLY for the big players like John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, and Isaac Hayes and of course Tom Cruise and his pregnant and newly brainwashed girlfriend Katie Holmes. But this year there was someone new. Right beside Katie was her "best friend" and Scientology minder, Jessica Feshbach!
I've mentioned before that I tend to zone out at these events. Trying to juggle Scientology reality and real life does that to me. This event did it to me a lot faster than ever before. It wasn't just the creepiness. It was the evil. I used to love going to events but now, it's just an unpleasant experience.
I don't know how to explain what happens to me when I am at these events other than to tell you to try to imagine how a normal, unindoctrinated person might feel attending a fascist rally.
It can be extremely unpleasant to be a live witness to evil. It's not something you're reading on ars or watching on tv. You're there. And the indoctrinated are there with you. You see the evil and want to do something. But you know that if you do, you'll be taken away, turned over to "the authorities" and that will be the end of you.
It was never [before] anywhere near this bad and I believe DM is going to keep piling it on. That means Scientologists are going to keep lapping it up. If anything is expanding "straight up vertical" in Scientology, it's the fanaticism. For the first time it's beginning to worry me.
I've had a question about DM for a long time. How much of what he does is because of his indoctrination and how much of it is his own evil? I don't have the answer. To me it still looks like a head-to-head battle.
At one point during this event I asked myself how many more overts I must have committed on the track to be sitting there while the rest of the critics were sitting at home playing on their computers or having a nice time with their family. ;)
When I finally come out of these thoughts, I notice DM is announcing the first freedom medal winner who's from France. Per DM, this French guy was personally responsible for putting a bunch of French psychs into jail in the past year. "My stable datum is what LRH said about the psychs being the sole cause of decline in this universe." That was an actual quote from the Frenchman's acceptance speech. I'll say no more.
SCIENTOMOLOGY
I was looking forward to seeing how they were going to spin the Cruise media entheta. They left that task up to Mike Rinder. There was Tom Cruise, their number one boy, sitting in the front row and Rinder enlightened us by telling us that as a result of Tom's tirades on psych drugs, there were now hundreds of thousands fewer children taking some psych drug for ADHD.
That was only the beginning of the spin and later Rinder gave more of Tom's stats. He said that the day after one of Tom's anti-psych interviews, the FDA called for a black box warning on one psych drug, and two days after another of Tom's interviews, the FDA called for a black box warning on another psych drug.
If you're asking how Tom Cruise's interviews made these things happen, you're not a Scientologist and just be thankful for that.
There were two standing ovations for Tom. The first one was during DM's half hour or so at the beginning of the event. He got a much longer one during Rinder's spin. I may have been hallucinating by this point, but although I didn't see the bullshit, I swear I saw the steam that must have been rising from it blow past the front rows and go unnoticed by the celebs.
Tom looked a little uncomfortable accepting the first standing ovation but by the time he got the second one, he looked like the spin was as true for him as it seemed to be for Rinder.
During both standing ovations, Katie's unblinking stares of adoration towards Tom were something to see.
THE MUSEUM OF PSYCH HORRORS
I kid you not. In December CCHR will be having a grand opening for the Museum of Psych Horrors.
They have produced documentaries that include original video footage of Pavlov and his drooling dogs, Pavlov and drooling children, people getting electroshocked and convulsing, and other good psych stuff like that. They're doing to these documentaries to show the world that psychs and psychiatry are nothing but evil. Of course they will try to get them shown everywhere but mainly they will be pushed in their orgs. For one day of each month, the Column Tech in all orgs will show only CCHR anti-psych propaganda.
Before Rinder showed some of the footage, he said that some of the images are too gruesome to show at this event with "women and children" being present.
My TR's really went out on that one. I had to restrain myself from jumping up and saying "go fuck yourself, Mikey!" I can understand him saying "children" but "women and children"?
What the hell was that boy thinking? Was this part of the script that he was reading on his teleprompter or did he ad lib that one? That is just an incredibly stupid thing to say. And I'm going to withhold a rant about DM and his men-only inner circle.
MORE SPIN
DM's spin on all of the "interest" there is in Scientology on the Internet was highest ever. Yes, we all know how much he bullshits but it even took me by surprise. He didn't say a word about any evil SP's. He didn't say a word about there being any criticism of Scientology at all!
According to DM, there's HUGE interest in Scientology and it's all because of their fantastic dissemination! That includes TC of course. If you were a Scientologist and only looked at Scientology web sites, and if you believed DM, what would be "true for you" is that millions of people are interested in finding out about Scientology, and when they find out about it, they LOVE it!
DM says stuff like:
According to Lycos search engine, of all the searches for "ology's" (anthropology, sociology, etc) the # 1 "ology" searched is Scientology!
Big applause!
But what's the big deal?
How long was Scientology # 1? Were people searching because of DM's latest dissemination campaign or to find out more of what the Tom Cruise nut cult is all about? We've been watching DM's campaigns for years and know they NEVER work! So which is it?
Everything he said about Scientology on the Internet was nothing but spin to make a horrible downstat look like a fantastic upstat.
I'm used to Scientology propaganda but it keeps getting worse. All of their spokespeople from DM on down are lying at unprecedented levels. They lie to the media and they lie to their followers. They lie without shame or embarrassment. They lie without a conscience. While I write this report and try to maintain my sense of humor, I am still deeply pained by what I witnessed.
Alright, enough of that.
THE AGING HEBER
The aging Heber is still a favorite speaker of public Scientologists and DM dragged him out to award the other "Freedom Medals." Heber may also be one of the few "execs" that are not on the RPF or who knows where.
Heber announced two "Freedom Medal" winners from the Ukraine. They were basically credited for saving the Ukraine from the evil psychs because they were the ones responsible for making the political revolution that took place there last year go right. I don't remember if Heber said how but I'll look in the next issue of Impact to see.
The last two Freedom Medal Winners were two women from Venezuela. They got their medals for handling corruption in Venezuela, whatever that means. I'll have to wait until the next issue of Impact to see if it solves that mystery too.
Heber also announced that 130 or some such psychs lost their licenses in the past year as a result of CCHR. This was upstat from about 70 the year before.
The rest of the event went by me in a blur because I was just sitting there with my mind wandering, waiting to get the hell out and wondering if my husband ate the last of the Pralines & Cream Ice Cream.
ED Int showed up and did a boring talk on the VM's and all their "great work" during Katrina and other disasters.
And that was it.
SCIENTOLOGY EVENT WEIRD MOMENT
I wanted to end on a cheerful note so I've saved the "Scientology Event Moment" for last. It happened during the first hour when DM was rattling off the stats. You know, where he goes so fast that nobody has time to actually think about any of them, and afterwards nobody remembers what they were.
He announces that LRH has just been acknowledged by Guinness World Records as the author translated into the most languages. DM still has lots more to say about it but everybody in the audience jumps out of their seats in a truly spontaneous and noisy standing ovation for LRH.
Does DM shut up and let them enjoy their celebration?
No! He plows right on and tries to talk over them!
Does the audience shut up and let DM finish?
No! They don't care that he's still talking, stay on their feet and keep on applauding, cheering and whistling LRH loudly!
All I could think was, "This is The Battle Of The Titans!" LRH, represented by his devoted followers, versus DM, represented by himself!
Neither side gave an inch! The audience didn't stop and sit down until DM had spoken his last word!
It was a first, and a truly priceless Scientology Event Weird Moment.
LOL!!
Cerridwen
http://www.truthaboutscientology.com
Monday, November 14, 2005
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Inside the Cult
http://web.archive.org/web/20030624004039/www.caic.org.au/psyther/sci/cosinoz.htm
Inside the Cult
The COS is able to harass relatives and friends thousands of miles away from England in order to suppress information about how it works.
=========
The Advertiser, Adelaide, Australia
October 7, 1995
Headline: "Inside the cult"
By Alison Braund
Twenty Twenty, England
A former Adelaide journalist infiltrated the "Church" of Scientology in England. Exposed and arrested, she tells her story.
THE brief had seemed relatively straightforward - to enter the "Church" of Scientology and secretly film some of its courses, widely criticised around the world for allegedly using mind-control techniques. There was no shortage of background material on the church, as it had been shrouded in controversy for many years. The organisation had been subjected to legal and political investigations in Australia, England and its birthplace, the United States. Its activities are constantly attracting publicity across the world.
Founded by a science-fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard, the "Church" of Scientology has its own vocabulary, hierarchy, rules, regulations and agenda. It boasts a worldwide membership of more than 4 million people and one of the biggest computer databases of personal information in existence. For my investigation, I was to be recruited into the Poole ``mission'' of the church, in South England. My producers chose Poole because it was one of the most successful Scientology operations in the world. My task was to work my way into headquarters of the elite ``Sea Organisation'' (Sea Org), where mainly young members work for the church and live in a mansion on England's South Coast. The Sea Org's stated goal is to save the world. As a result, a standard employee's contract is for one billion years - that is, your life and all your lives to come.
My story, for British television company Twenty Twenty, was to be aired in a current-affairs series, The Big Story. But I never imagined the lengths the Church of Scientology would go to in its effort to stop the program from being broadcast. Nor the way it would deal with those involved.
TRAINING
My assignment began by creating a false name, life and identity which was repeatedly tested until I knew it backwards. Past scientologists came to teach me how to avoid being hypnotised. They showed me how to keep my mind occupied during concentrated sessions, which could last for several hours, and yet appear to be affected.
I also studied how to cheat the E-Meter, a primitive lie detector widely used within the Church of Scientology for, among other things, security checks. Holding two cans in your hand, it passes an electrical current through your body and your emotional responses are assessed by a scientologist who monitors a dial with a needle. Interrogations can include questions like ``Are you or have you ever been involved in the media?'' and ``Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?''.
For those who make it further into the church's hierarchy, there is the ``Whole Security Check'', which demands answers to questions like ``Have you ever destroyed a culture?'', ``Have you ever bred bodies for degrading purposes?'' and ``Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?''.
I practised using a micro-camera lens hidden in a pair of spectacles. Recording and sound equipment was strapped to a corset. A psychologist came to assess my personality. His findings would be compared with those of the scientologists' well-known, 200-question personality test, ``The Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis'', which soon would be used on me. As a final safeguard, I signed a contract giving my permission to be forcibly removed from the Church of Scientology's premises in case I was brainwashed.
RECRUITMENT
The Scientology recruiter who stopped me in the Poole Mall said he was promoting a book. He said he wanted to ask me some questions. This is a standard technique. The goal is to stop people, ask them some preliminary questions and then take them to a Scientology office where they are asked to do the Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis. This test usually shows that a person is in need of what is known within the organisation as ``dianetic auditing''. I followed my recruiter to a book display centre to learn more about dianetics, which I was told could improve my life, memory and relationships. I was asked to complete the personality test and drop it off at the Scientology office, or ``college'', that evening.
The Scientology personality test asks curious questions like ``Are you a slow eater?'', ``Do you often whistle or sing just for the fun of it?'', ``When unexpected things happen, do some of your muscles have jerking motions?'', ``Do you consider too much money is spent on social security'', ``Are you opposed to the probation system for criminals?'' and ``Do you browse through railway timetables, directories or dictionaries just for pleasure?''. Its results are drawn on to a graph, which invariably shows personal problems, requiring the need to spend money on taking Scientology courses to improve one's life. As expected, the findings of my earlier, professional psychological test contrasted strongly with their results.
That evening, at the ``college'', I had my first taste of the skilful and hard-sell techniques of the church's recruiters, who are given targets to be reached at the end of each week. Most people at Poole appeared to work long days, at least six days a week. One ex-scientologist told me he earned 90 ($A180) a week. However, if targets were not met, this could fall to as low as 2.50 ($A5) a week. Graphs charting the financial and membership status of the Poole mission were pinned to walls in the building. I learnt Scientology ``missions'' compete to beat the others found throughout the world.
I arrived at the college at 9pm. By 10.30pm, I had been in the ``public contact'' secretary's office for over an hour. I was feeling vulnerable and depressed. Although I was determined not to sign up for anything during the marathon session, or hand over any money that evening, I ended up signing up just to get away. I handed over the special half-price fee of 32.25 for five hours of ``auditing''.
``Auditing'' sessions typically would start with understanding and friendship from the Scientology staff as they discussed problems and offered solutions. Then they would question the effectiveness of outside forms of help, and suggest that only by undertaking a Scientology course would an improvement be achieved.
COURSES
There are many types of Scientology ``auditing'' courses. The object is to ``clear'' the person - to cancel all their ``engrams'' left behind by negative experiences. A promotional video explains ``engrams'' by showing a woman who falls to the floor. While unconscious, a tap is running in the kitchen and her husband comments she looks terrible. As a result, every time a tap runs she thinks she looks terrible.
To cancel all one's ``engrams'' usually takes at least 200 hours, although it can take thousands. Each session costs money. The evidence of a ``clear'' person is apparently someone with near-perfect memory and glowing health: radiant personalities free from disease. My ``auditing'' entailed describing a negative event in my life to my auditor over and over again, in order that I could talk about the event free from any emotion connected with it.
The auditor spoke in a slow, soothing monotone in a method similar to that used in hypnosis. He wrote down everything I said. After my auditing was completed, I was congratulated before it was recommended I do a ``Purification Rundown''. Through massive doses of vitamins and an average of five hours of sauna a day, along with running activities, the program is claimed to release you from all legal and illegal drugs and alcohol which otherwise would linger forever in your system.
I refused to do this course so it was suggested I do the ``Success Through Communications'' course, as my personality test had shown I had problems communicating. I agreed to this, paid 58 and endured three days of inane work and drills. I spent two, boring hours sitting, staring at a scientologist. There are other strange drills, including ignoring anything your partner is saying, pretending to sound interested, changing the subject and answering a question by ignoring it.
PUNISHMENT
Any criticism of courses or the church was strictly forbidden. Church members told me it was part of a plot by the ``suppressive or anti-social'' person to stop any good being done in the world. Even among members, nothing critical was ever said, although it appeared obvious to me some people were unhappy about work conditions. I got the impression that the feeling within the cult is like that of a dictatorial regime - you never know who your friends are and you were always being watched. Every scientologist is expected to report anything they hear which is contrary to the church teachings. Anyone who does anything rebellious or fails substantially could be sent on the infamous ``Rehabilitation Project Force'' (RPF). Stories from ex-cult members describe cramped sleeping arrangements, hard manual labor and security checks (or ``evil purpose editing'').
COSTS
After a handful of courses, my future worth to the church was to be determined. I was sent to the head of the mission to have my finances assessed. I said I had very little money left but hinted I would have access to an inheritance in a few weeks.
The mission head suddenly was interested. He persisted with suggesting ways I could get the money as soon as possible, so I could get started with future courses. One costing 2000 was deemed best for me. I was lucky though and ended up paying only half of another course which cost only about 100. It has been well documented by the media that other people who have become involved with the Church of Scientology have not been so fortunate.
PERSUASION
It may seem incredible that otherwise intelligent people can fall victim but they are given little time to think, have other interests or see their friends. As a new recruit, I was seldom left alone and would be personally escorted from room to room - even if I knew where to go.
Sometimes I was even followed into the toilet and asked questions. On my second visit, when I went to move my car, I was escorted there and back.
When I decided it was time to make my run for the church headquarters, the Sea Org, I entered on the pretext of visiting a mansion formerly owned by L. Ron Hubbard. After discussions, I was asked if I'd be interested in joining the staff. There, I found members were working and studying from 8am to 10pm.
I had become used to filling out questionnaires, surveys, writing testimonies and being asked security questions. But at Sea Org headquarters, I was introduced to the ``Life History'' questionnaire, which topped them all.
I was asked to list all people I knew who had expressed any opinion against Scientology. I had to detail all my friends; their jobs and previous jobs and the communication I'd had with them since joining Scientology; to list all the drugs and medicine I'd taken, when and for how long; to give a complete sexual history, from the earliest experience, of both heterosexual and homosexual activities and the names of all involved, the number of times of the activity and any perversions engaged in. I objected but was told the information was totally confidential and would be used only by my counsellors to help me. I do not believe this is the case.
ARREST
Then, as my assignment continued, there was a tip-off. I apparently was followed one evening to the house of the producer of my program, whose address already was noted by the Scientology ``Special Affairs'' office.
When I returned to the Sea Org headquarters, I was left alone in a room. It was there I saw a pile of photocopied documents marked ``strictly confidential''. They included the names of some ex-members who had been involved in litigation with the church. I wanted to read the material and film it, so I put one of the papers in my bag. Meanwhile, the ``Special Affairs'' director was filming my activities with two concealed cameras. The police were called and I was arrested for suspicion of theft.
As I left the building, the corridors were suddenly lined with scientologists, some of whom photographed and videotaped me. I was taken to the local police station and later released on bail. My main fear was that the scientologists would get hold of my real name. It is widely documented that people who have spoken out against the church and its activities have been harassed. Although the police assured me they didn't release my name, it wasn't long before the cult was visiting my family in rural South Australia.
THE AFTERMATH
After my arrest, I rang my family in Australia to warn them the church may contact them. I heard someone, claiming to be a journalist, had called my former high school asking for information about my background. He told my father I was involved in a cult and wanted to help me. When my father refused to tell him anything, a woman visited him the next day.
She admitted she was from the Church of Scientology and said I had been arrested, that I would get a criminal record and never be able to work again. She urged him to contact me and convince me not to proceed with the program. Meanwhile, the man had been at my primary school, masquerading as the husband of one of my friends, looking through my school records. The campaign to stop the program from being aired gathered momentum. This involved demonstrations and the distribution of a Scientology magazine called Freedom. An article in Freedom accused me and my producers of dishonesty, deceit, violating codes of television journalistic ethics and committing criminal acts.
Everything built up to broadcast night. Predictably, Carlton TV had many phone calls the evening the program was aired, complaining about biased reporting. But one of the most telling things of all, was that many of them were made before the broadcast even went to air.
CHARGES
After a protracted legal wrangle, charges for suspicion of theft were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service. The scientologists unsuccessfully sought an injunction against the program going to air. They also issued civil writs against me and Twenty Twenty, claiming damages for trespass to goods, trespass and breach of confidences. These proceedings have yet to be heard.
The Church of Scientology also issued summonses for ``obtaining services by deception''. My lawyers applied to the London Magistrates Court for a hearing to halt these proceedings.
The case hit the media spotlight. My lawyers argued the summonses should be dismissed as they were issued solely to prevent the broadcast of the program, to punish and embarrass the defendants for making the program and to dissuade other journalists from publishing any material critical of the church. The case ended in the withdrawal of the summonses late last month, although the church still has the right to appeal.
-sidebar-
Behind Scientology
Described as the study of knowledge, it was invented by the science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s. Although innocent on the surface, dealing with self improvement, the movement has quite strange undertones. As a member moves up the various levels, by completing courses, he or she discovers its belief in reincarnation. When a member reaches the highly classified OT3 level (Operating Thetan), he or she is ready to learn the secret of the history of the universe, which is so powerful and dangerous that if one is not ready for its revelation, it will result in their death. The revelation is that billions of years ago, the Earth was called the planet Creteon and the ruler of the galaxy, Prince Xenu, living in another galaxy which was over-populated, sent some of his subjects to Earth, stored them in volcanoes and blew them up with atom bombs. Their souls, or "thetans" clustered together and now form us.
Source:
The Advertiser, Adelaide, Australia
October 7, 1995
Inside the Cult
The COS is able to harass relatives and friends thousands of miles away from England in order to suppress information about how it works.
=========
The Advertiser, Adelaide, Australia
October 7, 1995
Headline: "Inside the cult"
By Alison Braund
Twenty Twenty, England
A former Adelaide journalist infiltrated the "Church" of Scientology in England. Exposed and arrested, she tells her story.
THE brief had seemed relatively straightforward - to enter the "Church" of Scientology and secretly film some of its courses, widely criticised around the world for allegedly using mind-control techniques. There was no shortage of background material on the church, as it had been shrouded in controversy for many years. The organisation had been subjected to legal and political investigations in Australia, England and its birthplace, the United States. Its activities are constantly attracting publicity across the world.
Founded by a science-fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard, the "Church" of Scientology has its own vocabulary, hierarchy, rules, regulations and agenda. It boasts a worldwide membership of more than 4 million people and one of the biggest computer databases of personal information in existence. For my investigation, I was to be recruited into the Poole ``mission'' of the church, in South England. My producers chose Poole because it was one of the most successful Scientology operations in the world. My task was to work my way into headquarters of the elite ``Sea Organisation'' (Sea Org), where mainly young members work for the church and live in a mansion on England's South Coast. The Sea Org's stated goal is to save the world. As a result, a standard employee's contract is for one billion years - that is, your life and all your lives to come.
My story, for British television company Twenty Twenty, was to be aired in a current-affairs series, The Big Story. But I never imagined the lengths the Church of Scientology would go to in its effort to stop the program from being broadcast. Nor the way it would deal with those involved.
TRAINING
My assignment began by creating a false name, life and identity which was repeatedly tested until I knew it backwards. Past scientologists came to teach me how to avoid being hypnotised. They showed me how to keep my mind occupied during concentrated sessions, which could last for several hours, and yet appear to be affected.
I also studied how to cheat the E-Meter, a primitive lie detector widely used within the Church of Scientology for, among other things, security checks. Holding two cans in your hand, it passes an electrical current through your body and your emotional responses are assessed by a scientologist who monitors a dial with a needle. Interrogations can include questions like ``Are you or have you ever been involved in the media?'' and ``Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?''.
For those who make it further into the church's hierarchy, there is the ``Whole Security Check'', which demands answers to questions like ``Have you ever destroyed a culture?'', ``Have you ever bred bodies for degrading purposes?'' and ``Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?''.
I practised using a micro-camera lens hidden in a pair of spectacles. Recording and sound equipment was strapped to a corset. A psychologist came to assess my personality. His findings would be compared with those of the scientologists' well-known, 200-question personality test, ``The Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis'', which soon would be used on me. As a final safeguard, I signed a contract giving my permission to be forcibly removed from the Church of Scientology's premises in case I was brainwashed.
RECRUITMENT
The Scientology recruiter who stopped me in the Poole Mall said he was promoting a book. He said he wanted to ask me some questions. This is a standard technique. The goal is to stop people, ask them some preliminary questions and then take them to a Scientology office where they are asked to do the Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis. This test usually shows that a person is in need of what is known within the organisation as ``dianetic auditing''. I followed my recruiter to a book display centre to learn more about dianetics, which I was told could improve my life, memory and relationships. I was asked to complete the personality test and drop it off at the Scientology office, or ``college'', that evening.
The Scientology personality test asks curious questions like ``Are you a slow eater?'', ``Do you often whistle or sing just for the fun of it?'', ``When unexpected things happen, do some of your muscles have jerking motions?'', ``Do you consider too much money is spent on social security'', ``Are you opposed to the probation system for criminals?'' and ``Do you browse through railway timetables, directories or dictionaries just for pleasure?''. Its results are drawn on to a graph, which invariably shows personal problems, requiring the need to spend money on taking Scientology courses to improve one's life. As expected, the findings of my earlier, professional psychological test contrasted strongly with their results.
That evening, at the ``college'', I had my first taste of the skilful and hard-sell techniques of the church's recruiters, who are given targets to be reached at the end of each week. Most people at Poole appeared to work long days, at least six days a week. One ex-scientologist told me he earned 90 ($A180) a week. However, if targets were not met, this could fall to as low as 2.50 ($A5) a week. Graphs charting the financial and membership status of the Poole mission were pinned to walls in the building. I learnt Scientology ``missions'' compete to beat the others found throughout the world.
I arrived at the college at 9pm. By 10.30pm, I had been in the ``public contact'' secretary's office for over an hour. I was feeling vulnerable and depressed. Although I was determined not to sign up for anything during the marathon session, or hand over any money that evening, I ended up signing up just to get away. I handed over the special half-price fee of 32.25 for five hours of ``auditing''.
``Auditing'' sessions typically would start with understanding and friendship from the Scientology staff as they discussed problems and offered solutions. Then they would question the effectiveness of outside forms of help, and suggest that only by undertaking a Scientology course would an improvement be achieved.
COURSES
There are many types of Scientology ``auditing'' courses. The object is to ``clear'' the person - to cancel all their ``engrams'' left behind by negative experiences. A promotional video explains ``engrams'' by showing a woman who falls to the floor. While unconscious, a tap is running in the kitchen and her husband comments she looks terrible. As a result, every time a tap runs she thinks she looks terrible.
To cancel all one's ``engrams'' usually takes at least 200 hours, although it can take thousands. Each session costs money. The evidence of a ``clear'' person is apparently someone with near-perfect memory and glowing health: radiant personalities free from disease. My ``auditing'' entailed describing a negative event in my life to my auditor over and over again, in order that I could talk about the event free from any emotion connected with it.
The auditor spoke in a slow, soothing monotone in a method similar to that used in hypnosis. He wrote down everything I said. After my auditing was completed, I was congratulated before it was recommended I do a ``Purification Rundown''. Through massive doses of vitamins and an average of five hours of sauna a day, along with running activities, the program is claimed to release you from all legal and illegal drugs and alcohol which otherwise would linger forever in your system.
I refused to do this course so it was suggested I do the ``Success Through Communications'' course, as my personality test had shown I had problems communicating. I agreed to this, paid 58 and endured three days of inane work and drills. I spent two, boring hours sitting, staring at a scientologist. There are other strange drills, including ignoring anything your partner is saying, pretending to sound interested, changing the subject and answering a question by ignoring it.
PUNISHMENT
Any criticism of courses or the church was strictly forbidden. Church members told me it was part of a plot by the ``suppressive or anti-social'' person to stop any good being done in the world. Even among members, nothing critical was ever said, although it appeared obvious to me some people were unhappy about work conditions. I got the impression that the feeling within the cult is like that of a dictatorial regime - you never know who your friends are and you were always being watched. Every scientologist is expected to report anything they hear which is contrary to the church teachings. Anyone who does anything rebellious or fails substantially could be sent on the infamous ``Rehabilitation Project Force'' (RPF). Stories from ex-cult members describe cramped sleeping arrangements, hard manual labor and security checks (or ``evil purpose editing'').
COSTS
After a handful of courses, my future worth to the church was to be determined. I was sent to the head of the mission to have my finances assessed. I said I had very little money left but hinted I would have access to an inheritance in a few weeks.
The mission head suddenly was interested. He persisted with suggesting ways I could get the money as soon as possible, so I could get started with future courses. One costing 2000 was deemed best for me. I was lucky though and ended up paying only half of another course which cost only about 100. It has been well documented by the media that other people who have become involved with the Church of Scientology have not been so fortunate.
PERSUASION
It may seem incredible that otherwise intelligent people can fall victim but they are given little time to think, have other interests or see their friends. As a new recruit, I was seldom left alone and would be personally escorted from room to room - even if I knew where to go.
Sometimes I was even followed into the toilet and asked questions. On my second visit, when I went to move my car, I was escorted there and back.
When I decided it was time to make my run for the church headquarters, the Sea Org, I entered on the pretext of visiting a mansion formerly owned by L. Ron Hubbard. After discussions, I was asked if I'd be interested in joining the staff. There, I found members were working and studying from 8am to 10pm.
I had become used to filling out questionnaires, surveys, writing testimonies and being asked security questions. But at Sea Org headquarters, I was introduced to the ``Life History'' questionnaire, which topped them all.
I was asked to list all people I knew who had expressed any opinion against Scientology. I had to detail all my friends; their jobs and previous jobs and the communication I'd had with them since joining Scientology; to list all the drugs and medicine I'd taken, when and for how long; to give a complete sexual history, from the earliest experience, of both heterosexual and homosexual activities and the names of all involved, the number of times of the activity and any perversions engaged in. I objected but was told the information was totally confidential and would be used only by my counsellors to help me. I do not believe this is the case.
ARREST
Then, as my assignment continued, there was a tip-off. I apparently was followed one evening to the house of the producer of my program, whose address already was noted by the Scientology ``Special Affairs'' office.
When I returned to the Sea Org headquarters, I was left alone in a room. It was there I saw a pile of photocopied documents marked ``strictly confidential''. They included the names of some ex-members who had been involved in litigation with the church. I wanted to read the material and film it, so I put one of the papers in my bag. Meanwhile, the ``Special Affairs'' director was filming my activities with two concealed cameras. The police were called and I was arrested for suspicion of theft.
As I left the building, the corridors were suddenly lined with scientologists, some of whom photographed and videotaped me. I was taken to the local police station and later released on bail. My main fear was that the scientologists would get hold of my real name. It is widely documented that people who have spoken out against the church and its activities have been harassed. Although the police assured me they didn't release my name, it wasn't long before the cult was visiting my family in rural South Australia.
THE AFTERMATH
After my arrest, I rang my family in Australia to warn them the church may contact them. I heard someone, claiming to be a journalist, had called my former high school asking for information about my background. He told my father I was involved in a cult and wanted to help me. When my father refused to tell him anything, a woman visited him the next day.
She admitted she was from the Church of Scientology and said I had been arrested, that I would get a criminal record and never be able to work again. She urged him to contact me and convince me not to proceed with the program. Meanwhile, the man had been at my primary school, masquerading as the husband of one of my friends, looking through my school records. The campaign to stop the program from being aired gathered momentum. This involved demonstrations and the distribution of a Scientology magazine called Freedom. An article in Freedom accused me and my producers of dishonesty, deceit, violating codes of television journalistic ethics and committing criminal acts.
Everything built up to broadcast night. Predictably, Carlton TV had many phone calls the evening the program was aired, complaining about biased reporting. But one of the most telling things of all, was that many of them were made before the broadcast even went to air.
CHARGES
After a protracted legal wrangle, charges for suspicion of theft were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service. The scientologists unsuccessfully sought an injunction against the program going to air. They also issued civil writs against me and Twenty Twenty, claiming damages for trespass to goods, trespass and breach of confidences. These proceedings have yet to be heard.
The Church of Scientology also issued summonses for ``obtaining services by deception''. My lawyers applied to the London Magistrates Court for a hearing to halt these proceedings.
The case hit the media spotlight. My lawyers argued the summonses should be dismissed as they were issued solely to prevent the broadcast of the program, to punish and embarrass the defendants for making the program and to dissuade other journalists from publishing any material critical of the church. The case ended in the withdrawal of the summonses late last month, although the church still has the right to appeal.
-sidebar-
Behind Scientology
Described as the study of knowledge, it was invented by the science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s. Although innocent on the surface, dealing with self improvement, the movement has quite strange undertones. As a member moves up the various levels, by completing courses, he or she discovers its belief in reincarnation. When a member reaches the highly classified OT3 level (Operating Thetan), he or she is ready to learn the secret of the history of the universe, which is so powerful and dangerous that if one is not ready for its revelation, it will result in their death. The revelation is that billions of years ago, the Earth was called the planet Creteon and the ruler of the galaxy, Prince Xenu, living in another galaxy which was over-populated, sent some of his subjects to Earth, stored them in volcanoes and blew them up with atom bombs. Their souls, or "thetans" clustered together and now form us.
Source:
The Advertiser, Adelaide, Australia
October 7, 1995
SCIENTOLOGY, A COERCIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM
http://web.archive.org/web/20030624013316/www.caic.org.au/psyther/sci/sci-cult.htm
SCIENTOLOGY, A COERCIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM
Criteria for determining if a group is a dangerous and destructive cult
I have been associated with the subject matter of Scientology and its many organizations for twenty nine years. In this time, I have had extensive administrative and technical training and worked at various organizations in addition to doing some of its more advanced "Upper" levels. In this essay I have made liberal, and sometimes verbatim, use of the materials that FACTNET has developed in its research of coercive psychological systems.
This essay is limited to an analysis of Scientology as an coercive psychological system, its policies and procedures, and does NOT include independent groups or individuals using scientological materials, in whatever form, outside of the ORGANIZATION.
Anybody can unfairly accuse or attack an organization or group they disagree with or dislike by calling it a "cult" or saying that they are using coercive mind control or coercive psychological systems as you call it. FACTNET uses specific criteria to determine if a coercive psychological system has been used. It does not imply organizations or individuals are using coercive pyschological systems or are destructive or dangerous cults without careful research and determination that the evidence fits definite criteria.
The FIRST set of criteria comes from the description of "A technical overview of Psychological Coercion" derived from a report by Singer and Ofshe, Apr 1990. A summary of this report was presented to the U.S. Supreme Court as an educational Appendix on coercive psychological systems in the case of Wollersheim vs Church of Scientology 89-1367 and 89-1361. The Wollersheim case was being considered related to issues involving abuse in this area.
The SECOND set of criteria have to do with defining common elements of destructive and dangerous cults.
COMMON PROPERITIES
OF POTENTIALLY DESTRUCTIVE AND DANGEROUS CULTS
* The cult is authoritarian in its power structure. The leader is regarded as the supreme authority. He or she may delegate certain power to a few subordinates for the purpose of seeing that members adhere to the leader's wishes and roles. There is no appeal outside of his or her system to greater systems of justice. For example, if a school teacher feels unjustly treated by a principal, appeals can be made. In a cult, the leader claims to have the only and final ruling on all matters.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, was considered the "Source" of all materials published by the organization. He personally approved the appointment of all key leaders and they served at his pleasure. He hand-picked and indoctrinated his present successor, Captain David Miscavige, when Miscavige was 22 years old. Church members seeking a redress of grievances outside of the Scientology "Justice" system are automatically expelled from the organization and declared "Suppressive persons". Hubbard was the final authority on all petitions on grievances.
* The cult's leaders tend to be charismatic, determined and domineering. They persuade followers to drop their families, jobs, and careers, and friends to follow them. They (not the individual) take over control of their follower's possessions, money, and lives.
* The cult's leaders are self-appointed, messianic persons who claim to have a special mission in life.
Hubbard was a prolific writer of science fiction. In his many lectures he spoke of his adventures in para-military space organizations prior to his coming to Earth. He claimed to be Guatama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, in a previous life. He stated his mission was to create a New Civilization by the Scientologization of the Earth.
* The cult's leaders center the veneration of members upon themselves. Priests, rabbis, ministers, democratic leaders, and leader of genuinely altruistic movements keep the veneration of adherents focused on God, abstract principles, and group purposes. Cult leaders, in contrast, keep the focus of love, devotion and allegiance on themselves.
In compliance with Hubbard's directive, pictures or busts of Hubbard are in almost every room in the organizations. At the end of every staff meeting, members face an oversized picture of Hubbard and give a three-cheers chant and a rousing round of applauses to the icon. The organization built a multi-million dollar museum/shrine in memory of Hubbard after his death in 1986. All organizations maintain a unused office space for Hubbard, in anticipation of his future return.
* The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behaviour of its members. Cults are likely to dictate in great detail what members wear, eat, when and where they work, sleep, and bathe - as well as what to believe, think, and say.
* The cult tends to have a double set of ethics. Members are urged to be open and honest within the group, and confess all to the leaders. On the other hand, they are encouraged to deceive and manipulate outsiders or nonmembers. Established religions teach members to be honest and truthful to all, and to abide by one set of ethics.
Organization staff members are compelled to submit to interrogations called "security checks" and to write statements detailing their transgressions against the organization and its leaders, called "Overts/Witholds Writeups". Critics of the organization and dissident former members are considered "Suppressives" and a policy called "Fair Game" exempts Church members from dealing fairly and ethically with them. "Suppressive" can be lied to, cheated, tricked, sued, or destroyed, without any consequences from the organization.
* the cult has basically only two purposes, recruiting new members and fund-raising. Established religions and altruistic movements may also recruit and raise funds. However, their sole purpose is not to grow larger; such groups have the goals to better the lives of their members and mankind in general. The cults may claim to make social contributions, but in actuality these remain claims, or gestures. Their focus is always dominated by recruiting new members and fund-raising.
The Scientology organization has developed sophisticated techniques for gaining new members. "Personality" testing and "dissemination" drills and high-pressure sales techniques are used extensively. Field Staff Members (FSMs) earn 15% commissions for new members they sign up for Church services. The weekly gross income of the organization is considered its highest priority and the organization reported a yearly worldwide annual income of about 300 million dollars in the early 1990's. The cost for members to achieve its full services and highest "Upper Levels" is over $250,000. The organization has incorporated numerous shell organization that maintain a facade of social reform groups, but they are merely a vehicle for Public Relations ploys and rabble rousing against groups the organization considers antipathetic to its activities.
* The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive. The leader claims to be breaking with tradition, offering something novel, and instituting the only viable system for change that will solve life's problems or the world's ills. While claiming this, the cult then surreptitiously uses systems of psychological coercion on its members to inhibit their ability to examine the actual validity of the claims of the leader and the cult.
Scientology calls itself a "Religion" and a "Science of Life" and states as its goals the creation of a "World without War, Crime, or Insanity".
THE THIRD SET OF CRITERIA
The third set of criteria has to do with defining other common elements of coercive psychological systems. If most of Robert Jay Lifton's eight point model of thought reform ("Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" by R. Lifton, W.W. Norton & Co., 1963) is being used in a cultic organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult. These eight points are:
1. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL*
* Limitations of many/all forms of communication with those outside the group. Books, magazines, letters and visits with friends and family are taboo. "Come out and be separate".
At the Scientology "Flag Land Base" married staff members are only allowed one hour a day with their children. Visits or personal calls from "non-Scientologist" family members are strongly frowned on. Dependents do not attend public schools. Staff members are forbidden to have TVs in their living quarters. Private mail for staff members was frequently opened by senior staff members to check for disturbing news about the organization from friends or relatives. . Reading of newspapers or non-Scientology materials is strongly frowned on. Staff members are forbidden from reading or discussing any material critical of the organization or its leaders. Members are forbidden communication with disaffected members.
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION*
* The potential convert to the group becomes convinced of the higher purpose and special calling of the group through a profound encounter/experience, for example, through an alleged miracle or prophetic word of those in the group.
In 1968, Hubbard announced to all the organizations that he had traversed the "Wall of Fire" and discovered the long buried secret reasons for the degradation of the Earth and 76 nearby planets. This discovery is commonly called the "OT3" materials. Hubbard claimed the mystery had been buried for 76 million years and he was the first to discover the secret without dying. Hubbard developed a methodology which he claimed would liberate the planet and create a New Civilization. He formed a elite organization of devoted members called the "Sea Organization" to carry out this personal mission. He bought a fleet of ships and called himself the "Commodore" of the flotilla and Sea Organization members dressed in naval uniforms and formed a para-military, quasi-religious organization and started a massive world-wide recruitment effort to build the group that would "Clear" the planet.
3. DEMAND FOR PURITY*
* An explicit goal of the group is to bring about some kind of change, whether it be on a global, social, or personal level. "Perfection is possible if one stays with the group and is committed."
Hubbard claimed that "Total Freedom" was only possible within Scientology and Sea Organization members sign ONE BILLION year contracts as a symbol of their committment to Hubbard's mission.
4. CULT OF CONFESSION*
* The unhealthy practice of self disclosure to members in the group, often in the context of a public gathering in the group, admitting past sins and imperfections, even doubts about the group and critical thoughts about the integrity of the leaders.
Electronic interrogations, called "Security Checking" are used extensively within the organization to assure group conformity and to detect and stifle dissenting members. Members are required to write detailed descriptions of their shortcomings and dissident thoughts about the organization's leaders or policies. These writeups and security check session reports are maintained and are used by the organization to compel silence if the member becomes disaffected and leaves. "Ethics" conditions are assigned to deal with non-productive members, or members manifesting indications of disloyalty or disaffection. It is a Hubbardian maxim that members expressing criticism of the organization, leaving the organization, or failing to make "spiritual" progress are manifesting undisclosed transgressions against the organization. This insidious manipulative device remains intact in the minds of many former members and serves as a constant reminder of their "undisclosed" trangressions against the organization and their "real reason" for leaving it.
5. SACRED SCIENCE*
* The group's perspective is absolutely true and completly adequate to explain EVERYTHING. The doctrine is not subject to amendments or question. ABSOLUTE conformity to the doctrine is required.
Hubbard called his ideology "The Science of Knowing How To Know". He called his essays "STANDARD TECH". NO amendments were allowed and the materials had to be LITERALLY interpreted, without ANY verbal explainations. Hubbard developed a "Study Tech" and anyone questioning or disagreeing with his essays was considered to be suffering from "Misunderstood Words". Any person who amended his procedures was labeled a "Squirrel" and expelled from the organization and branded a "Suppressive Person". The organization calls Hubbard's essays its "Sacred Scriptures" and copyrighted it and obtained "Trade Secret" status on Hubbard's mystical experiences, its "Most Sacred Scriptures", the "Upper Levels". The organization has severe sanctions for members who publically disclose the contents of its "Upper Levels".
6. LOADED LANGUAGE*
* A new vocabulary emerges within the context of the group. Group members "think" within the very abstract and narrow parameters of the group's doctrine. The terminology sufficiently stops members from thinking critically by reinforcing a "black and white" mentality. Loaded terms and cliches prejudices thinking.
Hubbard wrote several thick volumes containing Scientology jargon and members are forbidden to use terminology from "earlier practices" before they came into the organization. The organization uses derisive terms for non-Scientologists (Wogs), and critics and dissident former members (Suppressive Persons). Hubbard was especially harsh in his vilification of mental health professionals and medical doctors, and considered them in league with a world-wide conspiracy against him and his organization.
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON*
* Pre-group experience and group experience are narrowly and decisively interpreted through the absolute doctrine, even when experience contradicts the doctrine.
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE*
* Salvation is possible only in the group. Those who leave the group are doomed.
The Hubbardian view that Scientology is the ONLY "Road to Total Freedom" is constantly stressed. The threat of expulsion and denial of the "Upper Levels" is an effective method in maintaining group conformity and discouraging internal dissidence. Even amongst many expelled members, the emotional distress and consideration that one has been "Condemned to Hell" by denial of access to the "Upper Levels" lingers for a long time.
From: harringtonj-smtc
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 17:11:00 -0500
SCIENTOLOGY, A COERCIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM
Criteria for determining if a group is a dangerous and destructive cult
I have been associated with the subject matter of Scientology and its many organizations for twenty nine years. In this time, I have had extensive administrative and technical training and worked at various organizations in addition to doing some of its more advanced "Upper" levels. In this essay I have made liberal, and sometimes verbatim, use of the materials that FACTNET has developed in its research of coercive psychological systems.
This essay is limited to an analysis of Scientology as an coercive psychological system, its policies and procedures, and does NOT include independent groups or individuals using scientological materials, in whatever form, outside of the ORGANIZATION.
Anybody can unfairly accuse or attack an organization or group they disagree with or dislike by calling it a "cult" or saying that they are using coercive mind control or coercive psychological systems as you call it. FACTNET uses specific criteria to determine if a coercive psychological system has been used. It does not imply organizations or individuals are using coercive pyschological systems or are destructive or dangerous cults without careful research and determination that the evidence fits definite criteria.
The FIRST set of criteria comes from the description of "A technical overview of Psychological Coercion" derived from a report by Singer and Ofshe, Apr 1990. A summary of this report was presented to the U.S. Supreme Court as an educational Appendix on coercive psychological systems in the case of Wollersheim vs Church of Scientology 89-1367 and 89-1361. The Wollersheim case was being considered related to issues involving abuse in this area.
The SECOND set of criteria have to do with defining common elements of destructive and dangerous cults.
COMMON PROPERITIES
OF POTENTIALLY DESTRUCTIVE AND DANGEROUS CULTS
* The cult is authoritarian in its power structure. The leader is regarded as the supreme authority. He or she may delegate certain power to a few subordinates for the purpose of seeing that members adhere to the leader's wishes and roles. There is no appeal outside of his or her system to greater systems of justice. For example, if a school teacher feels unjustly treated by a principal, appeals can be made. In a cult, the leader claims to have the only and final ruling on all matters.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, was considered the "Source" of all materials published by the organization. He personally approved the appointment of all key leaders and they served at his pleasure. He hand-picked and indoctrinated his present successor, Captain David Miscavige, when Miscavige was 22 years old. Church members seeking a redress of grievances outside of the Scientology "Justice" system are automatically expelled from the organization and declared "Suppressive persons". Hubbard was the final authority on all petitions on grievances.
* The cult's leaders tend to be charismatic, determined and domineering. They persuade followers to drop their families, jobs, and careers, and friends to follow them. They (not the individual) take over control of their follower's possessions, money, and lives.
* The cult's leaders are self-appointed, messianic persons who claim to have a special mission in life.
Hubbard was a prolific writer of science fiction. In his many lectures he spoke of his adventures in para-military space organizations prior to his coming to Earth. He claimed to be Guatama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, in a previous life. He stated his mission was to create a New Civilization by the Scientologization of the Earth.
* The cult's leaders center the veneration of members upon themselves. Priests, rabbis, ministers, democratic leaders, and leader of genuinely altruistic movements keep the veneration of adherents focused on God, abstract principles, and group purposes. Cult leaders, in contrast, keep the focus of love, devotion and allegiance on themselves.
In compliance with Hubbard's directive, pictures or busts of Hubbard are in almost every room in the organizations. At the end of every staff meeting, members face an oversized picture of Hubbard and give a three-cheers chant and a rousing round of applauses to the icon. The organization built a multi-million dollar museum/shrine in memory of Hubbard after his death in 1986. All organizations maintain a unused office space for Hubbard, in anticipation of his future return.
* The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behaviour of its members. Cults are likely to dictate in great detail what members wear, eat, when and where they work, sleep, and bathe - as well as what to believe, think, and say.
* The cult tends to have a double set of ethics. Members are urged to be open and honest within the group, and confess all to the leaders. On the other hand, they are encouraged to deceive and manipulate outsiders or nonmembers. Established religions teach members to be honest and truthful to all, and to abide by one set of ethics.
Organization staff members are compelled to submit to interrogations called "security checks" and to write statements detailing their transgressions against the organization and its leaders, called "Overts/Witholds Writeups". Critics of the organization and dissident former members are considered "Suppressives" and a policy called "Fair Game" exempts Church members from dealing fairly and ethically with them. "Suppressive" can be lied to, cheated, tricked, sued, or destroyed, without any consequences from the organization.
* the cult has basically only two purposes, recruiting new members and fund-raising. Established religions and altruistic movements may also recruit and raise funds. However, their sole purpose is not to grow larger; such groups have the goals to better the lives of their members and mankind in general. The cults may claim to make social contributions, but in actuality these remain claims, or gestures. Their focus is always dominated by recruiting new members and fund-raising.
The Scientology organization has developed sophisticated techniques for gaining new members. "Personality" testing and "dissemination" drills and high-pressure sales techniques are used extensively. Field Staff Members (FSMs) earn 15% commissions for new members they sign up for Church services. The weekly gross income of the organization is considered its highest priority and the organization reported a yearly worldwide annual income of about 300 million dollars in the early 1990's. The cost for members to achieve its full services and highest "Upper Levels" is over $250,000. The organization has incorporated numerous shell organization that maintain a facade of social reform groups, but they are merely a vehicle for Public Relations ploys and rabble rousing against groups the organization considers antipathetic to its activities.
* The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive. The leader claims to be breaking with tradition, offering something novel, and instituting the only viable system for change that will solve life's problems or the world's ills. While claiming this, the cult then surreptitiously uses systems of psychological coercion on its members to inhibit their ability to examine the actual validity of the claims of the leader and the cult.
Scientology calls itself a "Religion" and a "Science of Life" and states as its goals the creation of a "World without War, Crime, or Insanity".
THE THIRD SET OF CRITERIA
The third set of criteria has to do with defining other common elements of coercive psychological systems. If most of Robert Jay Lifton's eight point model of thought reform ("Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" by R. Lifton, W.W. Norton & Co., 1963) is being used in a cultic organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult. These eight points are:
1. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL*
* Limitations of many/all forms of communication with those outside the group. Books, magazines, letters and visits with friends and family are taboo. "Come out and be separate".
At the Scientology "Flag Land Base" married staff members are only allowed one hour a day with their children. Visits or personal calls from "non-Scientologist" family members are strongly frowned on. Dependents do not attend public schools. Staff members are forbidden to have TVs in their living quarters. Private mail for staff members was frequently opened by senior staff members to check for disturbing news about the organization from friends or relatives. . Reading of newspapers or non-Scientology materials is strongly frowned on. Staff members are forbidden from reading or discussing any material critical of the organization or its leaders. Members are forbidden communication with disaffected members.
2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION*
* The potential convert to the group becomes convinced of the higher purpose and special calling of the group through a profound encounter/experience, for example, through an alleged miracle or prophetic word of those in the group.
In 1968, Hubbard announced to all the organizations that he had traversed the "Wall of Fire" and discovered the long buried secret reasons for the degradation of the Earth and 76 nearby planets. This discovery is commonly called the "OT3" materials. Hubbard claimed the mystery had been buried for 76 million years and he was the first to discover the secret without dying. Hubbard developed a methodology which he claimed would liberate the planet and create a New Civilization. He formed a elite organization of devoted members called the "Sea Organization" to carry out this personal mission. He bought a fleet of ships and called himself the "Commodore" of the flotilla and Sea Organization members dressed in naval uniforms and formed a para-military, quasi-religious organization and started a massive world-wide recruitment effort to build the group that would "Clear" the planet.
3. DEMAND FOR PURITY*
* An explicit goal of the group is to bring about some kind of change, whether it be on a global, social, or personal level. "Perfection is possible if one stays with the group and is committed."
Hubbard claimed that "Total Freedom" was only possible within Scientology and Sea Organization members sign ONE BILLION year contracts as a symbol of their committment to Hubbard's mission.
4. CULT OF CONFESSION*
* The unhealthy practice of self disclosure to members in the group, often in the context of a public gathering in the group, admitting past sins and imperfections, even doubts about the group and critical thoughts about the integrity of the leaders.
Electronic interrogations, called "Security Checking" are used extensively within the organization to assure group conformity and to detect and stifle dissenting members. Members are required to write detailed descriptions of their shortcomings and dissident thoughts about the organization's leaders or policies. These writeups and security check session reports are maintained and are used by the organization to compel silence if the member becomes disaffected and leaves. "Ethics" conditions are assigned to deal with non-productive members, or members manifesting indications of disloyalty or disaffection. It is a Hubbardian maxim that members expressing criticism of the organization, leaving the organization, or failing to make "spiritual" progress are manifesting undisclosed transgressions against the organization. This insidious manipulative device remains intact in the minds of many former members and serves as a constant reminder of their "undisclosed" trangressions against the organization and their "real reason" for leaving it.
5. SACRED SCIENCE*
* The group's perspective is absolutely true and completly adequate to explain EVERYTHING. The doctrine is not subject to amendments or question. ABSOLUTE conformity to the doctrine is required.
Hubbard called his ideology "The Science of Knowing How To Know". He called his essays "STANDARD TECH". NO amendments were allowed and the materials had to be LITERALLY interpreted, without ANY verbal explainations. Hubbard developed a "Study Tech" and anyone questioning or disagreeing with his essays was considered to be suffering from "Misunderstood Words". Any person who amended his procedures was labeled a "Squirrel" and expelled from the organization and branded a "Suppressive Person". The organization calls Hubbard's essays its "Sacred Scriptures" and copyrighted it and obtained "Trade Secret" status on Hubbard's mystical experiences, its "Most Sacred Scriptures", the "Upper Levels". The organization has severe sanctions for members who publically disclose the contents of its "Upper Levels".
6. LOADED LANGUAGE*
* A new vocabulary emerges within the context of the group. Group members "think" within the very abstract and narrow parameters of the group's doctrine. The terminology sufficiently stops members from thinking critically by reinforcing a "black and white" mentality. Loaded terms and cliches prejudices thinking.
Hubbard wrote several thick volumes containing Scientology jargon and members are forbidden to use terminology from "earlier practices" before they came into the organization. The organization uses derisive terms for non-Scientologists (Wogs), and critics and dissident former members (Suppressive Persons). Hubbard was especially harsh in his vilification of mental health professionals and medical doctors, and considered them in league with a world-wide conspiracy against him and his organization.
7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON*
* Pre-group experience and group experience are narrowly and decisively interpreted through the absolute doctrine, even when experience contradicts the doctrine.
8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE*
* Salvation is possible only in the group. Those who leave the group are doomed.
The Hubbardian view that Scientology is the ONLY "Road to Total Freedom" is constantly stressed. The threat of expulsion and denial of the "Upper Levels" is an effective method in maintaining group conformity and discouraging internal dissidence. Even amongst many expelled members, the emotional distress and consideration that one has been "Condemned to Hell" by denial of access to the "Upper Levels" lingers for a long time.
From: harringtonj-smtc
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 17:11:00 -0500
Mary Sue Hubbard Dead at 71
Mary Sue Hubbard, third wife of L. Ron Hubbard, died on November 25th, 2002, at 5:25PM. She was born in Milam County, Texas, on June 17th, 1931, to Ms. Mary Cathrine Hill and Mr. Harry Whipp. She died from metastatic breast carcinoma with pulmonary complications. She died in her place of residence on Chislehurst Drive, Los Angeles, California. Her death was not reported to the coroner. The body was cremated.
Mary Sue Hubbard is best known as the director of the Scientology corporation's Guardians Office: the department within the Scientology business that committed crimes and human rights abuses, and that is now called the Office of Special Affairs.
In 1979 Ms. Hubbard and ten other top Scientology management officials were tried in a court of law (Criminal Case No. 78-401 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. MARY SUE HUBBARD, et al.) and convicted by uncontested stipulation of brazen, systematic and persistent burglaries of United States Government offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California, over an extended period of at least some two years.
Crimes included the harboring of a fugitive; the forceful kidnapping of a federal witness; submitting false evidence to the Grand Jury; destroying other evidence which might have been of valuable aid to the Grand Jury's investigation; preparing a cover-up story; and encouraging and drilling a crucial witness to give false testimony under oath to that Grand Jury.
Crimes also stipulated and uncontested were: infiltration and theft of documents from a number of prominent private national and world organizations, law firms and newspapers; the execution of smear campaigns and baseless law suits to destroy private individuals who had attempted to exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression; the framing of private citizens who had been critical of Scientology, including the forging of documents which led to the indictment of at least one innocent person (Paulette Cooper); violation of the civil rights of prominent private figures and public officials.
Other defendants found guilty via uncontested stipulation were Henning Heldt; Duke Snider; Richard Weigand; Gregory Willardson; Mitchell Hermann a/k/a Mike Cooper; Cindy Raymond; Gerald Bennett Wolfe; Sharon Thomas; Morris "Mo" Budlong; and Jane Kember.
According to the second-in-command of Scientology, Jesse Prince, Ms. Hubbard was forced by from twelve to seventeen men to sign away all of her rights to Scientology copyrights, trademarks, and bank accounts for the sum of $100,000; the estimated value of the Scientology corporation was estimated to be worth from $400,000,000 to $700,000,000.
Mary Sue Hubbard's spouse, Lafayette Ronald "Ron" Hubbard, Senior, died at the age of 74 years allegedly on January 24, 1986, in his mobile home near San Luis Obispo. Mr. Hubbard, a convicted felon, spent the last dozen years of his life a fugitive from justice and died in hiding. He left behind a pseudo-religious commercial empire worth nearly one billion dollars.
Mary Sue Hubbard is best known as the director of the Scientology corporation's Guardians Office: the department within the Scientology business that committed crimes and human rights abuses, and that is now called the Office of Special Affairs.
In 1979 Ms. Hubbard and ten other top Scientology management officials were tried in a court of law (Criminal Case No. 78-401 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. MARY SUE HUBBARD, et al.) and convicted by uncontested stipulation of brazen, systematic and persistent burglaries of United States Government offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California, over an extended period of at least some two years.
Crimes included the harboring of a fugitive; the forceful kidnapping of a federal witness; submitting false evidence to the Grand Jury; destroying other evidence which might have been of valuable aid to the Grand Jury's investigation; preparing a cover-up story; and encouraging and drilling a crucial witness to give false testimony under oath to that Grand Jury.
Crimes also stipulated and uncontested were: infiltration and theft of documents from a number of prominent private national and world organizations, law firms and newspapers; the execution of smear campaigns and baseless law suits to destroy private individuals who had attempted to exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression; the framing of private citizens who had been critical of Scientology, including the forging of documents which led to the indictment of at least one innocent person (Paulette Cooper); violation of the civil rights of prominent private figures and public officials.
Other defendants found guilty via uncontested stipulation were Henning Heldt; Duke Snider; Richard Weigand; Gregory Willardson; Mitchell Hermann a/k/a Mike Cooper; Cindy Raymond; Gerald Bennett Wolfe; Sharon Thomas; Morris "Mo" Budlong; and Jane Kember.
According to the second-in-command of Scientology, Jesse Prince, Ms. Hubbard was forced by from twelve to seventeen men to sign away all of her rights to Scientology copyrights, trademarks, and bank accounts for the sum of $100,000; the estimated value of the Scientology corporation was estimated to be worth from $400,000,000 to $700,000,000.
Mary Sue Hubbard's spouse, Lafayette Ronald "Ron" Hubbard, Senior, died at the age of 74 years allegedly on January 24, 1986, in his mobile home near San Luis Obispo. Mr. Hubbard, a convicted felon, spent the last dozen years of his life a fugitive from justice and died in hiding. He left behind a pseudo-religious commercial empire worth nearly one billion dollars.
An open letter to a Scientologist from an OT8
From: "Michael Pattinson"
Subject: An open letter to a Scientologist from an OT8
Date: 12 Nov 2005 23:41:13 -0800
Message-ID: <1131867673.719007.101500@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>
12 November 2005
Dear Scientologist,
I completed New OT8 in February 1990 after being in Scientology since 1973. During that period I was mainly "public" but did several years as a staff member in Paris Org as Qual Sec. I trained up to be a C/S, FPRD and Confessional auditor and solo auditor. I was a Scientology celebrity as an international fine artist, creating beautiful paintings of "visualized" music. Many Scientologists (thousands) knew me personally from my art tours of orgs and missions in the early 1980s. Samples of my art can be seen at www.mpattinson.photosite.com
Though you may read about how and why I actually left Scientology on the internet (you would probably have to use a non-Scientologist's computer, however) and see the data at www.lermanet.com/michaelpattinson, I wanted to address a simple letter of "Truth Revealed" to you here. After all, that is the very name of the OT8 level.
As I read the lists of many Scientology staff names and addresses so recently published on the world wide web (though I don't know how that came about) I was filled with compassion at the fact of your commitment and devotion to Scientology and its basic aims. I was also a proud trooper for decades and was utterly convinced that Scientology was really everything I read it was and heard it was. Peer agreement (group ARC) was also a strong re-enforcement of my convictions and my unrelenting in-KSW attitude that I applied very well despite it sometimes coming back at me with counter-emotions and counter-efforts.
Like you, I too have made things go right when things looked very bleak. I, too have spent a lot of money on services and donations that I really could not afford. I have done the "yo-yo" exercise and stood and applauded and cheered LRH's photo over and over again at events.
Like you I have also held back the tears of protest and dismay when "handlings" went wrong or were off-target and waited endless frustrating hours in waiting rooms for folders, C/s"s and D of P interviews. I have, maybe like yourself, had serious doubts as to the unexplainable mysterious "outnesses" in the Scientology lines and terminals that seemed to be so quickly smothered, hurried away or blanket-defined as "entheta". I quietly "wondered" (but better not say anything) at seeing the sudden painful hostilities towards and upsetting disappearances of staff members, the sadness of the RPFers or the black hole money pit my money got sucked into so fast.
I have also had the personal wins from auditing, feelings of group ARC in the briefings and in courses in LRH tech, admin and ethics training, though in retrospect I could wish that they had been as permanent as my payments were to purchase them. I have also seen the F/Ns and the VGIs from my pc's and (in cramming) auditors from applying tech. Without those wins along the way I would never have made it all way up the Bridge to New OT8, as you know. Going OT is an uphill battle all the way.
I have been in your position when my own ethics handlings went both well or badly, when conditions were applied both to eventual wins and to the strained "E.P" of satisfying the fixed ideas of tech or ethics terminals who were aiming at a specific result I had to attain. I have done conditions formulas till they were coming out of my ears, and tons and tons of other ethics, tech and admin applications. I personally knew the Flag Class 12 auditors from the Apollo as I trained with them at Flag, I have known the Int Execs since they were teenagers, I have personally known all LRH's children. I have known and frequented many of the Scientology celebrities too.
I WENT ALL THE WAY UP THE BRIDGE (there is no available level above New OT8).
What happened then is why I am writing this letter. I wish it was not necessary to write this but it is. I firmly believe that Truth is a friend to, and that lies are an enemy of survival. Yes, feel free to investigate what I write about here...
It is truly heartbreaking for me to have to inform you that you have been lied to, and not just in a small way. I am so, so sorry to have to tell you this, but please bear with me.
You have been lied to regarding the "Bridge to Total Freedom" as it does not arrive at Total Freedom. I know this because I have been there and experienced it. OT8 is NOT Total Freedom, yet there is no more Bridge to travel.
You may have wondered why OTs still behave in "strange" or weird ways and still exhibit aberrated behaviors. They are on the big secret missed withhold of not having received what LRH promised. Every non-OT "misses" the withhold.
You have been lied to about O.T.powers. I will not go into any case data or OT level data as it is not necessary, but I can tell you that the advertised and promised O.T powers LRH writes about such as telekinesis (moving objects as a thetan), perfect total recall, "clear" of any and all aberrations, permanently Cause over Life, real-life Cause over MEST, etc are NOT in reality delivered by Scientology (in my direct experience and in that of many others).
You have been lied to about LRH's death, and the lies were criminally false. The "story" about LRH deciding to causatively but regrettably depart his body, go off to research further OT levels, etc. was very likely a pack of lies. The coroner's report found a psychiatric drug (Vistaril") in LRH's body after death as well as many needle marks. The surrounding circumstances of LRH's death such as a very unkempt body, changing his Will a day before he died, the hurried cremation, the refusal of autopsy, all make for a very suspicious situation. LRH had been hiding out at the Creston ranch under the false name "Jack Mitchell" so as not to be served with lawsuits, as those who knew have revealed.
You have been lied to about LRH's biography, and in many aspects of it, not just a few.
Though this may seem to be shocking enough or upsetting already there are many other big and awful lies you have been told and false data you have been fed. In fact enough false data to fill books which expose and clarify them. Such books as "A Piece of Blue Sky" by Jon Atack, Bare Faced Messiah by Bent Corydon and L.Ron Hubbard Jr., L.Ron Hubbard:Messiah or Madman?" are full of truths revealed and internal Scientology mysteries unfurled.
The internet is a source for you to explore the truths that hundreds of former Scientologists, some from Int Exec strata, have written and revealed.
Truth, being made of pure Life itself can never be "entheta". It is pure theta, even if shocking in its first impact ;like the sunshine that dazzles the eyes of someone emerging from a deep and dark cavern, having followed a closely taped path to nowhere but blind obedience.
But why, you may ask, not let us down slowly? Well, we who "found out" were not let down slowly and we survived the truth and its powerful re-orientations. So can you.
I invite you to explore the internet and finding your own freeing truths. I ask that you open your eyes and see for yourself. I invite you to see both sides of the Scientology coin.
For example;
www.lemanet.com
www.xenu.net
and other linked sites.
BEWARE of those who say "Do NOT look!" or try to label the truth or me,
or other brave ex-members who have the integrity to seak out despite
personal dangers as "entheta" or SP's. To my knowledge I have NOT been
declared SP, and have even asked Scientolgy terminals if there was such
a "declare" on several occasions to no avail, so I would welcome you to
be in communication with me.
I am proud to have been a companion of many, many Scientologists along
the way and I am equally proud of those who have had the guts to speak
out publicly. I regret the lies we were told and the fraud that took
advantage of our trusting good nature. I believe they must be fully
exposed and dealt with appropriately.
In closing, I salute your positive goals, your will to survive, your
bravery in facing new viewpoints and especially the divine spirit
within you that is immortal, beautiful and full of the Light that
shines as bright as the Sun. This inner Light is your real Source.
Michael Pattinson
mpattinson AT gmail DOT com
Subject: An open letter to a Scientologist from an OT8
Date: 12 Nov 2005 23:41:13 -0800
Message-ID: <1131867673.719007.101500@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>
12 November 2005
Dear Scientologist,
I completed New OT8 in February 1990 after being in Scientology since 1973. During that period I was mainly "public" but did several years as a staff member in Paris Org as Qual Sec. I trained up to be a C/S, FPRD and Confessional auditor and solo auditor. I was a Scientology celebrity as an international fine artist, creating beautiful paintings of "visualized" music. Many Scientologists (thousands) knew me personally from my art tours of orgs and missions in the early 1980s. Samples of my art can be seen at www.mpattinson.photosite.com
Though you may read about how and why I actually left Scientology on the internet (you would probably have to use a non-Scientologist's computer, however) and see the data at www.lermanet.com/michaelpattinson, I wanted to address a simple letter of "Truth Revealed" to you here. After all, that is the very name of the OT8 level.
As I read the lists of many Scientology staff names and addresses so recently published on the world wide web (though I don't know how that came about) I was filled with compassion at the fact of your commitment and devotion to Scientology and its basic aims. I was also a proud trooper for decades and was utterly convinced that Scientology was really everything I read it was and heard it was. Peer agreement (group ARC) was also a strong re-enforcement of my convictions and my unrelenting in-KSW attitude that I applied very well despite it sometimes coming back at me with counter-emotions and counter-efforts.
Like you, I too have made things go right when things looked very bleak. I, too have spent a lot of money on services and donations that I really could not afford. I have done the "yo-yo" exercise and stood and applauded and cheered LRH's photo over and over again at events.
Like you I have also held back the tears of protest and dismay when "handlings" went wrong or were off-target and waited endless frustrating hours in waiting rooms for folders, C/s"s and D of P interviews. I have, maybe like yourself, had serious doubts as to the unexplainable mysterious "outnesses" in the Scientology lines and terminals that seemed to be so quickly smothered, hurried away or blanket-defined as "entheta". I quietly "wondered" (but better not say anything) at seeing the sudden painful hostilities towards and upsetting disappearances of staff members, the sadness of the RPFers or the black hole money pit my money got sucked into so fast.
I have also had the personal wins from auditing, feelings of group ARC in the briefings and in courses in LRH tech, admin and ethics training, though in retrospect I could wish that they had been as permanent as my payments were to purchase them. I have also seen the F/Ns and the VGIs from my pc's and (in cramming) auditors from applying tech. Without those wins along the way I would never have made it all way up the Bridge to New OT8, as you know. Going OT is an uphill battle all the way.
I have been in your position when my own ethics handlings went both well or badly, when conditions were applied both to eventual wins and to the strained "E.P" of satisfying the fixed ideas of tech or ethics terminals who were aiming at a specific result I had to attain. I have done conditions formulas till they were coming out of my ears, and tons and tons of other ethics, tech and admin applications. I personally knew the Flag Class 12 auditors from the Apollo as I trained with them at Flag, I have known the Int Execs since they were teenagers, I have personally known all LRH's children. I have known and frequented many of the Scientology celebrities too.
I WENT ALL THE WAY UP THE BRIDGE (there is no available level above New OT8).
What happened then is why I am writing this letter. I wish it was not necessary to write this but it is. I firmly believe that Truth is a friend to, and that lies are an enemy of survival. Yes, feel free to investigate what I write about here...
It is truly heartbreaking for me to have to inform you that you have been lied to, and not just in a small way. I am so, so sorry to have to tell you this, but please bear with me.
You have been lied to regarding the "Bridge to Total Freedom" as it does not arrive at Total Freedom. I know this because I have been there and experienced it. OT8 is NOT Total Freedom, yet there is no more Bridge to travel.
You may have wondered why OTs still behave in "strange" or weird ways and still exhibit aberrated behaviors. They are on the big secret missed withhold of not having received what LRH promised. Every non-OT "misses" the withhold.
You have been lied to about O.T.powers. I will not go into any case data or OT level data as it is not necessary, but I can tell you that the advertised and promised O.T powers LRH writes about such as telekinesis (moving objects as a thetan), perfect total recall, "clear" of any and all aberrations, permanently Cause over Life, real-life Cause over MEST, etc are NOT in reality delivered by Scientology (in my direct experience and in that of many others).
You have been lied to about LRH's death, and the lies were criminally false. The "story" about LRH deciding to causatively but regrettably depart his body, go off to research further OT levels, etc. was very likely a pack of lies. The coroner's report found a psychiatric drug (Vistaril") in LRH's body after death as well as many needle marks. The surrounding circumstances of LRH's death such as a very unkempt body, changing his Will a day before he died, the hurried cremation, the refusal of autopsy, all make for a very suspicious situation. LRH had been hiding out at the Creston ranch under the false name "Jack Mitchell" so as not to be served with lawsuits, as those who knew have revealed.
You have been lied to about LRH's biography, and in many aspects of it, not just a few.
Though this may seem to be shocking enough or upsetting already there are many other big and awful lies you have been told and false data you have been fed. In fact enough false data to fill books which expose and clarify them. Such books as "A Piece of Blue Sky" by Jon Atack, Bare Faced Messiah by Bent Corydon and L.Ron Hubbard Jr., L.Ron Hubbard:Messiah or Madman?" are full of truths revealed and internal Scientology mysteries unfurled.
The internet is a source for you to explore the truths that hundreds of former Scientologists, some from Int Exec strata, have written and revealed.
Truth, being made of pure Life itself can never be "entheta". It is pure theta, even if shocking in its first impact ;like the sunshine that dazzles the eyes of someone emerging from a deep and dark cavern, having followed a closely taped path to nowhere but blind obedience.
But why, you may ask, not let us down slowly? Well, we who "found out" were not let down slowly and we survived the truth and its powerful re-orientations. So can you.
I invite you to explore the internet and finding your own freeing truths. I ask that you open your eyes and see for yourself. I invite you to see both sides of the Scientology coin.
For example;
www.lemanet.com
www.xenu.net
and other linked sites.
BEWARE of those who say "Do NOT look!" or try to label the truth or me,
or other brave ex-members who have the integrity to seak out despite
personal dangers as "entheta" or SP's. To my knowledge I have NOT been
declared SP, and have even asked Scientolgy terminals if there was such
a "declare" on several occasions to no avail, so I would welcome you to
be in communication with me.
I am proud to have been a companion of many, many Scientologists along
the way and I am equally proud of those who have had the guts to speak
out publicly. I regret the lies we were told and the fraud that took
advantage of our trusting good nature. I believe they must be fully
exposed and dealt with appropriately.
In closing, I salute your positive goals, your will to survive, your
bravery in facing new viewpoints and especially the divine spirit
within you that is immortal, beautiful and full of the Light that
shines as bright as the Sun. This inner Light is your real Source.
Michael Pattinson
mpattinson AT gmail DOT com
Anderson Report Chapter 19-Healing Claims of Scientology
http://web.archive.org/web/20030624002607/www.caic.org.au/psyther/sci/andrep19.htm
THE ANDERSON REPORT
Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology
by Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C.
Published 1965 by the State of Victoria, Australia
CHAPTER 19
THE HEALING CLAIMS OF SCIENTOLOGY
A very important phase of the Inquiry was whether scientology
(a) claimed to heal or cure ills or ailments,
(b) practised the healing or curing of ills or ailments.
Williams and other executive scientologists from time to time asserted in evidence that scientology neither claimed to cure nor practised curing, that the practising of scientology to cure any ailment was forbidden and that auditors would be decertificated if they were found doing so or promising to cure any ailment. It was said that the curing of ailments had been a dianetic activity and that, because of troubles associated with non-qualified persons purporting to cure ailments, dianetics was put aside and scientology developed in such a way that specifically no claim was made to heal.
Certain bulletins and other documents emanating from Hubbard likewise state that the curing of ailments is not the role of scientology, but these are quite at variance with many other bulletins and similar publications, which describe scientology in terms which are consistent only with a claim that scientology can and does effect cures of the most remarkable kind.
The official attitude advanced at the Inquiry that scientology did not claim to heal was, and is, only a camouflage. The real intention of scientology is to inculcate in the minds of anyone who becomes interested in it the impression or belief that, as well as being a panacea for all problems, worries and aberrations, it is a gateway to sure cures for a great variety of mental and physical ills. And it is at the vary basis of scientology teaching that mental and physical well-being is assured to those who have sufficient scientology processing.
A fundamental principle of scientology is that a rehabilitated thetan is capable of caring for the body and the mind of the human being which it possesses and, therefore, if the thetan is rehabilitated and all its abilities are restored, it will be able to cure the ills of the body and mind. The only way to rehabilitate a thetan is said to be by scientology processing.
The belief that scientology is a cure for many illnesses, both mental and physical, is propagated by Hubbard consistently and deliberately. No opportunity is missed of claiming for scientology the credit of a cure, and in his books and other writings repeated claims are made and cases quoted of alleged cures, many of them said to be miraculous.
Campaigns are planned for enticing people into scientology because of what it offers in the way of alleviation and cure of illnesses. From time to time there is a protest by Hubbard and the HASI that they are not concerned with cures of bodily ills, and that their only goal is to make the able more able. But these protestations are hollow-sounding in the light of the calculated deception which is consistently practised in the drive for more and still more adherents to scientology. Sometimes the attitude adopted is, in effect, "We don't claim to cure, curing is not our concern. Of course, if you look at our record, look at the miraculous cures we have effected, look what dianetics, which is a branch of scientology, can do and has done, you will see that scientology does cure; but we don't claim to cure". This is a cunning and effective pose, its effectiveness being best judged by the great number of ardent scientologists who firmly believe, as their evidence before the Board and a perusal of their files s how, that scientology possesses remarkable curative powers, and that in many cases they are "in scientology" partly at least because of such beliefs.
Mindful of this technique, one well understands why Hubbard insists that his million copy best-seller, Dianetics: MSMH, is essential reading at all stages of scientology study, even though the book was written in 1950, before scientology was founded, and notwithstanding that dianetics was said by witnesses not now to be practised.
The claims for dianetics, as appearing on the dustcover of Dianetics: MSMH and in the text, include assertions that cases of "Psychosomatic ills such as arthritis, migraine, ulcers, allergies, asthma, coronary difficulties (psychosomatic - about one-third of all heart trouble cases), tendonitis, bursitis, paralysis (hysterical), eye trouble (non-pathological) have all responded .... without failure"; in fact, the claim made is that with the techniques mentioned in Dianetics: MSMH, "The psychiatrist, psycho-analyst and intelligent layman can successfully and invariably treat all psychosomatic ills and inorganic aberrations," and that it can cure 70 per cent. of all man's illnesses and aberrations.
In various places Hubbard has written to the effect that arthritis, eye conditions, heart conditions, cancer, all psychosomatic illnesses, morning sickness, ulcers, tuberculosis, the common cold, the common cough, illness from bacterial or virus infections, alcoholism and a multitude of other complaints and conditions are engramic and respond to processing.
In Com. Mag. Vol. 1, No. 10, the official publication of the Melbourne HASI, the statement is made that " All that you have read about in scientology and dianetics can be achieved by you with processing from the Hubbard Guidance Centre".
In Com. Mag. of December, 1963, Hubbard writes,
"The psychologist could not change intelligence quotient or personality at will. The Scientologist can. The psychologist could not restore sanity and happiness to the insane. The Scientologist can .... Scientology will inherit the hospitals, the clinics, the asylums, the halls of learning where humanity was abused. Scientology will inherit the task of sign-posting Man upon a better road. There are only two reasons why this is so: they had their chance and did not do their job; we have our chance and are doing ours".
That Hubbard and scientology specifically claim to heal, and attract people in the belief that they do heal, is obvious from HCO Pol. Lr. of the 1st September, AD 12 (1962), entitled "Healing Promotion". That letter reads:
"By healing you can graduate a pc up to clearing interest and thus we have a lower level feeder line, capable of successful accomplishment with normal HCA/HPA training. That programme has the following thought major: Maybe you're not sick. Maybe you're just suppressed. See us and find out.
"The phrasing can be more elegant, the message remains the same.
"Legally, this permits us to heal without engaging in healing as, in actual fact, we address no illnesses and indeed, deny people are ill - they are only suppressed. Sickness occurs, we say, where suppression has been too great. The argument is - have you been sick? Did you go to doctors to be cured? Did they cure it? Then (as they didn't) maybe you're not sick, maybe you're just suppressed. So take some processing and find out. And the person gets well! We use on him the exact button he came to us on. So he's never dismayed at any change of tack on our part. Then we interest him in clearing.
"This, I am sure, is the long sought gradient. This, used right, will build our new buildings, use our Academy Graduates and give us a chance to train up auditors to clearing.
"The legal argument is simple, we don't believe in sickness, we do not address illness, we do not diagnose, we believe that freeing the human spirit also incidentally prevents sickness. We are doing prevention. We also find people do not have to be crazy to be suppressed, that nearly everybody is suppressed. We do send acutely ill people to doctors. We advertise to cure no diseases! That last is important legally. We only infer that people who think they are sick are really not, but only suppressed."
A circular issued by the Melbourne College of Personal Efficiency, the Hawthorn scientology organization, claimed
"Tens of thousands of case histories (reports on patients' individual records) all sworn to (attested before public officials) are in the possession of the organization of scientology .... Scientology in the words of an expert can cure 70 per cent. of Man's illnesses .... It is valid. It has been tested .... Scientology does things for people which have not been done before. It makes them well from illnesses which were once considered hopeless. It increases their intelligence by actual measurement, it ch anges their competence, and betters their behaviour. In addition to these things it brings them a better understanding of life. One outstanding thing which it does - it alleviates burns received from atomic bombs. Scientology is the only specific cure for atomic bomb radiation flash burns. Scientology processing given to persons burned by radiation can eliminate the majority of difficulty."
HCO Pol. Lr. of the 12th October, 1962, states that the purpose of the Hubbard Guidance Centre is to "do more for people's health and ability than has ever before been possible."
A letter dated the 6th October, 1962, from the Melbourne HASI to a preclear contained a specific offer to treat physical complaints, in the following terms, "If you suffer from physical complaints which have not been cured by usual medical methods--why not call in and let us find out if you are just suppressed? We have special methods of handling such difficulties.
In HCO Pol. Lr. of the 2nd August, 1963, Hubbard wrote,
"Scientology for use in spiritual healing. This is a healing strata .... The target is human illness. We have never entered this field but as we are not thanked for staying out of it, we might as well dominate it. It is a good procurement area."
The claims made for curing are so numerous and consistent that it is impracticable to refer to all of such instances but a selection will indicate the general nature of them.
In A History of Man, Hubbard wrote: "Cancer has been eradicated by auditing out conception and mitosis". In Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, Hubbard claimed that "Scientology is the only specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns". In Scientology: issue 15-G, Hubbard writes,
"Leukaemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukaemia had been treated successfully by dianetics after medicine had traditionally given up. The source of leukaemia has been reported to be an engram containing the phrase 'it turns my blood to water'."
The 1957 edition of Hubbard's Scientology: 8-80 contained a new introduction by a "doctor of scientology", stating, "how an auditor trained in this material by the Academy of Scientology can handle with precision even the insane or a few days' old baby"; and the editorial note reads,
"The discovery and isolation of Life Energy in such a form as to revive the dead or dying has been an ambition as old as Man himself. In the last two thousand years a few individuals have claimed the ability without explaining it. With this book, the ability to make one's body old or young at will, the ability to heal the ill without physical contact, the ability to cure the insane and the incapacitated, is set forth for the physician, the layman, the mathematician, and the physicist."
In the early days of scientology in Victoria, advertisements by the HASI appealing for asthma sufferers were published in the press. That scientologists generally believed in the healing powers of scientology is evident from the facts
(a) that many preclears set as their goals, to be obtained through processing, physical health and well being, and
(b) that auditors consistently audited preclears in an effort to improve their health.
One scientology witness who was for a time the director of processing at the HASI believed scientology would aid his deafness. Various scientologists believed that scientology would improve their eyesight or their hearing. Others believed that it would cure stomach pains. One dedicated scientologist did an HPA course in order to be able to audit and, so he believed, cure his father who was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Hubbard wrote in Science of Survival that a process called "straight memory" had alleviated Parkinson's disease. One practising scientologist woman, whose daughter was a highly placed scientologist, believed that had she been processed in scientology for a bad arm, a cancer for which she had received medical attention would not have developed.
Individual scientology witnesses left no doubt that they believe that scientology could cure physical ills. Highly placed scientologists believed that well trained auditors could handle all psychosomatic illnesses and that processing could proof a person against polio, hepatitis, malaria, &c. Mrs Williams believed processing cured a cancer of the abdomen. Gillham thought that processing could cure blood pressure cases. His wife thought that illnesses such as colds, 'flu and heart trouble and some mental disorders could be cured by scientology, and that it was possible to proof against the strain of physical and mental illness.
During 1959-1960, over a period of about five months, one unfortunate man was audited at the Melbourne HASI for more than 200 hours in an endeavour to cure him of cancer from which he was dying and did die. At a time when it was known at the HASI that he had been under medical treatment and was suffering from a malignant growth in his lower abdomen, the HASI quoted him 200 hours' auditing for a stable case gain. He embarked on such a course, and processing ceased only a few weeks before he died, one of the last auditor's reports on his case being that the preclear was about to drop the body. This case is typical of the callous disregard which the scientologist practitioners are trained to have for their preclears. It is a sign of weakness in an auditor to feel pity for a victim, and the auditing processes in this case, as in very many others, were applied quite brutally. During the five months over which this preclear's processing was spread, he had such pitiful goals as "to be certain that I have lost this tumour", "to get rid of this tumour", to "drop off this tumour-cancer-growth", "to make my stomach a bit more comfortable", "to reduce this growth in size", "my health to start to improve, to find the cause of this growth quickly". With these and similar goals, the processes on which he was run included the following and other similar commands, which would be repeated time and time again, for periods of 2 to 3 hours at a sitting, sometimes for six hours a day, and sometimes extending over several days: "What stomach could you confront?", "What stomach would you rather not confront?", "Think of a stomach you could confront, think of a stomach you would rather not confront", "What part of a stomach could you be responsible for?", "What about a victim could you be responsible for?", "What could you admit causing a victim?", "What could you withhold from a victim?". It is morally certain that this preclear was accepted for this processing only after the HASI had consulted Hubbard or Mr. or Mrs. Halperin (or similar name), all of whom were then touring Australia the Halperins being extremely close associates of Hubbard.
During this preclear's auditing, he suffered severely from "somatics" or pains in various parts of the body, frequently "doped off" and had hallucinations about murder, rape and other acts of violence, as well as recalls of death and hanging in past lives. At one stage towards the end of this unhappy life, his condition inspired the endorsement of his file: "Good, pc is coming up to apathy", the significance of which is appreciated by reference to the tone scale, apathy being the lowest of the emotions o n the scale at 0.05, and only slightly above death.
HCO Bull. of the 24th July, AD 10 (1960), contained "Special Project Australia", which was reprinted in various scientology magazines. In a campaign to publicise scientology and discredit the medical profession, Hubbard wrote,
"This is our offered programme:
"(1) In every letter, communication and broad statement, insert as well the fact that Scientology works. Scientology is the only fully validated science of human behaviour. Scientology is a good, reliable science. Any positive statement. Always add it to anything else we say.
"(2) No longer wait for permission from the government or anyone else to take a positive action to help our fellow man overcome his susceptibility & sickness;
"(3) Let us make of every man, woman and child in Australia a 'disease-proof person' "
"... It is within our power to proof Australia against mental and physical illness... You can advertise all you want to 'eradicates disease proneness', to 'proof Australians against illness' since all law applies to healing sicknesses, and could never be extended to preventing prevention."
And the form of advertisement he recommends is: "Prevent illness. Scientologists are seldom sick. Join a Scientology group and be able".
The HASI repeatedly claims to be the "World's largest organization in the field of mental health". Receipts issued by the Melbourne HASI carry the statement "Scientology proofs people against mental and physical illness".
Last updated 21-3-96 by Chris Owen
This page has not been endorsed, produced or commissioned by the Church of Scientology and does not represent the opinions of the Church. All quotations from copyrighted works are made under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
THE ANDERSON REPORT
Report of the Board of Enquiry into Scientology
by Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C.
Published 1965 by the State of Victoria, Australia
CHAPTER 19
THE HEALING CLAIMS OF SCIENTOLOGY
A very important phase of the Inquiry was whether scientology
(a) claimed to heal or cure ills or ailments,
(b) practised the healing or curing of ills or ailments.
Williams and other executive scientologists from time to time asserted in evidence that scientology neither claimed to cure nor practised curing, that the practising of scientology to cure any ailment was forbidden and that auditors would be decertificated if they were found doing so or promising to cure any ailment. It was said that the curing of ailments had been a dianetic activity and that, because of troubles associated with non-qualified persons purporting to cure ailments, dianetics was put aside and scientology developed in such a way that specifically no claim was made to heal.
Certain bulletins and other documents emanating from Hubbard likewise state that the curing of ailments is not the role of scientology, but these are quite at variance with many other bulletins and similar publications, which describe scientology in terms which are consistent only with a claim that scientology can and does effect cures of the most remarkable kind.
The official attitude advanced at the Inquiry that scientology did not claim to heal was, and is, only a camouflage. The real intention of scientology is to inculcate in the minds of anyone who becomes interested in it the impression or belief that, as well as being a panacea for all problems, worries and aberrations, it is a gateway to sure cures for a great variety of mental and physical ills. And it is at the vary basis of scientology teaching that mental and physical well-being is assured to those who have sufficient scientology processing.
A fundamental principle of scientology is that a rehabilitated thetan is capable of caring for the body and the mind of the human being which it possesses and, therefore, if the thetan is rehabilitated and all its abilities are restored, it will be able to cure the ills of the body and mind. The only way to rehabilitate a thetan is said to be by scientology processing.
The belief that scientology is a cure for many illnesses, both mental and physical, is propagated by Hubbard consistently and deliberately. No opportunity is missed of claiming for scientology the credit of a cure, and in his books and other writings repeated claims are made and cases quoted of alleged cures, many of them said to be miraculous.
Campaigns are planned for enticing people into scientology because of what it offers in the way of alleviation and cure of illnesses. From time to time there is a protest by Hubbard and the HASI that they are not concerned with cures of bodily ills, and that their only goal is to make the able more able. But these protestations are hollow-sounding in the light of the calculated deception which is consistently practised in the drive for more and still more adherents to scientology. Sometimes the attitude adopted is, in effect, "We don't claim to cure, curing is not our concern. Of course, if you look at our record, look at the miraculous cures we have effected, look what dianetics, which is a branch of scientology, can do and has done, you will see that scientology does cure; but we don't claim to cure". This is a cunning and effective pose, its effectiveness being best judged by the great number of ardent scientologists who firmly believe, as their evidence before the Board and a perusal of their files s how, that scientology possesses remarkable curative powers, and that in many cases they are "in scientology" partly at least because of such beliefs.
Mindful of this technique, one well understands why Hubbard insists that his million copy best-seller, Dianetics: MSMH, is essential reading at all stages of scientology study, even though the book was written in 1950, before scientology was founded, and notwithstanding that dianetics was said by witnesses not now to be practised.
The claims for dianetics, as appearing on the dustcover of Dianetics: MSMH and in the text, include assertions that cases of "Psychosomatic ills such as arthritis, migraine, ulcers, allergies, asthma, coronary difficulties (psychosomatic - about one-third of all heart trouble cases), tendonitis, bursitis, paralysis (hysterical), eye trouble (non-pathological) have all responded .... without failure"; in fact, the claim made is that with the techniques mentioned in Dianetics: MSMH, "The psychiatrist, psycho-analyst and intelligent layman can successfully and invariably treat all psychosomatic ills and inorganic aberrations," and that it can cure 70 per cent. of all man's illnesses and aberrations.
In various places Hubbard has written to the effect that arthritis, eye conditions, heart conditions, cancer, all psychosomatic illnesses, morning sickness, ulcers, tuberculosis, the common cold, the common cough, illness from bacterial or virus infections, alcoholism and a multitude of other complaints and conditions are engramic and respond to processing.
In Com. Mag. Vol. 1, No. 10, the official publication of the Melbourne HASI, the statement is made that " All that you have read about in scientology and dianetics can be achieved by you with processing from the Hubbard Guidance Centre".
In Com. Mag. of December, 1963, Hubbard writes,
"The psychologist could not change intelligence quotient or personality at will. The Scientologist can. The psychologist could not restore sanity and happiness to the insane. The Scientologist can .... Scientology will inherit the hospitals, the clinics, the asylums, the halls of learning where humanity was abused. Scientology will inherit the task of sign-posting Man upon a better road. There are only two reasons why this is so: they had their chance and did not do their job; we have our chance and are doing ours".
That Hubbard and scientology specifically claim to heal, and attract people in the belief that they do heal, is obvious from HCO Pol. Lr. of the 1st September, AD 12 (1962), entitled "Healing Promotion". That letter reads:
"By healing you can graduate a pc up to clearing interest and thus we have a lower level feeder line, capable of successful accomplishment with normal HCA/HPA training. That programme has the following thought major: Maybe you're not sick. Maybe you're just suppressed. See us and find out.
"The phrasing can be more elegant, the message remains the same.
"Legally, this permits us to heal without engaging in healing as, in actual fact, we address no illnesses and indeed, deny people are ill - they are only suppressed. Sickness occurs, we say, where suppression has been too great. The argument is - have you been sick? Did you go to doctors to be cured? Did they cure it? Then (as they didn't) maybe you're not sick, maybe you're just suppressed. So take some processing and find out. And the person gets well! We use on him the exact button he came to us on. So he's never dismayed at any change of tack on our part. Then we interest him in clearing.
"This, I am sure, is the long sought gradient. This, used right, will build our new buildings, use our Academy Graduates and give us a chance to train up auditors to clearing.
"The legal argument is simple, we don't believe in sickness, we do not address illness, we do not diagnose, we believe that freeing the human spirit also incidentally prevents sickness. We are doing prevention. We also find people do not have to be crazy to be suppressed, that nearly everybody is suppressed. We do send acutely ill people to doctors. We advertise to cure no diseases! That last is important legally. We only infer that people who think they are sick are really not, but only suppressed."
A circular issued by the Melbourne College of Personal Efficiency, the Hawthorn scientology organization, claimed
"Tens of thousands of case histories (reports on patients' individual records) all sworn to (attested before public officials) are in the possession of the organization of scientology .... Scientology in the words of an expert can cure 70 per cent. of Man's illnesses .... It is valid. It has been tested .... Scientology does things for people which have not been done before. It makes them well from illnesses which were once considered hopeless. It increases their intelligence by actual measurement, it ch anges their competence, and betters their behaviour. In addition to these things it brings them a better understanding of life. One outstanding thing which it does - it alleviates burns received from atomic bombs. Scientology is the only specific cure for atomic bomb radiation flash burns. Scientology processing given to persons burned by radiation can eliminate the majority of difficulty."
HCO Pol. Lr. of the 12th October, 1962, states that the purpose of the Hubbard Guidance Centre is to "do more for people's health and ability than has ever before been possible."
A letter dated the 6th October, 1962, from the Melbourne HASI to a preclear contained a specific offer to treat physical complaints, in the following terms, "If you suffer from physical complaints which have not been cured by usual medical methods--why not call in and let us find out if you are just suppressed? We have special methods of handling such difficulties.
In HCO Pol. Lr. of the 2nd August, 1963, Hubbard wrote,
"Scientology for use in spiritual healing. This is a healing strata .... The target is human illness. We have never entered this field but as we are not thanked for staying out of it, we might as well dominate it. It is a good procurement area."
The claims made for curing are so numerous and consistent that it is impracticable to refer to all of such instances but a selection will indicate the general nature of them.
In A History of Man, Hubbard wrote: "Cancer has been eradicated by auditing out conception and mitosis". In Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought, Hubbard claimed that "Scientology is the only specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns". In Scientology: issue 15-G, Hubbard writes,
"Leukaemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukaemia had been treated successfully by dianetics after medicine had traditionally given up. The source of leukaemia has been reported to be an engram containing the phrase 'it turns my blood to water'."
The 1957 edition of Hubbard's Scientology: 8-80 contained a new introduction by a "doctor of scientology", stating, "how an auditor trained in this material by the Academy of Scientology can handle with precision even the insane or a few days' old baby"; and the editorial note reads,
"The discovery and isolation of Life Energy in such a form as to revive the dead or dying has been an ambition as old as Man himself. In the last two thousand years a few individuals have claimed the ability without explaining it. With this book, the ability to make one's body old or young at will, the ability to heal the ill without physical contact, the ability to cure the insane and the incapacitated, is set forth for the physician, the layman, the mathematician, and the physicist."
In the early days of scientology in Victoria, advertisements by the HASI appealing for asthma sufferers were published in the press. That scientologists generally believed in the healing powers of scientology is evident from the facts
(a) that many preclears set as their goals, to be obtained through processing, physical health and well being, and
(b) that auditors consistently audited preclears in an effort to improve their health.
One scientology witness who was for a time the director of processing at the HASI believed scientology would aid his deafness. Various scientologists believed that scientology would improve their eyesight or their hearing. Others believed that it would cure stomach pains. One dedicated scientologist did an HPA course in order to be able to audit and, so he believed, cure his father who was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Hubbard wrote in Science of Survival that a process called "straight memory" had alleviated Parkinson's disease. One practising scientologist woman, whose daughter was a highly placed scientologist, believed that had she been processed in scientology for a bad arm, a cancer for which she had received medical attention would not have developed.
Individual scientology witnesses left no doubt that they believe that scientology could cure physical ills. Highly placed scientologists believed that well trained auditors could handle all psychosomatic illnesses and that processing could proof a person against polio, hepatitis, malaria, &c. Mrs Williams believed processing cured a cancer of the abdomen. Gillham thought that processing could cure blood pressure cases. His wife thought that illnesses such as colds, 'flu and heart trouble and some mental disorders could be cured by scientology, and that it was possible to proof against the strain of physical and mental illness.
During 1959-1960, over a period of about five months, one unfortunate man was audited at the Melbourne HASI for more than 200 hours in an endeavour to cure him of cancer from which he was dying and did die. At a time when it was known at the HASI that he had been under medical treatment and was suffering from a malignant growth in his lower abdomen, the HASI quoted him 200 hours' auditing for a stable case gain. He embarked on such a course, and processing ceased only a few weeks before he died, one of the last auditor's reports on his case being that the preclear was about to drop the body. This case is typical of the callous disregard which the scientologist practitioners are trained to have for their preclears. It is a sign of weakness in an auditor to feel pity for a victim, and the auditing processes in this case, as in very many others, were applied quite brutally. During the five months over which this preclear's processing was spread, he had such pitiful goals as "to be certain that I have lost this tumour", "to get rid of this tumour", to "drop off this tumour-cancer-growth", "to make my stomach a bit more comfortable", "to reduce this growth in size", "my health to start to improve, to find the cause of this growth quickly". With these and similar goals, the processes on which he was run included the following and other similar commands, which would be repeated time and time again, for periods of 2 to 3 hours at a sitting, sometimes for six hours a day, and sometimes extending over several days: "What stomach could you confront?", "What stomach would you rather not confront?", "Think of a stomach you could confront, think of a stomach you would rather not confront", "What part of a stomach could you be responsible for?", "What about a victim could you be responsible for?", "What could you admit causing a victim?", "What could you withhold from a victim?". It is morally certain that this preclear was accepted for this processing only after the HASI had consulted Hubbard or Mr. or Mrs. Halperin (or similar name), all of whom were then touring Australia the Halperins being extremely close associates of Hubbard.
During this preclear's auditing, he suffered severely from "somatics" or pains in various parts of the body, frequently "doped off" and had hallucinations about murder, rape and other acts of violence, as well as recalls of death and hanging in past lives. At one stage towards the end of this unhappy life, his condition inspired the endorsement of his file: "Good, pc is coming up to apathy", the significance of which is appreciated by reference to the tone scale, apathy being the lowest of the emotions o n the scale at 0.05, and only slightly above death.
HCO Bull. of the 24th July, AD 10 (1960), contained "Special Project Australia", which was reprinted in various scientology magazines. In a campaign to publicise scientology and discredit the medical profession, Hubbard wrote,
"This is our offered programme:
"(1) In every letter, communication and broad statement, insert as well the fact that Scientology works. Scientology is the only fully validated science of human behaviour. Scientology is a good, reliable science. Any positive statement. Always add it to anything else we say.
"(2) No longer wait for permission from the government or anyone else to take a positive action to help our fellow man overcome his susceptibility & sickness;
"(3) Let us make of every man, woman and child in Australia a 'disease-proof person' "
"... It is within our power to proof Australia against mental and physical illness... You can advertise all you want to 'eradicates disease proneness', to 'proof Australians against illness' since all law applies to healing sicknesses, and could never be extended to preventing prevention."
And the form of advertisement he recommends is: "Prevent illness. Scientologists are seldom sick. Join a Scientology group and be able".
The HASI repeatedly claims to be the "World's largest organization in the field of mental health". Receipts issued by the Melbourne HASI carry the statement "Scientology proofs people against mental and physical illness".
Last updated 21-3-96 by Chris Owen
This page has not been endorsed, produced or commissioned by the Church of Scientology and does not represent the opinions of the Church. All quotations from copyrighted works are made under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Coercive Persuasion and Scientology
http://web.archive.org/web/20030624004458/www.caic.org.au/psyther/sci/cp-scn.htm
COERCIVE PERSUASION AND SCIENTOLOGY
Scientology's auditing is inherently a coercive persuasion technique. Auditing is a standardized process which is designed to induce trance states and increased suggestibility in its recipients. This deceptive undue influence tactic is then used by Scientology for its direct profit.
Auditing is the central practice of Scientology and can be accurately thought of as a psuedo scientific psychotherapy which has been cloaked in deliberate layers of counterfeit religiosity which is meant to resemble traditional religious terminology and trappings.
On June 14, 1985 Eric Lieberman the head attorney for Scientology stated:
". . .The Supreme Court has emphasized that the courts may not engage in "an evaluation of religious practice," that is in the Walz case, or inquire into matters of ecclesiastical customs or laws. And the resounding words of the Supreme Court over a century ago, this is in the Walz case, which governs this issue, the court said the judiciary cannot penetrate the veil of the church for the forbidden purpose of vindicating the alleged wrongs of excised members. When they became members they did so upon the conditions of continuing or not as they in their churches might determine. And they thereby submit to the ecclesiastical power and cannot now invoke the supervisory power of the civil tribunals. . ." R.T. Page 17 (A165)
100 years ago there was no coercive persuasion technology. 100 years ago the Walz case was an appropriate precedent for the time and technology it inhabited.
That is simply no longer the case. With this new technology, imprisonment, pain, physical torture, and threat of physical pain are no longer needed, and in many cases are not nearly as effective as a comprehensively applied program of coercive persuasion. Often misunderstood, the reason for this is in the situation of physical detention, pain, or threat such as in a POW camp you know who your enemy is. Your ego guard and defences are up. With coercive persuasion this is not the case, it is far more devastating and effective when your apparent "friends" or organizational allies are surreptitiously applying coercive persuasion techniques to gain control of an individuals behavior and independent decision making abilities. You have no or few ego defences up for which pain or torture would be needed to breakdown.
Coercive persuasion is not a religious practice it is a control technology. It is antiethical to the First Amendment AND free will in a bonafide religion. It is the unfair manipulation of biological and psychological weaknesses and susceptibilities. It is a technology not of free society but a criminal or totalitarian society.
Coercive persuasion is also antiethical to sincerity and good faith. Any organization using coercive persuasion as a central practice that also claims to be a religion is a contradiction of terms.
Scientology's head attorney Eric Lieberman implies we dare not push back the threshold and examine his clients behavior because it is protected by legal "paradoxes" or by the smoke he creates surrounding the new technology advances in coercive persuasion.
". . .The Katz court went on to note that what really happens when you engage in an examination as to whether these nonphysical coercive processes amount to mind manipulation or faith, that you are inviting courts and juries to make an ultimate determination as to the value and truth of the religious practice.
As the court said rhetorically, when the court is asked to determine whether a change of lifestyle was induced by faith or by coercive persuasion, is it not in turn investigating and questioning the validity of that faith~ And on that basis, on the basis that the court cannot do that the court struck down that statute. . ." R.T. June 14, 1985, Page 20 (A168)
". . .And in striking the Statute down as unconstitutional the court of appeals stated in an age of subliminal advertising, television exposure and psychological salesmanship in which everyone is exposed tv artful and designing persons at even turn, it is impossible to measure the degree or likelihood that some will succumb in the field of beliefs. And, particularly, religious beliefs. It is difficult, if not impossible, to establish a universal truth against which the deceit and imposition can be measured. . ."R.T. June 14, 1985, Page 20 (A-168)
Well, Mr. Lieberman has probably avoided, for his clients survival sake, reading much, if anything, about coercive persuasion. If he had he could not in good faith compare it to such benign peaceful persuasion practices as salesmanship or general non-coercive persuasion using psychological "edges". He would have clearly seen there are technological procedures that can locate the imposition of coercive persuasion technologies applied against individuals. What is being located are processes not beliefs or ideologies. These PROCESSES can be examined completely separate from and idea or belief content as simply as separating the process of hypnotic induction from the hypnotic suggestion.
These are simply technological processes not ideas or beliefs. No ideas or beliefs have to be examined as to their truth or falsity to determine if an individual was unfairly subjected to coercive persuasion processes.
When one realizes the before mentioned about coercive persuasion and Scientology's auditing procedures one begins to see that Scientology's auditing originally was and really is a "religiously" cloaked form of a highly profitable psuedo psychotherapy. So structured, liability insurance claims and financial damages can be almost totally illuminated. Even lawsuits of undue influence over the patients assets can be cloaked behind the paradoxical use of the First Amendment protections.
But the real paradox is that due to Scientology's central use of coercive persuasion practices in the form of auditing, Scientology is not using its religious immunities to settle or protect RELIGIOUS ISSUES, BELIEFS OR PRACTICES but to protect a reprehensible new technology of human manipulation and its commercial and political "edge". What you really have concerning Scientology's central practice called auditing is an ethics and new technology issue not a religious issue.
What you also have is totalitarian and despotic thought manipulation technology creeping in the back door of our great free country via a counterfeit and bogus "religious" group.
COERCIVE PERSUASION AND SCIENTOLOGY
Scientology's auditing is inherently a coercive persuasion technique. Auditing is a standardized process which is designed to induce trance states and increased suggestibility in its recipients. This deceptive undue influence tactic is then used by Scientology for its direct profit.
Auditing is the central practice of Scientology and can be accurately thought of as a psuedo scientific psychotherapy which has been cloaked in deliberate layers of counterfeit religiosity which is meant to resemble traditional religious terminology and trappings.
On June 14, 1985 Eric Lieberman the head attorney for Scientology stated:
". . .The Supreme Court has emphasized that the courts may not engage in "an evaluation of religious practice," that is in the Walz case, or inquire into matters of ecclesiastical customs or laws. And the resounding words of the Supreme Court over a century ago, this is in the Walz case, which governs this issue, the court said the judiciary cannot penetrate the veil of the church for the forbidden purpose of vindicating the alleged wrongs of excised members. When they became members they did so upon the conditions of continuing or not as they in their churches might determine. And they thereby submit to the ecclesiastical power and cannot now invoke the supervisory power of the civil tribunals. . ." R.T. Page 17 (A165)
100 years ago there was no coercive persuasion technology. 100 years ago the Walz case was an appropriate precedent for the time and technology it inhabited.
That is simply no longer the case. With this new technology, imprisonment, pain, physical torture, and threat of physical pain are no longer needed, and in many cases are not nearly as effective as a comprehensively applied program of coercive persuasion. Often misunderstood, the reason for this is in the situation of physical detention, pain, or threat such as in a POW camp you know who your enemy is. Your ego guard and defences are up. With coercive persuasion this is not the case, it is far more devastating and effective when your apparent "friends" or organizational allies are surreptitiously applying coercive persuasion techniques to gain control of an individuals behavior and independent decision making abilities. You have no or few ego defences up for which pain or torture would be needed to breakdown.
Coercive persuasion is not a religious practice it is a control technology. It is antiethical to the First Amendment AND free will in a bonafide religion. It is the unfair manipulation of biological and psychological weaknesses and susceptibilities. It is a technology not of free society but a criminal or totalitarian society.
Coercive persuasion is also antiethical to sincerity and good faith. Any organization using coercive persuasion as a central practice that also claims to be a religion is a contradiction of terms.
Scientology's head attorney Eric Lieberman implies we dare not push back the threshold and examine his clients behavior because it is protected by legal "paradoxes" or by the smoke he creates surrounding the new technology advances in coercive persuasion.
". . .The Katz court went on to note that what really happens when you engage in an examination as to whether these nonphysical coercive processes amount to mind manipulation or faith, that you are inviting courts and juries to make an ultimate determination as to the value and truth of the religious practice.
As the court said rhetorically, when the court is asked to determine whether a change of lifestyle was induced by faith or by coercive persuasion, is it not in turn investigating and questioning the validity of that faith~ And on that basis, on the basis that the court cannot do that the court struck down that statute. . ." R.T. June 14, 1985, Page 20 (A168)
". . .And in striking the Statute down as unconstitutional the court of appeals stated in an age of subliminal advertising, television exposure and psychological salesmanship in which everyone is exposed tv artful and designing persons at even turn, it is impossible to measure the degree or likelihood that some will succumb in the field of beliefs. And, particularly, religious beliefs. It is difficult, if not impossible, to establish a universal truth against which the deceit and imposition can be measured. . ."R.T. June 14, 1985, Page 20 (A-168)
Well, Mr. Lieberman has probably avoided, for his clients survival sake, reading much, if anything, about coercive persuasion. If he had he could not in good faith compare it to such benign peaceful persuasion practices as salesmanship or general non-coercive persuasion using psychological "edges". He would have clearly seen there are technological procedures that can locate the imposition of coercive persuasion technologies applied against individuals. What is being located are processes not beliefs or ideologies. These PROCESSES can be examined completely separate from and idea or belief content as simply as separating the process of hypnotic induction from the hypnotic suggestion.
These are simply technological processes not ideas or beliefs. No ideas or beliefs have to be examined as to their truth or falsity to determine if an individual was unfairly subjected to coercive persuasion processes.
When one realizes the before mentioned about coercive persuasion and Scientology's auditing procedures one begins to see that Scientology's auditing originally was and really is a "religiously" cloaked form of a highly profitable psuedo psychotherapy. So structured, liability insurance claims and financial damages can be almost totally illuminated. Even lawsuits of undue influence over the patients assets can be cloaked behind the paradoxical use of the First Amendment protections.
But the real paradox is that due to Scientology's central use of coercive persuasion practices in the form of auditing, Scientology is not using its religious immunities to settle or protect RELIGIOUS ISSUES, BELIEFS OR PRACTICES but to protect a reprehensible new technology of human manipulation and its commercial and political "edge". What you really have concerning Scientology's central practice called auditing is an ethics and new technology issue not a religious issue.
What you also have is totalitarian and despotic thought manipulation technology creeping in the back door of our great free country via a counterfeit and bogus "religious" group.
Scientology II: CCHR and Narconon
http://web.archive.org/web/20030624014843/www.caic.org.au/psyther/sci/west2.htm
"Scientology II: CCHR and Narconon"
by L. J. West, M.D.
Originally printed in "The Southern California Psychiatrist"
May 1991, pp. 6-13.
Dr. West has granted permission to upload this article to computer networks and bulletin boards
In a previous article (SCPS Newsletter, July, 1990) I provided an historical account of the Church of Scientology. It is a pseudo-scientific healing cult that was formed in the 1950s, and has grown, with the help of extravagant lies and deliberate deception, into a multimillion dollar, international enterprise. Through its many publications, but especially through its newspaper "Freedom," Scientology regularly defames its critics (such as myself) and praises its friends (such as Thomas Szasz).
Scientology conducts sophisticated intelligence operations and campaigns of misinformation both directly and through a variety of front organizations. One such entity is the citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), the main purpose of which apparently is to attack psychiatry, especially in its biological aspects, and to harass, discourage, and intimidate private organizations and individual critics classified as enemies of Scientology. Established in 1969, the CCHR's central office is in Los Angeles with local offices throughout the United States and abroad. The CCHR is frequently behind both personal and legal undertakings directed against members of the American Psychiatric Association and also, of course, against he specialty as a whole. The attempts (and sometimes) successes of the CCHR to discredit the psychiatric specialty are documented in its publications such as "Psychiatric Abuse Bulletin" and "Psychiatry Update." These efforts have included number of lawsuits accusing doctors of negligence in prescribing methylphenidate (Ritalin) for children who, it is alleged, suffered side effects including violent and assaultive behavior, stunted growth, hallucinations, suicidal depression, head aches and nervous spasms. Interestingly enough the two companies that market methylphenidate (Ciba Geigy of Summit, New Jersey, and M.D. Pharmaceuticals of Santa Anna, California) are not names as defendants. The president of CCHR is Dennis Clarke. He is neither a scientist nor a clinician, but nevertheless is an oft-cited "expert" on Ritalin.
The CCHR is also behind recent attempts to force fluoxetine Prozac) off the market, including letter-writing campaigns to a number of U.S. senators and congressmen and support of the Prozac defense" in which defendants claim their violent behavior was caused by Prozac. Similar tactics by CCHR aimed against electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) have had their effect: or example they have prompted members of the FDA to reconsider he classification of ECT devices from Class II (the category or trustworthy medical devices that require performance standards, such as x-ray machines) to Class III (reserved for devices presenting a considerable risk and requiring premarket approval, such as artificial heart valves). The CCHR sponsored California's present anti-ECT statutes, which have imposed rigid restrictions on the use of ECT and in many cases have resulted in the needless and prolonged suffering of patients thus denied appropriate and necessary treatment. (A small group of ECT patients grateful for the treatment's benefits, their family members, and the Association for Convulsive Therapy, have filed lawsuit, Doe v. O'Connor, to overturn this regulation on constitutional grounds.)
With Clarke often visibly in charge, the CCHR frequently stages demonstrations at the annual APA meetings to protest ECT, Ritalin, and psychiatry in general. At these rallies, seismologists and also disgruntled mental patients recruited for he purpose, picket, carry signs and dispense leaflets enouncing psychiatry, and may disrupt session to which they ain admission. Sometimes they wear t-shirts that declare Psychiatry Kills." Occasionally, airplanes fly overhead towing banners that proclaim the same. Similar demonstrations are sometimes held outside psychiatric facilities, such as the UCLA neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. Such a picketing exercise is often covered by the local media, who are notified and invited in advance by those who have planned the scenario.
Another Scientology front group that impacts psychiatry is Narconon, an international enterprise that claims to rehabilitate drug addicts but which is primarily a recruitment program for Scientology. Narconon was founded in the late 1960s y William C. Benitez, while he was in Arizona State Prison. Benitez avowedly based his program on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. After prison officials granted permission for inmates o participate in the new program, Benitez contacted Hubbard, ho saw the potential to increase Scientology revenues and membership, and who offered the resources of the Church of Scientology to expand the program to other prisons and to the public. Soon thereafter, Narconon was incorporated (in 1970), under the direction of Benitez and two high-ranking Scientology staff members, Arthur J. Maren and Henning Heldt. Narconon's ain headquarters is now in Los Angeles, but it has centers throughout the United States and elsewhere in the world. In the last few years, some of its facilities in Italy and Spain have been closed and their staff members arrested on charges ranging rom fraud and medical malpractice to criminal conspiracy to extort money and unlawful detention. In North America, however, t is still considered business as usual for Narconon.
The five steps in the Narconon program include withdrawal,
detoxification, sauna sweat-out, a communication course, and treatment courses in "learning improvement," "gaining control of life" and "living an ethical life," which are identical with Scientology courses compiled from the works of L. Ron Hubbard and taught in Scientology organizations and missions. Each treatment course is really a succession of dianetic auditing sessions, which claim to rid the individual of unwanted attitudes, emotions and behaviors, but which usually lead to contracts for more "advanced" courses costing more and involving he patient more and more deeply in the Church of Scientology.
As noted in the article last July, dianetic auditing offers a series of supposedly therapeutic courses based on Hubbard's science fiction amalgam of pop-psychology, hypnosis and cybernetics. Auditors themselves receive training through courses of their own. This works as a pyramid scheme, with people auditing those at levels below them while being audited y others at levels above them. The courses that make up the Narconon program, like those for other recruits to the Church of Scientology, represent the introductory or lowest level of the pyramid. Jerry Whitfield, a Narcononer-high-ranking staff ember of Narconon El Paso, tells how he was pressured to direct Narconon patients onto the BRIDGE from Narconon to the Church of Scientology (a process diagrammed in procedural manuals) and was required to transmit statistics weekly on the number of new Scientology recruits. Potential recruits are lured by promises hat upon completion of all series of courses, they will gain permanent relief from unpleasant emotions and the sufferings of life, be ensured freedom from all past limitations, be immune to psychosomatic disorders, and even to the harmful effects of thermonuclear radiation, etc., etc.
The Scientology detoxification procedure, called the "Hubbard method" within Narconon or the "purification rundown" within Scientology, is supposed to dislodge toxins and drugs from fatty issues through a rigorous regimen of exercise saunas (up to five hours a day, for up to 30 days), and megavitamins. Aspects f this procedure can be dangerous. For example, the sweat-out" component requires individuals to perspire up to five hours per day, seven days a week, for approximately 30 days. The risk of dehydration is obvious. At least one death s said to have occurred during "the purification rundown." while the supposed rationale for the sweat-out is to rid the body of fat-stored drugs and chemicals, there is no scientific asis for the technique. Most drugs of abuses are removed from he body by detoxification and excretion through the liver, the kidneys and (in some instances) through the lungs. Although minute quantities of some drugs may be found in sweat, the mount represent such a small fraction of drug elimination that o matter how much an individual is forced to perspire through exercise and saunas, the clearance of most drugs of abuse would not be significantly increased. Nevertheless, Scientologists re aggressively promoting the Hubbard method to public and private employers for use with employees exposed to toxic substances on their jobs.
Narconon is now attempting to license its Chilocco/New Life facility near Newkirk, Oklahoma. This is its second residential rug-treatment center in the united States; all others are for ambulatory cases. In 1989, the Church took over the Chilocco Indian School, with a 25-year lease from the five Indian tribes hat share the reservation. At a staged ceremony, local residents were impressed when a "benefactor" -- The Association or Better Living and Education (ABLE) presented Narconon a 200,000 check. In fact, ABLE shares Narconon International's os Angeles address and is another Scientology front. Licensure f the Narconon facility at Chilocco has been vigorously opposed y community and professional groups. Narconon officials at Chilocco have strenuously denied any link with Scientology.
Narconon is widely touted by its vendors with advertisements going to health professional of all kinds, and with heavy promotional activities on college campuses. Because of its name probably contrived for this purpose), Narconon is often confused with Narcotics Anonymous (NA) which is a reputable elf-help group similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Narconon's striving for an appearance of respectability is typical of cult-related ventures. Many such cults, like the Church of Scientology, the Unification Church, the Church Universal and triumphant, and others with plenty of money to employ public relations experts and top law firms, are dangerously close to succeeding in their claims to legitimacy.
"Dr. West is professor of psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles.
"Scientology II: CCHR and Narconon"
by L. J. West, M.D.
Originally printed in "The Southern California Psychiatrist"
May 1991, pp. 6-13.
Dr. West has granted permission to upload this article to computer networks and bulletin boards
In a previous article (SCPS Newsletter, July, 1990) I provided an historical account of the Church of Scientology. It is a pseudo-scientific healing cult that was formed in the 1950s, and has grown, with the help of extravagant lies and deliberate deception, into a multimillion dollar, international enterprise. Through its many publications, but especially through its newspaper "Freedom," Scientology regularly defames its critics (such as myself) and praises its friends (such as Thomas Szasz).
Scientology conducts sophisticated intelligence operations and campaigns of misinformation both directly and through a variety of front organizations. One such entity is the citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), the main purpose of which apparently is to attack psychiatry, especially in its biological aspects, and to harass, discourage, and intimidate private organizations and individual critics classified as enemies of Scientology. Established in 1969, the CCHR's central office is in Los Angeles with local offices throughout the United States and abroad. The CCHR is frequently behind both personal and legal undertakings directed against members of the American Psychiatric Association and also, of course, against he specialty as a whole. The attempts (and sometimes) successes of the CCHR to discredit the psychiatric specialty are documented in its publications such as "Psychiatric Abuse Bulletin" and "Psychiatry Update." These efforts have included number of lawsuits accusing doctors of negligence in prescribing methylphenidate (Ritalin) for children who, it is alleged, suffered side effects including violent and assaultive behavior, stunted growth, hallucinations, suicidal depression, head aches and nervous spasms. Interestingly enough the two companies that market methylphenidate (Ciba Geigy of Summit, New Jersey, and M.D. Pharmaceuticals of Santa Anna, California) are not names as defendants. The president of CCHR is Dennis Clarke. He is neither a scientist nor a clinician, but nevertheless is an oft-cited "expert" on Ritalin.
The CCHR is also behind recent attempts to force fluoxetine Prozac) off the market, including letter-writing campaigns to a number of U.S. senators and congressmen and support of the Prozac defense" in which defendants claim their violent behavior was caused by Prozac. Similar tactics by CCHR aimed against electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) have had their effect: or example they have prompted members of the FDA to reconsider he classification of ECT devices from Class II (the category or trustworthy medical devices that require performance standards, such as x-ray machines) to Class III (reserved for devices presenting a considerable risk and requiring premarket approval, such as artificial heart valves). The CCHR sponsored California's present anti-ECT statutes, which have imposed rigid restrictions on the use of ECT and in many cases have resulted in the needless and prolonged suffering of patients thus denied appropriate and necessary treatment. (A small group of ECT patients grateful for the treatment's benefits, their family members, and the Association for Convulsive Therapy, have filed lawsuit, Doe v. O'Connor, to overturn this regulation on constitutional grounds.)
With Clarke often visibly in charge, the CCHR frequently stages demonstrations at the annual APA meetings to protest ECT, Ritalin, and psychiatry in general. At these rallies, seismologists and also disgruntled mental patients recruited for he purpose, picket, carry signs and dispense leaflets enouncing psychiatry, and may disrupt session to which they ain admission. Sometimes they wear t-shirts that declare Psychiatry Kills." Occasionally, airplanes fly overhead towing banners that proclaim the same. Similar demonstrations are sometimes held outside psychiatric facilities, such as the UCLA neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. Such a picketing exercise is often covered by the local media, who are notified and invited in advance by those who have planned the scenario.
Another Scientology front group that impacts psychiatry is Narconon, an international enterprise that claims to rehabilitate drug addicts but which is primarily a recruitment program for Scientology. Narconon was founded in the late 1960s y William C. Benitez, while he was in Arizona State Prison. Benitez avowedly based his program on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. After prison officials granted permission for inmates o participate in the new program, Benitez contacted Hubbard, ho saw the potential to increase Scientology revenues and membership, and who offered the resources of the Church of Scientology to expand the program to other prisons and to the public. Soon thereafter, Narconon was incorporated (in 1970), under the direction of Benitez and two high-ranking Scientology staff members, Arthur J. Maren and Henning Heldt. Narconon's ain headquarters is now in Los Angeles, but it has centers throughout the United States and elsewhere in the world. In the last few years, some of its facilities in Italy and Spain have been closed and their staff members arrested on charges ranging rom fraud and medical malpractice to criminal conspiracy to extort money and unlawful detention. In North America, however, t is still considered business as usual for Narconon.
The five steps in the Narconon program include withdrawal,
detoxification, sauna sweat-out, a communication course, and treatment courses in "learning improvement," "gaining control of life" and "living an ethical life," which are identical with Scientology courses compiled from the works of L. Ron Hubbard and taught in Scientology organizations and missions. Each treatment course is really a succession of dianetic auditing sessions, which claim to rid the individual of unwanted attitudes, emotions and behaviors, but which usually lead to contracts for more "advanced" courses costing more and involving he patient more and more deeply in the Church of Scientology.
As noted in the article last July, dianetic auditing offers a series of supposedly therapeutic courses based on Hubbard's science fiction amalgam of pop-psychology, hypnosis and cybernetics. Auditors themselves receive training through courses of their own. This works as a pyramid scheme, with people auditing those at levels below them while being audited y others at levels above them. The courses that make up the Narconon program, like those for other recruits to the Church of Scientology, represent the introductory or lowest level of the pyramid. Jerry Whitfield, a Narcononer-high-ranking staff ember of Narconon El Paso, tells how he was pressured to direct Narconon patients onto the BRIDGE from Narconon to the Church of Scientology (a process diagrammed in procedural manuals) and was required to transmit statistics weekly on the number of new Scientology recruits. Potential recruits are lured by promises hat upon completion of all series of courses, they will gain permanent relief from unpleasant emotions and the sufferings of life, be ensured freedom from all past limitations, be immune to psychosomatic disorders, and even to the harmful effects of thermonuclear radiation, etc., etc.
The Scientology detoxification procedure, called the "Hubbard method" within Narconon or the "purification rundown" within Scientology, is supposed to dislodge toxins and drugs from fatty issues through a rigorous regimen of exercise saunas (up to five hours a day, for up to 30 days), and megavitamins. Aspects f this procedure can be dangerous. For example, the sweat-out" component requires individuals to perspire up to five hours per day, seven days a week, for approximately 30 days. The risk of dehydration is obvious. At least one death s said to have occurred during "the purification rundown." while the supposed rationale for the sweat-out is to rid the body of fat-stored drugs and chemicals, there is no scientific asis for the technique. Most drugs of abuses are removed from he body by detoxification and excretion through the liver, the kidneys and (in some instances) through the lungs. Although minute quantities of some drugs may be found in sweat, the mount represent such a small fraction of drug elimination that o matter how much an individual is forced to perspire through exercise and saunas, the clearance of most drugs of abuse would not be significantly increased. Nevertheless, Scientologists re aggressively promoting the Hubbard method to public and private employers for use with employees exposed to toxic substances on their jobs.
Narconon is now attempting to license its Chilocco/New Life facility near Newkirk, Oklahoma. This is its second residential rug-treatment center in the united States; all others are for ambulatory cases. In 1989, the Church took over the Chilocco Indian School, with a 25-year lease from the five Indian tribes hat share the reservation. At a staged ceremony, local residents were impressed when a "benefactor" -- The Association or Better Living and Education (ABLE) presented Narconon a 200,000 check. In fact, ABLE shares Narconon International's os Angeles address and is another Scientology front. Licensure f the Narconon facility at Chilocco has been vigorously opposed y community and professional groups. Narconon officials at Chilocco have strenuously denied any link with Scientology.
Narconon is widely touted by its vendors with advertisements going to health professional of all kinds, and with heavy promotional activities on college campuses. Because of its name probably contrived for this purpose), Narconon is often confused with Narcotics Anonymous (NA) which is a reputable elf-help group similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Narconon's striving for an appearance of respectability is typical of cult-related ventures. Many such cults, like the Church of Scientology, the Unification Church, the Church Universal and triumphant, and others with plenty of money to employ public relations experts and top law firms, are dangerously close to succeeding in their claims to legitimacy.
"Dr. West is professor of psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles.
How Scientologists Think and Fool themselves.
From: dennis.l.erlich@support.com
Organization: Los Angeles Valley College BBS (818)985-7150
CULT-THINK
(Certainty vs. Reality)
The scariest thing about scientology is the subtle, imperceptible, yet totally encompassing mindset I had for the fourteen years I was under its influence. The cult "teaches" a person how to know with certainty, so those who ascribe to its world-view exist in a completely different reality than the rest of society.
I remember talking to my teacher after a night school class. I explained to him, proudly, that I was a scientologist. We had already spoken quite a bit and he had formed the opinion that I was a pretty "together" person. Upon hearing of my cult membership, he pronounced: "Well, I thought people in Scientology were mindless robots, but you're obviously not a mindless robot!".
He was gravely mistaken.
I didn't look or act like a mindless robot, but I was so programmed it had become my total identity. I had been completely taken over by the scientology personality and didn't even know it!
When among non-scientologists -- "Wogs", we called them -- I didn't look or act like a cult member. But I was.
I was totally certain scientology was the only answer for Mankind. I knew that the Wog world was composed of lost and messed-up people who were wasting their lives -- just waiting to be "gotten in" to scientology and "handled" so that they too could attain Total Freedom.
I had been indoctrinated and fully believed that I should..."Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.." and I was prepared to do anything, legal or not, to further the expansion of scientology. I was certain that Ron Hubbard was an totally sane individual who had "risen above the bank" (reactive mind) and I had unquestioning trust in his teachings and dictates. I knew that I was a member of an elite group of people who were in possession of all the answers to the world's problems and questions. Ron had said so.
He also said there were many people in the world whose sole purpose in life was to bring harm and sickness to others and I believed him. These people were "suppressives". Suppressives were psychotic. I knew that people who opposed scientology were always suppressive. If you were "connected" to a suppressive you were likely to become ill or have accidents. Therefore I was very careful to stay far away from anyone critical of scientology.
I knew there were world-wide, evil organizations opposed to scientology. These organizations were run by suppressives. I was certain all psychiatrists were suppressive. It was obvious to me that psychiatrists, psychologists and quite a few medical doctors were against scientology because it threatened their right to cause harm and illness to their patients. Scientology was, after all, the only technology of the mind that worked "One Hundred Percent of the Time". No wonder psychiatrists felt threatened.
I also knew if you criticized something or someone (except scientology's enemies), it was because you had done something unethical or immoral. I was certain anyone who was critical of scientology or L. Ron Hubbard was either suppressive or had committed unethical, immoral or illegal acts. I was therefore very careful not to be critical of anything about scientology. If I felt critical, however, I knew I had done something wrong, so I made sure I discovered and confessed whatever it was. I knew if I didn't keep "clean" with regards to any wrongdoings, my progress toward "Total Freedom" would be blocked.
I knew scientology worked. It worked "One Hundred Percent of the Time". But when it didn't work, I knew it was because the person was either suppressive (scientology doesn't work on suppressive persons) or because the person was in communication or contact with a suppressive. Oh yes, it also doesn't work on people who commit unethical or immoral acts. So, on those occasions when scientology didn't work on me, I knew it was because I was either in communication with a suppressive or because I had done something wrong. Therefore I made sure whenever I communicated with anyone who might be a suppressive or did anything I thought might be wrong, I always confessed it. I suspected from time to time that I might be suppressive, since that would really explain why the "tech" didn't always work on me.
But don't get me wrong. The tech "worked" on me quite a bit. I had many realizations and understandings about life and about myself. I was certain these were only possible because of the scientology auditing I was getting. I was sure they could never be obtained from finding out about the world, from learning about myself, or from experiencing new points of view.
I was also sure if I ever left scientology, the benefit I had gotten from these realizations would be completely lost, and I would go insane and probably commit suicide. Ron had said so.
In spite of the realizations and understandings I had, I knew I was still "really messed up" and I would need lots and lots of auditing and training and the "upper levels" before I could become a true "OT".
When I finally became OT, I knew I would have god-like abilities and I would be "totally aware".
Although I did not know anyone in scientology who demonstrated god-like abilities or seemed totally aware, I knew I would attain these abilities when I was ready because that was what Ron said.
If I was learning about scientology or administering it to others and I became critical because it was not making sense or working, I knew it was because of something I didn't understand about it. Probably I had skipped words I didn't understand or did not make it "my own" by demonstrating the principles with clay models. Or perhaps I had not drilled the procedures enough. But whatever the cause, I knew it was my own fault. Because of this, when studying, I looked up every word I didn't understand and even quite a few I did. I really made the text "my own" by studying it and restudying it with total resolve. I knew that if I "felt good" about the text I was studying, I had probably studied it long enough and could go on to study something else. It would have been highly unethical to not ensure I "felt good" about what I was studying.
I knew that true ethical conduct consisted of doing the "greatest good for the greatest number". Scientology was the greatest good you could do. Therefore, any actions which ultimately furthered scientology's aims were good actions.
I knew there were people working "under cover" in the government for scientology. I really admired these people because they were leading such a romantic life and they were doing work for the "ultimate good".
I also knew that it was the "ultimate good" for scientologists to be charged hundreds of dollars an hour to confess to their ministers. Sure, scientology's prices were high. But then you can't put a price on freedom. Ron said if you didn't charge a person a great deal for something the person would not consider it valuable.
Also I knew scientology had a lot of expenses -- especially lawyers fees.
I knew it was important for scientology to have lots of money because we were going to "Clear the Planet". Since there were so many suppressive and psychotic groups and people out there opposing scientology, it would take lots of money and work to ensure that scientology was accepted by everyone.
I knew the practices of scientology were not ever supposed to be mixed up with any other practice. This included yoga, meditation, "bathing in light", or anything else that was intended to affect a person mentally or spiritually. I knew that scientology would not work if you were doing any other practice at the same time.
I knew there were past lives and we all had a "time track" going back trillions and trillions of years. The time track involved earlier civilizations where there was space travel and exciting galactic adventures. Ron told us so.
He also told us that people could be members of other religions and be good scientologists. But, I knew they had better not practice any religion because if they did, it would be considered "mixing practices". I could not fathom how a good Christian could possibly stay a Christian and get auditing (which always involves past lives). Still, we were told to tell "raw meat" they could remain faithful to their religion and still be good scientologists. I couldn't imagine why anyone would remain faithful to their religion. They would see the obvious errors in it as soon as they began studying scientology in ernest.
Although scientology worked with religions to protect their freedom to practice, I knew that true freedom was obtainable only through scientology. As soon as scientology had a firm foothold in society, all the other religions would become obsolete or would have to be abolished.
I was totally certain the upper levels of scientology dealt with "mystical things" and techniques for becoming more aware and more spiritual. I suspected "OT's" could travel at will outside of their bodies, read minds and always felt compassion for other, lesser beings.
At that time I didn't know scientology practiced exorcism. That information was on the confidential "upper levels" and I wasn't quite ready for it yet. It was kept confidential because if you had not completed all the lower levels and found out about it, you would probably go insane or die and get into real trouble with the Ethics Officer. I was certain of that.
I was really afraid of getting into "ethics trouble" and being sent to Ethics to confess and make amends for my transgressions. Amends usually consisted of working extra hours (often missing sleep) doing tedious tasks like cleaning floors, painting walls or filing papers. Many people did amends that involved taking risks in order to "deliver an effective blow to the enemies of scientology despite personal danger" as was often required.
But if I confessed to the Ethics Officer, I might be treated with more lenience than if I was reported for doing something wrong.
People were always getting into ethics trouble and I knew it was important to write reports to the Ethics Officer if I suspected someone was doing something unethical. If I failed to report someone, it was just as bad as doing the unethical thing myself. I had to be careful to confess all my transgressions and those of others (especially those pertaining to scientology). I knew if I didn't "take responsibility" for these "sins" and do the correct amends for them, scientology would not work on me. Then I would be denied the "Road to Total Freedom" and my immortal soul would be lost forever.
I knew that mankind had been cheated and tricked in the past by various religions promising to cure of all their ills and provide all the answers but, this time, I was totally certain, it was "for real." Ron said so.
Although sometimes I felt doubts about scientology, I knew they were coming from my "reactive mind" and that I should simply ignore them. The reactive mind, I knew, has a self-protecting mechanism which creates doubts and opposes scientology. Scientology creates certainty and wants to destroy the reactive mind.
So, if you wanted to achieve certainty, you should never try to make sense of the doubts that came from your reactive mind; it would drive you crazy . . . I knew that was true because Ron said so.
And if you know something with total certainty, that makes it true . . . doesn't it?
Sure it does! Ron said so.
And if you know something with absolute certainty, that makes it true, doesn't it?
Author Anonymous
Organization: Los Angeles Valley College BBS (818)985-7150
CULT-THINK
(Certainty vs. Reality)
The scariest thing about scientology is the subtle, imperceptible, yet totally encompassing mindset I had for the fourteen years I was under its influence. The cult "teaches" a person how to know with certainty, so those who ascribe to its world-view exist in a completely different reality than the rest of society.
I remember talking to my teacher after a night school class. I explained to him, proudly, that I was a scientologist. We had already spoken quite a bit and he had formed the opinion that I was a pretty "together" person. Upon hearing of my cult membership, he pronounced: "Well, I thought people in Scientology were mindless robots, but you're obviously not a mindless robot!".
He was gravely mistaken.
I didn't look or act like a mindless robot, but I was so programmed it had become my total identity. I had been completely taken over by the scientology personality and didn't even know it!
When among non-scientologists -- "Wogs", we called them -- I didn't look or act like a cult member. But I was.
I was totally certain scientology was the only answer for Mankind. I knew that the Wog world was composed of lost and messed-up people who were wasting their lives -- just waiting to be "gotten in" to scientology and "handled" so that they too could attain Total Freedom.
I had been indoctrinated and fully believed that I should..."Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.." and I was prepared to do anything, legal or not, to further the expansion of scientology. I was certain that Ron Hubbard was an totally sane individual who had "risen above the bank" (reactive mind) and I had unquestioning trust in his teachings and dictates. I knew that I was a member of an elite group of people who were in possession of all the answers to the world's problems and questions. Ron had said so.
He also said there were many people in the world whose sole purpose in life was to bring harm and sickness to others and I believed him. These people were "suppressives". Suppressives were psychotic. I knew that people who opposed scientology were always suppressive. If you were "connected" to a suppressive you were likely to become ill or have accidents. Therefore I was very careful to stay far away from anyone critical of scientology.
I knew there were world-wide, evil organizations opposed to scientology. These organizations were run by suppressives. I was certain all psychiatrists were suppressive. It was obvious to me that psychiatrists, psychologists and quite a few medical doctors were against scientology because it threatened their right to cause harm and illness to their patients. Scientology was, after all, the only technology of the mind that worked "One Hundred Percent of the Time". No wonder psychiatrists felt threatened.
I also knew if you criticized something or someone (except scientology's enemies), it was because you had done something unethical or immoral. I was certain anyone who was critical of scientology or L. Ron Hubbard was either suppressive or had committed unethical, immoral or illegal acts. I was therefore very careful not to be critical of anything about scientology. If I felt critical, however, I knew I had done something wrong, so I made sure I discovered and confessed whatever it was. I knew if I didn't keep "clean" with regards to any wrongdoings, my progress toward "Total Freedom" would be blocked.
I knew scientology worked. It worked "One Hundred Percent of the Time". But when it didn't work, I knew it was because the person was either suppressive (scientology doesn't work on suppressive persons) or because the person was in communication or contact with a suppressive. Oh yes, it also doesn't work on people who commit unethical or immoral acts. So, on those occasions when scientology didn't work on me, I knew it was because I was either in communication with a suppressive or because I had done something wrong. Therefore I made sure whenever I communicated with anyone who might be a suppressive or did anything I thought might be wrong, I always confessed it. I suspected from time to time that I might be suppressive, since that would really explain why the "tech" didn't always work on me.
But don't get me wrong. The tech "worked" on me quite a bit. I had many realizations and understandings about life and about myself. I was certain these were only possible because of the scientology auditing I was getting. I was sure they could never be obtained from finding out about the world, from learning about myself, or from experiencing new points of view.
I was also sure if I ever left scientology, the benefit I had gotten from these realizations would be completely lost, and I would go insane and probably commit suicide. Ron had said so.
In spite of the realizations and understandings I had, I knew I was still "really messed up" and I would need lots and lots of auditing and training and the "upper levels" before I could become a true "OT".
When I finally became OT, I knew I would have god-like abilities and I would be "totally aware".
Although I did not know anyone in scientology who demonstrated god-like abilities or seemed totally aware, I knew I would attain these abilities when I was ready because that was what Ron said.
If I was learning about scientology or administering it to others and I became critical because it was not making sense or working, I knew it was because of something I didn't understand about it. Probably I had skipped words I didn't understand or did not make it "my own" by demonstrating the principles with clay models. Or perhaps I had not drilled the procedures enough. But whatever the cause, I knew it was my own fault. Because of this, when studying, I looked up every word I didn't understand and even quite a few I did. I really made the text "my own" by studying it and restudying it with total resolve. I knew that if I "felt good" about the text I was studying, I had probably studied it long enough and could go on to study something else. It would have been highly unethical to not ensure I "felt good" about what I was studying.
I knew that true ethical conduct consisted of doing the "greatest good for the greatest number". Scientology was the greatest good you could do. Therefore, any actions which ultimately furthered scientology's aims were good actions.
I knew there were people working "under cover" in the government for scientology. I really admired these people because they were leading such a romantic life and they were doing work for the "ultimate good".
I also knew that it was the "ultimate good" for scientologists to be charged hundreds of dollars an hour to confess to their ministers. Sure, scientology's prices were high. But then you can't put a price on freedom. Ron said if you didn't charge a person a great deal for something the person would not consider it valuable.
Also I knew scientology had a lot of expenses -- especially lawyers fees.
I knew it was important for scientology to have lots of money because we were going to "Clear the Planet". Since there were so many suppressive and psychotic groups and people out there opposing scientology, it would take lots of money and work to ensure that scientology was accepted by everyone.
I knew the practices of scientology were not ever supposed to be mixed up with any other practice. This included yoga, meditation, "bathing in light", or anything else that was intended to affect a person mentally or spiritually. I knew that scientology would not work if you were doing any other practice at the same time.
I knew there were past lives and we all had a "time track" going back trillions and trillions of years. The time track involved earlier civilizations where there was space travel and exciting galactic adventures. Ron told us so.
He also told us that people could be members of other religions and be good scientologists. But, I knew they had better not practice any religion because if they did, it would be considered "mixing practices". I could not fathom how a good Christian could possibly stay a Christian and get auditing (which always involves past lives). Still, we were told to tell "raw meat" they could remain faithful to their religion and still be good scientologists. I couldn't imagine why anyone would remain faithful to their religion. They would see the obvious errors in it as soon as they began studying scientology in ernest.
Although scientology worked with religions to protect their freedom to practice, I knew that true freedom was obtainable only through scientology. As soon as scientology had a firm foothold in society, all the other religions would become obsolete or would have to be abolished.
I was totally certain the upper levels of scientology dealt with "mystical things" and techniques for becoming more aware and more spiritual. I suspected "OT's" could travel at will outside of their bodies, read minds and always felt compassion for other, lesser beings.
At that time I didn't know scientology practiced exorcism. That information was on the confidential "upper levels" and I wasn't quite ready for it yet. It was kept confidential because if you had not completed all the lower levels and found out about it, you would probably go insane or die and get into real trouble with the Ethics Officer. I was certain of that.
I was really afraid of getting into "ethics trouble" and being sent to Ethics to confess and make amends for my transgressions. Amends usually consisted of working extra hours (often missing sleep) doing tedious tasks like cleaning floors, painting walls or filing papers. Many people did amends that involved taking risks in order to "deliver an effective blow to the enemies of scientology despite personal danger" as was often required.
But if I confessed to the Ethics Officer, I might be treated with more lenience than if I was reported for doing something wrong.
People were always getting into ethics trouble and I knew it was important to write reports to the Ethics Officer if I suspected someone was doing something unethical. If I failed to report someone, it was just as bad as doing the unethical thing myself. I had to be careful to confess all my transgressions and those of others (especially those pertaining to scientology). I knew if I didn't "take responsibility" for these "sins" and do the correct amends for them, scientology would not work on me. Then I would be denied the "Road to Total Freedom" and my immortal soul would be lost forever.
I knew that mankind had been cheated and tricked in the past by various religions promising to cure of all their ills and provide all the answers but, this time, I was totally certain, it was "for real." Ron said so.
Although sometimes I felt doubts about scientology, I knew they were coming from my "reactive mind" and that I should simply ignore them. The reactive mind, I knew, has a self-protecting mechanism which creates doubts and opposes scientology. Scientology creates certainty and wants to destroy the reactive mind.
So, if you wanted to achieve certainty, you should never try to make sense of the doubts that came from your reactive mind; it would drive you crazy . . . I knew that was true because Ron said so.
And if you know something with total certainty, that makes it true . . . doesn't it?
Sure it does! Ron said so.
And if you know something with absolute certainty, that makes it true, doesn't it?
Author Anonymous
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